review: The Diary of a Nobody

I downloaded this to my Kindle kinda,sorta by accident, and when I started reading it I was pleasantly surprised at how well a contemporary author caught the colloquialisms, manner and speech of 1800's England ... then I felt like a bit of a fool when I found out it had been,in fact, written in the 1800's.

My bad.

That said (as the red begins to fade from my blush), this was a great book.. about relatively nothing ... by a supercilious ass ... with no great protagonist ... no overriding plot ... lackluster dialogue ...

And it was awesome!

Pooter was such a self-important man, mocked by those younger than him, thinking himself as so charming, so funny, while oblivious to what a buffoon some thought him to be... and somehow, others respected him for the exact same qualities.

Highly recommended as a great book to read about nothing and nobody.

So get yourself some Pooter.

As an unabashed Dave Barry fan, I thought Insane City took off a little slow, on a topic (a wedding) that I have little interest in, in a state (Florida) whose citizens can't even vote properly and a type humor (uncomfortable) that makes the reader cringe as the hero sinks deeper and deeper into embarrassing muck.

But once Insane City picked up steam, it became classic Barry, the pace frenetic and wild, sweeping you through one ridiculous scenario after another. Barry exults in presenting fun, engaging characters ... not all of them human ... and then twisting things around.

This is Barry's first solo fiction in ten years, and while worth the wait ... don't wait ten more years to write another!

New Dave Barry Book!

Alert~!

There is a new Dave Barry book out!  No, I haven't read it. But I have it, and it's in great condition other than a bit of drool that I couldn't control when I got it.

 

I'll blog more about it later once I'm done slobbering over it.

Here's his website.

Norm

 

I'm waking up this blog again. Took a year off ... well, there was a merger ... and I lost more hair .. and, well... it happens. Anyway, thought I'd start off with a review I posted today of Sloughing Off the Rot, by Lance Carbuncle.



This quick little read is like an LSD-laced Dr. Seuss-meets-Hunter S. Thompson tumble into a rabbit hole, where you roll out the side of the hill, trip and face-plant into something slimy and putrid.

I'd read previous books by Carbuncle, so I had some preconceptions of what to expect.

Forget that. My preconceptions totally let me down. This was a strange tale with weird creatures, strange settings, twisted sexual eroticism and words I thought Carbuncle made up (until I looked them up afterward). Though, to be fair, most of the words I didn't know were exotic musical instruments, so being admittedly musically inept I didn't feel so bad about not knowing them.

It all kicks off when John the Revelator wakes from a coma (well, not exactly, but bear with me) to find himself in a cave where he proceeds to create ten thousand creatures by ... well, having sex with himself. Similar stuff happens after this, but you realize right from the start what you're getting into.

If can you read the first chapter without putting it down in revulsion, you'll be rewarded because Carbuncle doesn't pretend to write happy, joyful bubbly stuff.

Sloughing Off the Rot isn't for everybody, but I enjoyed it. Yet, strangely, I felt I had to take a shower afterwards.

You can get it here

Review of Dave Barry & Alan Zweibel's LUNATICS

One of the main characters pees on Sarah Palin.

If that doesn't make you want to read the book, it's because you don't like fart jokes, you don't laugh at pratfalls, the 'f' word makes you uncomfortable, and you never enjoyed Dave Barry's stuff.

Barry's Pulitzer Prize articles appeared every Sunday in the Chicago Trib, and gave me something to laugh at whenever the comics page disappointed. And he rarely failed with his exploding cows and alert readers. I was hooked on Dave Barry for years.

Then he turned his remarkable talents to writing fiction with Big Trouble and Tricky Business and if you love wacky stories that will leave you grinning like a monkey in a banana tree, read the books.

Any time two writers collaborate on a single work, it's sometimes difficult to see each writer's efforts. When Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson wrote their Peter Pan YA series it wasn't so hard. If there was a funny part, it was probably Barry. But there weren't enough of those for me.

Not so for Lunatics. I have to admit, I don't know Alan Zweibel, but if he truly wrote any parts of Lunatics, he's in Barry's league (he won the Thurber award, so he probably is). I downloaded a Zweibel book after reading Lunatics.

You can tell they had a blast writing this.  And I'm sure I don't even get all of the jokes. Dave Barry's assistant Judy Smith even gets a cameo as an NBC China correspondent. I'm sure there are a lot more inside jokes that went over my head.

Yes, this is a sophomoric book. Yes, there's too much 'naughty' language. But if you want a book that takes lunacy to another level, you won't find a better read.

And Sarah Palin gets peed on.

It doesn't get any better than that.

Norm
http://www.normcowie.com

Humor Writers of America

Yeah, I know what you're saying. How pretentious... calling yourself Humor Writers of America.

Well, the joke's on you. I am .. sort of. But there are so many other humor writers, and do you know what? We don't have a home. There's no such thing as Humor Writers of America (or HA, as I coined it).

Thriller writers have a home, romance writers have a home, as do children's writers, sci-fi, mystery, etc.

But we humor writers. Nope, we're just a joke (pun intended).

A few years ago I got a start on it by creating the Humor Writers Ning, but then they wanted money to host, and I didn't want to pony up the dough. So I let it die. But the idea isn't dead. My last three books had the Humor Writers Logo I designed on them. Why? Heck if I know.

And, as of yet, no one's even questioned it.

The joke's on them.

I'm not done with this, and some day I might even talk the Erma Bombeck folks into getting on board. I got interest from Dave Barry and some other humorists who see the need for somewhere for humorists to hang their Whoopie Cushions.

In the meantime, we are not banded, probably a good thing, because humorists are the most innovative, imaginative, creative and wacky people in the world.

It will happen though.

Norm Cowie

http://www.normcowie.com