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Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster)

Life Lessons and Other Ravings from Dave Barry

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
During the course of living (mumble, mumble) years, Dave Barry has learned much of wisdom,* (*actual wisdom not guaranteed) and he is eager to pass it on—to the next generation, the generation after that, and to those idiots who make driving to the grocery store in Florida a death-defying experience.
In brilliant, brand-new, never-before-published pieces, Dave passes on home truths to his new grandson and to his daughter Sophie, who will be getting her learner’s permit in 2015 (“So you’re about to start driving! How exciting! I’m going to kill myself”). He explores the hometown of his youth, where the grown-ups were supposed to be uptight fifties conformists, but seemed to have a lot of un-Mad Men-like fun, unlike Dave’s own Baby Boomer generation, which was supposed to be wild and crazy, but somehow turned into neurotic hover-parents. He dives into everything from the inanity of cable news and the benefits of Google Glass (“You will look like a douchebag”) to the loneliness of high school nerds (“You will never hear a high school girl say about a boy, in a dreamy voice, ‘He’s so sarcastic!’”), from the perils of home repair to firsthand accounts of the soccer craziness of Brazil and the just plain crazy craziness of Vladimir Putin’s Russia (“He stares at the camera with the expression of a man who relaxes by strangling small furry animals”), and a lot more besides.
    
By the end, if you do not feel wiser, richer in knowledge, more attuned to the universe . . . we wouldn’t be at all surprised. But you’ll have had a lot to laugh about!
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    • Kirkus

      February 15, 2015
      Humorist Barry (You Can Date Boys When You're Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About, 2014, etc.) departs from the collections of his now-defunct syndicated newspaper column and his goofy full-length novels to write a dozen original essays gathered loosely around a theme: happiness and its discontents.In a semiserious introduction, the author notes that the topics of the essays might seem random at first but that they all touch on happiness in some way, however oblique. He carries out his quasi-theme as promised, providing laugh-out-loud moments throughout the book. In one essay, Barry discusses homeownership. Though it may constitute a significant part of the American dream, it is often not a good way to achieve happiness. In the longest essay, about the author's travel to Brazil, where supposedly friendly citizenry rob tourists regularly, Barry shifts into an exploration of the Brazilian mania for soccer. This then leads into an extended discussion about his daughter, a high school soccer player, and ends with a critique of recent World Cup matches and how futile it was to hate the Belgian team even as its members were defeating the U.S. national team. Additional essays cover Barry's travels to Russia with fellow writer Ridley Pearson, Barry's experiment wearing Google Glass, the mindlessness of 24/7 TV news, why Barry's own generation (he was born in 1947) seems less content than the generation that came before it, advice to his daughter as she reaches the age she can obtain a driver's license and a letter to his infant grandson centering on the ritual of circumcision. Needless to say, effective humor is extremely personal. For those who have found Barry funny in a good way, these latest essays will cause outright, prolonged laughter.

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  • English

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