Rainer Maria Rilke

"Live a while in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be repaid you a thousand and a thousand times, and however your life may turn,-it will, I am certain of it, run through the fabric of your growth as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys."--Rainer Maia Rilke


Pages

Monday, January 19, 2015

Why Do Men Have Nipples? by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg: Left Me with This Question, "Who Cares?"

Why Do Men Have Nipples?:  Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini by Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg

Nonfiction/Humor

Normally, this is the kind of book I love.  Weird trivia, weird humor--what's not to love.  But, in the end it wasn't all that funny.  The trivia wasn't very fascinating.  That just leaves weird.

I absolutely hated the format of this book.  At the beginning of each chapter, the two co-authors have printed a transcript of their instant messaging.  I suppose that might be a good idea if they discussed writing the book or wrestling with which trivia to include but many of the transcripts read like this:  "You there?"  "I'm here. Let's name this chapter Sexpots and Despots"  "Did despots have sex a lot?"  Really fascinating stuff. NOT!

Also, the trivia here was not written about in a way to be interesting to the reader.  It's a collaboration between a doctor and a humor writer so it should be hilarious, but the medical mumbo jumbo was over my head a lot of time and then I found I didn't really care enough to look further into it.  And the humor writer was just about the unfunniest person I've ever read.

The only thing that saved the book from being a "one-star" read was the few bits and pieces of interesting and relevant trivia.  Still, it's like mining for gold in a big batch of dirt.  Skip this altogether if you only want to know the answer to the title--you can easily look it up on online.

No comments:

Post a Comment