Games and Humor Books

A previous reviewer compares the author's work to Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. Considering a usually successful use of self-deprecating and anecdotal humor, I can understand the comparison between the author's style and Bill Bryson's style. The author is undeniably funny. Relying entirely on the author's passion for adventure, the narrative describes a theatrical series of events fit for a screenplay.

However, that is all this book offers and why the comparison to Bill Bryson falls well short of accurate. The strength of Mr. Bryson's writing is the purpose underlying the humor, especially self-recognition through experience. The reader can internalize Mr. Bryson's experiences, see the world from Bryson's vantage and ultimately identify with Mr. Bryson's motivation for writing the book.

Mr. Davis' The Underdog falls short of Mr. Bryson's achievements. Instead of relating to narrative, the reader must watch from the sidelines. In this case the author's strength is also his weakness. How many readers can identify with first hand-experiences of bull-fighting or sumo wrestling? The effect is, essentially, a Hollywood blockbuster in a book. What you see is entertaining, but fails to stimulate any further thought.

Furthermore, and what was most disappointing to me, was the lack of conclusion. I kept waiting for the author's epiphany to explode off the pages and into my conscious, but instead of an explosion I got a series of undeveloped thoughts more analogous to a shotgun at 200 yards than a grand-finale. In the final passage, the author's last chance to tie the whole book together, he opts to wander off on a completely new tangent relating his experiences to the untapped potential of the internet (Did Wired ask you to plug The Long Tail, or was this your idea?). Instead of finishing the book with an appreciation for how this author's struggles to find his purpose in life might assist me in finding mine, I was left with questions:

Was this about the unquenchable American spirit? Or, was it about the changing definition of achievement and success? Alternately, it might have been about appreciating your own family, your talents, your opportunities, etc instead of admiring your neighbor's lawn. Honestly, I don't know.

In essence, The Underdog is a funny one time read, but certainly not deserving of such glowing reviews as it has received here on Amazon.

This author sent me an invitation to be his amazon friend. Hello! All of my reivews are bitter and sarcastic, why would I want to buy your book? Maybe I should you spam about "enlargement" products. How would you like that? The book might be a great story. Frankly, I don't care! I would rather read a book about the mating rituals of worms than me spammed by an author that wants me to buy his book.

From the moment I read the first three pages of the introduction I was hooked. This book speaks of and to the American spirit with humor and wit. Not only did I laugh out loud every time I opened it, but I cried a few times too. It's the kind of book that you read so fast because it is so good, but you don't want to so that it will last longer.

If you are looking for a book that inspires you through narrative and challenges you to go beyond your day-to-day life, or, if you want a hilarious window into the zany life of some "average" Americans, look no further. We are told to follow our dreams in a culture that is not set up to handle it when all of us do. This book is for us an answer to that problem. I look forward to many more insightful books from this talented author.

I think this book was funny and adventurous. My favorite part was the sumo wrestling. I recomend this book to parents and older kids.

A quick read; fun and emotionally transparent. Our little hero graces his way through eccentric adventure after eccentric adventure, all the while proving that even the least talented among us can be champions (or at least, very nearly so). There is a tenderness in this book. In its Quixotic madness, it transports us into worlds of danger, adventure, greatness, and saunas in Finland. A true story of sporadic unshakeable dedication and glorious redemption...and courage. The Underdog clearly underscores the ideal: it's not whether you win or lose, it's how many fat guys you can yank by the g-string. A great read.

I love starting the day with this, eveyone wants my old ones when I finish. I think Dilbert seems to relate to every office.

This daily comic helps to relieve the stress and tension in my office. Scott seems to have his finger firmly planted on the pulse of corporate America with Dilbert, Asok, the "pointy-haired guy", Dogbert the evil HR guy, Catbert and more. If you need a therapeutic laugh to make it through your sometimes insane days at work, this is the calendar for you.

You'd think Scott Adams would run out of material. Sadly, today's workplace seems to provide plenty of fodder. Good calendar.

i look forward to getting to the office a little early, tearing off yesterday's sheet, reading today's calendar sheet, and laughing out loud. i use the old sheets to write notes for colleagues (instead of stick-it notes), which usually are apropros to the office goings on that day. i love adams' creativity - the ironies and utter stupidity are something that we all can really relate to at work! for the amount of laughter that this calendar has given me and my colleagues, it was well worth the price and i'm destined to purchase it again next year!

I've had this on my desk the last 3 or so years. This time around I ordered the desk diary by mistake.
I tried to persuade myself that I could use that one, and do without the daily, but I caved in, and ordered this again. Makes the working day get off to a routinely funny start, always a chuckle. A great gift too.

I can't fault it.

I ordered this since my sister received it and thought it was a great book. Unfortunately, this copy does not come with the answers. Look for the hard cover version, that has the answers in the back.

CDB! (Stories to Go!)

I was very excited to find this book for my grandbaby. We had great fun with it when her aunts were small. Who would have thought back then that William Stieg invented 'text speak'. I even stumped my youngest daughter with NQ!

This book is as intriguing and entertaining was it was 25+ years ago when I read it to my children. As an educator, I discovered this book to be a source of entertainment and challenge to my children as well as a wonderful tool to help my students as they struggle with reading skills. I recently purchased it again for my grandchildren since my copy was misplaced over the years...and they love it as their mother when she was their age.
Buy it and use...it will help dust off the gray matter and delay alzehemier. :)

smart! adorable! unexpected! (the book, not my kids...)
This book really has us rolling in laughter. My sons (ages 4 and 6) and I have been playing with an electronic toy: push a letter and the thing says the letter's name. We had been using it to make word sounds -- pressing U R A Q T for "you are a cutie" and so forth. When I saw this book I just had to get it. It is amazingly clever -- and to think it was written in 1968. It's fresh, not at all dated. My sons are very good readers for their respective ages, but it is definitely appropriate for them. I had to explain a phrase or two (they didn't know the word "ecstacy" when they saw X-T-C) but otherwise it was totally on their level. I still crack up reading it, and I've read it at least ten times. The watercolor illustrations are perfect. Stieg conveys a lot of emotion and expression with just a few brush strokes. When a boy sees someone with a lollipop and tells him "I N-V U," you can see the envy.
I won't mind if my kids want to read this one again and again. I M N X-T-C 2!

This book helped me learn to read when i was 3 years old. As long as you know the alphabet you can read this book, which makes it perfect for children who are learning to read.

Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for [...] 5/08
I love this book! Throughout It Takes One To Catch On,e I found myself trying to separate fact from fiction. I've always heard that "life is stranger than fiction," so I suspect there is a lot of truth in this narrative. Steven Knutson writes from a personal perspective. He shares memories of his younger years from a "seasoned" perspective.
Knutson's personality shines through in his book. He easily laughs at himself and invites the reader to join in. I do want to make one tiny suggestion. Please removed the smiley faces. You do not need them, and they distract from the story. Reading It Takes One To Catch One is like sitting on the front porch with a dear friend while listening to him reminisce. Mr. Knutson, please tell me another story. For a lighthearted look at life, rush out and buy It Takes One To Catch One.

Was sharing with a friend that this book is a great read in these economic times, if for no other reason that to show that a person with an adventuresome spirit can survive and enjoy the process.

Be it Minnesota, Montana, Washington State, Alaska or parts of Canada, the stories make you feel as if you are with the author.

And in some ways they also reminded me of the TV show Northern Exposure, as well as some great songs from Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. Alas its fiction, and I rarely ever read fiction.But its great fiction.

My husband, Brian and I have long known Steve and through those years he shared snippets of his vast and colorful past. Those stories and tales were always telling in his unique sense and style of humor. His stature and demeanor places one in awe and wonder as to how this guy survived his youth of sometime deliberate acts in his quest for adventure and his lust for life. I read the manuscript first and all who know Brian knows he has no sense of humor; but I'd hear gut-busting laughter from down the hallway and knew he was reading It Takes One to Catch One. Steve will take you on a journey into his world of adventure from his early youth into his (almost grown-up years). He grew up during a time of not so much plenty but turned it into a time of growth and change for himself. He could have easily turned out to be the original and true Real Bandit, but his lessons of life revered him to become the man we all came to know and admire. By no means should you allow yourself to think he's old as he would have you believe. That zest for life burns bright this day and I cannot wait to get my hands on his sequel. I purchased his paperback for our Alaskan library and recommend it HIGHLY. It's filled with his humorous tales and stories of life lived to its fullest....sometimes on razor's edge (that's the prepetural kid in him) yet always focused. How else could he have survived it all?

This book is a must read for anyone who ever dreamed of Alaska. Knutson is the consumate Alaskan sportsman. From law enforcement, to hunting, trapping and fishing, Steve does it all and tells his tall tales like he is sitting around a campfire. If you want to hunt sheep or bears, or snowmobile at night in subzero weather, or catch big fish in remote lakes this book is for you. Outdoorsman the world over will love these adventures. It is a great contribution to Alaska's back country lore.

My husband and I were introduced to Alaska and especially to the Kenai
Penninsula by our daughter Diana. It was love at first sight. Steve lives in Kenai Alaska where our daughter lived and reading his accounts of this wonderful place keeps us in touch when we can't be there. Some of Steve's stories are so funny that one can't help but laugh out loud.
I was into the book from the first page and I couldn't put it down, Steve has a way of writing that makes one feel as though he is sitting in front of the fire with you, telling his tales in a delightful way that makes you want to stay up all night listening.
This mid-west guy came a long way and didn't let any moss grow under his feet. His life has been a series of unforgetable adventures which few of us get to have and I feel priviledged to experience some of those adventures through Steve's stories. This is a wonderful book and I am anxious to read the sequel.

Dolores and Philip Frederick
Beavercreek, Ohio

This book has wonderful information and photos to inspire any amateur gourd crafter to GREATNESS!

I'm a woodturner who likes to decorate the bowls I make. This book has given me several ideas that I've used successfully. I've gotten several copies for members of my woodturning club and one copy for the club library. We're always looking for new ways to enhance the simple wooden bowl and this book provides many useful ideas. Highly recommended.

Extremely good book, very well written and good art descriptions.

The book was in excellent condition and arrived promptly. I was very pleased with the service, price and book.

What a great book! I took a gourd coiling class and the instructor had this book. I couldn't wait to get my own copy! This book is so thorough. From cover to cover it's filled with information, pictures and ideas, you can't help but be inspired. I was, and now I'm "gourding" like crazy!

I had to grab this book, I guess it was the first? MADicine is my new favorite, with that funny and fun and sarcastic House-like Alban Bane. Love that guy! So, naturally, I had to grab The Game. Well, it's quite different in some ways. Darker, and a little bloodier, because here Armstrong is spoofing up serial killers and Silence of the Lambs. You've got to love someone who can take on Hollywood knowing it'll probably kill a book-to-movie deal, because here Bane attacks Hollywood, reality TV. I love it. Because I read this backwards, MADicine first, I miss not having Ada Kenner and Pan the rock star around to be Bane's foil, but it was nice to see big old Arm and his two adorable but disturbed teenage daughters. So, I felt at home, and Bane's just as funny here, but it is darker. Just a warning on the ending, which gets intense. But Bane's as good as ever, House-like, funny, tough, sarcastic, charming, lovable.

Derek Armstrong's The Game is thrilling and enthralling. Witty repartee and snappy dialogue create moments of brevity in an otherwise intense roller-coaster ride of a story. This book reads like an action-suspense movie; Armstrong weaves an intense tale that manages to entertain while commenting on the fascination our country has for the genre of reality television. Armstrong skewers voyeurism and it is a pleasure to go along for the ride. I highly recommend The Game to anyone seeking a great book to fall into. You won't want to put it down-- and the book leaves the door open to the sequel, MADicine, coming soon from Kunati books.

There is simply not enough humor in this world. Since the sixties, ethnic humor is tabu, or is it taboo. Somehow we decided that the frailties of human nature shouldn't be funny, whether ethnic or otherwise, leaving us with almost no subject to dump our ridicule upon. However, there is salvation on the horizon and it seems that Derek Armstrong has found it. It is reality television.

In his novel, The Game, he has focused our attention on just how utterly ridiculous reality television really is. His story is a mystery sure enough, but basically he strips the veneer from the broadcasting genre and shown it for what it is and we discover that what it is, is just silly.

Red Evans author of On Ice

POSTED AT THE REQUEST OF ELINA McGEE: Capital punishment of a serial killer and a reality-television show with a warped twist, the setting of The Game, quickly intrigues the reader. The reality show guests, trapped in a haunted mansion, all become suspects when it becomes the scene of a copycat murder, follwed by a succession of killings. Character development of the game show participants, broadcasting crew and the pill-popping detective, Bane, with his comical sarcasm, serve to make this mystery thriller that much more captivating. When I finished the last page of The Game, I found myself wishing I could purchase the sequel immediately!

Derek Armstrong provides the best reason to turn off the TV--his exciting new novel THE GAME. It's a send-up of reality television, full of murderous action on the set of "Haunted Survivor", and a thrilling ride to the climax with detective Alban Bane. Don't wait for the movie--read the book!

Altered Art showcases some of the most fun altered art out there today.
This field is expanding exponentially - it seems so accessible - and offers
a relief from the generally serious world we live in.
Not that altered art can't (and doesn't) have a serious side all its own. As illustration, compare the Nori Dress by Dee Fontans on page 140 with I'll Fly Away on page 128 by Betsy Reeves. They each speak to the same theme in two entirely different languages.
Terry Taylor has assembled an incredible array of talented artists, doing what they do best, altering the bits of our wonderful, wacky, crazy and sometimes sad world into a storytelling vision of art that transcends time.

.. brilliance! You won't get through it in a day or two. I have never seen so many photographs in one book before. The projects are awesome and the author, Terry Taylor, has chosen some fantastic designers to display their work. Terry is brilliant and it is evident in his art. This is an extremely inspiring book.

This book is pretty great. There are a bit fewer "great" projects in it than I had hoped for and a few things more basic than I would have liked, but the bulk of the book is great. It's very inspirational and just plain fun to look at. The book shows a lot of pretty piles of found objects without showcasing an actual project made from said items in most cases but there are tons of other examples to look at. There are also several tips on how to do things, such as solvent transfers, which are nice. I would recommend this more to a newcomer to altered art or someone who doesn't mind spending the money to look at things they likely already know how to do. Again, the prettiness of most of it is worth it though.

I browsed through this book at the local craft store at least three times over several visits before I finally decided to buy it. I sure am glad that I did! Not only is it visually appealing, filled with so many wonderful ideas, techniques, and creative springboards for one's own ideas, but it simply, yet clearly gives directions on so many different techniques. In fact, I think that the only technique that was mentioned but not fully covered was soldering.

Everything else was carefully explained, and beautifully detailed. It does cover: altered art (obviously), altered books, cards, jewelery, dolls, techniques, copyrights, history, and much much more.

I have been creating mixed-media collages and altered art for about 2 years now, so I'd consider myself, well, not a beginner but not as advanced as others. But I believe this book would be helpful to anyone, at any level. I highly recommend it and enjoy it each time I refer back to it.

It is an absolutely beautiful book, filled with great projects and suggestions. For someone with creative aspirations but little direction, just flipping through the pages provides so much inspiration.

This is the second year I have used this as my desk calendar at work. I love it. It makes me laugh all the time and it has just enough room to keep track of dinner dates or appointments.

Good desk calendar; it's fun to relive some of the classic Get Fuzzy strips.

I received the calendar within a couple of days of my placing the order. The service is great and I love to read my daily cartoon.

My daughter loves day by day calendars & Get Fuzzy. It was a perfect match

"Get Fuzzy" is the current reigning champion of comic strips. Anyone with pets (or who loves animals) can appreciate the inter-species conflicts and hilarity in this comic strip (I particularly enjoy Bucky's attempts at world domination and related ventures.) Here, as in years past, some of the best strips have been put together in calendar form to ensure that everyone can have a bit of humor in their daily lives.

I can't imagine not having this calendar in my house; it's always a great way to start the day. Many of these strips are so good that I have cut them out and saved them or sent them to other animal lovers in my life, while the remaining pages become great for scratch paper.

This is a great calendar and I highly recommend it to anyone.

I was so involved in this book I neglected my friends and family until I could finish finding EVERY SINGLE THING on the lists! I loved it, and even though it's almost useless to ME now that I've found everything, I'll keep it on the shelf and show/lend it to others who come to visit. Maybe in a few years I can pick it up again and start over; my senior moments are becoming more frequent, and I might just forget where everything was hiding!

This was another great I spy book. Keeps the kiddies interested.
I loved it too.

Item as described and received in a timely manner... an excellent buying experience!

Very difficult book, but one you can't stop playing. Great person that I bought it from.

My grandson and I spend hours on these I Spy books. What I love is that even if we finish finding everything in the book (which we haven't on this particular book in the I Spy series), a couple months later, we have just as much fun doing it all over again!

Gave this to my 7-year-old for Christmas and her signing ability has simply taken off. Easy to read. Great pictures demonstrating the signs. Nicely organized so that kids can practice groups of related signs.

I wish I had this book 5 years ago with my oldest child. Signing is so easy to learn from this book. The colors are vibrant, the pictures of the kids signing are large enough to actually see, and the categories are relevant to kids(school, home, feelings, favorite foods, animals, etc).!! I would recommend this book to anyone, young or old, who is learning to sign.

I am mom to a toddler, aunt to a 12 yr old girl and 8 yr old boy, and reading tutor to three kids ages 6, 11, and 15. We all love learning from this book. Heller's Baby Fingers Teaching Your Baby to Sign board books for babies and toddlers have also been great for my toddler.

I love this book. It is a great begining sign language book. I bought it so my 19 month old daughter and I could learn together. The combination of the photos and the descriptions of how to make the signs helps even a beginner pick it up.

The photographs in this book are much easier to follow that the drawings that I've seen in other books. This one also has more signs than other kids books because it's about sign language, not deafness. Best of all, it has a grammer section for ASL that is better than I've seen in ANY signing book, children's or adult's. An excellent choice!