5 comments about Dave Barry's Money Secrets: Like: Why Is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar?.

1. Dave Barry is one of the funniest writers of his generation, if occasionally a bit excessively juvenile. This book is extremely funny, if not as funny as "Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up", "Dave Barry Turns 40", "The Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need", "Dave Barry's Book Of Bad Songs" and "Dave Barry's Greatest Hits". It's about on a par with "Dave Barry Slept Here", "Dave Barry Is From Mars & Venus" and "Dave Barry Turns 50", particularly "...Slept Here", in that it does for (to) economics what that book did for (to) history.



2. Recently I read a New York Times movie review where the reviewer started with the comment that since he didn't like the star, he was certain he wouldn't like the movie. He then proceded to rake the flick over the proverbial coals. If that is a valid premise for a review then I should start by saying I like Dave Barry, therefore I will like this book.
   
   Some day Barry will write something that isn't funny, but this isn't it. Oh, I'll grant you that if you don't care for his sometimes heavy handed style you may not laugh out loud as much as I do. But it would still be humorous.
   
   Start with his dedication. "This book is dedicated to all the people in the world, on the theory that they will respond by thinking: 'Wow! A book dedicated to me. I should buy a copy.'" Wish I had thought of that and used it first.
   
   The rest of Money Secrets is a broad satire on the many financial self-help books on the market. He makes his points with lines such as this, "The largest single item in the economy is the Gross National Product, or DNA for short."
   
   One of Barry's strengths is his keen ability to take a subject and work it into more and more diverse and outlandish situations. Okay, Donald Trump is easy to make fun of but you would never imagine the roles he has in this book. While the comparison of Alan Greenspan and Punxsutawney Phil is slightly outdated, it will make you laugh. A final point worth noting is Barry's use of a small Angelina Jolie clip. I have better things to do than count the number of times she appears, but toward the end they're funny in and of themselves.
   
   Dave Barry is a funny man and this is a funny book.



3. The book is funny. Not funny? Yes, it's funny. Dave Barry is playing with you. Read it and you will find out if you have a sense of humor about yourself.
   
   Dave Barry's humor has always had an edge. Don't look for strict belly laughs without reading between the lines. His chapters on Teaching Your Children About Money, Starting Your Own Business, How to Get Rich in Real Estate, on Buying an Older House, etc. etc. are unexpected and offer some great chuckles.
   
   Cheer up. Read the book. Have a laugh at yourself. It's good for your health. (So that's what it is! Maybe it's a health book!)



4. A few of his recent books suggested Dave Barry had lost it. But then came Money Secrets, and it turns out: he hasn't. This is classic Barry at his best, good laughs on every page and a number of brilliant strokes in his own inimitable style. It's a little book, but it's a gem.



5. This book is classic Barry, consistently funny all the way through, including his explanation of why there's a giant eyeball on the dollar. He does take frequent detours from the main topic, such as a lengthy section of travel tips including how to deal with airport security. Some of this material is a bit familiar, but well-done here and very funny. And the money theme does provide a thread running through the book, so it's still appropriately titled.
   
   Dick Hill's narration of the audio edition is almost a bit over the top in places (but then, so is Barry's writing), and is somewhat better suited to Barry's novels. Still, it's not bad here.

5 comments about Dave Barry Does Japan.

1. I like Dave Barry's daily columns. I liked Dave Barry's book. I would read more columns by Dave Barry. I would read more Dave Barry books. Dave Barry is a funny-looking, funny-writing individual. In this book, he, his wife Beth and son Robby travel Japan for three weeks and enjoy the sights, beer, pizza with corn on it, more beer, Japanese hospitality and a difference in attitude and culture from America. I snickered more than I laughed, enjoyed the somber and respectful tone of the chapter on Hiroshima and overall didn't feel like I wasted 3 hours of my life reading the book.



2. If you've ever lived in Japan, like I have, you will find this a bit too light. It was good for a giggle, but that's all. Nothing to take too seriously. I think I finished it in a day or two.



3. ... but at least he admits he's being lazy!
   
   Dave Barry has always struck me as the 'guy' version of Erma Bombeck. You always know when the twist / joke is coming, and a little goes a long way.



4. I got this as an audiobook for a long drive (South Florida to MD) and it was an excellent choice. Some 'place-related' humor can only be appreciated if you have traveled to that place... but Dave Barry's stories of unfamiliar foods and trying to find an address in a city with no street names... those were stand-alone hilarious! I only wish that parts of it did not have "R-rated" language, because I would love to share it with my sons. If you like Dave Barry's style of humor, you will not be disappointed.



5. I'm not a big book-reader, and I never thought a book could be laugh out loud funny until I found Dave Barry. You'll find yourself bursting out with laughter... and then realizing that everyone around you is staring at you, wondering what was is so funny.
   
   One of the best Dave Barry books, and one of the funniest books ever. Short, but amazing. I know nothing about Japan and I'm not planning on going there ever, but it was just great. As with most Dave Barry books, what you'll actually learn from the book is pretty limited.
   
   I also recommend Dave Barry's greatest hits, a compilation of his best articles that he's written for the Miami Herald.

5 comments about Dave Barry's Greatest Hits.

1. My cassette tape version was read by John Ritter who was one of the few people who could actually read Dave Barry correctly - he put the emphasis in the right places and pauses to make the jokes work perfectly.
   
   On to the material -
   
   It was a bit up and down, but mostly up (even the downs weren't down very far). His time-share condo essay is a gem that should be printed off and handed out to people before they go into a time-share condo presentation. His "Diplodocus" essay was funny and touching all at the same time. One of his best ever. The "Can New York Save Itself?" essay was a prime example of Dave taking a joke and running it into the ground. It was mildly amusing but it kept going and going and going and going and ... you get the point.
   
   So, this one gets a B+.



2. I enjoyed this book partly because it is about 80 separate columns in one book. It's easy to skim the titles and choose one that sounds right for your mood. I read it before going to sleep over the course of a couple of months, one or two chapters most evenings. I didn't really read them in any set order and occasionally had to guess if I'd already read the chapter before looking at the first paragraph or two. Some of the stories are "laugh out loud" funny while others are just okay.
   
   It's certainly reasonably priced even if some of the material is a bit dated.
   
   I would recommend this book to any Dave Barry fan.



3. A typical Barry column in this collection is like some Mel Brooks movies I've seen- he throws so much humor (or at least intended humor) at you that even if only 10% of it is funny, you are still laughing at least once or twice per essay. The ideal way to spend time when you are trapped at, say, a haircut appointment or a Greyhound bus (which is where I was when I read this fun little book!)



4. As an Irish person, living in a small town in rainy Ireland, it is unusual to find a book by Dave Barry..(hooray for Amazon). I don't know anyone who has any idea who he is, and why should they.. he is or was(?) a journalist for the Miami Herald, and is a well known funny man in the States, and no singular Irishman or woman has any reason to know of him.. and isn't it a shame. I love funny books. I have some great ones...but Dave is one of the funniest guys I've never met. This book is full of anecdotal ravings and mad perceptions but, you know he is really so funny, you don't care if he talks of giant carnivorous fleas somewhere in the mid-west, or helping his son with a science project waiting for the ants to bite. (ME thinks him an entomologist at heart).. but he has such a funny way of putting things, that no matter what the subject matter, you will read it and enjoy it. Let's face it, in this violent, crime filled world, isn't it still nice that you can have a smile put on your face!



5. Dave Barry isn't always funny, and I find he's better in small doses than in ... er... large buckets, but when he's good, he's good. Dave Barry's Greatest Hits is something to take to the beach and have a look at after one or two rum cocktails. It's light, jokey entertainment; the intellectual equivalent of watching, say, David Letterman. If you like Barry's Miami Herald column and are looking to read more, where better to begin than with the Greatest Hits?
   
   Troy Parfitt, author

No comments about Dave Barry CD Collection: Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down, Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway, Boogers Are My Beat.

5 comments about Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far).

1. Let's face it...Dave Barry has always been the funniest man ever to lift a pen to his art and prose. Of course, he's had many a wonderful American predecessor to learn from, Twain and O'Roarke...but Dave has not only mastered them, but surpassed them.
   
   In this book, he takes poltical satire to a masterful level. Some how,he takes many of the aburdities of the day to day frustrations of our every day news, and brilliantly transformed it into satire that no other political author could ever acheives.
   
   He is simple, to the point, and razor like in his intuitions about everything under the sun.
   
   And like a true artist, he makes this look easy.
   
   Why he does not get credit for his great insight into human events, actually baffles me...maybe it's because, like any true genius, he can take the truth and instead of letting it get us down, he makes us laugh about it, which makes it of course less of a threat and easier to bear.
   
   This book will delight and inform you, and if you are wise enough to listen between the lines...it might just make you think.
   
   Which is something we could all be doing a little more.



2. I have always been a Dave Barry fan, but, like some other reviewers, just could not get into the humor when I first picked up the book...and put it away unfinished. Then I recently received as a gift the Audio version, which is unabridged and read by Patrick Frederic...AND LOVED IT. I have a 2 hour commute to work and listened to it then---and the other commuters must have thought I was some kind of escaped lunatic---I was screaming with laughter! For some reason, Patrick Frederic's delivery of the lines is so much funnier than my reading of the lines in my head. My 2 hr. commute flew by...I was actually wishing it was longer!!



3. Not quite up to Dave Barry's usual standards, but still pretty funny. Dave Barry's History of the Millenium (So Far!) actually begins with Dave Barry's history of the last millenium, which starts off pretty weak but gets better as he progresses into the 20th century. The rest of the book consists of his year-end reviews from 2000 through 2006, the funniest parts of which are actually the bits in which he sticks closest to the truth, exaggerating just a little to highlight the absurdity of the situation. I frequently found myself thinking, "Oh yeah, I remember that...was that really five years ago?" or "Was that really only two years ago?" Sometimes he beats a joke to death, like the references to Greta Van Sustern in about every month of the relevant year. But when he shows some restraint, he is very funny.
   
   The audio version is not bad, but Patrick Frederic isn't the best reader of a Dave Barry book I've heard. Still, he's not the worst either. Like the book he's reading, his delivery is competent with occasional moments of hilarity.



4. Hysterical as always. I don't follow politics as much as I should, so some of his jokes missed me. But there were places where my husband caught me laughing until I cried and then I forced him to listen while I read sections out loud. His jokes can be somewhat predictable, but that's comforting and familiar to me. I have been reading all of his books for years now and I look forward to reading his interpretation of news events the way I look forward to seeing and old friend.



5. Funny and original on every page. Dave Barry is one of a very few comedy writers who can jab at both sides of the political aisle without malice and keep everyone laughing. This is the perfect book to take to the DMV, dentist or airport. Any place you need a quick laugh or a lighter perspective.

5 comments about Escape from the Carnivale: A Never Land Adventure.

1. Have you ever wondered about Peter Pan? Where he came from? Why he's ageless? Just where did he learn to fly? Well Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry have filled in the blanks. A "children's book" that this adult enjoyed!



2. My grandchildren and I are enjoying listening to this series together. Jim Dale is the best reader. He brings all the characters to life for even a grandmother!
   
   Yolanda
   Edmond, Ok
   
   Please Help Fight Breast Cancer: http://cms.komen.org/komen/index.htm
   
   Yesterday is the past Tomorrow is the future Today is a "Gift" That is why it
   is called the "Present"



3. My daughter says Escape from the Carnivale is very exciting. She didn't want to put it down! She recommends highly! She loved getting to know the mermaids and Little Scallop. The Lost Boys are funny! She has moved on to Cave of the Dark Wind. It sounds exciting too!



4. Mostly more of the same from the writers of the Peter Pan Prequel books. More fun reading but mainly for kids.



5. Although this short story does not contain either of the two great main characters Peter and Molly from the masterpieces Peter and the Starcatchers or the sequel to that prequel Peter and the Shadow Thieves and its length is only a fifth at most of either of those two books, it's still a great read.
   
   Escape from the Carnivale allows a couple of the minor characters from the other adventures to have a bit of limelight and ultimately save the day. Teacher and the other mermaids, Fighting Prawn and the mollusk tribe, the Lost Boys and Black Moustache (now known as Hook) and other island residents do make appearances but this novel's pages belong mainly to youngest daughter of the Mollusk tribe, Little Scallop and James from the Lost Boys.
   
   The adventure begins with a bored Little Scallop, envious of her older siblings who get to go on adventures spying on Hook and the other pirates disappointed her father spends his time worried about them and not giving her attention. When mermaid friends her age decide to break the rules and swim out in the open ocean to a cave so they can get some pearls to make necklaces, Little Scallop decides to go along. It is not long before their lost and one of the mermaids (Surf) trapped in a net is hauled onboard a ship called The Carnivale and thrown in a tank with a number of other "freak" prisoner marine animals. The captain of the ship Crookshank is determined to capture more mermaids and other exotic creatures to perform in his show and sees the island as a great place to acquire new slaves. With all the Mollusk tribe up in the mountains at a Sun ceremony it is up to Little Scallop and James to come up with a plan to rescue their friend with the help of some dolphins and the other mermaids. Hook however wants the ship for himself.
   
   Escape for the Carnivale is aimed at a younger market than the Starcatcher Peter Pan prequel books but that doesn't mean it's not as good.

5 comments about Cave of the Dark Wind: A Never Land Book (Never Land Adventure) (Never Land Adventure).

1. Execellent! My grandchildren loved every word. I will be buying all in this series.
   Yolanda
   Edmond, Ok
   
   Please Help Fight Breast Cancer: http://cms.komen.org/komen/index.htm
   
   Yesterday is the past Tomorrow is the future Today is a "Gift" That is why it
   is called the "Present"



2. My daughter says Cave of the Dark Wind is just as exciting as Escape from the Carnivale. She can't wait for more Never Land Adventures.



3. This is one of two children's books that were published by the same authors of the three Peter Pan Prequel books. They are fun but really for children.



4. I'M SURE THE BOOK IS GOOD BECAUSE I HAVE THE SEQUALS BUT I HAVE NOT LISTENED YET



5. As an avid fan of anything to do with the Peter and the Starcatchers series it only made sense for me to be excited about the NeverLand Books. The 2 books are not as good as the Peter and Starcatchers books of course but they are great companions to the series.
   
   If you didn't like the first one "Escape from Carnivale" don't worry "Cave of Dark Wind" is much better. I think the reason this is because Carnivale was lacking anything to do with real Pirate topics like treasure! Fortunately the second book Dark Wind has the topic throughout the story which makes for a much more exciting book. I would recommend to anyone who likes to read about Peter Pan or Captain Hook. Have fun!

5 comments about Peter and the Secret of Rundoon (Starcatchers) (Starcatchers).

1. This outstanding novel is both thrilling and humorous. The ever so sly Peter gets caught by his two enimies...hook and ombra. They've plotted to get rid of Peter and the rest of the star catchers for good, and they're determined to suceed. By the time you've finished the third and last book of the "Peter and the Starcatchers" series, the characters are real to you, alive, and it will be hard to say good bye. As the previous books of the series were, this story is equally amazing. Every chapter gives you a glimps of the other characters whereabouts, keeping you on your toes for the whole fantastic journey. Barry and Pearson end their series perfectly, but you don't want it to end. I had tears in my eyes reading the last page. This book is not a story that you will ever forget. I strongly feel that Peter and the Secerets of Rundoon should be read by every child 10-14 whom enjoys fantasy, adventure, and a little bit of romance. I hope that you'll enjoy this book as much as I did!



2. great story it is the continuing story of Peter and his friends against the evil shadows snatchers



3. It's sad that this awesome trilogy must come to an end, but I'm happy to say that I enjoyed every minute of it, from the moment those boys and that girl met up with each other and a horrible secret to the end of this installment when Never Land finally becomes familiar.
   
   This story completes the bunch when Peter and the crew are kidnapped to a horrible kingdom where kids are slaved and the darkness of the universe has a horrible plan for the earth.
   
   This is just as exciting as the previous two books, though I think the fantasy went a little annoyingly Star Trek at a point. Still, it was fun and witty and answered a lot of questions. Finally.



4. If you like the notion of Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, etc. this series is really excellent. I don't use the word WONDERFUL much, but they're a great read. They really do carry on the story of Peter and his friends in a believable and fun way. Really AWESOME and you won't be disappointed. The entire series is highly recommended - all three books so far.



5. This book is non-stop action. There is no down time. You must catch your breath after each chapter. We enjoyed the whole series immensely. Perhaps blasphemous, but this series is better than Harry Potter. No loose ends. Very tight, raucous story. The best EVER!!

5 comments about Peter and the Shadow Thieves (Starcatchers) (Starcatchers).

1. A wonderful book about the continuing story of Peter Pan. I bought it for my kids to read and ended up reading it myself and enjoyed every minute.



2. Fabulous book! My kids and I liked it even better than the first one in this series (Peter and the Star Catchers), which we also loved! These books are prequels to the original Peter Pan and are very well written. It has lots of very short chapters, which makes it easy to read with your children. It gets you very interested in what is going on with one character, then switches back to a different character, which makes you not want to stop reading it! This one is more intense than the first one and might be a little scary for younger children.



3. Peter (of Neverland fame) hitches a ride on a ship filled with Very Bad Men and goes back to London to warn his friend Molly of the danger that races towards her and her family. The Starchasers are in grave trouble this time. This is a great, fun book. Inventive, funny, fast-paced. The characters are fleshed-out and believable. The baddies are very bad.



4. I guess it is a good book, I gave it to my great grandson, because he loves to read.



5. If you like the notion of Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, etc. this series is really excellent. I don't use the word WONDERFUL much, but they're a great read. They really do carry on the story of Peter and his friends in a believable and fun way. Really AWESOME and you won't be disappointed. The entire series is highly recommended - all three books so far.

5 comments about Peter and the Starcatchers.

1. This wonderfully inventive story takes the Peter Pan tale and shows us the origins of all the now famous characters, and well as the magical Neverland. I was completely skeptical when I started, thinking this was going to be one more ghastly Pan rip-off like the dismal 'Peter Pan In Scarlett'. It's wonderful. Fun, enchanting,and packed with page turning adventure. My four year old son was intrigued by the sword wielding pirates on the cover and begged me to read it to him , but it's really a book I think much more suited to eight to ten year olds. (Or those, like Peter, who refuse to grow up)



2. Peter and the Star Catchers is a great book. This book is fantasy. It is about an orphan named Peter who got sent on a ship. Peter meets a girl named Molly. They try to save a treasure called Star Stuff. The setting is Mollusk Island and a lot of ships. My favorite character is Black Stash because he is a mean, bad guy and he has power. I will recommend this book for ages 10 to 100.



3. If you like the notion of Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, etc. this series is really excellent. I don't use the word WONDERFUL much, but they're a great read. They really do carry on the story of Peter and his friends in a believable and fun way. Really AWESOME and you won't be disappointed. The entire series is highly recommended - all three books so far.



4. The story in this book and its sequals is far more entertaining than the Disney movie from which they are based. I have read these books with my nine year old daughter and it has been a great experience. Be warned that the ick factor is more on par with Harry Potter than with the original Disney movie, but the realism that it adds is definitely worth it.



5. This is an excellent book for older kids (8+) and adults. My husband and I read it ourselves and then read it to our son. Which is the best way. I enjoyed it even more the second time read out loud. Since then we've bought all the books in the series. I hope this duo goes on to do other books together.