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Title: Oh, the Things I Know!: A Guide to Success, Or, Failing That, Happiness by Al Franken ISBN: 0-452-28450-3 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (54 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Tongue-in-cheek advice for just about anybody
Comment: Read Al Franken's OH, THE THINGS I KNOW! . . . it contains
tongue-in-cheek advice for just about anybody, ranging from
those about to start work ("Oh, Are You Going to Hate Your
First Job!") to the golden years of senior citizenship ("Oh,
the Nursing Home You'll Wind Up In!").
Franken tries to be helpful, but sometimes he can't help
telling it like it REALLY is . . . for instance, he notes, "Someone once said it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich person as with a poor one. Actually that's not true. It's easier to fall in love with a rich person. But to get them to love you back, that's harder."
My only regret is that he just wrote the book . . . had he
written it earlier, I could have avoided the oh-so-many mistakes that I've made in my life.
Some of Franken's wit and wisdom falls flat, but overall, I laughed at several passages . . . among them:
[on investing] Follow your gut! If you find yourself using a product, invest in it. You see, I wasn't using Enron, but I was using Bounty towels. Had I made an equivalent investment in Bounty's manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, I would have reaped a
disappointing, but respectable, 3 percent return rather than
suffering a 99.8 percent loss.
[on dieting] Do you really need that pork chop? No. Especially
since you didn't even order it, and it's on the plate of the person next to you. Resist the urge to take food off the plates of other people in restaurants. Or, if you must, at least ask, "Are you going to finish that?"
[on getting along with his wife] Another secret to our long
and successful accommodation is a little trick we have for
smoothing over the many rough patches. It's very simple but
very effective. We don't go to bed angry. We stay up and fight!
Rating: 5
Summary: Oh, satirist Al Franken gets BETTER AND BETTER!
Comment: If Dr. Suess could order from Amazon.com from where he is now, he would be rolling -- with laughter -- in his grave. Al Franken spoofs the title of The Doctor's hit book and sticks it to the many self-help and inspirational books along the way.
Franken is the early 21st century's perfect satirist, mixing late 20th century irony with HUGE vaudevillian, television and comedy club-style belly laughs. I liked this book better than his most popular book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Franken's genius is that he never overexposes himself so each book is a deliciously fresh comedy morsel -- and he keeps getting better, more perceptive and FUNNIER.
The laughs start early, when he talks about his pipe-smoking, good-humored father and how "this quantity time spent with my father, laughing and coughing phlegm...inspired me in choosing my life's work: making people laugh and raising money for the American Lung Association."
Chapter titles are hilarious. Among the many: "OH! The People You Must Trample to Get Ahead!" "Oh! The Weight You Will Gain," etc. He throws in heaping helping of advice on such wide-ranging matters as sex, home ownership, religion, idiot bosses,
marriage, politicians, international long distance phone calls (complete with area code list)-- and Northern Canada.
He constantly lampoons tiresome exercises many self-help books have at the end of chapters. At the end of his chapter on advice he tells readers to make a list each night of all advice
given and gotten and at the end of a year "take a day to go through your 365 advice lists."He offers observations, such as how people don't change: "The person you marry will be the same person you will want to murder five, ten or twenty years hence.."
And it's worth the price of the book to read his MANY (many more than can be quoted here!)running-gag references to people such as Oprah, fired Enron CEO Kenneth Lay ("If an investment sounds too good to be true, Kenneth Lay is probably involved.") and Maria Shriver ("If I wanted something to read that didn't make any sense, I'd just read Maria Shriver's book.").
And what about conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, who provided him with considerable material (and a title) for a best-selling book? In an extensive section Franken offers this (limited) olive branch: "When I wrote a book calling him a big fat idiot, he lost weight and became slightly more accurate."
Rating: 3
Summary: Pretty Good
Comment: Some of his insights are very good, but I still cannot believe this guy has his own liberal radio show, that is supposed to be serious opposition to Rush or Sean Hannity. He is in some ways a disgrace to liberals, because he makes fun of everything. Any serious attempt to have a liberal side to talk radio should include a more serious approach. Franken is a clown, and he is very funny..but he doesn't belong in politics.
Jeffrey McAndrew
author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"
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Title: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken ISBN: 0525947647 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 29 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot by Al Franken ISBN: 0440508649 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 12 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Why Not Me? by AL FRANKEN ISBN: 0385334540 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 08 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart ISBN: 0688171621 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 06 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Bushwhacked : Life in George W. Bush's America by LOU DUBOSE, MOLLY IVINS ISBN: 0375507523 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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