Joey GreenRezensionen

This is indeed an interesting and unusual collection of helpful hints. I’m not going to paint my house with powdered milk, but some the hints actually made sense. The author includes a section on each product that tells about its history and as well as some strange facts. I found that to be more interesting than the hints, although his hints on 20 Mule Team has inspired me to add it to my shopping list!

I thought it was a very fun, wild, and colorful book. I gave it a four star rating cause at some parts it felt a little long and boring. There were a lot of plot twists which I like and thought it added a lot more umph to the story. In the book things kept getting stranger and stranger as the story went on. The writer must have had a very imaginative brain. I really liked how all the characters had a different quirk that made them stand out of the crowd. My favorite character is named Farley Chung. He’s my favorite character because he’s good with clothes.

The story starts out on Earth where everything is gray because of Loving Leader who rules all of the United States of Earth. Norbert, the main character, breaks the rules and gets sent to another planet for creative people who are so called insane for being imaginative. Throughout the book Norbert is trying to escape the planet and get back to earth to find his parents. Towards the end Norbert strikes a deal with the camp leader that if he helps him make a TV show that he will send him back to Earth. Though he eventually realizes that he doesn't want to go back and that where he is now is perfect for him, and he continues his quest to find his parents though it doesn't continue for long.

Another oldie but goody. Mention of Dan Quayle dates this book so I checked. Published 1999..okay. Title is misleading unless 70 is the new middle age. It used to be 40-50 was middle aged but that no longer applies. At this date, this book suits those in their 70's and boy does it resonate. I could put a check mark beside almost every single line in this book. Love it again.

Vacation on Location, Midwest: Explore the Sites Where Your Favorite Movies Were Filmed by Joey Green is the perfect vacation guide for film buffs. This is the Midwest edition, so one would hope other regional editions might be forthcoming, but this covers 40 popular films shot in 11 states. FYI, as you could likely guess, Chicago is a major location destination. Even if you aren't planning a vacation immediately to the sites, it is still going to be an interesting guide to where individual movies scenes were shot.

The organization of the book is a brief introduction and then consists of numbered scenes in the movie with addresses where it was filmed and a brief description. The numbers of the scenes are coordinated to numbered area on a map so you can find the location of the movie scene you are looking for. If there are scenes that were shot elsewhere Green makes a note of it in boxed off "Shot Elsewhere" sections. The notes for each movie are followed by "Other Featured Attractions" a section that includes places where film sets or props (especially vehicles) can be seen. Green includes maps, photos and a bibliography.

Contents
Illinois: The Blues Brothers; The Breakfast Club; The Dark Knight; Ferris Bueller's Day off; The Fugitive; Groundhog Day; Home Alone; My Best Friend's Wedding; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; Risky Business; The Untouchables
Indiana: Breaking Away; Hoosiers; A League of Their Own; Rudy
Iowa: The Bridges of Madison County; Children of the Corn; Field of Dreams; The Straight Story
Kansas: In Cold Blood; Paper Moon; Picnic
Michigan: Anatomy of a Murder; 8 Mile
Minnesota: Fargo; Grumpy Old Men; The Mighty Ducks; Purple Rain; A Simple Plan
Missouri: Escape from New York; Gone Girl; Up in the Air
Nebraska: Boys Town; Election; Nebraska
Ohio: The Avengers; A Christmas Story; The Deer Hunter; Rain Man; The Shawshank Redemption
South Dakota: Dances with Wolves; How the West Was Won; North by Northwest
Wisconsin: Back to School

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Chicago Review Press.

I read this book as an electronic advance reading copy provided by Edelweiss, and I have submitted my comments to the publisher via that web site.

Intended more for humor than utility, this book disappoints on both fronts. Only 10% of the tips are actually useful. The rest are highly specialized (how to administer asthma medication to a pet rodent) or of questionable legality (how to electrocute a hotel room intruder). An ordinate amount involve menstrual pads, which I suppose the male author finds hilarious. The book is padded with random trivia and film/book references that do not contribute to the work. Not recommended.

A mishmash of tidbits for Christmas cocktail conversation, from Christmas crimes to the history of Santa Claus. The most interesting to me were learning of Marian Library's nativity collection and CHRISTmas Wonderland, the world's biggest Christmas store.

Amazing money saving and eco friendly pet care product most of us have in our homes. I found something I needed right of the bat, How to keep dogs from dropping presents in your yard- cayenne pepper ! It worked, the spot was not visited again. I actually got giddy with all the great tips for every kind of animal. We are a family of animal lovers and have spent a fortune on basic need items. Here I found cheap and easy ways to clean spots, kill fleas, and care for many different kinds of animals without buying those expensive specialized store items. I think it is a book every animal owner should have on their shelf.

I picked this book up as a stocking stuffer and ended up reading it myself. It is a collection of various facts that are commonly held to be true, when many of them are in fact incorrect. Some examples are the rumor that Adolph Hitler used to make a living painting houses and hanging wallpaper, SOS does not in fact stand for Save Our Ship, strawberries are not in fact strawberries, and George Washington wasn't the first president following the Revolutionary War. Some of the information provided was very interesting, while some of the other false facts inclusion didn't make sense to me as I thought it was common knowledge (for example that the swastika was not created by Hitler - I thought by now that everyone knew it is a Norse rune).

Pretty good snippets of historical mistakes of much hilarity......but only when viewed with hindsight. Still a fun read.

Pretty good snippets of historical mistakes of much hilarity......but only when viewed with hindsight. Still a fun read.

Pretty good snippets of historical mistakes of much hilarity......but only when viewed with hindsight. Still a fun read.

Pretty good snippets of historical mistakes of much hilarity......but only when viewed with hindsight. Still a fun read.

I love when people correct "common knowledge", so you can imagine how much I love this book :)

When I received Joey Green's Dumb History: The Stupidest Mistakes Ever Made from Plume, I (mistakenly) assumed that it would not only be about history, but also follow the Dave Barry style of mocking said history. After all, the title is Dumb History. Alas, I was wrong on both counts.

What Mr. Green has compiled here is a completely unorganized catalogue of items - some actually are anecdotes about historical blunders, but the majority of them are mistakes made by advertisers (such as accidentally marketing something tasty in a native language with a word that means manure) and casting directors (such as suggesting over and over again--sometimes correctly--that so-and-so was miscast in such-a-movie and spoke with such-an-accent the whole time). The rest aren't even mistakes, they're simply a matter of ignorance or misinformation, such as:

Ancient Hindus believed that the world was supported on the backs of four elephants standing on top of a giant turtle.

or

While signing his name in cement in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in September 1981, actor Burt Reynolds misspelled his name.

Are both of these mildly interesting? Sure. Are they mistakes? Well, the second one was; the first one was just a matter of being pre-...I don't know, pre-enlightenment? It's not like President Clinton said the world was supported on the backs of a bunch of pachyderms riding a tortoise. He didn't inhale, remember?

In all seriousness though (and I do hate to be serious when talking about a book that contains an anecdote about David Caruso's acting career) I cannot imagine what the prerequisites must have been for getting into this collection of weird facts.

My curiosity, however, must be sidelined by my frustration with the structure of the book: it has none. Which means none of the weird sports facts are together, none of the weird tv facts are together, etc. And should you find something that's actually worth remembering (i.e. the bit in Robinson Crusoe where he strips naked and swims to the ship where he stuffs his pockets--I know, right? What pockets??--with biscuits), good luck finding it.

Lauren Cartelli
www.theliterarygothamite.com

This book is an easy read, and has a great many super quotes. It is an unfortunate book, however, in that the juxtaposition of the quotes, purporting to demonstrate similarities between Groucho Marx and John Lennon are actually a mish-mash of unrelated quotes stuck together in a sort of bizarre manner, much like the Google Ads that show up on websites based on a keyword that is only poorly understood by the cyberbrain listing them. Just because both of them use the word "wife" or "pig" or "neck tie" in a statement does not mean that the statements are demonstrating a commonality of minds - only the fact that they are both speaking (roughly) the same language. Though I do think you could find a great many areas of similarity between Marx and Lennon, the entire book is an exasperating conglomeration of squished together quotations that often clash like mis-matched reds. Read and enjoy it for the quotes; ignore the attempts of the author to make something more out of it. He's just playing mind games with you in the end, and if you have any critical thinking ability at all, you'll resist his attempts to sucker you into his strange, Google-surreal world.½

What an excellent book. It brakes down somewhat complicated Buddhist principles and makes it not only understandable and readable, but very whimsical and light.

A tongue-in-cheek look at the world of advertising. Though not as good as Gardner's Politically Correct Bedtime Stories series of book, it is worth reading. This book is witty, fun, and a very quick read.

About: Recipes, facts and history about famous and nostalgic products.

Pros: Interesting, easy read, short chapters. Includes resources and bibliography

Cons: Writing can be repetitive. Brand names are used ad nauseam, which leads me to wonder if Mr. Green was being compensated by the trademark owners.

Grade: B½

This is a truly hilarious book about different [utterly ridiculous] warning labels found on various products. Guaranteed to have you laughing insanely. Includes some amazing fake "caution labels" for some great pranks ;)½

This book contains some random facts about things you may or may not have known, but it is definitely not the kind of book you'd want to sit down and read.½

The book was a bit pricy for what is offered, but if you've ever done battle with your laundry and lost, it'll be worth it.

8/29/22

Kitchen cures for 1,150 ways to prevent and cure common aliments with brand-named products