Customer Reviews

Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dave Barry used to be hilarious. His comic novel "Big Trouble" is classic as are many of his columns. But maybe he's getting old. Maybe he's become jaded. One thing he has become is less funny.

"History" is a dud, in my opinion. It's just not funny.

Barry tries - and fails.

He gives us a capsule view of the years 1000 - 1999 and falls flat on his face with unfunny lines like "[Genghis] Khan and his descendants created a vast empire that ultimately encompassed all of Asia, Asia Minor, Asia Minor Phase II, and the Shoppes at Asia Minor Plaza." You might find it a gut-buster: I don't.

Barry goes on to cover the first six years of the new century. But the absurd wit and word play that marked his one-time column are missing.

For example: "In aviation news, SpaceShipOne, the first privately funded manned rocket, breaks free from its mother plane, soars sixty-two miles above the Earth, swoops gracefully back to Earth, rolls to a stop on the Mojave Desert, and files for bankruptcy." If there's fun, a joke, lurking in that line, I missed it.

Barry rides - to death - the Palm Beach voting fiasco of 2000. It doesn't work.

I hate to say it, but this is a Dave Barry book that didn't strike me as funny. Hopefully it's a one of a kind thing, like maybe the product of contract he's trying to get out of or something. Dave Barry's humor has brightened too many of my days to contemplate his losing his talent. Say it isn't so, Dave.

Jerry

From the DJ: "No matter what challenges we face as a species- no matter what hurdles are placed in our way- somehow we always find a way, even in the darkest hour, to make things worse. It's a miracle, really. You read about the events of one year and you think, 'There's no possible way that human beings can get any stupider than that.' Then you read what we did the next year, and darned if we didn't pull it off!" Now, that's funny! Maybe you can imagine the media, school books, and your preacher are full of lies. Well, so is this book, but Dave Barry is supposed to be funny. It's not that Dave does not have a few hilarious "gotchas," but, for the most part, the book is a one trick pony. I am not making this up. Humor is hard work. But, hey, watch some Fox news and, then read a chapter. Maybe then you will laugh. The bottom line is: You will not laugh your socks off, but you will encounter some above average satire. As the author says: "Enjoy.."

Dave begins by covering the first millennium, starting with the Y1K problem that caused parchment to malfunction by turning many words inside out. Then its the Chinese rise to power in 1083 (after stealing the plans for the cherry bomb and bottle rocket from the Los Alamos National Laboratory), the bubonic plague (not covered by HMOs), and the English mathematician Charles Babbage inventing the forerunner of today's computers in 1834 - he died in 1871, still waiting for Technical Support.

Eventually we arrive at Y2K to find all the experts wrong (electricity did not go out, planes didn't crash, and renegade ATMs did not roam the streets). Later in the year scientists found the only boy in the U.S. not being treated for ADHD. Etc., etc.

Barry's book is surprising detailed as far as the number of important events covered goes, even reporting V.P. Cheney's hunting accident and ending with NYPD surrounding a Burger King and firing 37 bullets into a man carrying a concealed Whopper with banned "trans-fat."

I'm assuming we'll be getting updates as the new millennium marches on.

While I don't believe that this is Dave Barry's best book, it's not all that terrible, either. He does do a good job of "reviewing" the major news items and poking fun at them. And the years 2000 through 2006 were laden with material for a guy like Barry, including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA.

The first chapter is the worst, where he goes over the history of the world up to the year 2000. That chapter was not particularly funny, and I almost gave up on the book before finishing the chapter. After the first chapter, however, Barry seemed to get into his old groove and turn out material that was, at the least, humorous. This book isn't good for a laugh a page, but is good for a few chuckles a chapter.

I don't get Barry's column here in California, so I will have to rely on the other reviewers that this is a compilation of his columns. If you are a regular reader in the paper, you might find it objectionable to pay for getting the same material a second time.

Read it, enjoy it, and do what Barry does best. Don't take anything to seriously, including this book.

The book is a tongue-in-cheek look at the past 6 years and the problems we have faced already in this millennium - the election problem in 2000, Hurricane Katrina, etc. A lot of the stories are (not surprisingly) related to Florida and Miami, but Barry covers the nation pretty well too. The problem (at least for me) is that I just don't find political books all that funny and, this is a political book. Most of the 'years' he passes through cover elections and politics and just isn't that interesting for a casual reader. He melds together lots of names and places to make light of things and, while that can be funny, it's not so funny when you don't know who these people are or what he is referring to. I didn't get all the references to the people and things mentioned, so the book was less enjoyable. His columns are the absolute best and I love his books that give takes on men/women and books that are more general in nature. I was looking forward to this, but perhaps his light fiction is better. I'm sure a lot of people will find this book amusing but, I wasn't one of them.

THis is a collection of Dave Barry's end-of-year roundup stories for his Florida newspaper. It's especially amusing if you remember (vaguely) most of the events he mocks, teases, winks at, and satirizes in classic Dave Barry ways. I found it very amusing and read thru it in no time. Like eating sherbert.

This was a pleasure to read. He kept me laughing throughout the book. I especially liked the way he would unexpectedly make an allusion to some modern personality while writing about a historical event or person. To appreciate Barry's humor, one has to have a basic knowledge of history and current events.

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!!

I have been a longtime fan of Dave Barry, and eagerly awaited his latest book, a compilation of six years (2000-2006) worth of his "Year in Review" columns, minus 2001 which was not really suitable for satire in his (or my) opinion. The book starts off with a historical introduction (called, appropriately enough, "Y1K") bringing the reader up to the jumping-off point for these columns. I found this part of the book the weakest overall, although I found numerous gems buried in it. Who knew that the first Gutenberg book was "Codpieces of Passion" by Danielle Steel, or that when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, the first thing he actually said was "Watson, hold my calls."?

The remainder of the book is nothing more than a compilation of columns summarizing events of the year filled with typical half-truths and innuendoes: in other words, it's classic Dave Barry. I found most of these to be amusing and worth reading again, as I read all of them in the paper when they were originally published. Certain targets are skewered more regularly than others for obvious reasons (George W. Bush, Al Gore, Madonna, Britney Spears, Nancy Pelosi, etc.) but the net result is actually culturally representative of the news as covered by the media in the respective years. I found the coverage of Greta Van Susteren and her multi-year obsession with a single case in Aruba, and the obvious Larry King references, to be especially revealing of the lack of depth in certain segments of the American media.

This isn't Dave's best book, but it's still plenty funny, and it is more culturally relevant than many of his others. In other words, I recommend this book...and I am not making this up.

This is just a collection of Dave Barry's Year in Review columns, no more, no less. It made me laugh in places, and I'd reccomend it to die hard fans, but personally, I don't think it's his best work. This is partly because his year in review columns just aren't my favorites, and partly because his writing's just not as sharp in recent years.

He didn't do a year in review for 2001, because he obviously couldn't put a "wacky" spin on that year's events, but all he includes for that year is an explantion of why he didn't write anything for 2001. Pretty lame, considering that he wrote a brillant serious column about the events of 9/11 a few weeks after the fact. Why not include that? To just not address 9/11, in a "History of the Millennium" (even a "wacky" one) is a poor choice. Don't get me wrong: I love Dave, but they can't all be winners.

If you're new to Dave Barry, pick up "Hits Below the Beltway." Or even better, "Bad Habits" if you don't mind a few dated political references.