Sharp, funny and good news for people who like bad news
357989
Molloy's debut never strays from a sharp rendering of a world that's gone insane with overwhelming self-consciousness.
4621475
Astrology books are normally not read cover to cover, but in starts and stops according to the signs of spouses, friends, family, co-workers and acquaintences.  The reader of Born on a Rotten Day will be telling everyone that someone finally got it right.
All, of course, except for the reader's sign, which must be fiction.  Yeah, right.
Born on a Rotten Day is falling down funny, and if tears don't come to your eyes, no matter whose sign you are reading, you haven't been paying attention.  In the vein that truth is always funnier than fiction, this book is genuinely hilarious.
Buy it, read it, tell everyone you know about it.  You won't be disappointed.
3273423
Allen Ruff personalizes great themes of literature in his engaging, anecdotal, sometimes wickedly revealing novel. His style has a page-turner's snap, and his range of characters includes the good, the bad, and the ugly, sharing common human concerns, foibles, and fate. His literature is news for some of us that stays news, and this ain't your grandfather's Huck Finn: it is reminiscent, salty, and contemporary. I don't, like a Chicago Tribune film reviewer, greet every offering with two thumbs up, but I would give this fresh and funny - sometimes bizarre - work a double high five!
3448898
Written by 2 white guys, and thoroughly entertaining.  Well written, well illustrated, and hilarious for anyone who doesn't always agree with D.C. politics or for anyone who has a sense of humor.  Smart and clever -- satire without being cruel.  Maybe not p.c. in everyone's opinion, but  many of us are tired of the overly political correctness of the age we now live in.
1289652
This book is riotously funny in many places.  Al Franken knows how to use swear words at just the right times in the same way he was writing comedy skits for Saturday Night Live a quarter century ago.  If you liked him then, you'll like him now.
The book isn't just about "the right" and their lies.  He does a good job of poking fun at right-leaning coverage given by left-leaning news sources (NY Times, Washington Post) too.
There's a couple paragraphs of real substantive stuff about the mainstream and left-leaning press organizations in this book. The overall attitude is that the right-wingers are really beyond comprehension or understanding.  In reality the "lies" they tell have been used by both sides (which he admits in quite a few places).
But the book is, most of all, about Al Franken.  There's no avoiding that.  He admits he sent deceiving letters to public officials, using Harvard letterhead.  He takes Bob Jones University for a long ride and in the end feels bad about it - sort of.  But not so bad that he didn't chronicle the whole escapade :-)
4541585
David Lodge's story of a group of British Roman Catholics passing through Vatican II is by turns funny, touching, and sad. But it's the humor that lingers -- not the surface-level "don't nuns look funny?" stuff that usually passes for Catholic jokes, but smart, pointed humor that comes from an intimate knowledge of the joy, pain, absurdity, and glory of wrestling with a two-thousand-year-old religion and struggling to reconcile it with everyday life in a changing world. Example: a bright medical student kneeling at Communion, trying not to be preoccupied with the theological implications of the Body of Christ passing through the whole digestive process. But none of the shots are cheap: the attitude toward faith is respectful without knee-jerk acceptance or rejection of orthodox pieties. A brilliant, sensitive, funny, tragic, hopeful, doubting, unforgettable book.
497528
There really is not much to say about this book that has not already been covered here.  It is pretty apparent that a number of folks like this offering by David Sedaris while quite a number of others detest the entire work.  Some find it not very funny while a few find it hilarious.

I suppose it all boils down to taste; i.e. what you find humorous; what you find profound.

The author has told a series of stories, fables if you will, using everyday life, the good, the bad and the ugly, with emphasis on the bad and ugly, and rather than using we humans he has used animals as the players...anthropomorphization on steroids.  Rather than two guys having a conversation, the author will use say a skunk and a skink or some other animal combination.  Many of these stories are rather droll and mundane but having animals speak the parts sort of livens it up a bit.  Each tale for fable is supposed to point out some aspect of human silliness, stupidity, bigotry, snobbishness, etc. etc.  And I suppose the author has done his job to a certain extend.  I have always been a fan of Sedaris and do feel he is a very good writer.

Now while I enjoy dark humor, morbid little observations as to the human condition and have at times a rather bawdy sense of humor, I found this work simply did not work for me.  First, I found many of the tales to be absolutely tasteless and even going into the realm of gross.  Some of the ploys the author used most certainly came right out of a Jr. High locker room.  Some of his stories were downright hurtful; or could be to some groups of people.

To be honest, if you take the stories, remove the animals and re-insert humans into the roles, then most of the stories simply are not all that funny.  Many of the stories are downright mean spirited and rather cruel at times.

On the other hand, I fear to tell you that you will be able to identify many individuals you know or who you have met in these pages and truth be told,  you might even met yourself!  The author does have a keen insight to human behavior and his stories here do leave their mark on your mind.  I must tell you though that after reading this thing I sort of felt a need for a shower; or at least a good hand washing.

I suppose, as I more or less indicated when I began, that this book quite well may delight some...it is certainly well written, yet other will find it, well....juvenile and simply nasty.  Would I recommend this one?  To some folks yes; to most, no.  I would certainly be careful as to who I recommended it to.

This one is not for me and I can pretty well assure you that I am glad I checked it from the library and did not pay good money for it.  I would give this one two stars were it not for the fact that there is some very nice writing here. Anyone that has the ability to more or less gross me out and offend me via their written word deserves some credit.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks
139298
The good news about this book: It's very uplifting and reminds us that Jesus was a peaceful, caring figure. His teachings have much in common with the Buddhas. It's a great book for encouraging respectful debate.

The bad news about this book: It won't change the minds of those who want to cast Jesus as the crazed warrior ready to strike down anyone who does not practice today's scary brand of right wing Christianity. The rest of us will find it interesting and enlightening, but they want.

I enjoyed this book and have given it as a gift on a number of occasions.
4916763
This is a fun light read that sends up Catholicism  (I'm Catholic, and I found some of the "in" jokes to be quite funny! :-), self-help and other maladies of the 21st century.
Read it!
411269
I have been reading Jon Acuff since before he started Stuff Christians Like blog. That is both good and bad. It is good because it means that I am a fan. I pre-ordered the book. I knew the type of humor I was going to get. Early in the book Jon says that there is a bias against humor among Christians. He is right. There are not that many Christians that are really good at humor. Sure there are some that are good at the cute story that they can turn into the sermon illistration. But not many are really funny.

I am not a laugh out loud guy.  I actually had a friend that wanted to try to make me spontaneously laugh out loud and get mad (not at the same time).  She has not been able to do either.  So I am not trying to be too critical when I say I didn't laugh out loud.  (This is the only book that has the tag "humor" on the blog.)  But I did spontaneously smile several times.  I like his writing style.  If you have grown up in the Evangelical church you will like this.  This has lots of mild sarcasm, but none of the biting, bitter humor that some will not like.

I honestly stayed home from a prayer meeting that I had been invited to (and probably should have gone to) because I wanted to finish the book.

The negative side of following Jon Acuff is that the book uses some of the web content.  So if you read the blog regularly or even fairly occasionally, you will recognize some of the book.  That is inevitable with blog to book writers.

Stuff Christians Like is worth buying.
2071568
How to Profit From the Coming Rapture is a straight faced parody of self financial establishment with ground rules that bring laughter in godly proportions under the worst of conditions.

The books is quite balanced and concise while also being direct about Religious articles and detailing of what to expect, how to best expect it and how to best make money off the years of true hell you will most likely be unable to escape. It especially helps if you have a base knowledge of Religion though that is more for the sake of the humor value, otherwise it is expressed in a more forward way that you, the reader, are aware of these themes but are given brief insights of understanding into them.

Whether you're planning out the wills of your family and friends as ' quick term investment ' dabbling in the economic markets of godless products or plotting out liquid money by turning all your money into liquids, this book has it out for the reader's throats.

Like most serious dead pan humor, this book takes itself very seriously and does not make a habit of breaking character. If you are not so much into finance self help and prep books, this may strike you as too on the nose and dull, however if you have a wicked side and know you're not going where so many people rave as the number one place to be, pull back a chair and have some laughs. It's the book the antichrist doesn't want you to read. That's saying something!
4188672
It's good to see the Good News Bible back on the shelves again. Reading, say, the letters of Paul in the King James can be a chore for new Bible readers. This version helps you understand some of the most difficult parts of Scripture and is otherwise a fine read. Palau's version is very interesting with all sorts of helpful notes. The green print, however, might get to you after a while. One of the best Bible presentations in a long time.
3937196
Todd Starne's book is a scream!  His style of writing is laced with great good humor, while wisdom and practical advise is mixed throughout.  Todd also uses verses from the Bible to reinforce his stories.  We watch him deal with a potential death sentence: a defective aortic valve; the beginning of a major weight loss program; the death of both his parents within a few years time; and preparation to run the New York Marathon.  Although this sounds like a book of depressing events, Todd managers to bring a warmth and wit to the story.  This is a fast read and one that make you wish there was more of the story when you reach the conclusion.
2133364
Lance Carbuncle, Grundish and Askew (Vicious Galoot Books, 2009)

I'm wondering, if I give Grundish and Askew a really terrible review, if I'll get written into Carbuncle's next book, getting killed off in some inventive and hilarious way, as happened to one unfortunate reviewer of Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked, and Spewed, Carbuncle's first (very funny) book. Because I would totally do that for a walk-on role in the next book, even though I liked Grundish and Askew a great deal--even more than I liked Smashed, Squashed..., I think.

Plot: there is Grundish, and there is Askew. Both of them are layabouts, and both of them are amateur criminals, but Askew has avoided detection on these counts his entire life because Grundish is always willing to take the fall. As we open, Grundish has recently been sprung from prison, where he was doing time for yet another thing Askew actually did. (Actually, as we open, the two of them are driving into the middle of nowhere, attempting to evade the cops, while Grundish muses over his long-ago promise that he would kill Askew, rather than letting him go to prison. But that is another story that comes later.) They're living with Askew's very old and more than slightly cracked Aunt Turleen in a trailer park with a bunch of other deviants, ex-cons, and the like. Grundish, who's still on parole, is trying to walk the straight and narrow with his job as one of those guys who stands on streetcorners holding the big signs telling you about stores going out of business while being stalked by his parole officer, a truly scary old woman who wants some of what Grundish whips out every time he's got to take a drug test (with her watching, natch). Askew, on the other hand, is making the real money by casing houses while making the rounds as a pizza delivery guy so the two of them can break in somewhere for a weekend, live large, and discover the dirty little secrets of the homeowners, which they can then use to blackmail them into not reporting the break-in to the cops. It's a good life, until one of Grundish's fellow prison alumni conceives a plan involving Grundish which Askew gets caught in the middle of. (I wish I could tell you what it is, but there's no way it would pass the censors.) Askew takes offense, which leads to Grundish, Askew, and Turleen on the run from the law.

So, yeah! This book sucks! Don't buy it! It won't make you laugh convulsively at all! (I'm using all exclamation points in this paragraph because Carbuncle did it in a review recently and I'm being a sycophant to try and get that walk-on role!) You won't be amused by the reappearance of Idjit Galoot, the hero of Smashed, Squashed..., at all! Grundish, Askew, and Turleen's adventures will not remind you at all of a weird mash-up of Jack Kerouac and a sixties biker film (with a slight bit of Reservoir Dogs thrown in for good measure)! Carbuncle is not at all an original writer, who comes up with great scenarios and throws interesting and amusing characters into them! You won't fall for Grundish's parole officer yourself! (Or, wait, maybe that was just me!) This book has absolutely nothing to say about class warfare, social consciousness, the injustice of the prison-industral complex, or interesting and alternative uses for frozen lunch meat! You will absolutely not love this book!

(Seriously, I would offer a money-back guarantee myself if I weren't pretty much constantly broke. But if you ARE one of those poor, humorless souls who buys this and somehow doesn't like it, take heed: there are many used bookstores whose staff will give you up to half your cover price back and find it a good home.) *** 1/2
767891
Quite Ugly One Morning is a shortish detective story (albeit as detected by a journalist). It's graphic, funny, and at times witty. The mystery itself is not that important, and its solution will not shock you more than any stadard TV cop drama.
However, the main selling point for me, being a doctor, is the book's witty remarks about doctors and (any) healthcare system.
A quote for example: "when I saw a patient with some unusual, bewildering, painful and possibly fatal condition, I just saw a suffering human being.... Jeremy, and many like him, coming across the same patient, would be bloody delighted. They wouldn't be looking at a person there at all. They'd be looing at a very interesting case. A collection of symptoms. An intriguing study. They'd be looing at a paper in the British Medical Journal with their name and qualifications at the top of it."
Also, some very nice atheist quotes in there for good measure.
In short, a very fun read for atheist doctors and any other reader.
4590885
Columbine was very funny, and yet often times disconcerting as well. I truly marvel sometimes at what is wrong with our country, and I find it incredibly refreshing to hear someone not try and finger point to video games or the entertainment industry. There are some pointed observations about the media in the U.S. however, and I have heard lately more than once that in most cases it is less about reporting news and more about making news. Making sure we are aware of all these hidden dangers, carcinogens, syringe filled soda cans (sic), etc.
My only reason for withholding that fifth star is I think that sometimes, his methods are suspect.  For example, I find it almost unfair the way he treats DIck Clark.  The man was late for a meeting, and he comes off as if he couldn't care less.  Don't misunderstand, he may not care less, but I feel it was presented in more of a "Ha Ha", in your face way, than seems fair.
"There's a lot of wackos out there."
1787570
Saw this on Stephen Colbert and it seemed like it would be an amusing read. It is indeed humorous, even laugh out loud funny in parts. Jacobs' has a keen eye for popular culture and his intertwining of those observations with more serious matters lends a style that is quite engaging.

Yes, it's light-hearted and his "experiments" are obviously vehicles to generate comic material. But, there's more going on here. You can definitely read this as a serious review and critique of various ethics and self improvement topics. Even the experiments that aren't specifically about self improvement contain bits of introspection about human behavior that border on profundity. I found myself ricocheting from laughter to contemplation. So much of popular non-fiction is affected with a bewildering sense of self-importance with hundreds of pages of filler  around a single idea that would be a worthy subject of a magazine article, but shouldn't have been expanded to book length (I'm looking at you Malcolm Gladwell). For me, at least, a book like this that presents a variety of those kinds of ideas is an excellent way to learn about those topics. Jacobs' critical assessment and humorous observations on various lifestyle issues can be counted on to be revealing about the true benefits of the techniques and entertaining at the same time. This might be a worthwhile new genre in non fiction.

Oh, by the way, I wrote this because I like seeing my words on amazon.com.