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I Only Flunk My Brightest Students: stories from school and real life
 
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I Only Flunk My Brightest Students: stories from school and real life [Paperback]

Michael N Marcus (Author), Roseliny D. Genao (Editor), Carina Ruotolo (Designer)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Price: $15.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Book Description

December 1, 2008
FROM THE AUTHOR: "This could be viewed as a “coming-of-age” book, with young male silliness and horniness in the tradition of Animal House and Porky’s. It is that, but there’s more to it. It’s a collection of more than 100 stories that span 55 years. They’re mostly short and funny. One is long and funny, and serious and chilling. They occurred in my early childhood, while in public school and college, and while working in advertising, journalism, telecommunications, and as an amateur attorney. Culture clash is a frequent theme. So are food, phoniness and incompetence. There’s lots of sex, drugs and rock & roll. Even the sex and drug stories are funny. Some stories were written as revenge for bad teachers and evil bosses. There are also stories about the women I thought about marrying and the one woman I did marry. There are four murders. If I get killed for writing this, there will be five, and someone else will write the sequel. The book’s title is a quote from one of my high school teachers. She was nuts."

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Readers should wear diapers and rubber pants, because this book is so funny you're gonna pee in your pants. --Larry, friend since 1974

"I never knew my uncle was suspected of being a drug dealer and running a whorehouse while in college, that he had a 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 21, that he nearly killed himself in a school science experiment, that he didn't know how to wear a jock- strap, that he was the last male date for a woman before she tried being a lesbian, or that his art professor boosted his grade to keep him from blabbing about the professor groping him during a three-way. It will be tough to beat his record."

Review

"I never knew my uncle was suspected of being a drug dealer and running a whorehouse while in college, that he had a 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 21, that he nearly killed himself in a school science experiment, that he didn't know how to wear a jock- strap, that he was the last male date for a woman before she tried being a lesbian, or that his art professor boosted his grade to keep him from blabbing about the professor groping him during a three-way. It will be tough to beat his record."

"I never knew my uncle was suspected of being a drug dealer and running a whorehouse while in college, that he had a 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 21, that he nearly killed himself in a school science experiment, that he didn't know how to wear a jock- strap, that he was the last male date for a woman before she tried being a lesbian, or that his art professor boosted his grade to keep him from blabbing about the professor groping him during a three-way. It will be tough to beat his record."

"I never knew my uncle was suspected of being a drug dealer and running a whorehouse while in college, that he had a 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 21, that he nearly killed himself in a school science experiment, that he didn't know how to wear a jockstrap, that he was the last male date for a woman before she tried being a lesbian, or that his art professor boosted his grade to keep him from blabbing about the professor groping him during a three-way. It will be tough to beat his record."

Product Details

  • Paperback: 308 pages
  • Publisher: Silver Sands Books (December 1, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 098166170X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0981661704
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,744,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Personal website:
www.MichaelMarc.us

Publishing website:
www.SilverSandsBooks.com

Blog about books and other things:
www.BookMakingBlog.blogspot.com

Info, help & book reviews for authors:
www.BookFur.com

Pre-publication book assessments
www.RentABookReviewer.com

Hilarious (and sometimes poignant) book:
"Stories I'd Tell My Children (but maybe not until they're adults)"
Available in hardcover, paperback and e-book editions.

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Michael N. Marcus either is now or has been a journalist, author, publisher, advertising copywriter, public relations practitioner, photographer, band manager, amateur attorney, golf ball SCUBA diver, recording engineer and founder and president of AbleComm, Inc. ("the telecom department store").

He provided the words for over 100 websites and blogs, has been an editor at Rolling Stone, and has written for many other magazines and newspapers. Michael specializes in making technology understandable, and often humorous. He has written over 20 books, and more are planned.

Born in 1946, Michael's a proud member of the first cohort of the Baby Boom, along with Dolly Parton, Candy Bergen, Donny Trump, Billy Clinton and Georgie Bush.

At the urging of a misguided guidance counselor, he went to Lehigh University to become an electrical engineer, and was quickly disappointed to learn that engineering was mostly math -- and slide rules were not as much fun as soldering irons.

Michael was one of the few literate people in his engineer-filled freshman dormitory and made money editing term papers. He got in big trouble when he got caught running intercom wire from his dorm room to a friend's room two floors below, and when an inspector found a payphone in his suitcase.

Later, his college apartment had an elaborate and illegal multi-line phone system, a phone booth with a toilet in it, and an invisible phone activated by two hand claps.

Michael lives in Connecticut with his wife Marilyn, Hunter the Golden Retriever, and a lot of stuff -- including both indoor and outdoor telephone booths, a "Lily Tomlin" switchboard, lots of books, CDs and DVDs, and many black boxes with flashing lights. Marilyn is very tolerant.

 

Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Rib-achingly hilarious!, September 6, 2009
This review is from: I Only Flunk My Brightest Students: stories from school and real life (Paperback)
I roared! I wept! I became hysterical! And that was before I read Michael's book! With a bit of "Portnoy's Complaint" and lots of Woody Allenesque moments, Michael's autobiography is a hilarious trip down memory lane - sometimes poignant, mostly hysterically funny, bawdy, and delightful for anyone with a kooky sense of humor. This book provides one of the best descriptions of what we all go through in adolescence as we make at least a feeble effort to become "grown-ups" (whatever that means!). Although the author writes about our generation - the `60s - this book is really for anyone and everyone who wants a to roll on the floor, laughing until the tears come. Enjoy! And don't forget to call your mother!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Move over Bill Bryson, May 22, 2009
This review is from: I Only Flunk My Brightest Students: stories from school and real life (Paperback)
If you have read Bill Bryson's homage to the 50's - The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - you have to read Marcus' work. This book brings you into the 60's and beyond. This is what life was really like - just about totally nuts. Parents were still naive, teachers were generally asleep at the chalkboard, school administrations were emotionally unequipped to deal with "those hoodlums." And sex, well, there wasn't any. At least most of us weren't getting any but you wouldn't know that to listen to us. Do yourself a big favor and read this book - Marcus has captured the essence of reality in his vignettes of life.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Not Exactly "The Namesake", April 12, 2009
By 
Dr. Michael A. Marcus (WEST HARTFORD, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: I Only Flunk My Brightest Students: stories from school and real life (Paperback)
I share the same name, hometown, and schools attended by the author of this hilarious tome, yet I have never met him in real life. I thought that I was funny, until I read some of his finely-crafted memory vignettes from back in the day. These tales will have universal appeal to any boomer who would like to be stimulated to think about their early years with something other than regret. Only a few years in age separate us, so like some of the other reviewers I can visualize many of the people and places that Michael writes about but I don't think this (questionable) privilege will matter at all to readers distant in time and space from where we (allegedly) grew up. Michael has a way with words, to be sure, and much of what he has to say might just sneak up and bite you where it hurts/heals and makes you laugh the most. You will get more than twenty bucks worth of laughs, so enjoy!
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