... guy can write and has the most outlandish and fun perspective about a variety of topics
936250
This guy can write and has the most outlandish and fun perspective about a variety of topics. I thoroughly enjoyed this.
4806086
Fun read!  Interesting perspective - from the guy's point of view.  I'm getting more from this author.
4433636
If you love watching this guy on FOX News- you'll love the book.
I get a kick out of him and his analytical, yet dorky-a-pervert humorous style. His consistently hits the mark while making me smirk or giggle.

I would say that this book probably isn't enjoyed best as a quick read, at least not for me. Normally, I like to fly through books. However, with Greg's humor I find I prefer smaller doses, so as not to dilute the impact of the clever imagery, metaphors, similes, etc. I like to savor it all. He puts out a sort of dessert-analysis.

Or in Gutfeldanese: His writing reminds me of eating cheesecake - drenched in Chambord and Godiva liqueur - off the chiseled 6-pack abs of Bradley Cooper as Adam Levine - sporting a shorty robe - sings pop Christmas songs in a breathy falsetto into my ear all while Captain Sparkles (Greg's famous ferret) tickles my toes with his fuzzy tail...

Measured doses, my friends, for maximum impact & pleasure.
670831
this is a lot of fun, it's been ages since I read it. but he sometimes has nice things to say, often tears apart peoples' writings and gets into all manner of topics, analysis of plagiarism and it's morphology among the most memorable...
1686964
I've heard a lot of folks criticizing the characters in this book for being unrealistic, even as they rave about what a great guy Tyber is.  Well, the thing I loved about this one is that I KNOW this guy, in a dozen  different forms (including my husband of 14 years).  I've spent much of my  life surrounded by wonderful, eccentric geeks, and was really happy to see  one portrayed in a more-positive-than-usual light.  Geeks are NOT all  blind, balding, pasty-faced, and out-of-it, and I'm glad SOMEONE out there  besides me knows it.  Yeah, Zanita's a little ditzy, but then, so am I.  Two thumbs way up for an entertaining read!
4413340
The back of the book says "fiction/humor". It is all of that and then some. I started reading it and went "what the heck???" But as I read it I found myself blowing through it as it is so fun to read. The characters are so ridiculous, and crazy that it is just awesome. From Hicks who has so many issues they are to numerous to mention, to Sobrero man and his disguises, To Warren the wanna be writer, neighbor. Gomez, oh my Gomez, his neuroses are just not stop and you cant wait for what he might do next.  BUT honestly as nuts as Gomez is I found myself being just as wary of DR. Christine Hargrove as he was (I would do near the things he does but. A great book to read on a plane, bus, beach,or toilet. Love the concept.
4572225
I picked up Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon's Writers Between the Covers on a whim. I wanted a break from my usual fare and I'll just say it, the jacket description spoke to my somewhat perverse sense of humor. It was one of those right place, right time sort of things and though I was familiar enough with most of the affairs they details, I thought the book an amusing diversion.

Schmidt and Rendon expose a litany of titillating secrets and erotic intrigues within this volume, but what I liked about it is the perspective the book brings to classic literature. Most of us approach Lord Byron, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Arthur Miller with a sort of reverence and I think it really interesting to look back on their work after seeing where they were and what they were dealing with when they put pen to paper.

A blush-inducing foray into the passions behind the prose, Writers Between the Covers is a witty, and at times ridiculous romp through the strange and scandalous lives of literary legends. A wickedly diverting read that peeks behind closed doors and reignites forgotten flames.
1002879
This is a very quick read and I think anyone who has a chance should check it out. The author is incredibly imaginative and I don't know that I've ever read anything quite like it. It was fun and campy and ridiculous all the while managing to make the reader think. For example:

"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on-while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed they were far more intelligent than man-for precisely the same reasons."

I have to say, I'm with the dolphins on this one. Though this was my favorite quote I think the author snuck a few other thought provoking questions in there about the meaning of life, the possibility of higher powers, etc.

The book itself was entertaining and funny. I only gave it four stars because I didn't feel there was every really a plot at hand (we're hitchhikers discovering information about the galaxy I suppose) but this is a seriously minor complaint.

I'd recommend this to anyone who needs a quick pick me up kind of book. This is a good one to bust a reading slump or cleanse your palate so to speak.
3263181
I love the way Woz takes us through his childhood pranks, breaking minor telecommunications laws and worrying about whether the police were going to arrest him for his techy long distance phone cheating tool. He gives a no holds barred look at himself and its so hilarious that I laughed until my stomach hurt and tears leaked from my eyes. Since I was driving, I'm lucky this audiobook didn't cause an accident.
At one point, he details how he scrambled the TV broadcast during the old days of TV antennas on top of the set and only let it display correctly when someone's hand was placed in the middle of the screen. He let his fellow collegiates watch the end of the big sports game while one of them was holding his hand in the middle of the TV. If they've known, they'd have thrashed him. Woz was a bonefide bad kid, but he was as brilliant as he was bad. This story is a blast. I don't know that I learned much about technology, but I learned to really love Steve.
1484796
I've been reading the author's website, which shares its name with the title of this book, for quite some time.  He captures vignettes from his life with his girlfriend and their two kids.  The vignettes are always at least funny, and oftentimes completely hysterical.  Reading this book has been on my to-do list for awhile, but I never quite got around to it because I wasn't sure if it would simply be a collection of vignettes without much of a plot.

I shouldn't've put it off for so long.  While the book is obviously loosely based on his life, he's done a great job at pulling together a narrative that is both funny and immensely readable.  His main character, Pel, is a lazy computer guy at the local university; his girlfriend, Ursula, is a mad German woman who Pel loves deeply but is also driven crazy by her.  His manager goes missing, he gets promoted, and finds himself in the middle of a mess that he never quite understands but still ends up taking the fall for.  Throughout the craziness at work, he comes home and has countless interactions with his girlfriend that have the same style as the vignettes from his website but still somehow propel the storyline forward.
1531672
This side-book for the Leven Thumps series is appealing in a rather interesting way. Not only is it very funny and some of Obert Skye's best work I've seen so far, it conveys themes that I don't think he was going for.

So this textbook was owned by the Sycophant Clover Earnest, who is one of the protagonists from Leven Thumps. He lost this book in reality, and now it's in the hands of the reader. It's by the famous Professor Winsnicker, a Nit. All over the pages are doodles by Clover and little notes by Obert, and at some points Clover makes diary entries about his experiences being a student of Winsnicker himself. Everything about this book is funny and entertaining, Clover's doodles are so charming they're fun to just stare at, his written entries are great, and Winsnicker's writing is pompous and brimming with personality. I'm surprised with how much the book explores the idea of a Sycophant and their burn, bringing some truly clever ideas that I never would have though of. Obert's notes were actually kind of distracting, it was inane how he kept on asking things about Clover, Winsnicker, and Foo when he, the author, should know.

This book gives Clover lots of depth. It turns out he was really rebellious and hated the idea of having to be some Nit's servant. In fact, he wanted to go off making candy with the Eggmen. Winsnicker constantly says that all Sycophants have a specific duty and that they must follow the path fate has set for them. He continually speaks of tradition and the way things are meant to be. He talks of order and keeping everything in line, keeping things the way fate would want them. Clover receives a lot of pressure from Winsnikcer and Zale the Lithen. And ultimately, Clover gives in. He finally decides that being the faithful Sycophant to a Nit is what he must do, because that is what all Sycophants do. He decides to forget about his dreams of making candy and instead goes on to become to Sycophant of Antsel.

It's quite sad, in the end, Clover's belief in fate suffocated his personality completely. He became just another brainwashed cog in the far-reaching grip of the concept. It's surprisingly thought-provoking to read about. What would have happened if Clover went all the way with his rebelliousness? What if he went on to expose the lies of Foo? What happened to Clover, his loss of self as a result of throwing himself into the vast ocean of tradition, shows just how horrible ideas like fate can be. It's safe to say that Professor Winsnicker's Book of Proper Etiquette for Well-mannered Sycophants is one of my favorite books ever.
9 out of 10
2121294
So the basic idea of this book is a creative telling of what Jesus may have been up to between his birth and his first adult appearance in the bible, and then onward to crucifixion, from the perspective of his best friend. Before you start yawning, you need to know that the language is current and it is a very funny read. It is also a very detailed read, and it is very obvious that the author put in many, many hours of research into biblical history and daily living details for that period to make the humorous connections that he does. The two friends set out on a journey to find the three wise men, and the journey is where the most creative license is used, complete with concubines and mythical creatures. However, I love the idea of Jesus training to be a martial arts genius (certainly explains a lot! LOL!). My favourite part was the explanation of the shroud of Turin, and I'll leave that to you to read yourself.

If you are a very religious person, you may find that this book is a bit blasphemous and offensive to you. It is a very irreverent look at Jesus imagined as a typical young guy (but a guy with emerging powers), so you need to put your defensiveness aside to appreciate the work. Even with tongue firmly planted in cheek, it is interesting to consider Jesus as a regular guy, rather than a Christian icon. I enjoyed this book very much.
3371961
I love well written guy dialogues, and this book totally has then! He's not just an usual Alfa male! He is funny and has real values!
2999197
Every now and then along comes a writer whose skills are so polished and whose imagination is so expansive that even within the course of a collection of stories the reader grows obsessed to have more.  For those fortunate enough to have enjoyed the pleasures of Parke's novel NO HOPE FOR GOMEZ (for those who haven't, get your hands and eyes and brain on it!) this collection UNSPENT TIME will continue to startle with Parke's ingenuity.  It is not JUST the themes of his stories that are fascinatingly and refreshingly unique; it is the manner of telling these at time absurd or outrageous tales that keeps you glued to the page. Parke has that strength of proficiency to address the reader right in the middle of making a story progress, a trait that makes you feel that he has turned aside form his crating matrix to wink and share a joke with you.

For example, in WHAT MAKES PEOPLE INTERESTING Parke begins his tale about a man (for whom he assigns several monikers) whose life occupation is designing the color of the inside of shoes (I'm not making this up...) by stating `It is not uncommon for writers to have a keenly developed interest in their fellow man.  For them to spend hours looking at people, listening to them, discovering all the little synchronicities and ambiguities that make them unique. All of it is precious information to the writer-brain.  From the way people carry themselves to their wardrobe of choice to their hobbies and the friends that they keep.  But I don't have that. Not in the least. In fact, I can't stand people.  And there's so freaking many of them. They're like huge, overblown ants, crawling all over the world and getting in my way.'  Now, how is that for starters on telling a story?  Well, absolutely hilarious  - and brave.

But on to content of this collection.  There is a wildly hilarious story FAVORITE WHTE BONES about a pitiful planet with its own transportation and travel security problems that pokes Parke into a tale of an absurdly fat and loony man with multiple bags loaded with explosives insisting he get on a plane, etc etc. A story called DISCONTINUED examines the workplace, but it is the added on bit at the end that again slides Parke into the light as a writer. `This story' he writes, `has a bit of an odd history to it.  It wasn't written in the usual way; most of my stories start from small ideas that grow as I write them up. They gather speed as characters and details are added.  At a certain point they reach a critical mass and the final word count becomes apparent; it's a short story, it's a novelette, it's a novel. [This story] started as a stack of interconnected ideas that turned into a rather lengthy novel, which I condensed back down by extracting a single storyline The characters were tweaked, the plot altered, a short story remains....this is probably the most roundabout way of creating a short story I've ever used.' And after Parke's sharing of the process, go back and re-read the story and vaVoom! There is magic there.  He does the same sort of thing with the terrific title stories and others.  Reading Graham Parke is not only entertaining to the max, but it is also a study in self-parody and a term paper on the art of writing that is so strong that it becomes contagious.  Patience. Wait for the next set. Graham Parke is bound to come up with a new one momentarily. Meanwhile, latch on to this artist.  He'll take you places you never imagined!  Grady Harp, May 12
3762909
I was somewhat hesitant going into Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs." Some have claimed him to be the best culture essayist of our time; other denounce him as being little more than a smug hipster troll with nothing important to say. Would I enjoy his work, or would I find his writing similar to actual cereal: cheap, airy, unsatisfying, and devoid of any real content? The only way to know for sure was to dive into this slim volume and decide for myself.

I'm glad to say that I loved Klosterman's offbeat selection of essays. Yes, he gets somewhat hipster-y from time to time, enough to repel a number of readers (as evident by the negative "Most Helpful" reviews), but I didn't pick up on the classic levels of smugness or pretension that define the worst of the hipster archetype. In fact, there's a lot of self-deprecation and awareness of his shortcomings as a person, enough to where I did not pick up on any kind of true grandiosity or condescension -- if there is any of that in his essays, it's usually exaggerated for comic effect.

This is an incredibly funny book; many parts of it had me laughing out loud, and I would frequently read excerpts to other people to share in the humor. It's also very well-written and thought-provoking, which is impressive given some of the subjects Klosterman chooses to write about: I will admit that I have never closely analyzed topics like "The Real World," The Sims, or Pamela Anderson, but I really enjoyed considering these as important and relevant issues to the culture of this generation.

Bottom-line: This was a great book. If you enjoyed the lovely, challenging, and quirky non-fiction prose in David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," you'll probably enjoy what Chuck Klosterman writes in this collection. I will definitely be looking out for his other non-fiction books in the future.
2740748
I think David Foster Wallace is a brilliant writer, but can't really hit the target all the time.  Either he is totally on top of something in describing it, or he writes himself into an intellectual loop that only he  appreciates.  When i read his stuff, i almost wonder if he is too  intelligent for his audience, in that he tries to write about pop culture  and similar themes that appeal to the average reader with such strength and  knowhow that he seems like he's a genius stuck in a kid's mind and his  descriptions of the kid's world can become too complicated for the kid to  enjoy.  That said, this book is well worth it, if not for the title essay  on board a cruise ship which is hilarious then for the essay on amercian  writing in the television age.  There is a remark about irony in that essay  which just blew my top off, it was great.  The other notable essay is his  "personal" review and account of a state fair, which is also  equally funny.  As for the others, i wasn't all that interested, in that i  found them too wholly theoretical and dull.  However, don't let this stop  you, his writing is so original and fresh that its worth buying, not only  for what it can give, but for what it exposes you to.  Well worth it.
2673003
Jason Rogers has written a book that is intelligent, bizarre, hilarious, and consistently self-deprecating.  It's parodic and experimental nature allows his ideas and (pseudo)-philosophies to be interjected at his leisure.  This is the only book I've read by Jason Rogers, but the writing itself seems to be caricatural in a certain sense, but is also a satirical revision of the 'feeling' of a religious text.  The writing has numerous references to itself, the author, and popular culture (among other things), adding to the absurdness of the overall story and mood.  My only complaint is that the last part of the book is written in what may or may not be binary code, but even that adds to the overall ludicrousness, which seemed to me to be the main point, religion is irrational and grotesque.

Ultimately, anyone who enjoys avant garde fiction and peculiar humour will want to check this out.