Customer Reviews

Esquire Presents: What It Feels Like: *To Walk on the Moon*To Be Gored by a Bull*To Survive an Avalanche *To Swallow Swords*To Go Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel*To Be Shot in the Head*To Win the L

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is what I call bon-bon journalism. The pieces are all under a thousand words, some are under three hundred. They are pithy, quickly sketched and to the point, written in the first person as told to some of the writers at Esquire. I call it bon-bon journalism because the book is like a box of chocolates: you pop one into your mouth and then another and before you know it you've read the whole thing!

There are sixty-one of these little tales taken from the pages of the magazine. I wouldn't be able to pick a best one, but I liked Buzz Aldrin's reprise of what it feels like to walk on the moon: "powdery dust...the sky velvety black...surreal..." Naturally he was super focused on the task and aware that "if we made a mistake, we would regret it for quite a while."

I also liked "Going over Niagara Falls in a Barrel." It was a lot more high tech than you'd think. It took them almost a year and a half to construct the barrel. "Geoffrey Petkovich, 39, self-employed" who did it with a pal got roughed up a bit. His mouthpiece "got driven, hard" into his gums. He had two cans of beer and a pack of smokes in the barrel and two hours worth of oxygen in tanks in case the barrel sank.

Good too was "What It Feels Like to Have an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder." This guy, "Craig Strobeck, 24, actor" has to take two and a half hour showers. He runs out of hot water but doesn't stop. He has to clean every inch of his body about a thousand times. Sometimes he has to get back in the shower because one area just doesn't feel clean enough.

I was surprised to learn that when giving birth all that pushing that you have to do not only pushes the baby out, but also empties the bowels, etc. leaving a clean up detail that I never heard about before. But the endorphin rush is tremendous, so says "Dee McManamy, 43, housewife."

You get the picture. I think this would be a perfect book to take on a cross country flight, just enough light reading to keep you distracted, but you might want to skip the "What It Feels Like to Be in a Plane Crash." Then again "Ellen Hassman, 55, retired advertising executive" walked away from the detached section of the plane's tail while more than thirty other people died...

As a writer, I admired the crisp way the pieces were edited: tell the story and stop.

This is great fun to read. Who ever thought of ASKING people what these experiences were like? Genius. Most of the essays are only a page or two long - quick read on the bus or in the bathroom. Some are too short (albino is about 2 paragraphs?) - none are too long, most are just right to give you the feel for the event without too much detail. Nothing heavy or meaningful here, just the facts according to each survivor!

I'm a lady who loves to read Esquire for the quirky and fun but highly intelligent subtle humor and peek behind the scenes of the male mind. Esquire has presented us with a glimpse into some things we'd hope never to do... or, have always wondered about. You get the insider info. on (for ex.) having OCD (hilariously, the editors repeat the same picture around the border of this story), being attacked and almost ripped apart by a grizzly and (ew!) surgically and sensationally going from a male to a female and from a female to a male. Some of the experiences I did not want to know about (I'm sensitive) but others were just cool to imagine: like winning the lottery. Buy it, read it, or hey, use the library once in a while and check it out. Peace.

We all know about the kinds of things you'll find in this little book.Fortunately,most of us have not actually experienced them....at least not yet.
Being gored by a bull,shot in the head,caught in a volcano,attacked by a Grizzly bear,attacked by Killer bees,do Heroin,be an Albino,be really short,change from a man to a woman,live to 105,go on a hunger strike,get hit by lightning, be buried in an avalance and survive; along with over 40 more experiences are all described by people who actually experienced them.I think the one that surprised me most was the enjoyable experience with death and return. Then ,the person who told of this experience was a spiritual consultant ;could there be a conflict of interest here? We'll all get to experience this one sometime, but I doubt if anyone is in a big hurry! Being a man,I guess I'll have to take the woman's word for how it feels to give birth.
I would, however, like to try the experience of winning a Lottery;not for the money,mind you ,just the experience. If you believe that,maybe you'll believe I'd like to experience an exorcism.
A fun book to kill an hour or so.

A creative writing teacher of mine used excerpts from this book to help his students imagine scenes and actions from a first person perspective that they (probably) hadn't experienced themselves.

If you're a writer, I recommend giving this book a look. It's not very expensive, as far as written inspiration goes, and will save you the trouble of getting struck by lightning or going over Niagra Falls in a barrel in order to accurately give an idea of what a character might experience.

This is one of those books that you read in about an hour or so, but then go back and read all the good pages over again, and then when you're done, you want to read it again but feel silly, because you've just read it twice that day already, and therefore make your spouse sit through listening to all the really best ones! Yea, it was good.

The essays are short and to the point. Since they are first person accounts, we get to read the real nuts and bolts of these situations. I was disappointed with the 'Worst-case scenario' series which attempts something similar, but all written in second person. Esquire's essays are far more interesting and I found more than 80% of them appealing.

The author starts from the clever premise of asking people to describe interesting situations--being struck by lightning, being in a tornado, being shot in the head--and they tell him how it feels and he tells us! It's a quick read but don't let the ease of reading fool you--the book actually teaches us more of what it means to be human, and finally we learn of the bond that links us all, no matter what our experiences.

A varied collection of short pieces - humourous in places, but for the most part an unenlightening read.. this left me with many unanswered questions, and I'll continue to rely on my imagination to know "what it feels like to..." in most cases

Everything all the previous reviews said were true of my reading experience, "Bon Bon Journalism", with the exception of "If this is your idea of humor, you're definitely sick, June 27, 2004 Reviewer: A reader".

If "A reader" thinks the book is "sick" then maybe they read a couple of the accounts just after eating: Which one would know by reading the title that you would not read them right before or right after a meal if you're you have a sensitive stomach. (Same idea if you like Medical Miracle, ER, X-files, Law&Order - You probably don't eat your dinner watching those shows.)

It is catogorized in Humour, and I did find this book in the Humour section of a Barnes and Noble, but it's not likely that many people would have come across this engaging little book, including me, if it had been catagorized differently.

I bought 5 more of these books, and everyone that received the book thought it was just as fun too.