Satire Books - Page 4

Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter

Steve Dublanica Aka The Waiter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 155 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A fascinating read 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

In "Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter," Steve Dublanica chronicled his life working as a waiter in a high end restaurant. The author wrote about the challenges of being a waiter, with its irregular hours, inconsistent pay, and the difficulties of satisfying customers. This read like a memoir, and the author started the book by explaining how he became a professional waiter.

It was a fascinating read for me as the author provided gossips and information from the front end of the restaurant, unlike Anthony Bourdain who provided the perspective of the kitchen staff. It was just interesting to learn about how the restaurant business work, and life from the waiter's perspective. The writing was clear and conversational, which makes this a quick and fun read. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

According to The Waiter, eighty percent of customers are nice people just looking for something to eat. The remaining twenty percent, however, are socially maladjusted psychopaths. Waiter Rant offers the server's unique point of view, replete with tales of customer stupidity, arrogant misbehavior, and unseen bits of human grace transpiring in the most unlikely places. Through outrageous stories, The Waiter reveals the secrets to getting good service, proper tipping etiquette, and how to keep him from spitting in your food. The Waiter also shares his ongoing struggle, at age thirty-eight, to figure out if he can finally leave the first job at which he's truly thrived.

The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World's Greatest Human

Ian Spector

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The lowdown on the toughest, sexiest, and beardiest man to ever stalk the earth

Since its emergence from the bowels of the internet, the Chuck Norris Fact has roundhouse kicked its way into the world’s consciousness with all the vim and verve of its namesake. Singing the praises of his unequaled toughness, his mighty kicking feet, his indestructible beard, his frightening virility, and his ability to stop time by thinking about pineapples, The Truth About Chuck Norris is the one book brave enough to go behind the beard and reveal the real Chuck.

Ian Spector, webmaster of the site which started the meme and survivor of a real-life encounter with Chuck himself, has selected the 400 most kick-ass facts from his library of thousands, as well as illustrations as awesome as the man himself. This death-defying volume includes such awe-inspiring observations as:
• A cobra once bit Chuck Norris’s leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
• Chuck Norris can charge a cell phone by rubbing it against his beard.
• When an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger” aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris just to be on the safe side.

• Chuck Norris was the first person to tame a dinosaur.
• Chuck Norris once visited The Virgin Islands. Afterward, they were renamed The Islands.
• Every piece of furniture in Chuck Norris’s house is a Total Gym.

A must-have paean to the archetypical American male and a bible of all things Chuck, The Truth About Chuck Norris is easily the most important book of all time.

Survivor (Unabridged)

Chuck Palahniuk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 386 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Survivor: A Novel 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk *****

Survivor is the story of where it all went wrong. The point in our lives where we have all had choices to make. The choices that affect the rest of our lives. Survivor is the search for something far and something big, maybe something bigger than all of us, it is one mans search for something true.

In this apocalyptic tale Tendor Branson relives his entire live in an attempt to find closure. As he retells his story of servitude, and his survival from the same things that constrict us all we realize the things that are actually important and the emphasis we put on somethings just isn't worth it.

Survivor was UpChuck's second novel and possibly his best. Written with great literary prose and clever anecdotes it is both his most uplifting and insightful, as well as his most humoured and comical. Chuck Palahniuk did it again with Survivor.

Editorial Review:

Tender Branson, the last surviving member of the Creedish death cult, has commandeered a Boeing 747, emptied of passengers, in order to tell his story to the plane's black box before it crashes. Brought up by the repressive cult and, like all Creedish younger sons, hired out as a domestic servant, Tender finds himself suddenly famous when his fellow cult members all commit suicide. As media messiah, he ascends to the very top of the freak-show heap before finally and apocalyptically spiralling out of control.

Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 375 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The master of Cat's Cradle 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The cat's cradle is an extraordinary tale about the extent of human limitations when incompatibilities exist between the goals of science and humanity. Vonnegut created another masterpiece that describes the dangers of human science when mixed with their desires and lewdness.

John, the narrator, is writing a book about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and in the process of his research discovers the life of Felix Hoenikker, the Nobel prize-winning physicist and one of the creators of the atomic bomb.

Similar to walking through a hilarious human maze, we are taken to San Lorenzo; a town were Hoenikker's two sons and daughter live and ignorantly use their father's last invention causing another world wide human disaster.
Vonnegut brilliantly shows human limitations and foolishness with his description of an imaginary religion called Bokononism, which originated and blossomed in San Lorenzo.

Vonnegut, who survived the cruelty of war and faced life's emptiness, is one of the few writers who can laugh at the human inability to reconcile the inherent conflict of science's power and capabilities with the needs and limitations of humanity.

Editorial Review:

One of Vonnegut's major works, this is an apocalyptic tale of the planet's ultimate fate, featuring a cast of unlikely heroes.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

Oliver W. Sacks

List Price: $16.95 By: Summit Books Amazon Marketplace: 58 new & used starting at $0.05

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 112 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What the maladaptive can teach us 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

As a graduate student in the field of biology and psychology, I found this to be the perfect blend of both. Although a collection of different case studies in the field of neuropsychology, anyone with even a slight interest in the understanding of the human brain will enjoy this book. Despite a large amount of clinical and science jargon, the book is easy to comprehend. This is a simple book with a straightforward approach of showing normal people what it could be like if they ever had a brain disorder. Dr. Sacks has a great ability in transforming his clinical experiences into something that can be appreciated by the non-clinical individual. He opens up a world that the majority of society would hope to never have to witness in their lives; he is a gatekeeper into a parallel universe. All of these patients physically live in our world but with each different disorder there is another world that can barely be imagined. He is able to capture the "human essence" in every patient even though if we were to see the same patients in a ward or on the street we would never think of them as being similar to you or me. This book is a monument to clinical literature; it is able to emotionally move us and question the happiness we have in our lives. The beauty of Dr. Sacks literature, is that he makes us value and appreciate the small and everyday things in our life.
The book is split up into four sections; each is a different realm of disorders: losses, excesses, transports, and the world of the simple. In the first section of the book, `Losses', Sacks explores deficits, the subject that most think of when told that someone they know has a disorder. In deficits, individuals lose the ability of certain cognitive tasks that we take for granted. Sacks investigates several types of losses; the most prominent of which are agnosias, aphasias, apraxias, and of course amnesia. Each loss affects the individual differently; sometimes they are able to cope and other times the experience is pure horror. The second section of the book addresses excesses. The patients in this section are the "hypers" and generally are in some sort of excited stage. Although alert and on point closer observation finds that it is not a state in which they wish to be . It takes a lot out of a patient to always be "on the go." The third section deals with transports, dreamy states that can occur. These individuals are always reminiscing or remembering a moment in their lives; sometimes it is an unwanted image, sometimes a pleasant memory. For some it has become a blessing but for others a curse. The fourth section identifies the world of the simple, an appropriate title because the patients found in this section all have IQs below sixty. By contemporary standards of society, that would make these individuals mentally retarded. However, Sacks actually learns from each of these patients to look beyond the struggles and obstacles they face. They teach him that the small pleasures of life make one happy such as music, numbers, drawing; and other forms of expression. Sacks learns that not everyone needs to communicate through words.
The structure of this book is quite straightforward; Sacks tells his stories of interesting clinical tales in the field of neuropsychology and writes them in a book that can be read by the non-clinical individuals. I enjoy the set up of each section because he introduces each section explaining the general problem. Each chapter is the story of a patient and how he overcame his disability or what happened to the patient after his meeting with Dr.Sacks.
This book is a great example of the medical community trying to reach out to the everyday reader. Although each actual diagnosis may be complicated for a non-medical reader to understand, each underlying problem is quite easy to comprehend when broken down. That is why Sacks is such a great writer; he gives both sides of the story and he gives the actual medical problem. Then he goes back and explains what the disorder actually disrupts in the patient's brain. He is able to show what everyday functions are lost and why the problem is a nuisance to the individual. I am impressed that Sacks was able to group the disorders in the way that he did. Not only does this book explain the biology behind the problem, but he even goes into the methodology that he uses to diagnosis his patients. Although, he may have the best technology and pharmaceuticals at his beck and call, by simply listening to his patients and understanding their problem he is actually better suited in helping them.
The only thing that I did not like was that he would reference another patient from one of his other books that has a similar disorder. This was a bit confusing because sometimes I would not realize which patient he was talking about. I liked the proportion of the stories to each section. It showed which disorders are more prominent and common within neurological disorders.
I preferred the stories in which Sacks got to really know and understand his patient. There were some stories that were quite short where it mostly just gave a diagnosis and then the patient was never heard of again. I understand that Sacks wanted to give the reader a broad spectrum of different neurological disorders. However, the more personal stories were more heartfelt and showed the pain and frustration of the patient living with the problem.
Also, it would have been more interesting for the reader if Sacks had follow-up appointments with the patients that we knew so well. As a neurologist he had no obligation to do so after the primary diagnosis. But it would be fascinating to see how these individuals are able to live their lives, especially in the case of patients whose lives were greatly affected. I wish that Sacks would have added more stories to the book overall, but that would have been too many stories to compile. In the greater scheme of things there is almost nothing for me to change. This book has fueled my passion for neuropsychology even more. I am grateful for a physician from my projected field of study to write such a wonderful book.
In the following quote Sacks is able to show is joy and pride of being a physician. It clearly shows the love and passion that he has for his patients. As a neurologist he does not always want to be the one giving the answer straightforward. Some times it is nice to see if the patient is given all of the puzzle pieces can they figure out the final picture.

"I love to see: a patient in the actual moment of discovery- half appalled, half amused- seeing for the first time exactly what is wrong and, in the same moment, exactly what there is to be done. This is the therapeutic moment."
Losses section On the Level

From this quote Sacks is trying to show the reader what each patient must endure with their sickness. Even though each disorder causes the patients to deal with life in a way they probably never imagined, it causes them to be a stronger individual.

"Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit."
Excess section Witty Ticcy Ray


Lastly is a quote that captures what Sacks is trying to explain to his reader about the neurologically impaired. We must not look at each patient's problem but who they are as an individual.

"She had come apart, horribly, in formal testing, but now she was mysteriously `together' and composed."
The World of the Simple section Rebecca

Overall this has been one of the best non-fiction case study books that I have ever read. It is not a complicated read. On the other hand, Sacks purposely tries to write it in such a way that the majority of individuals can just pick it up and read it. Sacks is able to teach his readers the value of everyday cognitive processes. Things that we take for granted such as remembering our family or being able to do things independently are lost for some of these patients. He is able to show us the life struggle that all of his patients must suffer. Sometimes they want to give up but for some reason they keep treading. The book illustrates the emotion and hardship of living in a world that one cannot escape. Many of the patients feel trapped and taken over by their disorders. But with faith and the help of modern medicine many of these patients are able to overcome the disorder and lead a fairly normal life. This is a book of the trials of the human spirit and the amazing power of the brain.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the brain and how the mind works or for individuals who are studying in the field of neuroscience or psychology. This is a great find. Although some of the reading may be a bit too clinical or scientific, but the main concept is still easy to obtain; or if you just want an emotional rollercoaster, you should definitely pick up this book.

Editorial Review:

A major bestseller and already acclaimed as a science classic, this collection of 20 true tales of individuals stricken with astonishing neurological disorders has sold over 70,000 copies. (Pscyhology)

The Devious Book for Cats: A Parody

Joe Garden, Janet Ginsburg, Chris Pauls, Anita Serwacki, Scott Sherman

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Villard Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $9.30

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Laugh-out-loud funny 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Over the years I've read many supposed-to-be-funny-and-clever little books about cats. This is because I live with a lot of cats and a lot of books, and people tend to think that if you like books and cats, then you certainly must find any book with "cat" in the title to be of significant interest. As a result, birthdays and holidays around here often end up looking like a collection site for a charity book sale drive.

And a lot of those little cat books DO end up going to charity, because frankly, quite a few are neither all that clever nor all that funny, in my opinion. There have been exceptions, but they are just that -- exceptions.

The Devious Book for Cats is one such exception. I received it the other day, and just flipping through and reading random sections left me laughing out loud. Really loud. Quite a few times. Given the current state of the economy and soaring prices for cat food and litter, I must tell you that I have not been in much of a laughing mood lately. The catnip budget around here has suffered quite a bit in recent months, just trying to put kibble on the table, you know. So this book is a welcome mood-brightener.

I like this book so much in fact, that I am ordering several more copies to send as holiday gifts. Anyone familiar with the feline lifestyle should find this book entertaining. The authors, Fluffy and Bonkers, have written an unusually creative, original and inventive guidebook.

And even though I am extremely busy these days watching birds out the window and napping, I am going to sit down on that book and absorb it more fully at my first opportunity.

Editorial Review:

Cats have nine lives. Shouldn’t they be lived to the fullest?

“Domesticated” does not mean “docile.” The ho-hum routine of sleep, eat, eat, and sleep is no way for any creature who ruled Egypt for a millennium to spend her day. It’s high time felines everywhere woke up from their cat naps and grabbed life’s strings with both paws.

The Devious Book for Cats offers today’s discerning kitties words of wisdom and advice on everything they need to know, from in-depth guides on cardboard boxes and catnip to a brief history of the Felinism movement. It provides fail-safe tips on waking a human when you want to get fed, choosing the purr-fect gift, staring like a pro, and making the most of superstitions. It also explains the undeniable allure of the Window, the terrifying specter of the Vacuum, and how you can groom properly in just the scant twenty-four hours allotted each day.

Cats: Discover the devious fun you can have when you’re the one in charge!

Training People: How to Bring Out the Best in Your Human

Tess of Helena

Amazon Price: $13.45 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 9 to 12 days By: Chronicle Books Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $8.82

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perfect Dog - Human Book 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Very funny book, and unique perspective on the dog-human relationship. Had me laughing out loud in several sections, especially as my own dog has trained me on some of Tess's same lessons. Also insightful to many human quirks, and how our habits are viewed from the dogs' perspective. Great gift for dog lovers, and keep one for yourself.

Too True 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This book is a tell all. Tess, a lab owned by Brian Kahn exposes the way she shamefully manipulates him. She shares all the well know secrets and some not so well known about how dogs, under the guise of being pleasers in fact run the homes they live in.

I must concede she does so with wit and charm. This is a fun book.

Editorial Review:

For centuries, dogs have known that they, not humans, run the show. But not all dogs know how to get the best from their people. Finally, from the leading expert in the field comes a straightforward, easy-to-use manual that's written for dogs by a dog. This indispensable reference provides foolproof advice on obtaining everything a dog deserves, from the best food and exercise to grooming and chauffeur services. Here are all the tools a dog needs for selecting, training, and living with a well-behaved human.

Passive Aggressive Notes: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Writings

Kerry Miller

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Book Description
Part voyeuristic entertainment, part group therapy, Passive Aggressive Notes offers a fascinating look at the all-too-familiar frustrations of embattled office drones, apartment dwellers, parents, and pet owners everywhere.

This curated collection combines dozens of outrageous, never-before-seen notes as well as favorites from Passiveaggressivenotes.com a 2008 Webby Award Winner and the official "Best Blog" of the South by Southwest Interactive festival.

A Note from the Author

It all began with a first date...and not a particularly good date, either. Apparently, things between this guy and his roommate had gotten so bad that they now communicated almost exclusively via Post-it note. Ah, yes, I said, I know those notes well--my current apartment (where I lived with three other roommates) had seen its share, most of them about the presence of unwashed dishes in the sink. They were usually signed with love; they were never addressed directly. I should start collecting them, I joked--put them on the Internet or something. Now that would be passive-aggressive.

Later that night--after it became clear that our relationship wasn't going to progress beyond standard small talk--I decided to do just that. And unlike my roommates' approach to dish-washing, the response to passiveaggressivenotes.com was enthusiastic, immediate, and overwhelming. Within weeks of the site's launch, thousands of notes poured in from shared bathrooms, kitchens, cubicles, and parking lots. (Wrote one reader: "Instead of a single note, can I submit an entire person? Like my mother?") This book represents the funniest and most outrageous of those submissions.

Despite the book's title, some of these notes are really more aggressive in tone, and some of them are more passive--polite, even. What they all share a common sense of frustration that's been channeled into written form rather than a direct confrontation. It's barbed criticism disguised as something else--helpful advice, friendly concern, light-hearted humor. But as Dr. Scott Wetzler, a clinical psychologist and author of Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man, observed: "A joke can be the most skillful passive-aggressive act there is."

--Kerry Miller

A Look Inside Passive Aggressive Notes
(Click on Images to Enlarge)

Dear Stalker	Get a Life
You Fail	Conscious Sense of Things

A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess

List Price: $14.95 By: W W Norton & Co Inc Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $27.15

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 619 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good but have to work to get into 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is very good. It hass undertones as to the situations that are presented in society now even though it was written so long ago. The disregard of youth for the laws that are put in place to protect them and ourselves leads to their inability to function in society and their eventual decomposition to vagrants that put weight on the already weighted prison system. Upon finding a seemingly just punishment and solution the spin doctors find a way not only to persecute the "afflicted" youth but also use it to defeat their own enemies. Very good book however the slang that he was praised for using and developing was very difficult to get into. It actually made me not want to read it at first but getting into it and eventually learning it allowed me to really enjoy the read.

Editorial Review:

In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends rob, rape, torture and murder - for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious crimes and the State undertakes to reform him - but how and at what cost?

The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport

Carl Hiaasen

Amazon Price: $14.96 List Price: $22.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Knopf Amazon Marketplace: 79 new & used starting at $6.95

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Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Ever wonder how to retrieve a sunken golf cart from a snake-infested lake? Or which club in your bag is best suited for combat against a horde of rats? If these and other sporting questions are gnawing at you, The Downhill Lie, Carl Hiaasen’s hilarious confessional about returning to the fairways after a thirty-two-year absence, is definitely the book for you.

Originally drawn to the game by his father, Carl wisely quit golfing in 1973, when “Richard Nixon was hunkered down like a meth-crazed badger in the White House, Hank Aaron was one dinger shy of Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record, and The Who had just released Quadrophenia.” But some ambitions refuse to die, and as the years—and memories of shanked 7-irons—faded, it dawned on Carl that there might be one thing in life he could do better in middle age than he could as a youth. So gradually he ventured back to the dreaded driving range, this time as the father of a five-year-old son—and also as a grandfather.

“What possesses a man to return in midlife to a game at which he’d never excelled in his prime, and which in fact had dealt him mostly failure, angst and exasperation? Here’s why I did it: I’m one sick bastard.”

And thus we have Carl’s foray into a world of baffling titanium technology, high-priced golf gurus, bizarre infomercial gimmicks and the mind-bending phenomenon of Tiger Woods; a maddening universe of hooks and slices where Carl ultimately—and foolishly—agrees to compete in a country-club tournament against players who can actually hit the ball. “That’s the secret of the sport’s infernal seduction,” he writes. “It surrenders just enough good shots to let you talk yourself out of quitting.”

Hiaasen’s chronicle of his shaky return to this bedeviling pastime and the ensuing demolition of his self-esteem—culminating with the savage 45-hole tournament—will have you rolling with laughter. Yet the bittersweet memories of playing with his own father and the glow he feels when watching his own young son belt the ball down the fairway will also touch your heart. Forget Tiger, Phil and Ernie. If you want to understand the true lure of golf, turn to Carl Hiaasen, who has written an extraordinary book for the ordinary hacker.