Not That You Asked: Stories. Observations. Pet Peeves.

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Christopher Graves

Some people see the world. Bill Goldstein notices it, then tells you what he thinks, whether or not you asked. That distinction is everything, and it is what makes Not That You Asked feel like a genuinely rare thing in the current essay landscape: a collection built entirely on the conviction that paying close attention to ordinary life is itself a form of wisdom, and that saying what you actually think about what you notice is a public service.

Ninety short, sharp, and disarmingly funny essays is the accurate description, but it undersells the range. Goldstein has opinions on pockets and lawyers and lobsters, yes, but also on why Studio 54 was lightning in a bottle, on the quiet tragedy of today's Penn Station, on the one thing you actually need to live contentedly in Manhattan, and it is not money. Each encounter with a stranger or a famous face, from President George H.W. Bush to Gore Vidal to Muhammad Ali to a stranger on a red-eye who pressed a Claddagh ring into his hand at dawn, becomes the seed of a story, and each story lands on something true.

What Goldstein has, and what cannot be taught, is a voice. Razor sharp, fearless, and authentic is how people who know him describe it, and on the page it reads exactly like that, the kind of company where you find yourself nodding along and occasionally laughing out loud and occasionally thinking, hm, I never considered that before. That last reaction, he would say, is the whole idea.

The Andy Rooney comparison that keeps following the book around is apt as far as it goes. But Goldstein is funnier, more self-aware, and drawing from a career that took him from law to Madison Square Garden to the NBA to founding one of the first event marketing agencies, which means the insider anecdotes are considerably more interesting than anything Rooney ever had access to.

A shot of whiskey in a white wine spritzer world. That is Goldstein's own description of himself, and honestly, it covers it.