Review: Last Call at the 7-Eleven by Kevin Cowherd

Title: Last Call at the 7-Eleven: Fine Dining at 2 A.M., The Search for Spandex People, and Other Reasons to Go On Living

Author: Kevin Cowherd

Genre/Pages: Nonfiction Essays/pages 226

Publication: The Bancroft Press; 11/22/1995

Rating: 3 BOOKMARKS

I thoroughly enjoy nonfiction, especially humorous essays and memoirs.  Last Call at the 7-Eleven is a collection of selected columns written by Kevin Cowherd, a nationally-syndicated humorist and sports writer for The Baltimore Sun. 

What a hilarious read!  Kevin Cowherd’s essays run the gamut and had me laughing out loud as I zipped through this snappy number.  Each essay is only a few pages–originally published individually in a newspaper column format in The  Baltimore Sun–and were like snack-sized bits of humor.

I giggled my way through columns with titles like “That Barney is Such a Reptile” and “Real Men Don’t Wear Pajamas”.  One of my favorites, “Surgeons Good Enough for Celebrities”, brought up a salient point–the American public tends to “measure surgeons…(by the) famous patients they have cut open.” 

I’m a huge fan of nonfiction humor writing and really enjoyed this book.  Cowherd is witty and hyper0bservant.  He’s still writing for the newspaper, though his focus seems to have shifted to a more sports-based column, I still had a chuckle while reading a recent column. 

Some of the references in this book are pretty dated–it was published back in 1995 and the columns were culled from over 1200 written from the late 80s to the mid-90s.  Cowherd also has a tendency to repurpose some of his favorite sayings and metaphors, but I’m guilty of that myself. 

The book is a breezy read that packs a humorous punch on scores of topics.  You can read a few columns here and there without a huge committment; the book lends itself to that reading style.

Kevin Cowherd, like many others, built his career writing for newspapers. With the advent of the internet (and other factors), many newspapers have seen their revenue and readership steadily decline, forcing some newspapers to cease printing.  The Rocky Mountain News in Denver and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer are some of the more recent victims of the downtrending readership and economy.  

What I’d like to know is:  Do you still get a daily paper delivered to your front door, or are you like me–an online newspaper reader?  Sometimes I’ll spring for the Sunday New York Times, but typically I only read my local (NJ) paper online.  And you? 

Thanks to Harrison at The Bancroft Press for providing me with this book.