Parody Books

What else could it be? It will be full of people like the ones around you today.

It will be full of managers who pull everyone out of work to all-day meetings to determine why productivity is low. It will be full of financial planners who couldn't make their living with their own money, so ask for a percentage of yours (about which they care somewhat less). It will be full of people who decide to work for those bosses and hire those financial planners. You know, the people we have now. Only more of them.

Or we could murder them all. Then we'd live in a future full of murderers. Was that supposed to be an improvement?

If you're the cash crop in a cube farm, Dilbert is your biopic in daily installments. (Call it a "comic" around other people or they'll look at you funny.) Adams's warped sense of absolutely literal reality has no equal on the bookshelves today.

It can become tiresome in large doses, though, and the reader might wish for more of the pictures and less of the text, especially in the last chapter. That's sort of like a warm, fuzzy, spiritual kind of thing, but without the spiritualism, warmth, or fuzziness.

I had to round up to give four stars, but Adams is the spokesman for my generation. Wherever people spend more time looking at computer screens than at other people, you'll find Dilbert taped to the wall. Loyalty counts for something - except where you make your living.

-- wiredweird

I'm even being generous by giving this 2 stars. Scott Adams is very talented but he should just stick to Dilbert Comics.

Hmmm...not exactly the future I was expecting. Clearly this book was written with tongue firmly planted in cheek, it has to be read with the same mindset. This probably would have been much more effective if Adams had focused on his strengths, namely the world of work. The sections dealing with the worlds of work and business are by far the most effective sections of this book. While the convoluted logic used in the other sections are amusing, it often feels like Adams is trying too hard to be funny.

In the final chapter ("A New View of the Future") Adams steps out of his role as a humorist and provides some serious food for thought. I found this to be the most effective part of the book. His argument that finding alternative ways to perceive the universe can be empowering is actually quite persuasive, and his examples of such alternative perceptions are intiguing. If nothing else, it is helpful to be reminded that our current understanding of our world could prove to be just as inaccurate as earlier views of the universe. I read this expecting little more than some light entertainment, but I've come away with some serious food for thought...

I've had this book for a while, and I would like to say that for the most part, half of Scott's predictions became true. For instance, after a terrorist attack, we have sacrificed a bunch of civil liberties in exchange for saftey. In addition, with the advent of the internet, every other yahoo is posting the news, or providing news content for free. He predicted that as well. Buy this book just to read all the predictions that came true. PEACE!

Scott Adams is a cartoonist. He is not a stand-up comedian nor is he Dave Barry, though this book makes it quite clear that he really wants to be. Still, there is a reason he tells jokes in three-panel comic strips instead of 30-minute monologues. Here he addresses various aspects of life and makes tongue-in-cheek predictions, interspersed with Dilbert cartoons. It was obviously written in sections rather than as a whole, and the entire time all I could think about was how much more fitting these musings would be in somebody's blog than a hardbound tome published by Harper Business, especially since so many of the predictions have gone out of date since its publication (such as his erroneous predictions for the futures of the cable modem and ISDN). There were some vaguely amusing parts but nothing was anywhere near laugh-out-loud funny, and I had to yawn a bit at the tired "women really rule the world" section - that idea was beaten to death decades ago and hasn't gotten any funnier in the meantime. Frankly, the most humorous parts were the cartoons, and if I wanted to read those I could have just picked up a collection.

The final chapter, "A New View of the Future," was inappropriate in this context. For this section Adams "turned the humor mode off" and discussed his personal philosophies. They were interesting but did not fit whatsoever with the rest of the book. His ideas on perception and cause and effect would also have been much more compelling had he bothered to actually research any of the theories and experiments he mentioned. I understand that the goal of this section was nothing more than to make the reader think about the universe a little differently, but it would have been much more effective had he spent an hour at the library finding a couple of references to cite. Saying things like "I'll simplify the explanation, probably getting the details wrong in the process, but you'll get the general idea" does not instill in me a desire to take him very seriously.

Despite the incongruity of the chapter, I still enjoyed it about as much as I did the rest of the book, but for different reasons (the first part was vaguely amusing, the second vaguely intriguing). Ultimately this felt like a Dilbert collection trying to be a Dave Barry book. I think I'll stick with the comic strips from now on.

Terribly funny, charming and delightful and ultimately moving. My favorite part is when our hero and heroine go Jamaican. A series of absurd adventures. Not for those who require a believable story.

Alright. Yes, it's long. And yes, a lot of it could have been cut. And yeah, a lot of it doesn't seem to fit together too well--Freddy and Fredericka go from washing dishes to running a presidential campaign to fighting forest fires. And it did get annoying, when Freddy kept giving enormous monologues about how gorgeous Fredericka was.

But this book is also absolutely worth it.

You probably already know the basic plot. Freddy and Fredericka, the Prince and Princess of Wales, are pretty much a disgrace to their country. In light of this, a very old man claiming to be a worker in a sex-toy factory sends them off to America to reconquer the colonies. In the process, the spoiled little monarchs learn about dignity and love.

There are bits of this book that made me absolutely hysterical with laughter. Most of them were to do with Freddy's ridiculous antics, which ranged from chasing tennis balls through the streets absolutely naked to running aroung England chasing down his wife's dog, Fuh-Kyu. Yeah. A lot of the humor revolves around verbal misunderstandings, such as when "who's sane," is mistaken for "Hussein." If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, I'd skip it; the book doesn't have too much to offer besides humor.

For a book about the British monarchy I was also surprised at how much the book seemed like one giant love song to America. Before their trip to the states, Freddy and Fredericka are one big, spoiled, pampered, isolated mess. In the US, they learn about hard work, respecting "the peasants," and the beauty of nature. There are actually fairly large sections dedicated to describing the natural beauty of the US.

But maybe that's because there were large sections of the book describing absolutely *everything*. This book could definitely have used a better editor. At times, I had to push myself to keep reading. But I'm glad I did, because there was always another fun part at the end of all the dullness.

If you're a fan of the monarchy, need a laugh, and can manage to plow through parts that don't interest you, you'll love this book. Otherwise, you may want to think twice. I enjoyed it, but it was a long haul.

This was a good book due to Helprin's obvious intelligence in constructing a fierce and humorous political and class satire. This novel skewers western politics and society. Freddy & Fredericka was laugh out loud funny in many parts. While not one who minds lengthy tomes, this one could have been a tad bit shorter for my liking. By the end of the 500+ pages I was a bit tired of Freddy & Fredericka, despite their charm and humorous exploits. Overall, a smart and extremely funny novel.

An elegant piece of work, To conquer the outside world Freddy and Fredericka must first conquer themselves. A trek through the forgotten American Dream. And through all of the obstacles and small triumphs finding each other.

Thank You,
Mr. Mark Helprin

I've been trying to read this book for over three months and have only gotten through about 75 pages. It's wordy, tends to steer off-topic, and just does not hold my attention.

There are funny parts, no doubt, and I've found myself laughing out loud at a few of them. But it's not good when I open the book each evening and forget what I'd read the night before.

My boyfriend is a big Helprin fan, so I was excited to delve into this novel, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to shelve it for now. Maybe someday I'll have the patience to pick it up again.

Loved, Loved, Loved this book. Funny, quirky, not only read it in one day, I read it in one seating it was so entertaining. I know this isn't the most helpful review but it's one of those books were you're just going to have to read it yourself and draw your own conclusions. Actually I didn't read any reviews when I brought this book, I read the few pages Amazon allows you to read and the synopsis. I wasn't disappointed.

This book is hilarious to read - a MUST for every broker and investor!!

Anyone who's read Christopher Buckley's collection of essays, Wry Martinis, might expect his novels to exhibit a similar degree of hilarity. Buckley's essays often take the form of parodic fictionalizations such as memos, journals, and letters, and occasionally fictional personal anecdotes that serve to prove his larger points (Art Buchwald often employed the same technique). God Is My Broker meets, and exceeds, this expectation, being a book-length expansion of the concept that also gains something in the expansion.

This is, in part, a parody of the crop of self-help books that has sprung up over the last few decades, as typified by the works of Deepak Chopra (whom the authors confront directly in the novel, including excerpts of Chopra's work, complete with page numbers for reference). But it's important to emphasize that God Is My Broker is a great deal more than that; anybody could mimic the format and style of Chopra's (or some other guru's) works, and produce something that's funny...for a while. But who would want to read a book-length Chopra parody? All the laughs would be wrung out of it in the first few pages (and frankly, most of the joke could probably be gleaned from the table of contents). The "7 1/2 Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth" of the book's title are interspersed throughout a legitimate story of a New York monastery and the monks who make its ill-tasting and unprofitable wine. Brother Ty, the ostensible "author" of this Buckley-and-Tierney-"edited" book, is a quite likeable, fully-realized character whom we follow through his skewering of Chopra's platitudes (which have become a new fad at the financially-struggling monastery) and his exploration of the Bible as a dispensary of financial advice.

I imagine this was probably shelved in the humor section of bookstores, and though it is a parody, it's labeled, quite justly, as fiction, and hilarious fiction it is. Store placement doesn't matter now, of course, since it's out of print as of this writing. Rumor has it that this has been shopped around as a potential film. I can't imagine it translating to the screen as well as Buckley's Thank You For Smoking did, but such a venture would at least get the book back in stores. In the meantime, if you see a copy, grab it. Come for the parody, stay for the plot.

Christopher Buckley's brilliant satire of get rich quick books and self help muck that might strike a bit too close to home, mocking catholicisms wanning prevelance in society and its eagerness to catch up with modern culture as well as the books themselves. Some might think it as obvious, and thus chastise it for being superficial. I like to think that it's blunt, and a little more truthfull to a somewhat touchy public making it less popular, as is common for true satires to be. Critics sometimes want satires to be subtle and vague, but Buckley once again presents his readers with the obvious hilarity rather than the mundane and snobbish.

If you're at this site, then chances are you're sort of sick of business books. Probably, that's a kind way of saying it. Seeing another book by Stephen Covey or some other idiot spouting out laws, truths, and platitudes in big print, wide-margined, brightly colored business books inscribed with fulsome praise from every other author of big print, wide-margined, brightly colored business books probably makes you ill like you just ate something slimy that fell out of the nostril of a leprous hippopotamus.

Or else it makes you so angry that the rest of the business world (that is to say, all those bleating sheep that come up with words like "consens" and "mute points") expects you to converse in this stuff that you have to read it and be able to remember authors when you could be using your time more wisely like beating your head over and over and over again with bowling pin.

If that's the case, this is the book for you.

Buckley and Tierney have written the book that everyone who ever wanted to scream in despair and fury at The Oz Principle can worship. It is an excoriation of all the senseless business books that infect our lives.

It is the story of a group of monks who begin to become wealthy by pure happenstance (or perhaps through miracles) and find themselves suddenly regarded as business men. So, to run their business they hire marketing people, public relations people, and all begin to read books by Deepak Chopra and the like.

The result, as you might imagine, is not a very sound fiscal enterprise.

The wit is sharp and biting. It is required reading for anyone who ever read one of the 7 habits and thought that their life was changed.

It's an amazingly fresh example of why acumen, expertise, and intelligence can never be truly replaced.

It teaches the businessman to ignore the bleating of sheep.

READ MORE AT INCHOATUS.COM

A few of his recent books suggested Dave Barry had lost it. But then came Money Secrets, and it turns out: he hasn't. This is classic Barry at his best, good laughs on every page and a number of brilliant strokes in his own inimitable style. It's a little book, but it's a gem.

The book is funny. Not funny? Yes, it's funny. Dave Barry is playing with you. Read it and you will find out if you have a sense of humor about yourself.

Dave Barry's humor has always had an edge. Don't look for strict belly laughs without reading between the lines. His chapters on Teaching Your Children About Money, Starting Your Own Business, How to Get Rich in Real Estate, on Buying an Older House, etc. etc. are unexpected and offer some great chuckles.

Cheer up. Read the book. Have a laugh at yourself. It's good for your health. (So that's what it is! Maybe it's a health book!)

Recently I read a New York Times movie review where the reviewer started with the comment that since he didn't like the star, he was certain he wouldn't like the movie. He then proceded to rake the flick over the proverbial coals. If that is a valid premise for a review then I should start by saying I like Dave Barry, therefore I will like this book.

Some day Barry will write something that isn't funny, but this isn't it. Oh, I'll grant you that if you don't care for his sometimes heavy handed style you may not laugh out loud as much as I do. But it would still be humorous.

Start with his dedication. "This book is dedicated to all the people in the world, on the theory that they will respond by thinking: 'Wow! A book dedicated to me. I should buy a copy.'" Wish I had thought of that and used it first.

The rest of Money Secrets is a broad satire on the many financial self-help books on the market. He makes his points with lines such as this, "The largest single item in the economy is the Gross National Product, or DNA for short."

One of Barry's strengths is his keen ability to take a subject and work it into more and more diverse and outlandish situations. Okay, Donald Trump is easy to make fun of but you would never imagine the roles he has in this book. While the comparison of Alan Greenspan and Punxsutawney Phil is slightly outdated, it will make you laugh. A final point worth noting is Barry's use of a small Angelina Jolie clip. I have better things to do than count the number of times she appears, but toward the end they're funny in and of themselves.

Dave Barry is a funny man and this is a funny book.

Dave Barry is one of the funniest writers of his generation, if occasionally a bit excessively juvenile. This book is extremely funny, if not as funny as "Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up", "Dave Barry Turns 40", "The Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need", "Dave Barry's Book Of Bad Songs" and "Dave Barry's Greatest Hits". It's about on a par with "Dave Barry Slept Here", "Dave Barry Is From Mars & Venus" and "Dave Barry Turns 50", particularly "...Slept Here", in that it does for (to) economics what that book did for (to) history.

This book is classic Barry, consistently funny all the way through, including his explanation of why there's a giant eyeball on the dollar. He does take frequent detours from the main topic, such as a lengthy section of travel tips including how to deal with airport security. Some of this material is a bit familiar, but well-done here and very funny. And the money theme does provide a thread running through the book, so it's still appropriately titled.

Dick Hill's narration of the audio edition is almost a bit over the top in places (but then, so is Barry's writing), and is somewhat better suited to Barry's novels. Still, it's not bad here.

Funny, it is. This is good light reading. You can put it down easily and pick it again later. However, this is pretty much the same joke, over and over. It gets tiring after a short while.

Molvania is one of series of fake travel guides. This one focusing on the fictitious Eastern European country of Molvania.

In "the land untouched by modern dentistry" you can figure out what hotel to stay at, the wonderous historical sites, and the restauarnts and public transports. In the style of Fodors guide, it attempts to even make this disaster of a country sound wonderful.

It is a bit of a one-joke book and a hair repetitive, but the detail in book is really amazing and gives it the perfect feel.

To the few people who were "offended" by the book and considered it discriminatory, I think "what part of parody don't you understand?" comes into play. If you're so tight you won't get the joke, by all means leave this on the shelf. Otherwise, you'll enjoy the detail and depth of the planning of your Molvanian trip.

A must for all who have experienced in Eastern Europe in the nineties. A sort of mix of experiences from CZ, Poland and the likes. You wonder wether the authors were not sitting at the next door table at Radost.

A friend showed me one of the books in this series (Phaic-Tan) and it was such a riot that I ordered it as well as others in the series the same day. This is a strange planet, where some countries can send people to the moon and back, and other peoples are still living in the Stone Age, with a whole lot of humanity somewhere in between. That makes for a lot of potential sarcastic humor, which is what we see in these guidebooks to countries that do not actually exist. Humanity, laugh at yourself! If you have ever travelled in the Second or Third World much, a lot of these creative sketches will make it possible to grin over what may have been a painful or frustrating experience at the time. The books are fun... although I sometimes wondered if they were not perhaps made up by escaped creative writers from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

"Molvania" is reported by some to be the inspiration for the movie "Borat" - plausible, because there are similarities. Nonetheless, it is clear that "Molvania" itself was inspired as a parody of Fodor's Travel Guides. Included are the usual sections on History, Geography, Religion, How to Get Around, Where to Stay, etc. Every section is replete with jokes, and overall almost makes one want to go to Movania. Unfortunately, Molvania doesn't exist, at least according to my globe and the Internet. (On the other hand, where is the Internet?)

Nate Wilson packs a powerful punch in his small book. He shows in a very compelling way some of the flaws of evangelicalism, of which all of Christendom is a part. He points out the shallowness of the sentimentalism which causes a lot of warm, fuzzy feelings but never really drives anyone to action (James 2:14-17). Throughout the book, he shows that the church today cares almost nothing for the physical realm, only caring for that which is spiritual. Christians often say, "My citizenship is in heaven, so nothing on this earth matters." This is the reason why much of the church today will pray about some need but then never DO anything about it. The church needs both of these if it wants to succeed. Nate Wilson explains in back of the book that we are part of the Evangelical community ourselves and that "In order to mature, Evangelicals need to move beyond the bumper sticker shallowness of the past four decades and long for true wisdom. Parodying our silliness is one small nudge in that direction. To whom much is given, much is expected."

I have been unable to get thru the real Left Behind series. I have tried and TRIED, but the painfully cliched writing is only part of the problem. The events are so ludicrous and bizarre, and what's worse: unbiblical.

I've read the Bible cover to cover a few times and have studied eschatology (end times) extensively. Trust me when I say the Bible says NOTHING about babies disappearing from wombs, Tribulation Forces, a Russian war on Israel...omigosh, I could go on and on (how do they come up with this stuff??). For a real examination of end times, read Steve Gregg's Revelation: Four Views. He lets the reader decide through a dissemination of the four main views of eschatology...because yes, Virginia, there is more than ONE view!

Anyway, Right behind was a blast to read. It's laugh out loud funny and right on the mark. My only complaint is that it wasn't long enough. Maybe if more characters cried themselves to sleep?

This book is EXTREMELY funny. Those who complained about this book making fun of "serious" concepts need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously... making fun of the "Left Behind" series is NOT equivalent to making fun of the book of Revelation, but it certainly DOES make fun of the Left Behind's rather far-fetched interpretation of Revelation. People, using the "Left Behind" approach to interpreting Revelation, you could make the Book of Revelations mean ALMOST ANYTHING YOU WANT IT TO BE and refer to ALMOST ANY EVENT. Books like "Left Behind" have come out every few decades, and guess what - their predictions are ALWAYS wrong!

Anyway, this book does a great job with both the humor and the theology part. He does a great job showing the extreme silliness of the "Left Behind" approach to Revelation.

To those who thought that this book was "making fun of Revelations," I must repeat my objection that this book is NOT making fun of the Bible or the Book of Revelations. The author is definitly making fun of the following:
1. The weak-mindedness that seems to prevail in too many churches.
2. The poor writing style in the "Left Behind" series.
3. The "Left Behind" series' rather far-fetched interpretations of Revelations.
4. Dispensationalism and dispensational eschatology in general.

Definitely recommended.

The good folks at Credenda/Agenda, a journal of Reformed theology and opinion, have issued a line of parodies skewering various forms of silliness that have overtaken the Evangelical Protestant landscape. Any who have read Credenda/Agenda know it is sometimes caustic, usually challenging, and always Calvinist. This series shows they can also be extremely funny - shattering the common image of Reformed folk as people whom God has predestined to be humorless.

Right Behind is a truly cutting satire that joyfully pokes fun at the pretensions, bad theology, and "bunker mentality" of the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Normally, a good parody concentrates on a particular trait that in any other context would be amusing and brings it to the forefront. The difficulty here is that the entire series is a ridiculous concoction that can make no sense outside of a narrow and distorted understanding of certain passages of Holy Scripture. An additional hurdle is that many readers of the series have no idea how badly they are written. It is a tribute to Wilson's writing skill (and comedic sense) that he so successfully pulls it off.

Wilson leaves few stones unturned in mining the original series for laughs. The implausible plots, the absurd dialogue, the lack of any sense of historical or cultural understanding exhibited in the Left Behind series all come under a barrage of brilliant satire. The "battle scene" in a Christian bookstore is absolutely hilarious. Even the cover contains pointed jabs with the fact that LaHaye is not actually involved in the writing noted by having a sock puppet (Mr. Sock) as the prophecy expert/co-author. The common practice of authors endorsing books they have not read is also lampooned by including endorsement blurbs by St. Augustine and John Calvin - among others.

The reaction to the book is bound to be mixed. Those who are ardent fans of the Left Behind series will probably not find the suggestion of poor judgment on their part appealing. Those unfamiliar with the Left Behind series will probably not understand some of the allusions. However, those in the Church whom the "prophecy experts" never fooled or who now reject the distortions of God's word in such sensationalistic fare will find it highly entertaining. The latter group, in particular, may laugh heartily at the errors of their youth.

The story is boring. I've read all the real Left Behind books, and did not find this even close in comparison. I couldn't even get through the first twenty pages. I tried to imagine it as funny, but couldn't even fake it. Unimaginative and a waste of money. Not even a good spoof on the original. Spend you hard earned cash elsewhere.
This book is not well-written and not funny. I enjoyed the parody "Kiss My-- Left Behind" a lot more.

Life is meaningless. We are all slugs. We should kill ourselves. Or better yet, hire someone to kill you, but before he does, send a letter to the police, with a description of your killer, and his home address, and let him go to prison for the rest of his life. AHAHAHAHAH!!!
But semi-seriously, folks, this is a very funny book. It is a parody, a satire, a joke, a lark, a laugh, a sarcastic look at the things we should all keep in mind as we go through our daily routine.
It's funny because it's ridiculous. It's funny because life is NOT meaningless, we are NOT worthless, and suicide is a waste. Get this book and do not take it seriously, just laugh at it. Give it to some dooms- day, constantly depressed, miserable indivigual and maybe it will cheer him up
by making him see how silly he is. Get the point?

I found this book just laying out in a parking lot so i picked it up and started reading this funny, so-true book. it's brilliant. At first i just laughed really hard at all the funny little comments but then i actually found that it helped me when i was feeling down. I don't know, it seems like it should just make you feel worse but in some odd way, it makes you feel better. I guess it kind of makes you feel like everyone else in this world is feeling the same and you don't feel weird about everything thats wrong in your life. I'm mad because i gave this book to my boss to read and he lost it so now I'm going to buy it again. I miss having this book around to make me laugh when I'm feeling like crap.

A good way to clean out the ol' system is by laughing really hard.

I am not kidding, this book is a wonderful, hilarious cheerer-upper. Plus, it makes you feel like it's ok to not have to be all "hey look at me I'm having the time of my life living happily after like in Pretty Woman or some other romantic comedy." My only criticism is that it does get repetitive after a while. Otherwise I would have given it 5 stars. Overall, a wonderful book!

I work in a bookstore and came across this book while shelving my humor section. It gave me a refreshing break from some of the books I deal with on a daily basis in my self improvement section. As another reviewer noted, it should make you feel worse if you feel bad, but it doesn't!! It helps you take yourself a little less seriously. Clearly you wouldn't give this book to a person who is clinically depressed. I'm giving it to my nephew for his college graduation. He has a healthy skepticism about the world and will enjoy this tongue-in-cheek look at life. One quote that struck a chord with me: "Your kids are nothing special. They're just like everyone else's kids." Made me laugh and I'll better handle the next person I come in contact with who goes on and on about their 4 year old reading Grapes Of Wrath .... I'll think of that line and smile. One caution: If you do not appreciate jibes taken at religion (ALL religions), don't read that section!

Pollack proves that the only thing necessary to be an artist in this society is the audacity to call oneself such. I've slogged through a couple of his self-indulgent works now, and from what I can see, he's an author because he says so. Unfortunately he's not alone; the people with egos big enough to believe they are something are granted celebrity or at least book contracts just because they have the hutzpah to tell the world what every person's mama made him or her believe for a while: I'm special. Most people grow up and realize that everyone is special but nobody's really THAT special. Pollack seems to still believe that he is not one of the very folk he attempts so weakly to satirize, a pompous bag of air who should be penalized for every tree that dies in the service of his vanity. He's an average writer with average opinions and really should take a breath and realize he's OK without being "special." Then he should give the reading public a break and get a real job.

If you read enough books, especially enough books of a certain sort, and enough literary criticisum, again of a certain sort, you end up with a trove of amusing observations. If you put all of your observations together in a book, though, and your readers have read many of the same sources you have, their observations may be funnier than yours. So, after a while, your book becomes very, very tedious.

This is not post-grad humor, whatever that is (I'll tell you what it is, it's an oxymoron). This is not lacerating satire, nor a vicious attack on self-indulgent journalism, nor on Great White Authors (in whose company Neal Pollack rightly counts himself), nor--least of all is it this--is it a post-modern manifesto (post-modern??? think about how stupid you sound before you indulge your egotistical ear with literary jargon--you might start forgetting that words like "post" and "modern" have real meanings which, like nerds and prom queens, don't congeal when placed side by side)... nor is it anything else you people might come up with in the dark, lonely basements of your profound intellects!!!! Let the rest of the world (those lucky ignorant souls who've seen the sun within the past year) know the truth about Pollack: he's a pretty funny guy... at least he advocates onanism, which makes him totally legit in my eyes.

I loved this book.
This is really post-graduate level humor.

The myth of the Great White Author is fertile ground. He's the king of snarky, needle-sharp pokes.

As it happens, great writers usually have a well-tuned sense of humor and they'd probably all get the joke.

Parts of this book made me collapse with laughter. That doesn't happen often enough.

Neal can be funny. I laughed out loud the first couple of tracks. His humor relies mostly on name dropping and rattling off absurd fads we've indulged. He is fairly astute when satrizing coffeehouse pseudo-intellectuals and vacuous hipsters...but...the joke gets old.

I read a couple of reviews claiming you have to be a grad. student to appreciate his humor. You must be kidding.
The only jokes that lie outside the realm of the average TV sitcom, are references to world authors and poets.
Even then, you're not missing much.

The last CD, his LIVE poetry performance is a session of pain. I was tortured by 27 tracks of egregious poetry. Because, it was recorded live, you could feel the tension in his audience. The nervous silence, couples on the edge of their seats listening for something funny to laugh at, just to make Pollack feel better. You might be wondering why I kept listening, am I a masochist?

No. Well, except for that week I was stuck in a Motel 6 on an acid binge, with two Brazilian soccer players and a tazer. But, not usually. No, I kept listening because I bought the audio CD's purely from their glowing reviews and his affliation with Eggers and gang and all the other current literary intellgentsia. I would be a masochist.... if I listened to it again.

I bought the book after a bunch of people at work kept telling me how i should be a comedian ... And i got to admit this book is great. It take you from the actual being just funny to shape and mold you humour and make it into a busness. A real business ! You have to pledge and all!

Make your dream come true... Or at least learn to make joke with it!

Include comment by the best Comedian the USA have.

Charly

I've bought and read quite a few 'stand up' how-to's, and this book is the one I keep coming back to for material development, stage presence, just all the 'basics' that one needs to keep on touching base with. It's easy to follow, easy to read, and not pretentious. Judy WANTS to help you be the best presenter you can be, and makes you think about other venues and opportunities besides stand up that might be more appropriate for you. A lot of books are 'stand up' related only, but Judy's book explores other ways people can tap into their creativity and use it in many other ways.
WELL worth the money and I won't EVER loan this puppy out!! Thank you, Judy!!

Have other reviewers who rated this so highly really read the other available books? Hillitzer's work may be somewhat old-fashioned in its tone, but it certainly is far more comprehensive than this book. I will admit that this book is better than Mendrino's book, but I felt that this book only had a few useful, novel principles (like the basic joke formula) and a lot of filler/less than enlightening material/general common-sense advice. Somewhat disappointed after reading other's reviews and hoping for more value.

What was I thinking that I thought a book could help me be funny? Might teach the rules of the game, do's and dont's, some anecdotes and funny phrases by established comedians but the funny comes from the individual. Check out comedy central. Sometimes comedians are so funny that my ribs start aching and others just mild laughter, no spark. This book is called the bible and I thought it would lead me into the funnyland but that, it can not do. Was hard to even want to finish it but paid hard earned dollars for it so I did. 3 Stars for the effort it takes to write a book but no more. Funny comes from the very soul of the individual. First make sure that funny exists and try out in crowds, bars, buses. If at a second's notice you can elicit laughter from unsuspecting crowds then you can worry about the rest. What am I going to wear, how to keep the club's owner booking your act, be nice to the staff, etc. That is all fine and dandy but first and foremost you got to make yourself laugh, that's how funny one needs to be to become a comedian in any of the many forms. Without the funny no one gets the money!

I bought this book because of the rave amazon review and was disappointed. this only thing this book succeeds is doing two things: being vain and false. a book which hands out a quiz that determines if you can be a comedian is vain and false. a book which shoots out false truisms such as "all writers get their best work done in the morning" and "moving on stage makes you funnier" is vain and, well, false. not to mention that the book is bloated with room for you answers to exercise. not to mention that it spends more time with instructions on how to live your life when writing jokes than on actually how to write jokes. might work as a cult but not as a writing aid.

I made it to page 130 and threw it back to the end of the stack. up to that point i felt i learned ONE useful thing, which is the structure of the stand up joke: attitude + topic + something i cant remember + act out + mix. there. i just saved you 12$

My first five star review! I recently went on a buying binge for college guides for my kids. I kept this one for myself and read it cover to cover! Eventually I gave it to my son. He loved it too.

I think if you have kids, and you want to give them some street smarts, give them this book and maybe, College 101: The Book Your College Does Not Want You to Read

I think the two books combined say it all about college.

College life planned in a book and mixed with all the drugs you could do.

This is such a funny book and even though things are said in a humorous way, most of what is said is true. I have laughed out loud several times while reading this book. But besides being so funny it also has a lot of useful stuff in it. There are a lot of tips in it like what is important to pack for moving to a dorm, some quick and easy recipes for those that don't cook, the fastest, neatest way to fold a shirt. What can be better than a book that makes you laugh AND help you out? Anyone that is in, has been in, or is planning to go to college will love it. This book is great!

I purchased this book for my little brother who just started his sophomore year in college based on these great reviews. However, he really did not like it, and thought it was really stupid. Not a great gift, apparently.

I am a high school senior, who hates to read. but let me tell you, this book is probably one of the greatest book EVER written. It explains the entire college experience from the last days of high school all the way through college graduation and everything in between. This book is a must have for any high school senior. Hands down. Basically if you are getting ready to go to college, buy this book because it is as important as your freshmen orientation.Hope you enjoy the book as much as i do.