About the Author

McSweeney’s is a small group that sells taxidermy equipment and also produces books, a literary quarterly, and The Believer, a monthly review. Based in San Francisco, McSweeney’s is also home to 826 Valencia, a nonprofit educational center for Bay Area youth.

Reviews

"Achieves the sensation of being hit by a hip, humorous train. . . . Breaks mold after mold in hilarious fashion." —The New York Times

The selections in Eggers's new collection take many forms: stories, letters, interviews, jokes, plays, and a large number of lists. The 74 "troubled" writers who made the cut are definitely imaginative, topical, irreverent, and in need of counseling. For example, in "No Justice, No Foul," Jim Stallard reveals the inner workings of the Supreme Court. When deadlocked in their deliberations, the justices take to the hardwood to determine the outcome. Mike Daulton's "Rapper or Toiletry?" is simultaneously a list and a quiz. Hint: "Q-Tip" is both. In his "Preview of Summer Camps," Jeff Johnson reports on several opportunities, including Camp Tickles for aspiring clowns. Kurt Luchs uses a series of increasingly hostile letters to a reluctant benefactor to define "The Spirit of Christmas." In "The Briefing," Stuart Wade captures the inability of reporters to gain any information from the spokesman assigned to dispense information. The best of the lot are quite good; the rest are worth a look. Suitable for larger libraries.-Anthony J. Pucci, Notre Dame H.S., Elmira, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Adult/High School-This lively and amusing anthology brings together material that has appeared previously in either McSweeney's print edition or Web-site version. Anecdotes, plays, jokes, fake reviews, and lists are included, all poised to produce a quick chuckle. The pieces can be hit-or-miss and, like a lot of humor, they rely on readers knowing the references made to get the laughs, like Greg Purcell's "A Letter from Ezra Pound to Billy Wilder," which comes off quite dry unless one really knows Pound's style of criticism. The majority, though, touch more universal points. Christopher Monks's "Group Mobilization as a Desperate Cry for Help" places a nameless narrator organizing a picket line outside his girlfriend's house to protest her dumping him, in a manner worthy of a good Saturday Night Live sketch. Likewise, "My Beard Reviewed" by Chris Bachelder fabulously satirizes all the feelings of a self-deprecating person and the idea of self-image. All the pieces are short, many two pages or less. While no one will ever put this anthology on a literary best list, it does give a nice break from more serious reading and may even entice reluctant readers.-Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

"Achieves the sensation of being hit by a hip, humorous train. . . . Breaks mold after mold in hilarious fashion." -The New York Times