Another full-on blitz of 40-something white-male rage, lightened very little by the occasional potty-humor anecdote.
Former Man Show co-host and podcast phenomenon’s manly-man memoir about the awfulness of poverty and the crappiness of wealth and fame.
Carolla (In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks, 2010, etc.) supplements his income as a famous podcast-show guy by doubling as a writer—or more specifically “ranter,” as in this latest autobiographical harangue. Warming to the author’s sense of humor depends on how you relate to a 47-year-old male who still calls women “chicks” and uses junior high scatological terminology like “ass mud.” Here Carolla takes vengeful aim at all the human beings who’ve pissed him off over the years, which seems to be pretty much everyone he’s come in contact with except his stepgrandfather. He rags on his over-the-top hippie parents for their un-American voluntary poverty and humorless activist causes; he rebelled against them in high school by becoming an obnoxious jock. His early 20s were full of crappy jobs and gonzo hijinks with buddies whose existences appeared to center around getting wasted and peeing on stuff. Carolla admits his love for lighting farts and recreational flatulence in general, gaseous coming-of-age hobbies that, not surprisingly, proved useful in his first gig as a host on Loveline in the mid-’90s. He got his big TV showbiz break when he met established comic Jimmy Kimmel and created the Man Show; next thing he knew, he was making serious dough and living in a house in the Hollywood Hills. The first half of the book showcases Carolla’s unrelenting bitching about all the manual-labor jobs he toiled in; the next chronicles his firsthand discovery that Hollywood success pretty much sucks too—except now he can pay his bills and doesn’t have to share his apartment with someone who isn’t a hot chick.
Another full-on blitz of 40-something white-male rage, lightened very little by the occasional potty-humor anecdote.Pub Date: June 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-88887-7
Page Count: 327
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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