Form-T Books

I found this book extremely cumbersome to read. His main argument presupposes a level of literacy in ancient Israel that i do not think history supports. A very expensive book that is not worth even half the price.

The Family Circus has been a staple of the funny pages for as long as I can remember, and the books are essentially collections of the cartoons, with a single one-panel cartoon appearing on each page.

For those not familiar, the Family Circus tracks the adventures of an all-American family consisting of a working dad, a stay-at-home (and very shapely!) mom, four young children and two dogs. Most of the humor comes from the interesting take children have on the world, often revolving around their misunderstandings, their innocent self-centeredness, or their insensitivity to their parents as human beings.

One nice thing about the paperback books that adds to the experience is the fact that we can better appreciate an ongoing storyline. In "I Can't Untie My Shoes!," we are treated to an extended visit from Grandma and Grandpa, and a longish sequence involving Christmas. Later one-shots mention New Year's Day and Valentine's Day, and I like that Keane took the time to give us this bit of continuity.

I find the gentle, often understated humor to be amusing, but a friend of mine says that it's the worst comic in the world. Whether or not you enjoy the Family Circus will probably have to do with whether you think the things little kids say are cute. This is an accurate portrayal of innocent toddlers in action; but if you're looking for something cutting edge, move on to something else.

Lit Riffs is a unique concept, one so obvious you'd smack yourself on the forehead for not having considered it: stories based on songs, when the reverse is quite common. The choices of songs to base a tale on is wildly disparate, which is cool. Thankfully this collection didn't go down the route of all easily recognizable pop songs.

More interesting than the book is the companion recording of cover versions of the songs that inspired Lit Riffs, soon to be released by S.A.M. records; My favorite track is the rendering of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah by the band Teenage Girls. Covers of Cohen songs tend toward the slavishly faithful; it's refreshing to hear a group make it seem new.

Usually I find Bloom's books very helpful in understanding difficult works and authors. However, in this collection, all the essays are geared toward more serious scholars of Eliot's works, rather than toward the general reader looking for more information. Yes, the editor includes some standard and well known essays about Eliot by the likes of Hugh Kenner, Northrop Frye, Richard Ellmann (Joyce's biographer) and some modern critics, but there is nothing that holds these essays together. It would have been better to organize the essays around particular works -- instead, we get a brief look at Ash Wednesday, a bit on the Wasteland, some other random poems, you get the idea. Many of these essays are outdated by now. If you are a graduate student writing your thesis on Eliot, these essays may be useful, but for the general high school student or adult who justs wants some help with understanding Eliot, try a more user-friendly series like the Twayne's Masterworks, or Norton Critical Editions.

This is a warm, funny, and sometimes all-too-true book on the fine art of being pregnant. Great fun to tuck in with a shower gift.

Well, I was a psych major in college, and now a single working woman in a big city. I laughed (better than crying) my way through the "23 Child Psychology Techniques to Use on Boys of All Ages." I used to do babysitting during college, but I've had enough of that. Very entertaining and real, this book.

Some guys might be offended by this book, but if you're a woman, you could pick up a few tips in dealing with your significant other. Despite the title and pictures, and the fact that it looks like a children's book, the book does offer some valid insights into the male animal. I have a couple of other books by Karen Salmansohn and really appreciate her sense of humor.

...After reading it I became physically ill from the incessant anti-male ...[feel] throughout the book! ...

I dont care what excrement this woman writes I`ll never feel bad about being a man,but I`ll definitely always be relieved that I`m not a woman! I knew alot of ladies were filled with irrational and juvenile hatred of men,but I didnt realize to what extent! I mean what a waste of emotional energy.I guess I shouldnt hate the writers of or readers of books like this but pity them instead.I can tell you this much,"girls" are just as exasperating to we men! May god condemn Karen Salmansohns soul to the eternal flames of hell.

OK, the negative reviews should convince you to get this book -- obviously Salmansohn's humorous insights are really perceptive because she is hitting some of the big targets in the male-dominated American culture. And some of the targets are complaining ... both men and male-identified, patriarchy-serving women. A key point of feminist analysis is that anti-women sexism is so deeply rooted in American culture that is has been internalized as a value by most men and many women while they were growing up. Absurd, exaggerated, counter-stereotypical humor is a great tool for excavating these unconscious cultural assumptions. And it is fun !! So don't miss the point of the author's humor. And don't miss her latest, How to Change Your Entire Life By Doing Absolutely Nothing. Salmansohn's humor and insight are national treasures. Every culture needs its critics if it is going to change, improve, and flourish.

Ok, so Simmons isn't that much of a writer. And, ok, he isn't much of a storyteller, either. And he apparently doesn't have anything significant to say about what it was like to be the business person trying to manage a bunch of headstrong, brilliant, drug-addled prima donnas.

But what is particularly galling about this book is that Simmons assumes that something that John Hughes worked on in 1986 is as important and as interesting as the work that was being done by Christopher Guest, Doug Kenney, Tony Hendra, Chris Miller, John Belushi, Gahan Wilson, et al. in, say, 1974. Idiotic.

This is not to say that Simmons was an idiot. In fact, some of his contributions to *Animal House* show him to be perceptive and intuitve when it comes to comedy and the structure of plots. But precious little of that shows up in this book.

This book is important only as a record -- something that balances out the recollections collected in other books.

I was so excited to read this book - I loved the National Lampoon and couldn't be a bigger fan of Doug Kinney, etc. This book isn't very good. Most of the time it seemed like some sort of rebuttal book for someone else's tell-all (which I need to find now, btw) and way too many financial details, which frankly are really boring. There is a good story here somewhere - hopefully someone else will tackle it someday and do the Lampoon justice.

National Lampoon virgins are th only ones I would recommend this book to. A superficial history of the institution that the lampoon became is all it amounts to. Again only read if you are new to the national lampoon.

In its heyday, the National Lampoon was a wonderfully funny and irreverent magazine. If you remember that and are seeking to recapture something of that magic, don't bother reading this book, which is simply a hurriedly assembled memoir by a not-too-bright hanger-on.

There's a story to be told here, but Matty Simmons is incapable of telling it.

This book actually will only score a "7" for die-hard National Lampoon fans. Author Simmons was more like an unfunny father figure with a lot of advertising knowledge than the person behind the driven and deranged staff that was responsible for the funniest magazine of all time.Matty Simmons keeps it all in the first person, and in a fascinating read, takes you through the history of the publication, from its squabbles with local Harvard Lampoon, to its fledgling stage shows with Chevy Chase and John Belushi, to its megastardom with its Vacation films to its final undoing from writer Tony Hendra and actor Timothy Hutton, who engineered a hostile take over in the late 80's

Had to write this in response to the only other review of this book. It is, in my opinion, one of the best of Grant's JLA stories - and that is saying something! The dialogue is crisp, the plotting tight and ingenious, the characterisations larger-than-life and - a strange thing in such an episodic book - there are no chapters... Grant Morrison at his "conventional" best.

Grant Morrison writes very bizzare stories and this team-up with the JLA and the Wildcats is the strangest of all. You could read this five or six times and still not know what the story is or where it is going. If Morrison is a such a good writer, then why can't he write better comic scrips...?

I've been a Grant Morrison fan For years, and have read a great amount of his work. Which is why I feel justified saying that this is easily the worst thing he's ever put his name on. Other than the dialogue between Batman and Grifter there is a complete void of characterization. Which is surprising considering the very human banter he had produced among all the numerous J.L.A issues he wrote. The plot is also very flat and atypical... this bland, fomulaic book. Let it be said that I was rather unhappy with my purchase. BE WARNED!!!

I expected the stories to be a lot funnier because it is called teh funniest driveway moments. I found that I laughed at some parts, but it was just as easy to turn it off and not finish the story or just skip to the next track. Overall it was good, but not as funny as I anticipated.

I like NPR and the comedians on the CD, however I don't particularly agree with the title of the product or the product description. While there are (mostly) interviews with comedians, not much of the interview time is spent on their comic material. They spend more time talking about their lives. If you're familiar with the comedians (as I was) then this will be of some interest, whereas if you're not (or even if you are) you want to hear more of what makes them funny than that. Given that they're such short interviews, they're pretty light and not really as deep or gripping as the clever "driveway moments" description suggests. Had I been listening to them live on the radio, no, I would not have stayed in the car to finish listening to them.

They're also not so good for family listening. A piece on Pryor delves into the use of the "n word" going back and forth between using the word itself and the euphemism. Billy Connolly talks about his childhood sexual molestation and also the "dance of the flaming [...]" whereby some flaming paper is actually held in one's rear. Hmm.

Truth in advertising - The 16 stories on this set - most about eight minutes long - are NOT the "funniest moments" from NPR. Because they were culled from shows aired only between 2003 and 2008 on NPR news magazine type programs like "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", there was a limit. While some are truly funny interviews (Only David Sedaris's track is a monologue, rather than an interview), others are actually serious discussions of comedy. Author and comedian Daryl Littleton is interviewed discussing his book on Black stand-up comedy and, while some recorded excerpts of Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx are included, this is a serious discussion. The second longest piece in the collection (13:26) is an interview with Jonathan Winters and was one of the highlights for me. But, though it's funny in parts, Winters is more serious discussing his abusive parents and becomes emotional during the interview with Scott Simon on "Weekend Edition".

I'm a big fan of the pop culture stores broadcast on the various NPR shows, and particularly interviews done by Scott Simon. The other notable piece on this collection is the first track of Disc One - an interview by Simon with Dame Edna. Slightly longer than the Winters interview, Dame Edna (Barry Humphries) continually says things so funny that Simon breaks up on the air. If laughter is contagious, it's certainly obvious here. I found myself breaking into laughter along with Simon.

If you want interviews on the business of Comedy, there's a better collection, culled from "Fresh Air with Terry Gross" (full title "Fresh Air: Laughs with Terry Gross" - also released by Highbridge Audio. (Note: there are no "Fresh Air" interviews on "Driveway Moments).

So, a better title for this set would be: "A Sampler of moments with comedians appearing on NPR magazine shows". I enjoyed it but it could have been better.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

You Wouldn't Like It Here: A Guide to the Real Upper Peninsula of Michigan
This book is not actually a guide in the true sense of the word but a little light hearted humor more suited to those of us who can actually call ourselves "Yoopers". This book will never sucessfully guide you to a hidden geographical attraction in the U.P. but it will act as a humor filled guide to the U.P's biggest attraction; the people themselves. Beware, it is infectous and does exactly what it professes to not do. That is entice you to visit. Four visits are required to fully understand this book. One visit in each season. After that experience don't tell anyone about it so you can keep your love affair with this most unusual place private.

"Back to Central" by Lon was an extraordinary book - one of my all time favorite local history/geography books. But I am afraid this one is a real "stinker". Sorry Lon.

This book was written from a resident's point of view, not as a guild book. As a longtime resident of the of the northern lower as well as being born and raised in the Upper Peninsula. This author was right on with the way people think and what they do from an outsider's inside view. A little over the top on the "redneckedness". But hey, most of us are. A quick read into the old northern way.