Ezra Tishman

Raised by an abusive single mom in Pittsburgh, Ezra Tishman moved to a foster home in high school, got a voc-rehab scholarship to Hoefstra, then transfered to Godard College in Vermont. "I started a men's group," he notes. "My thesis was on 'the Myth of Masculinity.'" After graduation, he spent years as a mailman in Vermont, Alaska, and Oregon, and also worked as a farm hand, a fisherman, and an adjunct professor at the U of Vermont. "I was always writing poetry, reading like crazy, and keeping journals," says Tishman, who moved to Eugene in 1995, after a year in Moscow, Idaho, where he started an online business, Aardvark Book Search, specializing in rare and collectible books, that has become his full-time work. Find him at ezrabook.com. Tishman married UO prof Lisa Frankel in 2001. In 2004, the couple saw an ad for a used bookmobile. "I love putting good books in people's hands," says Tishman, who bought and refurbished the vehicle, known as Gertie. "We set her up in Whiteaker on the last Friday of the month." Supporters of Gertie's mission to provide free and low-cost books to underserved areas are invited to a benefit concert for Tishman's non-profit, Books to the People, featuring Mood Area 52, at Cozmic Pizza on Sunday, December 4, at 5 pm.