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A review by rbruehlman
A Modern Man: The Best of George Carlin by George Carlin
3.0
I haven't read George Carlin in 15 years. He's been dead for about as long, so when this book came out, I bought this on impulse, thinking that a book released so many years post-mortem had to be a biography. (Spoiler: it's not.)
There isn't a lot of content here that wasn't already covered in his other books. It felt like a remix of those--maybe the Bush-era content was new? Not sure. It's definitely not worth buying if you already own George Carlin's other books.
I enjoyed the intro by Lewis Black and Carlin's manager. Although short, that provided an interesting perspective into the man that George Carlin was. It made me wish all the more it had been a biography, because he didn't sound like a very happy person at all.
As for the content of the book, my feelings were mixed. As already mentioned, most of the content was regurgitated from his other books. Some of the content I really enjoyed, e.g., strategizing how to maximize TV ratings for the All-Suicide Channel, or his blistering take on the euphemism treadmill. However, other bits just felt mean, like a crotchety old man complaining for the sake of complaining. I cringed at those. There is social commentary that is caustic but funny, and then there's just complaining... the latter just made me cringe. It's been so long since I've read George Carlin that I can't remember if the more negative content is in fact new, or if I have read those bits before and they just didn't bother me as much when I was a teen.
There isn't a lot of content here that wasn't already covered in his other books. It felt like a remix of those--maybe the Bush-era content was new? Not sure. It's definitely not worth buying if you already own George Carlin's other books.
I enjoyed the intro by Lewis Black and Carlin's manager. Although short, that provided an interesting perspective into the man that George Carlin was. It made me wish all the more it had been a biography, because he didn't sound like a very happy person at all.
As for the content of the book, my feelings were mixed. As already mentioned, most of the content was regurgitated from his other books. Some of the content I really enjoyed, e.g., strategizing how to maximize TV ratings for the All-Suicide Channel, or his blistering take on the euphemism treadmill. However, other bits just felt mean, like a crotchety old man complaining for the sake of complaining. I cringed at those. There is social commentary that is caustic but funny, and then there's just complaining... the latter just made me cringe. It's been so long since I've read George Carlin that I can't remember if the more negative content is in fact new, or if I have read those bits before and they just didn't bother me as much when I was a teen.