Comments on: Lucky Me http://blog.booklistonline.com/2006/04/17/lucky-me/ Behind the Book Reviews--The Official Blog of Booklist Online Sat, 30 Mar 2013 16:38:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Five Minutes a Day http://blog.booklistonline.com/2006/04/17/lucky-me/comment-page-1/#comment-234 Likely Stories » Blog Archive » Five Minutes a Day Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:51:31 +0000 http://blog.booklistonline.com/?p=297#comment-234 [...] It’s written in a fun, semiformal, old-fashioned voice that I find very appealing. Chapter titles include: “Bedtime: Is Five-thirty Too Early?”; “Screaming: Is It Necessary?”; “Child Labor: Not Just for the Third World”; “‘Children’s Music’: Why?”; and so forth. I highly, highly recommend this as a gift for new parents. (I received two myself and I cherish both of them.) [...]

]]> By: Bill ott http://blog.booklistonline.com/2006/04/17/lucky-me/comment-page-1/#comment-115 Bill ott Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://blog.booklistonline.com/?p=297#comment-115 My favorite academic satires: Richard Russo’s Straight Man and Michael Malone’s Foolscap. But there are so many others I’m not thinking of at the moment. Like the early volumes of Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time, for example, the books that deal with Nick Jenkins’ Oxford years-but those are somehow beyond satire while still very, very funny.

Bill Ott

]]> By: Keir http://blog.booklistonline.com/2006/04/17/lucky-me/comment-page-1/#comment-116 Keir Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://blog.booklistonline.com/?p=297#comment-116 My friend Rob has recommended that I read Straight Man. Maybe it’s time for me to get off my duff and borrow his copy.

]]> By: Robert http://blog.booklistonline.com/2006/04/17/lucky-me/comment-page-1/#comment-117 Robert Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://blog.booklistonline.com/?p=297#comment-117 Alleged friend Rob here. I love all Russo’s work, but the memory of Straight Man lingers most of all. The comedy’s so broad it’s like a Marx Brothers movie. It’s a silly, silly book, but deeply humane. Actually, White Noise is somewhat in the same vein, no? The animal pleasures of a good home and idiot friends and provincialism and the posture of intellectualism and pig-headed-yet-impotent machismo and a full ice box and the mellowness of middle age and a stubborn/terrific spouse and a deep understanding of the cosmic comedy of it all. All of this speaks to me. I don’t really envy the dudes 10 years younger than I am, and it’s these kinds of books that show me why. More and more, I walk down the street and just giggle at everyone. I believe I’ll borrow Amis when Keir’s done. -ROB

]]> By: Keir http://blog.booklistonline.com/2006/04/17/lucky-me/comment-page-1/#comment-118 Keir Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://blog.booklistonline.com/?p=297#comment-118 Our General Manager Mary Frances Wilkens thought she remembered that Editor-at-Large Joanne Wilkinson had written a Read-alike on academic satires, and lo and behold, there it was. Way back in September 1, 1997 Booklist, the first issue to feature Read-alikes, Joanne and Bill had used a review of Stevie Davies’s Four Dreamers and Emily to recommend John L’Heureux’s Handmaid of Desire, Bernard Malamud’s A New Life, Michael Malone’s Foolscap, Jane Smiley’s Moo, and…wait for it…Richard Russo’s Straight Man. Booklist Online subscribers can read the full thing here (click here for a free 30-day trial).

]]> By: Mock Turtle http://blog.booklistonline.com/2006/04/17/lucky-me/comment-page-1/#comment-119 Mock Turtle Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0000 http://blog.booklistonline.com/?p=297#comment-119 I love James Hynes’s books: The Lecturer’s Tale, Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror … and of course Kings of Infinite Space (actually post-academic satire, as it chronicles the continuing adventures of Paul Trilby from one of the “three tales,” after he flees academe in the wake of that unfortunate business with his wife’s cat). I found them all not only hilarious, but wonderfully creepy.

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