You Can Date When You're Forty

My first exposure to Dave Barry was my father reading me his columns out of the paper.  The style of humor in the columns would have us both in hysterics and I have been a fan ever since.  My dad had a couple Dave Barry books, which I devoured as I aged and I loved his year in review columns.  His just shy of absurdist sense of humor tickles my funny bone in just the right places.  When I saw he was doing a book reading and signing where I live, I jumped at the chance to see him.

At the reading he did some stand up comedy (some particularly biting bits about Miami) as well as reading from his book.  Afterwards at the signing, he showed himself to be a very nice man, not at all brusque like some authors are at signings, he seemed like he genuinely wanted to be there and talk with his fans, young and old.

The book contains a collection of stories that had me laughing all the way through.  While the title and subtitle imply that it is about parenting, there are a lot of other topics contained within the book  Some examples include Israel, Bieber, and air travel.  The format is just a collection of longer than normal Dave Barry articles which have a vague thematic direction towards parenting.  The book is not that long but it is chocked full of laughs.  This would be a great choice to pull down on your eReader of choice to read on vacation.

The part that I will probably remember the most about this book is that I was reading the chapter about Israel at the same time that one of my friends was visiting Israel and Dave Barry and my friend did a lot of the same things (his version of events was funnier than hers).

Overall, I would give this book a 90%.

To Be or Not To Be

Following my last post about Hyperbole and a Half coincidentally this next post is also an "internet book".  Ryan North writes one of my favorite webcomics, the creatively named "Dinosaur Comics".  If you have never read them I must recommend that you give them a try.  Ryan North decided to start a kickstarter funded, choose-your-own-adventure book based on the story of Hamlet.  The project blew up and broke multiple kickstarter records.  Due to the level of funding the book was able to get artwork for every ending from webcomic artists as well as a prequel story and several other additional features.

This book clocks in at 700 pages, so if you don't like it, it makes quite the doorstop.  However, I enjoyed this book immensely.  The book is lighthearted and witty but at the same time has great respect for the original work.

Also, this is the first book that I have review here that I haven't finished, if finished means having read every page.  I have reached an end multiple, multiple times but I still haven't hit every single possible page or even every single ending.  Some of the endings I have reached were the original ending (of course), one where ghost Hamlet and his ghost dad lead a ghost army to fight ghost aliens, and one where Hamlet and Ophelia invent thermometers and live happily ever after.  These are just a few of the many endings that book has to offer.

The book also allows you to play as Hamlet, Ophelia, and Hamlet's father and each of these stories has its own set of endings and experiences and sometimes switches back and forth between them.  In certain read throughs, you can play as Claudius reading a choose-your-own-adventure book.  It is very entertaining.  It is clear that the better that you know the source material the more enjoyable the book is.  However, the book starts at a high level of enjoyment even without any knowledge of the source material.

I think my favorite part of the book is a particular part where Hamlet fights pirates and all of the choices in that section are choosing between the witticisms Hamlet uses in the fight.  While it is a little graphic, that section alone is worth pages and pages of giggles.

Overall, I would give this book a 94%.

Hyperbole and a Half

Hyperbole and a Half was a Christmas gift.  I had never heard of Allie Brosh or her blog (also called Hyperbole and a Half) and I have to say the cover made me slightly worried.  The combination of the subtitle ("unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened") combined with the childish style of art on the cover left concerned that this could be a very unfunny book.  I was completely and utterly wrong.

See, this could be a little troubling with no context, right?

This book had me laughing incredibly hard at multiple points.  The book is formatted as a collection of her blog posts as well as some original stories (which seems to be par for the course for internet writers).  The best chapter is probably the first, where she finds a letter to her present self from her 10 year old self.  I was laughing so much my gut hurt all the way through that chapter and there are many other chapters that are nearly as funny.

There are, however, some serious chapters in the book as well.  Some of them are covered under a veil of comedy like those about her lack of motivation and the rules that she imagines the world lives by. These are humorous but still have the capacity to make the reader think.

Then there are the chapters on depression and her self-identity .  These four chapters comprise a significant fraction of the book, two of them are placed in the middle and two at the very end.  They take issues that are serious and personal and explain what it is like to experience them in a way that still has just enough jocularity to make it not scary or self-pitying.  In fact, while I loved the funny parts, I think the primary thing that I will take away from this book is the exploration of depression.  It was a fascinating read and will probably come to mind when I think of depression for years.

I really liked this book, both at its serious points and its funny points.  I have added the corresponding blog to my RSS reader and I hope that is updated frequently as her art and writing style is highly entertaining.

Overall, I would give this book a 94%.

The Hitman's Guide to House Cleaning

Frankly, I picked up this book because the title was interesting and the digital version was only two dollars.  The book was an entertaining read, if a little cliche.  The book is not actually a guide to house cleaning, as the title might imply, though the protagonist is a hitman.  The story follows the hitman as he is laying low after a hit gone bad, showing what he does and the misadventures that befall him.  The novel is written with a somewhat irreverent tone and manages to not take itself too seriously without the negatives that normally entails.

The book is written by an Icelandic author but he translated it himself so it lacks the rhythmic issues that a lot of translated books have.  Which is good news for this book because I think that a subpar translation would have ruined its darkly humorous tone.  There were several parts that made me laugh out loud.  There were also some exceedingly violent parts (he is a hitman after all) but that is not really what the book is about.

I did feel like certain parts of the book would have been funnier if I lived in Iceland and had better context for some of the commentary on the lives of the people who lived there.  It is far from unfunny, but I feel like the jokes would just all be slightly more poignant.

The book does a good job of fleshing out the character and showing why he is the way he is but there are certain parts of the story I felt deserved a lot more attention and certain parts that I felt could have used a little less detail.  The book also ends on a serious cliffhanger (depending on how you take the last sentence) which is generally annoying.

Overall, I would give this book an 87%.

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It

This Book is Full of Spiders is the sequel to a book I like very much entitled John Dies at the End.  Before even talking about This Book is Full of Spiders, you have to know a little about John Dies at the End. John Dies at the End started off as a collection of stories about the narrator (David, the author) and his friend John.  These stories were compiled and condensed into one novel.  While it still retains hints of its origin, the compilation works much better than many I have seen.  The book is a mixture of humor and horror, with a tidbit of science fiction thrown in for good measure.  If you haven't guessed from the titles, the books are a strange mix of taking themselves seriously and not.  For a further example, here are the covers of both books:

As you can see, the covers are... unique.  The books have been described as if Douglas Adams wrote Stephen King and I think that is a perfect description.  There are multiple parts of the book that are significantly creepy but there were many parts that made me laugh out loud.

Some of the humor is juvenile (suggesting communicating with smeared feces) while there are parts that really make you think.  The books revolve partially around a worldwide conspiracy and while parts of it are clearly fictional, there are some parts that make you question the direction the world is headed in.

I have never seen humor and horror blended as artfully as it has been in these books.  If you are a fan of either genre I would recommend these books.  Fair warning, however, they do lean more towards the humor than the horror.



Overall, I would give this book (is full of spiders) a 93%.



The Dirk Gently Duology

Douglas Adams is famous (rightfully so) for his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, which was, as he called it, a trilogy in 5 parts.  However, many people forget that he also wrote other things.  While nothing can really top the Hitchhiker's guide in the niche it carved for itself, the Dirk Gently duology is an good read, especially if you like funny mysteries with a taste of sci-fi. 

The two books are called Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.  They share almost no characters other than Mr. Gently and deal with completely different areas of science fiction.  You could read them almost in either order or one without the other (OK, so perhaps calling it a duology was a stretch).

I read them back to back after picking up the second book in Chicago and then months later finding the first in a used book store where I go to school.  They certainly have the trademark Douglas Adams' weird, funny, and slightly depressing dark humor.  Anyone who enjoyed Hitchhiker's will enjoy these.

The main character is a detective who believes in the interconnectedness of all things.  Acting upon these beliefs gets him into very silly situations and yet things always seem to work out for him.  I laughed out loud at some parts of this book.

A note of warning, don't go into this expecting a traditional whodunit.  This definitely has science fiction and fantasy elements and if you don't like those mixed with your mystery then these books will probably be a disappointment.

Overall, I would give these two an 83%.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

Tucker Max is a self-admitted terrible person.  This book is a collection of autobiographical vignettes from his life.  They are HILARIOUS.  While he can be incredibly rude and mean to people in the stories, he tells them in a way that they are laugh out loud funny.

In all honesty, I just picked this up because it was really cheap and I remember some of my friends in high school thinking that it was funny and liking it.  Their opinion was definitely justified as this book had me cracking up throughout, even in public places.  While the author can be exceedingly unkind, he freely admits that he is so, and many times the stories poke fun at him just as much as the people he is with.  One of the stories is literally titled: Tucker Has a Moment of Self-Reflection; Ends Poorly.  Just that title alone had me laughing,  The stories are all short and that makes them easy to be read one at time during short breaks in your day.

My one real complaint with this book is that it is clearly collected from other stories, without much editing.  Certain introductions are presented multiple times, for example.  However, this does make it nice to pass around or to show friends a personal favorite story.  My personal favorite part was at the end, when the author is describing the book tour he went on for this book.  He includes an email that his friend sent him about his adventures trying to stay awake on the drive home from a book signing.  That doesn't make it sound exciting or funny but I was almost in tears laughing on the bus.

This book is really funny.  However, I recommend you do not get it if you are not a fan of bathroom/sex humor, because there is a lot of it; drinking stories, because there are even more of those; or swearing, because there is even more of that.

Overall, for the sheer amount of times it made me giggle like a crazy person on the bus, I would give this book an 80%.

EDIT:  I just finished Sloppy Seconds, which is sort of a postscript to this book.  Almost like deleted scenes from a movies.  If you liked this, you will like Sloppy Seconds.  The ebook version is free on Amazon.  The book is a fun little read, but probably not worth spending real money on because it is so short and all of his best stories have clearly been added to his full size books so these are the bottom of the barrel.