Fans of Parks and Recreation and Offerman’s brand of deadpan humor are sure to gorge themselves on the healthy portion he...
An actor’s comedic memoir and how-to guide for enjoyable living in the modern era.
In his debut book, actor Offerman—best known for his role as the carnivorous, hypermasculine Ron Swanson on NBC’s Parks and Recreation—summons his inner Swanson when writing of his principles for “Delicious Living.” For the author, living deliciously means dedicating more than a few pages to the wonder of meat (“If there is a God, no part of the Bible or Christian doctrine will convince me of his existence half as much as the flavor of a barbecued pork rib”), though he tackles more serious subjects as well: religion, love, friendship and the value of hard work. In a particularly prickly chapter entitled “Assholes” (in which he tackles everything from slavery to lobbyists), Offerman becomes acutely aware of his balancing act between comic and curmudgeon. “But wait, I thought this book was a lighthearted look at living one’s life deliciously?” he writes. “That’s all well and good, fat boy, but you cannot just blithely drift through life in your canoe whilst turning a blind eye to the bullshit going on around you.” Though he deems himself the “average meat, potatoes, and corn-fed human male,” his Go-West-young-man story is anything but average. From his humble roots as a pig poop–shoveling youth to his rise as a beloved actor, Offerman’s story embodies the tenets of the American dream, complete with a few more moustache jokes. Wavering between finger-shaking admonishments toward society’s ills and songs of praise for self-reliance, Offerman offers plenty of laughs, though a few head scratches as well.
Fans of Parks and Recreation and Offerman’s brand of deadpan humor are sure to gorge themselves on the healthy portion he provides.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-525-95421-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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