Though this represents the first volume in the Odenkirk Memorial Library, it isn’t likely that the author will abandon his...
A humor collection from the postmodern jack of many trades.
The creator and star of the cult TV favorite Mr. Show, Odenkirk (co-author: Hollywood Said No!, 2013) reached a larger audience with his dramatic role in Breaking Bad and has written for both Saturday Night Live and the New Yorker. There is plenty here that the latter would never print, particularly in its more fastidious days—e.g., the opening “One Should Never Read a Book on the Toilet,” addressed to students at a young women’s finishing school and advising that there “are appropriate postures for both reading and for defecating, and neither is compatible with the other.” Addressing a particular public is one of the collection’s recurring motifs, encompassing the obligatory commencement speech, the attempts by various politicians to come clean with particularly embarrassing revelations (“The media will, no doubt, suggest that there is something weird about me wearing a blindfold while having sex with two people I’d met a few hours before, but I assure you I was on Ecstasy and would have tried almost anything”) and, most audaciously, “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Worst Speech Ever.” Odenkirk takes the concept of sacred cows to greater extremes as the butt of his humor, returning repeatedly to Jesus (or “a fairy tale about someone named ‘Jeebus’ ”). And there are some fairly funny pieces on fairly easy targets, including consumer reviews for the likes of Amazon (“This album aspires to claptrap. No wonder they refused to put their faces on it!! Now I know why it has no title and is called ‘The White Album’—because you can’t put the word ‘SHIT’ on the cover of a record album”) and a BFF’s character testimonial for Phil Spector (“he has enriched my world with music, good conversation, and gunshots”).
Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-938073-88-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: McSweeney’s
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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