There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
by Paula Poundstone
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Book Summary Information
Author: Paula PoundstoneEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-11-27
ISBN: 0307382281
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Book Reviews of There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
Book Review: I loved Paula's book
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a huge fan of Paula Poundstone's brilliantly funny observations about life. She looks at all the same mundane crap the rest of us see, but then amazingly, she reveals a startlingly fresh and funny vision that all the rest of us missed. I really liked her approach of interspersing and weaving in the life story of herself and her kids with historical figures of all kinds, such as Abraham Lincoln, Orville and Wilber Wright, Sitting Bull and many others.
I found this intermixing of her story with that of well-known historical figures to be very refreshing, and as an added bonus, I learned a lot of practical "history facts" as well.
It should be noted that Paula uses a lot of exaggeration when she shares part of her own life, and it isn't always obvious what really happened and what is made up. Of course, she warns us in her book title itself for us to expect this to happen. For example, she writes about seeing a Shrink that "made a playdoh figure of Paula" as part of a therapy session. At first I thought that was weird but true, but after reading further in her book and finding even wilder statements such as "sewing her lips together" in Sewing class as a kid, I realized many things she was writing that appeared to be said with a "straight face," were actually written with wink and a nod.
I highly recommended this book. It was tender, vulnerable, historical, autobiographical, insightful --and of course wildly funny throughout.
Summary of There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
Part memoir, part monologue, with a dash of startling honesty, There?s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say features biographies of legendary historical figures from which Paula Poundstone can?t help digressing to tell her own story. Mining gold from the lives of Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, and Beethoven, among others, the eccentric and utterly inimitable mind of Paula Poundstone dissects, observes, and comments on the successes and failures of her own life with surprising candor and spot-on comedic timing in this unique laugh-out-loud book.If you like Paula Poundstone?s ironic and blindingly intelligent humor, you?ll love this wryly observant, funny, and touching book.
Paula Poundstone on . . .
The sources of her self-esteem: ?A couple of years ago I was reunited with a guy I knew in the fifth grade. He said, ?All the other fifth-grade guys liked the pretty girls, but I liked you.? It?s hard to know if a guy is sincere when he lays it on that thick.
The battle between fatigue and informed citizenship: I play a videotape of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer every night, but sometimes I only get as far as the theme song (da da-da-da da-ah) before I fall asleep. Sometimes as soon as Margaret Warner says whether or not Jim Lehrer is on vacation I drift right off. Somehow just knowing he?s well comforts me.
The occult: I need to know exactly what day I?m gonna die so that I don?t bother putting away leftovers the night before.
TV?s misplaced priorities: Someday in the midst of the State of the Union address they?ll break in with, ?We interrupt this program to bring you a little clip from Bewitched.?
Travel: In London I went to the queen?s house. I went as a tourist?she didn?t invite me so she could pick my brain: ?What do you think of my face on the pound? Too serious??
Air-conditioning in Florida: If it were as cold outside in the winter as they make it inside in the summer, they?d put the heat on. It makes no sense.
The scandal: The judge said I was the best probationer he ever had. Talk about proud.
With a foreword by Mary Tyler Moore
From the Hardcover edition.
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