David Blow's columns about trying to get a dying friend a baseball signed by his beloved Yankees for his 44th and final birthday brought tears, while his description of teaching his toddlers to ski elicited smiles. In "Blow by Blow," this small-town-journalist-turned-professor offers a collection of his best columns and newspaper stories written throughout his career. Blow writes about brushes with celebrities, including Robert Redford, Jerry Springer and Ted Turner, and murders, including the slaying of a man by his girlfriend, who then stashed his body in a chest freezer. Touching and thought-provoking, this compilation offers stories that share Blow's personal experiences, his perceptions and his deepest feelings. "David Blow's work, intimate and generous and so evocative of character and place, reminds me of why I went into writing: to try to capture the world in words, person by person, acre by acre, page by page." -Ron Powers Pulitzer Prize-winning author