Books that make me laugh out loud.

That's just samples from my favorite humorous books writers.

 

I got a bigger list. Some books are not meant to be funny, but got funny bits. 

 

I like them all. We all need humors, at least some of the time. 

 

 

Literary Crush could mean liking a writer so much that I would act like a fan, who not only want to read the book, but take picture with the writer too. Also might follow the writer in the Twitter account and see what they are doing.

 

My first crush is for Edmund White, who wrote really good book about coming to age gay man and his sexuality. He is gay himself and made a good impression on me as a teenager.

 

The second one is with Douglas Coupland who wrote really interesting books that I thin represent my generation. 

 

The third one is with Douglas Adams who let me laugh so hard that I could re-read his books and still laugh out loud. 

 

The odd one is with P. J. O'Rourke, who is on the other side of my political spectrum. But he was right on the mark on something and he is witty as well.

 

Stephen Fry came in much later as a crush. But I met him and he is witty and nice. 

 

As a virtual literary crush, a crush on character, who wouldn't like Lestat created by Anne Rice. I like him and want to be him at the same time, as a teenager. 

 

Lee Child also created a character that a lot of people like, Jack Reacher is tough and straight forward. This character is much easier to deal. 

 

How come no woman character? Well, I only like strong character that doesn't confuse mean as tough, and rude as strong. This hasn't happen yet, probably because I dislike women novels that are only about "relationship". I read some of those and I like it as a "balance" read. But I couldn't really say I like them that much. 

 

The "almost" exception is with Thursday Next. I like her a lot. Not yet a crush. But almost. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Moving my conversation with Thirteenth Peer to this review]

Peer: I propose we boycott Manny till he returns his content to the community that fostered him with our "likes". Let's hit him where it hurts and refuse to "like" any more of his reviews and even remove our old "likes"!

Me: Peer, I respect your opinions, but I am collecting my favorite reviews and preserving them where our new corporate masters are unable to tamper with them. They are available as nicely formatted PDFs or as printed books. I am just asking for a few dollars to recompense me for the time my editor and I have invested.

I strongly encourage others to do the same thing. There are plenty of people on this site whose reviews I would be prepared to buy on similar terms.

Peer: Manny, as I see it you already had collected and preserved your favorite reviews by making your book. (Of course the same functions could be accomplished by simply copying to your own harddrive or even printing them out.). I think it's cool that you decided to make a book out of them and I certainly don't object to you charging a few dollars.

On the other hand it really kind of bothers me that you put up a "pay wall" where your reviews are no longer accessible to people like me. That seems to me a separate issue from the gr amazon deal making.

Now I will be clear, it's not my business really what you choose to do. On the other hand as someone who has looked up to you and appreciated your contributions to the community, I'm having a "Say it ain't so Joe" moment with you using the amazon acquisition as a pretext to "monetize" your writings.

I certainly feel some sense of betrayal due to the amazon acquisition of gr. on the other hand I'm still thinking about what it means to me and have been reading other people's postings on the topic with interest. I would certainly like to hear your opinions on the topic as well. But I wanted to register with you personally my feeling of disappointment with your choice.

Me: Peer, it's very hard to know what the right thing is to do in a situation like this. It appears that we've all been transformed into commodities: the site has been valued based on the number of members. I do not see any way of turning the clock back.

One sensible thing to do would be to leave, and several people I respect, e.g. notgettingenough and BirdBrian, have done that. I am trying a different approach: accepting that it's now a commercially run site, and being commercial myself.

I am not taking a very tough line here. I post my reviews openly as I always have done, but sometimes I may remove them later and leave links to a version which you can purchase for a small amount of money. If people want, they are free to download my reviews themselves while they are up. I imagine, though, that it will generally be simpler to pay a few dollars and let me do a hundred or so at once.

This is basically a way to feel like I am less of a sucker. I have helped create value here, and some people are making plenty of money out of it. I am making a token protest to the effect that I would also like to be paid. I'm trying to do that in as neutral a way as possible.

As I said, I encourage other people to do the same. There are quite a few people here whose work I would be happy to buy on similar terms. I am curious to see what happens if a large number of members start doing this. I imagine looking at the bookcase in the living room and seeing a shelf and a half of nicely formatted "best-of" collections which my friends here had published, and I kind of like it. You know, old-fashioned paper books instead of bytes on a server controlled by some impersonal multinational.

Mind you, I'm sure Amazon would prefer it if everyone meekly accepted the new status quo and carried on as before.

Dull. Not particularly amusing or interesting. The problem with a character who lacks empathy is that you have to be a very good writer to make them likeable in any way. Kane is not a very good writer and I was bored of Benjamin White by about page 30. After a few more pages of Kane's torturous similes that don't work and his overly long sentences moving nothing forward, I wanted to put this book in the bin.

Despite the blurb going on about his "First Class Honours Degree", and job as a copy writing manager, which seems a rather crass way to market someone as a legitimate author (perhaps the story should be the focus of the marketing spiel?), this just seemed to be a bit of pointless navel gazing about comedy by a comedian. There's a lesson in there somewhere for people who think their job is interesting enough to base a book on. To many people, it isnt.

At no point did I feel attached to any of the characters or the story and I'm afraid I can't recommend it.