Boogers Are My Beat: More Lies, But Some Actual Journalism!

I purchased this particular book because I wanted the articles about Grand Forks, North Dakota. When I received it and read those specific ones first, then I went back and started at the beginning...and could barely put it down. Mr. Barry is one of our favorite writers and always has us in stitches about some of the things he comes up with. I wish I had his quick wit and fantastic humor. : )

Dave Barry has written and selected an extremely humorous collection of his articles from The Miami Herald. There is a huge margin in difference of quality in Boogers are My Beat than in his initial non fiction books such as Dave Barry's Bad Habits. Boogers are My Beat is one of those rare books that once you start turning the pages you don't want to put down until the back cover. Dave Barry educates his fellow man on a diverse range of topics such as why you can't use the towels hanging in the bathroom, the Salt Lake City Olympics, babies on airlines, North Dakota, Bear in the Big Blue House and cell phones to name just a few. His article written the day after September 11 and one written a year after, about the Philadelphia crashed plane are also included which prove Barry could have been a serious writer if he had pursued that career. Thankfully he didn't because the rest of the book is hysterically funny as is his Carl Hiaasen style fiction novel Tricky Business. Big Trouble isn't bad either. Check them out along with his other non fiction novels as well.

Yes, this book is standard Dave Barry, but that is good, if you like to laugh.The section on the 2000 presidential election is in itself reason enough to buy the book. I'll admit Dave takes aim at some pretty easy targets,such as the infamous "butterfly" ballots, Florida drivers, women's magazines, guest towels, etc.But it works!As you struggle to become capable of inhaling again, you'll whimper, "But that's so TRUUUE!" But buy it. You've got the rest of your life to breathe.

Dave Barry is a silly man. He's a silly man with a Pulitzer. He's a silly man whose Miami Herald column is syndicated in 500 newspapers. His silly work has been transformed into a so-so sitcom and a better-than-average movie. He's the author of 25 silly books, the most recent of which is BOOGERS ARE MY BEAT, a silly title if there ever was one.But none of this is news to the legions of Dave Barry fans, a group to which I will unrepentantly proclaim membership. Silliness, you see, is gold, a rare and desirable commodity, especially now as the world cycles through one of those historically inevitable periods in which pretty much everything stinks. Dave Barry's inspired silliness is a reliable antidote to the virus of bad news, news that is often the result of a different, darker kind of silliness on the part of people who, for reasons that often defy both logic and credulity, occupy positions of power --- political, economic, or otherwise.It's a credit to Barry's skill as a writer that the silliness never overtakes the accuracy of his observations and never obscures the brain behind the gags. Barry twists familiar social, cultural and political issues into funny balloon animals and then smacks them with a length of barbed wire, giggling all the while. To Barry, family life, fatherhood, jobs, marriage, politics, business, and whatever else falls under his gaze is a piñata waiting to be punctured.Barry's columns are consistently funny, but he is truly in the zone when he's on assignment, as demonstrated in BOOGERS ARE MY BEAT with his coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions in 2000 and bizarre end to that year's presidential election. His coverage of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City made me laugh out loud several times while on a city bus, much to the alarm of the other passengers.There have been occasions in his career when Barry has revealed his serious side, and this new collection includes two such examples: a column written the day after the terrorist attacks in September 2001, and another written on the first anniversary of that event. These columns demonstrate his understanding that there is no light without shadow. It is this understanding, perhaps, that drives the relentless silliness of his humor columns. Dave Barry is indeed a silly man, and for that we should be grateful. --- Reviewed by Bob Rhubart

Most Dave Barry fans will have read the contents of this book in the weekly columns, but the stuff is as funny on rereading. The guy is just wonderfully perceptive and has a real knack for anagrams and a genuine concern for rock-and-roll. Replacing his two dogs with his new daughter Sophie brings a refreshing dimension to his work. But I hope he cuts back on Sophie stories about the time she and her playmates learn to read, so that she doesn't become an unwilling celebrity. The book ends with two longer pieces about 9/11 that are quite effective.