Humor Books

I was already familiar with his work and bought this book so I could enjoy the beautiful illustrations. I was surprised that my wife and her father both loved the twisted humor. This would be a great gift for someone who has the same sick sense of humor you do but has not seen the work. It is fun to watch them start to realize what they have just picked up.

I went to Syracuse and looked forward to the PBF comic in the daily paper. I'm so glad i can finally own a hard copy of these raunchy, ridiculous and witty comics.

I bought this as a gift but couldn't help looking through it after. Hilarious.. excellent comic.

Good item to have on your coffee table when you have guests.

A pleasure to review. Wonderful illustration talent (a là Bill Watterson), with a deranged humor we've never seen before. One can read the same comic over and over again, and continue to laugh. And because Nicholas Gurewitch has announced a semi-retirement, we may have to.

Nicholas Gurewitch's Perry Bible Fellowship is a refreshing exception among webcomics: it combines good ideas, great visuals (most webcomics seem to manage just one of these two) and twisted humor that has more than just shock value.

Not that it's all perfect: some of the strips are - in all honesty - quite mediocre. But when PBF hits the mark, it is just about the funniest thing around. If you're not already familiar with the comic, you should just read it on the official website to see if this is your thing.

This Dark Horse collection has all the PBF strips up until its publication and some previously unseen material as well. The overall quality is very good and does justice to Gurewitch's visual stylings. What I missed was more background: information about the author, origins of the comic, how the whole phenomenon grew online. In my opinion, it would be nice to have something more than hard covers (good as they might look) around the things that are already available for free online.

However, I don't regret my purchase one bit. The price was right, the book looks good and, most importantly, the content is great. I just wish there would have been a bit more of it.

This is a great collection of brilliantly dark cartoons. Laugh out loud funny and very clever. The characters are excellent.

I'm telling you Red Meat comics are the most sick, twisted, disgusting, and preverse cartoons you'll ever lay eyes on and that means naturally I think their great. I laughed so hard I thought I'd piss my pants. The poltically incorrect humor had me thinking "this is just F'ing wrong" while I had to catch my breath. Its so different from anything out there and the comic humor isn't "Beetle Bailey or Peanuts" type humor to put you to sleep. This humor doesn't tap you on the shoulder it bludgeons your head till your brains spill out. Get this piece of garbage it is gold and you'll be a better person because laughing is what makes you that way.

This is laugh out loud hilarious if you have this kind of humor. Then you show it to some people and they are like "ok... yeah I guess thats your kind of humor" Well if your the type of person to enjoy newspaper comics, this will actually be funny so that is a hard transition to make. The genius is of it is that I could have written this stuff (and the 'drawings') but I didn't and He did and now he's probably making millions and millions of dollars. I remember making comic strips like while sitting in class. I would crack myself up back then too.

Like Gary Larson and Tom Tomorrow, people either "get" Max Cannon or they don't. If you "get" him, this collection is invaluable. If not, maybe there's a Mallard Filmore collection out there somewhere. The Family Circus is always good, too. For an anti-Family Circus, non-politically correct good time, Red Meat is a great read. Is it political? Everything's political. This is just a little something from the smartass anarchist lobby. :)

If you have any appreciation whatsoever for morbid humor, buy this man's books immediately. There's really nothing else to it.

This is the best book I have ever read. It is mainly about a half-naked boy who is a hero. The part I like the best is when the toilet and him fought. This is very cool book.

I love spending time with my grandson and this book is fun to read with him. I also love to hear my grandson laugh.He likes to read now and he takes the book to school for others to read.He likes all the Captain Underpants books.This is an excellent read...

Captain Underpants is a great epic novel series by Dav Pilkey.With his new book Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking toilets we discover his power against talking, eating, mad toilets. He uses cafeteria food and his underware.This book also has more flip-o-ramas than ever.The flip-o-ramas are filled with even more juicy underware fighting.Captain Underpants beats the talking toilets with underware and his extreme power.
George and Harold,the main characters,try to help Captain Underpants but just stir up more trouble.Captain Underpants not only has to worry about the evil talking toilets but also freeing George and Harold.Captain Underpants ended up winning the battle and freed George and Harold.Over all,Captain Underpants is an awesome fighter and awesome warrior.

My book review
What I'm writing for my book review is Captain Underpants. The reason why I'm writing Captain Underpants is because the book is funny and I want to share how the book was funny with the class.
In Dave Pikley's second adventurous book he talks about Captain Underpants and the attack of the talking toilets. Captain Underpants runs around in his underpants saving the world. I know, your wondering why he can't just do these things with his clothes on instead of doing it in his underpants. It was not his fault that he runs around like this.
The top-secret truth about captain underpants. There were two boys named Harold and George. In the book Harold and George are the narrators. Their principal (Mr. Krupp) was always mean to them. So Harold and George bought a hipno-ring that could hypnotize people. Here comes the funny part. Harold and George hypnotized Mr. Krupp! Then they turned him into Captain Underpants! Now whenever Captain Underpants hears a scream, he runs off and says "tralalaaaaaa!" Every time he does this Harold and George have to watch over him, then catch him.
The whole book is a comic book that Harold and George made to make fun of their principal. Harold and George are known around the whole school because of the pranks they pull. One time they put bubbles in the band instruments. Another time they glued everyone in the lower school to the auditorium seats, and another time they changed the words around on the school board to make it say come and see our hairy armpits.
Captain underpants is a funny book and I hope a lot of people read it.

By Jordan

My eight-year-old loves this book, and I think it's hilarious myself. If fighting vicious toilets using underwear and cafeteria food sounds funny to you, you'll love this book.

This book does teach a certain amount of contempt for adults and suspicion of cafeteria food to children. In that sense maybe it's emblematic of our society. I have found it necessary to sit down with my son and explain that all of this is FICTION, and has nothing to do with the real world. Did that have any effect? I don't know. I suppose it's worth it to have him reading.

Calvin is every parent and teacher's nightmare child, with limited attention to everything except what he is interested in. His antics disrupt the classroom, disturb the home and keep his mother, father and neighbors on edge for the next event. Yet, his imagination knows no bounds, he is certainly the type of child that may grow up to be a writer, filmmaker or perhaps a cartoonist.
Watterson has a sense of humor and an outlook on life that he has channeled into one of the funniest and yet most profound comic strips ever inked and colored. Calvin's attitude towards the world at some point reflects that of every child and adult, he is a misfit and tries to cope by imaginative acts. His mouthy, yet intelligent companion Hobbes, a stuffed tiger who comes alive in his fertile imagination, assists him in his coping.
This is a funny and entertaining book of some of the best installments of the "Calvin and Hobbes" strip, it will enliven your world, no matter how conformist that world is forcing you to be.

The days are definitely packed with adventures for this dynamic, but very short duo. From spaceships and interplanetary hideous monster beasties, to creeping around the backyard and generally getting up to suburban kidlet nogoodness, the fun is never in short supply. Neither is the wit, even if delivered under thread of Spaceman Spiff's raygun.

Another great slab paperback filled with the very best of this over active duo. Themed for the holidays, Calvin and Hobbes get up to their usual mischief at the detriment of Mom, Dad, Susie and others. Read it over and over again just to get a little laughter in a boring day. Highly recommended.

Fans of Calvin & Hobbes who used to read the newspaper strip in the 80s and 90s will find great pleasure in reading this collection of C&H comics. These witty comics about the 6-year old Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, named after the famous philosophers, will amuse people of all ages. The perceptiveness and humor of Watterson deserve the highest of cartoon awards, while his artistic creations exude hilarity. This cartoon is perhaps one of the most piercing yet funny critiques of modern society.

Summer is the time when Calvin and Hobbes can hang out in the treehouse and plot their next attacks on Susie, if they're not busy fighting with each other, that is. This book also contains some of Calvin's best snowman art. Procrastinators will love Calvin's newest invention - the Time Machine, or perhaps not? This is definitely one of the best C&H books around.

Note that there are two series of C&H collections: individual wide-format albums, each covering an entire year of strips (will call it "regular"), and the vertical aspect ratio "treasury series" which covers selected comics from two regular C&H books. Note that C&H ran for a year in newspapers, so there's 10 regular books and 5 treasury books. Though the cartoons are slightly smaller in the treasury collection, each treasury book is far thicker and contains more strips than a regular book, and is furthermore less expensive, so treasury books are a real bargain. "The Days Are Just Packed" belongs to the regular series and was published in 1993.

Our boys love the C&H cartoons. They are expanding their vocabularies without even knowing it! I refrain from telling them this though because they usually shy away from "educational" books.

No,its not just a bunch of random stuff, its a bunch of random funny stuff!! Its funny for Calvin being a little scared of Hobbes, and all that really funny stuff. Although Calvin's only a 1st grader, he sounds like he's really smart. So, I guess whoever is looking at this I have convinced them to buy it, just because it's so funny!!!!!!!

I am not sure I have ever met anyone who has read some Calvin and Hobbes comic strips and hated them. I suppose there might be a person or two out there allergic to stuffed toy tigers, perhaps, or had a horrible accident involving one. Those would be the only people I could think of that would not find these strips entertaining, no matter what age.

And so it began.

This treasury included the strips from the first two collections of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. And if you don't know what you have been missing, you are in for a treat.

The comic strip follows the misadventures of Calvin, a highly imaginative, hyperactive six year old. How imaginative? His only real friend is Hobbes, his stuff tiger. But that isn't a problem because Hobbes is really a real tiger, at least in Calvin's mind.

Since this is the first book, things are still being established. But many of the strips staples are here already. We meet Calvin's parents, teacher Miss Wormwood, neighbor Susie Derkins, and bully Moe. We even get the first couple of run ins with babysitter Rosalyn. While we don't get the hilarious social satire that would show up later, we do get some comments on the environment and Calvin's obsession with polls. (He is constantly trying to get his dad to bend to political pressure by showing his standings with household six year olds and tigers.) And we get plenty of adventures from Spaceman Spiff, Calvin's imagination again as he tries to deal with the various aliens in his life like his parents or teacher.

I tend to read the later books more often, so I had forgotten just how go the early strips are until I picked this up. There are so true classics here, most of the time at Calvin's six year old nature. Not that I'd want my kids getting any ideas from Calvin. He doesn't see anything wrong with pounding nails into coffee tables or popping popcorn without the lid on the pot.

And that does bring up the only possible flaw with the book. These strips originally appeared in 1985-1987, so at times they are a little dated. Calvin makes reference to renting a VCR or wanting to get cable. But that doesn't bother me in the slightest.

This "treasury" collects the strips from the first two books. As a bonus, there is a story told in poem form at the beginning and the Sunday strips are in color. If you have the two books, you probably don't need this one. But if you don't have them, this is the way to go.

The day this strip ended was a sad day indeed. But thanks to books like this one, we can relive it over and over again.

This collection contains earlier C&H cartoons. Being accustomed to seeing a slightly different looking Calvin in the more modern works it takes a little getting used to. His head is HUGE! His mouth...HUGE...and also very much like those Peanuts characters. The way his body and feet are drawn is also like them. Maybe they were Watterson's inspiration? Aside from the bigger head and mouth, Calvin in drawn shorter and wider than we are accustomed to and Hobbes is also bigger than him (when he is a stuffed tiger) which makes Calvin look even smaller. I thought at first that he was four or five but then he refers to himself as a six year old so that hasn't changed. I'm guessing that Watterson refined his craft in the years following...after all, this was originally published in 1988!!!

In this collection we see:
Calvin meets Hobbes
Calvin meets Susie...and does some serious flirting???
Calvin goes to the doctor and lives to tell the tale
His mom lets him try smoking
Shrunken heads for dinner anyone?
Calvin vs Rosalyn...who wins?

Many, many more memorable episodes in this collection that will keep you coming back for more!

CAUTION!!: When the information said "Includes cartoons from Calvin & Hobbes and Something Under the Bed is Drooling" I was under the impression that it contained just a few of those. Not so! It actually COMBINES those 2 books so that ALL of those cartoons are contained herein. I learned this because I ordered this together with Calvin & Hobbes...I am assuming it will be like this for other collections as well.

This calvin and hobbes collection is one of my favorites. I own every single one, but this one is better to me because it has more Sunday comics in it. The adventures, the fun, the snow, the beach...Bill Watterson shouldn't have quit. 5 Stars

I great book, over looking Schulz's body of work, as well as bits about his life and quotes from the man himself. Kidd's design is the perfect showcase for the art. This is a book you never really finish reading, cause you always come back to it again and again.

The book was pretty good but I thought there was to much from the 1950s. My favorite years were always the 1970s.

What more could a Peanuts lover ask for?! If you're not yet a Peanuts lover, you will be if you get this book:) Definite multi-gen bridge-gapper!

Muy lindo, sobre todo el formato!
Además de las historietas contiene fotos de los primeros muñecos que se hicieron en su momento.

This is my first Peanuts hardback, and it's already taken a special spot in my heart. I've been a Peanuts fan from my childhood, and this book gives a glimpse not just into the history of the strip, but also into the history of the creator of the strip. As I understand it, in this book are never-before-seen examples of Mr. Schulz's sketchpads. Some that were never published before in their raw, unfinished form.

Throughout this beautifully bound book are pages that chronicle "Sparky's" life and career -- childhood photos of his family, his page in his high school yearbook, his sketchpad from his time in the Army, various pictures of his first strip "Li'l Folks"... the list goes on. There are also pages here and there showing some of the Peanuts collectibles such as slateboards, games, comic books, ViewMaster reels, and figurines etc. And of course, this 336 page book is full of Peanuts strips --in black & white and in color-- taking you through the years in your memories.

Also included is a touching introduction written by his wife, Jean Schulz, and his 'signature' on the inside cover. If you are a Peanuts fan, you won't be disappointed with this book.

I laughed my head off while reading this book! I was actually sad when it was over! The characters are unique, hilarious, and impossible not to fall in love with. This is a dark comedy full of witty one-liners, zany situations, and a lot of sexual content. This book is not for the faint of heart.

You will laugh out loud, this book is truly hysterical. I am a new Tim Sandlin fan - Sorrow Floats and Social Blunders are just as good. Highly recommended!!

On the positive side this book was sometimes amusing. The story idea of two thirteen-year-old's experimentation with sex and resulting in a pregnant seventh grader was promising though poorly executed. None of the main characters are believable, not the narrator, Sam, not his girlfriend Maurey, and not his mother Lydia. The motivations and thought patterns of the adolescents especially lacked any power to convey belief. This novel should probably have stayed in the form of Mr. Sandlin's puerile fantasies, from which it sprung.

With "Skipped Parts", Tim Sandlin has assembled all the elements needed for a great book. Memorable characters, a good setting, tight pacing, a great plotline and wonderful dialogue.

The main character, Sam, is a thirteen-year-old boy. He puts me in mind of myself at that age, actually. Very prone to dreams and fantasies. He meets a girl, Maurey, also thirteen. Before long, these highly intelligent children are losing their virginities to each other. Not long after that, they discover that, oops, a girl can get pregnant before her first period.

This is the start of a series. I haven't read the other parts yet, but I really liked this one. I also enjoyed Skipped Parts, the movie based on this book, though bizzarrely they changed the kids to fourteen instead of thirteen.

This is a very good, sweet book recommended for pretty much anyone over the age of about eight or nine. Highly enjoyable!

In Sam Callahan, Sandlin creates one of the great characters of recent American literature. Equal parts Walter Mitty and Holden Caulfield, Sam is a hilarious narrator with a truly unique voice. If the book were nothing more than a series of comic misadventures of Sam and his irreverent Southern Belle mother, Lydia as they are transplanted from the good ol' south to rural Wyoming, it would be a great read.

However, Skipped Parts is far more than that. Beyond Sam and Lydia, Sandlin populates GroVont with no end of fascinating characters--almost all multidimensional and colorful--the kind of folks you only find in quirky places like Sicily, Alaska. In this book, its easy to imagine that folks like Dot,Hank Elkrunner and the old guys who populate the local diner have interesting lives and stories outside of the light they shed on the main characters and that they didn't just show up in the scenes to move the plot along. This gives the story an incredible richness.

Beyond that, the book has a heart as big as the Tetons and frequently wears it on its sleeve. Rarely is a book so laugh out loud funny also so poignant and touching. There are moments that are truly noble, truly sad and truly beautiful and its a credit to Sandlin that none of them seem contrived. If you can get past the stuff about precocious 13 teen year olds experimenting with sex, you find a great novel about growing up, dealing with family, redemption and the endless disappointments and possibilities of life. A wonderful, wonderful book.

i was leery at first about this manga being so complex with so many character, i had to read each book two times slowly to get all the details. but this is so worth it, it has depth and even the secondary characters are great and filled out. i love kira and kato and set.it takes some concentration and effort but what a great story. i'm a vampire kind of a girl, i never knew heaven could be so evil.ha!if you only read one manga in your life, this should be it. it's totally TASTY!

I'm assuming that if you are reading a review for volume 13 of this series, you've already read volumes 1-12 and so a) know how great the series is and b) don't need any particularly good reason to read the next volume rather than skip straight on to volume 14. That said, I'll stick to an important and helpful matter: this is the North American English edition from Viz. Despite the cover art shown on the product page, which is from the Japanese edition, this is actually the English translation. Enjoy.

The series is still strong. If you have gotten this far you'll buy this manga.

I was turned onto this series just by it's beautiful artwork. The syle is truely unique and angelic...no wounder it's about angels.

The story starts off as a young teenage boy soon finds out that he is in love with is sister! As if that could be strange wait till you here this. The boy, Setsuna, is the re-incarnation of one of the most powerful angel's in history; and now people all over heaven and hell want him.

What will it take to convince Setsuna, that he is greatly needed by humanity...

I hope you thought this useful...

Hypnotic~

This book is mainly focused around Setsuna Mudo and his forbidden love with his little sister Sara. Things get complicated almost immediatly (as it has a plot, a subplot and lots of extras), angels, evils, monsters, evil cd-roms that kill you and craziness insue.

Basically Setsuna is the reincarnation of the Organic Fallen angel Alexial, who has three wings, incredible power and a physchotic twin brother, Rosiel who she 'failed' to kill in the great battle. His best friend is Kira, who seems to be guiding Setsuna, and has been following Alexial through her multiple rebirths. Sara, Setsuna's sister and lover seems like just a normal girl, but is she? Many other seemingly 'background' characters come into role and the whole story starts rolling.

The drawing is so beautiful, I've been turned into a complete Kaori Yuki worshipper. I own her artbook and have read lots of her other works (I recommend Godchild). The characters are so gorgeous, you'll fall in love with them.

The plot is very very twisted and intricate. You have to read the volumes in order, otherwise it will make no sense. I have reread the first few volumes many times to understand (the first volume especially, as the first few pages don't focus on Setsuna) I first read this when I was about 12, so it was desperatly confusing, but it gets easier to read as thigns start falling into place. It's one of those things where all of a sudden a lightbulb lights up and you totally understand everything that happened.

It's such a great manga, it's so gorgeous and has a gorgeous story to go a long with it, what more could you want?

This is probably one of the few books you are going to find about Badfinger, who are another very essential but overlooked rock band. Sure they had hits, but they got screwed over. The book arrived in great shape and very quickly, so I was completely happy with everything.

I ordered this for my brother's birthday and he loved it! The book arrived in perfect shape. This is one of my brother's favorite bands from 'back in the day'!!! He was very happy with it. Thanks

A wonderful book. I knew very little about this band other than a couple of great songs I heard on the radio in the early 70's. By the time I finished the book I felt like I'd known them all my life. I couldn't help but get emotionally involved in their plight...Highly recommend

The most engrossing band bio I've ever read, and also one of the saddest stories in music. I find it funny that the two biggest debunkers of the author of this book are also two people who haven't read it! The story spans the very beggining, when they were known as the Iveys, to the ASCAP debacle in which Pete Ham and Tom Evans were utterly disrespected in front of an audience for their wonderful accomplishment of having written Without You. No stone is left unturned and unfortuntely some of the people involved should crawl back under theirs but haven't.

Dear Joey and Kathie: You can fool some of the people, but you haven't fooled me. At least Pete doesn't have a grave, or else I'm sure you would have been dancing on it quite happily. Why did you have to be part of the problem?

The "tragic" story of Badfinger couldn't be a better title for this book or this band. So much talent and ability and such bad management and naivete' destroyed not just a band but many lives in the process. I believe every young musician should read this book and learn from their mistakes.

Susan Shapiro's memoir sparkles with humor and insight that any writer could put to good use. Every chapter chronicles her courtship of and relationship with a different literary mentor, each of whom she psychoanalyzes into a substitute familial role - the emotionally available father, the kind older brother, the intellectually-minded maternal figure. What makes this work is Shapiro's endearing candor about her analytical bent, and the way it shapes the narrative into a cohesive whole.

As Shapiro navigates the rocky world of the NYC literary scene, she never hesitates to admit her own mistakes and point out the pitfalls to her readers. The stories are engaging and poignant, and most importantly, they demonstrate that mentors are cultivated in all the expected places in unexpected ways. This book is a useful and entertaining choice for anyone curious about the New York publishing world, and an invaluable resource for those who want to become a part of it.

Shapiro's "Only as Good as Your Word" is an informative, well-written, humorous and heartening book that should be mandatory reading for any aspiring writer. The mentor-protégé relationship plays such a crucial role in the literary/journalism world--which is why the author's no-holes-barred insight on its highs, lows, psychological underpinnings and ramifications as they relate to her are breathtaking. She pulls no punches when it comes to indicting her own neurotic behavior--and in doing so deconstructs the myth that having it all means having it all together. That Shapiro does it with such seemingly effortless yet loaded prose makes for quite the feat; her poetry training has obviously served her well.

If you've ever, had, been or needed a mentor, this book is for you.

This book was a sneaky surprise--of the best kind. The kind of book that unexpectedly keeps you turning page after page, unable to put down, keeping you up into the wee hours, and pushing everything else off your schedule until you've finished reading every last word. If I'd been 14 and living at home instead of--ahem--much older and living on my own, it's the kind of book that would have kept me reading under the covers with a flashlight, long after my mother had turned off my bedroom light and told me to go to sleep.

From the first essay describing her schooling at a progressive, private school in Michigan ("Now I'd skip biology, chemistry, and algebra to hide in the tree house, get stoned, and scrawl songs, poems, and diary entries.") to a later chapter describing an important job from a New York Times Book Review editor ("I had a career-making assignment in my hands, yet I was choking.") Shapiro gives us an honest, funny, smart, and vividly depicted insider's look into the life of a writer trying to make it (and who does make it) in New York. It is fascinating.

Shapiro is like a big sister telling us her story and sharing the wisdom that she's learned about being a writer and finding mentors. How many published authors would share with us the nuts and bolts of their craft, their insecurities, the mechanics of their work, their idiosyncrasies, etc? I like that she is self-effacing and wiling to brutally examine her own motives and subconscious drives at the same time she is psychoanalyzing everyone around her! Made for an immensely entertaining read.

If a reader is unable to find all kinds of advice in this book, they aren't reading closely enough. The entire book is studded with advice and lessons that Shapiro has learned from her mentors over the years, including some lessons about the sometimes complex and challenging aspects of the mentor/mentee relationship. There is also a very good chapter called "How to Get Great Gurus of Your Own" that has great advice about how to approach a potential mentor. I'm going to read that list over again before reaching out to a potential mentor.

Other chapters are studded with specific details about the candid advice Shapiro was given to make her writing better (and that readers/aspiring writers can apply to their own writing). Her Tuesday night writing group encourages each other to put "blood" on the page (meaning be more raw and honest) and to "kill your babies" (meaning to delete a phrase or sentence that the writer is too in love with and doesn't work). Her mentors and editors mark up Shapiro's drafts: slashing sentences, rearranging structure, and jotting notes in the margins. Always, Shapiro is not afraid to show her writing, solicit advice, and take criticism.

Even if you aren't an aspiring writer, this book contains engrossing and entertaining tales about the publishing world in New York City, the writer's life, and behind-the-scenes peeks at such venerable institutions as The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review.

And if you ARE an aspiring writer, well... "If I can do it, so can you," Shapiro seems to be saying with this book, and here's how I did it. It's inspiring stuff.

I was first introduced to the material in "Only as Good" during a reading by several writers including Ian Frazier of the New Yorker and Ms. Shapiro. Mr. Frazier read a wry, off-beat piece about Liz Taylor that left everyone chuckling. Then came Shapiro's excerpt about her first assignment from the NYT Book Review. From her first sentence describing an 11th hour call from a beleaguered editor of the Book Review to the antic denouement years later when she found out the improbable reason why she was chosen for the gig, the crowd -- made up largely of older, hard to please habitues of such events -- was held rapt. At certain points they burst into spontaneous peals of laughter. I ordered "Only as Good" as soon as I got home.

The book offers something for just about everyone (even though "Writing Lessons" figures in the sub-title;) Eliotians, for example, will be amused by her younger persona's characterization of J. Alfred Prufrock as a guy who "wears cool clothes," and touched when her father introduces her to "The Wasteland."

But the main emphasis here is that curious relationship of mentor/protege that is so important to the careers of most successful writers. Shapiro is obviously a strong believer in the transformative power of mentorship and was especially adept during her literary ascent in cultivating the right ones. For this reason all aspiring authors should buy this book and pour over its contents. In it lies the secret to navigating the seemingly scary world of publishing for the beginning writer.

This book is not only helpful, but also bright, amusing, and honest. Shapiro once again delivers with hilarious tales that are unafraid and poignant. She is at once vulnerable and authoritative. Really made me ponder and appreciate all the people who have helped me get this far in life.