RosieSchaap has always loved bars. Starting with her misspent youth in the bar car of a regional railroad, where at age fifteen she told commuters’ fortunes in exchange for beer, and continuing today as she slings cocktails at a neighborhood joint in Brooklyn, Schaap has learned her way around both sides of a bar and come to realize how powerful the fellowship among bar patrons can be.
Drinking alongside artists and expats, ironworkers and soccer fanatics, Schaap finds that bars offer of a safe haven, a respite, a place to feel most like herself. In rich, colorful prose, she brings to life these sometimes seedy, but warm and wonderful rooms. Drinking With Men is a love letter to the bars, pubs and taverns that have been Schaap’s refuge, and a celebration of the uniquely civilizing source of community that is bar culture at its best.
Praise for DRINKING WITH MEN
“This book will be a classic. There is so much joy in this book! It’s a great, comforting, wonderful, funny, inspiring, moving memoir about community and belief and the immense redemptive powers of alcohol properly drunk.”
“Schaap brings a poet’s touch to her memoir, which brims with insight and wisdom.”
–JIMMY BRESLIN
“There are bar stories and there are coming-of-age stories. And then there is Rosie Schaap’s thoughtful and funny chronicle that reminds of all the drinks, dives, and deep conversations that helped make us who we are. This is a wise, engaging memoir.”
–WENDY MCCLURE, author of The Wilder Life and I’m Not the New Me
An AMAZON.COM Editors’ Pick for “Best Books of the Month,” January, 2013
Excerpted in THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE.
Featured in THE ATLANTIC WIRE‘s Winter 2013 Books Preview. Schaap “has a way with words, writing about her experiences in the bars of her life in a heartfelt, honest, and relatable way.”
O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE, says Drinking With Men is a “witty homage to pubs and bars and the regulars who call them home,” and one of “10 Titles to Pick Up Now.”
NEW YORK MAGAZINE says “BUY IT.”
One of GRANTLAND‘s January Book Recommendations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY says: “Schaap estimates she’s passed 13,000 hours in bars, and judging by the warmth and camaraderie she evokes, it clearly has been time well spent.”
KIRKUS REVIEWS praises “Schaap’s talent for balancing self-revelation with humor, melancholy and wisdom.”
BOOKLIST picks Drinking With Men for its “Great Reads” column. Schaap’s “hard-won insights will carry the authority of one who’s been there,” writes Keir Graff.
“Pour yourself a double,” says BOOKPAGE, and let Schaap’s writing “amuse and enchant you.”
BOOKRIOT selects Drinking With Men as one of five “Books to Watch For” in January, 2013.