Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus

Dave Barry

Aug 2009 · Sold by Ballantine Books

About this ebook

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, bestselling author, and Wheel of Fortune contestant Dave Barry exposes the shattering truth. Whether he's splashing with the U.S. sychronized swim team ("Picture a bunch of elegant swans swimming with a flailing sea cow") or reliving the Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving ("We've decided to obliterate your culture, but first may we try the stuffing?"), Dave Barry proves that one man can make a difference--by having the guts to answer the questions few people bother to ask:

¸  What makes people want to eat animals they would never consider petting?
¸  Where do the World's Three Most Boring People meet?
¸  Why is Colorado freezing so many human gonads?
¸  And just how does Oprah have the power to turn a 1957 Hotpoint toaster manual into a #1 bestseller?

Ratings and reviews

Some of this is funny and some not so funny. Dave was about 49 when he published this book, and his son was 15, getting his driver's license. Dave is feeling old, as many Baby Boomers, his generation, were beginning to feel just around that time, so he begins to look at things from a different viewpoint. These are columns he wrote. Many are based on odd newspaper clippings sent to him by his readers from all over the country. For example, from Rancho Cucamonga, California, comes a story about using super-glue to shut turkey rectums, so that, I think, the turkey's waste won't go into a Thanksgiving dinner. It's pretty funny, but I had already read about this in another of Dave's books. I'm reading them in reverse chronological order, so maybe that's not the right way to catch up on his past books. Anyway, I only laughed out loud maybe two or three times on this one, as opposed to constantly laughing out loud on some of his later works (though not the novels, which to me were not funny at all). Dave considers himself a humor writer, but as a wise person once noted, comics and humorists are really some of the saddest people alive. Dave fits this category. He has a lot of pent up anger that comes out as humor. At the same time, he can readily admit that writers, and he includes all writers, are like prostitutes. He says this in the context of his appearance on Oprah Winfrey's television program. Dave says he would have done anything to be on the show. And so would all other writers (he mentions Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates). I believe he's correct. He says on the last page that he does whatever he must to sell books because it gives him a living at something he loves to do. I think most writers are in this same position. The sad part is they have a certain image to uphold to the public, whether humorist, serious writer, mystery writer, and so forth. But, because of their dependence on the approval of the public, they can never really be themselves. I'm not sure Dave sees this entirely, but I think he does. In many ways, I'm glad that I have no public reputation to uphold (I have no fame, not even the so-called ten minutes worth). I can always be myself. Public recognition really can be a burden, no matter how the reputation is gained, through writing, music, athletics, even science. But with all that, Dave does do the public a service by helping them to laugh at themselves.

About the author

From 1983 to 2004, Dave Barry wrote a weekly humor column for The Miami Herald, which in 1988 won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He is the author of more than thirty books, including such bestsellers as the nonfiction Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer Is Much Faster), You Can Date Boys When You're Forty, and I'll Mature When I'm Dead; the novels Big Trouble, Tricky Business, and Insane City; the very successful YA Peter Pan novels (with Ridley Pearson); and his Christmas story The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog. Two of his books—Big Trouble and Dave Barry's Guide to Guys—have been turned into movies. For a while, his life was even a television series, Dave's World, but then it was canceled. The series. Not the life. For many years, Dave was also a guitarist with the late, infamous, and strangely unlamented band the Rock Bottom Remainders.