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eberico's review against another edition
4.0
Thoroughly enjoyable and quick read. Everything else that needs to be said has already been said by the other reviewers. I'm definitely going to check out Candyfreak.
library_brandy's review against another edition
3.0
Entertainingly written but ultimately forgettable. I'm not in love with Almond's writing, though I find reading it a pleasant use of my time.
glitterandtwang's review against another edition
3.0
It was fine. There was an essay about baseball, followed by more baseball references, so I basically slept through a good chunk of this collection. Almond is occasionally very funny or clever, but his sarcastic and political asides do more to distract from the essays than to enhance them. Leave the footnotes to DFW, friends. He owns them now.
violetpretty5's review
5.0
Steve Almond achieves the self-obsessed, self-deprecating postmodern tone Dave Eggers and Chuck Klosterman endlessly fail to deliver. Where those two waffle in tone and tweeishness, Steve pushes forward with confident, lithe prose. Like the best episodes of Arrested Development or 30 Rock, humor exists in almost every line of the funniest essays:
"My [television] appearance lasted five minutes. I was paired with a host whose on-camera persona called to mind a particularly frightening anxiety attack I'd suffered in college. At one point, he stuck his mic inside his mouth so viewers could hear the Pop Rocks he had just inhaled. I know that at least one person saw this segment, because the guy who manages the bar where I go to drink off such experiences told me his wife had seen me. This is what's known, in the writing game, as fame." (p.146)
Almond's other strength is in presenting his underlying messages clearly but without preaching...to avoid excessive fangirling, let me just say I read this in one day because I loved it so much, and the sense of total honesty lets me over look any flaws I might otherwise gripe about.
"My [television] appearance lasted five minutes. I was paired with a host whose on-camera persona called to mind a particularly frightening anxiety attack I'd suffered in college. At one point, he stuck his mic inside his mouth so viewers could hear the Pop Rocks he had just inhaled. I know that at least one person saw this segment, because the guy who manages the bar where I go to drink off such experiences told me his wife had seen me. This is what's known, in the writing game, as fame." (p.146)
Almond's other strength is in presenting his underlying messages clearly but without preaching...to avoid excessive fangirling, let me just say I read this in one day because I loved it so much, and the sense of total honesty lets me over look any flaws I might otherwise gripe about.
bibliocyclist's review
4.0
It's true: I didn't ask. Thank God he told me anyway. The wit, the insight, the despair at having finished it too quickly!
flawednarrator's review
This was an early reviewer copy that was delivered courtesy of LibraryThing. I requested it on a bit of a whim, mainly because it seemed mildly amusing, and I liked the cover (I know, I know). So I was very pleasantly surprised when I got around to reading the slim volume. The only bad thing about this book is, in fact, its brevity. It is merely a sampler, but it is a sample of some fresh, witty, intelligent, self-aware writing that hits all the right notes. Steve Almond is on par with David Sedaris and David Rakoff in my mind, and I will definitely track down some of his other books. He relates these painful stories with wit and insight. In short it was just damn funny.
invertible_hulk's review
3.0
Steve Almond's fiction is some of the most beautiful, most amazing, most heartbreaking stuff I've read in quite some time; his collaboration with Julianna Baggett -- Which Brings Me to You -- was one of my favorite novels of 2006.
However, this book isn't fiction, but a collection of "essays" from over the years: ranging from his love of Kurt Vonnegutt to his love/hate relationship with the Boston Red Sox to his battle with the Conservative Right after he quit his job at Boston College once he discovered that BC had opted Condoleezza Rice for their graduation commencement speech, and everything in between.
However, this book isn't fiction, but a collection of "essays" from over the years: ranging from his love of Kurt Vonnegutt to his love/hate relationship with the Boston Red Sox to his battle with the Conservative Right after he quit his job at Boston College once he discovered that BC had opted Condoleezza Rice for their graduation commencement speech, and everything in between.
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