"Reminiscent of the snarky, opinionated newspaper articles of the great Mark Twain, Hiaasen's columns are finely crafted little gems." (Booklist)
Carl Hiaasen takes you on a wide-ranging safari, observing south Florida's wildlife in its natural habitat-from fat-cat politicians to migrating mobsters, drowning dolphins to stray chads. This collection of Miami Herald columns-written with a satiric wit and biting humor-will give Hiaasen fans a glimpse of the facts that inspire his frenetic fiction.
Harking back to the muckraking journalists of old, Hiaasen lets readers in on the comings and goings of corrupt local politicos, misguided tourist bureaus, and flailing sports franchises. He tackles such current events as the Elian Gonzalez imbroglio and the 2000 presidential election recount. All in all, more than two hundred columns chronicle the everyday circus that gives south Florida a flavor and a flair all its own.
Since 1985, Hiaasen's twice-weekly, "baseball-bat-to-the-forehead" column has given the average citizen a voice. A staunch defender of his native state, Hiaasen isn't afraid to take anyone on, including environmental despoilers, Big Tobacco, and the NRA. But as proven in his first collection of columns, Kick Ass, his righteous rage and spirited wit resonate far beyond the Sunshine State-and show readers a world-class journalist in his element.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce undoubtedly has a dart-pocked photograph of syndicated Miami Herald columnist Hiaasen tacked to the wall. For his second anthology of 200 columns, spanning 15 years, he takes readers on a head-shaking romp through a south Florida that they won't find in any tourist brochure. A true Florida patriot, Hiaasen exposes corruption, money-grubbing and rampant development. The volume picks up where its predecessor Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen left off. Stevenson, associate director of writing programs at the University of Florida, again edits. Hiaasen's writing is fearless and the targets endless: politicians, municipal employees, judges, lobbyists, zoning boards, evangelists, athletic franchises, environmental scofflaws, Disney, the NRA, Big Tobacco. In many cases, Hiaasen took these entities to task before it became fashionable. A bestselling novelist to boot, Hiaasen is cut from that same bolt of cloth as Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill he's an acerbic, old-school columnist who can't stomach greed or hypocrisy, pulls no punches and keeps his sense of humor and outrage firmly intact. He tackles with unbridled vigor the Elian Gonzalez affair and voting irregularities in the recent presidential election. While many columns resonate beyond south Florida state vs. local control, urban sprawl, the commerce of politics some feel too localized to sink in. But if you're crooked or play loose with the public trust, watch out. Not even alligator skin is thick enough to deflect the sting of this writer's pen.
Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida, where he still lives with his incredibly tolerant family and numerous personal demons.
A graduate of the University of Florida, at age 23 he joined The Miami Herald as a general assignment reporter and went on to work for the paper's weekly magazine and later its prize-winning investigations team. Since 1985 Hiaasen has been writing a regular column, which at one time or another has pissed off just about everybody in South Florida, including his own bosses. He has outlasted almost all of them, and his column still appears on most Sundays in The Herald's opinion-and-editorial section. It may be viewed online at www.miamiherald.com or in the actual printed edition of the newspaper, which, miraculously, is still being published.
For his journalism and commentary, Hiaasen has received numerous state and national honors, including the Damon Runyon Award from the Denver Press Club. His work has also appeared in many well-known magazines, including Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Time, Life, Esquire and, most improbably, Gourmet.
In the early 1980s, Hiaasen began writing novels with his good friend and distinguished journalist, the late William D. Montalbano. Together they produced three mystery thrillers -- Powder Burn, Trap Line and Double Whammy -- which borrowed heavily from their own reporting experiences.
Tourist Season, published in 1986, was Hiaasen's first solo novel. GQ magazine called it "one of the 10 best destination reads of all time," although it failed to frighten a single tourist away from Florida, as Hiaasen had hoped it might. His next effort, Double Whammy, was the first (and possibly the only) novel about sex, murder and corruption on the professional bass-fishing circuit.
Since then, Hiaasen has published nine others -- Skin Tight, Native Tongue, Strip Tease, Stormy Weather, Lucky You, Sick Puppy, Basket Case, Skinny Dip, The Downhill Lie and Nature Girl. Hiaasen made his children's book debut with Hoot (2002), which was awarded a Newbery Honor and spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller lists. For young readers he went on to write the bestselling Flush (2005) and, most recently Scat (January 2009). The film version of Hoot was released in 2006, directed by Wil Shriner and produced by Jimmy Buffett and Frank Marshall. ("Hoot" is now available on DVD).
Hiaasen is also responsible for Team Rodent (1998), a wry but unsparing rant against the Disney empire and its creeping grip on the American entertainment culture. In 2008, Hiaasen came back to nonfiction with The Downhill Lie: A Hacker's Return to a Ruinous Sport. The book chronicles his harrowing and ill-advised reacquaintance with golf after a peaceful, 32-year absence.
Together, Hiaasen's novels have been published in 34 languages, which is 33 more than he is able to read or write. Still, he has reason to believe that all the foreign translations are brilliantly faithful to the original work. The London Observer has called him "America's finest satirical novelist," while Janet Maslin of the New York Times has compared him to Preston Sturges, Woody Allen and S.J. Perelman. Hiaasen re-reads those particular reviews no more than eight or nine times a day.
To prove that he doesn't just make up all the sick stuff in his fiction, Hiaasen has also published two collections of his newspaper columns, Kick A** and Paradise Screwed, both courageously edited by Diane Stevenson and faithfully kept in print by the University Press of Florida.
One of Hiaasen's previous novels, Strip Tease, became a major motion-picture in 1996 starring Demi Moore, and directed by Andrew Bergman. Despite what some critics said, Hiaasen continues to insist that the scene featuring Burt Reynolds slathered from his neck to his toes with Vaseline is one of the high points in modern American cinema.
Carl Hiaasen's second compilation of his Miami Herald columns continues to show the biting wit which is prevalent in his usually terrific novels. But my guess is that the first book of columns "Kick" was probably designed to be the Best of Hiaasen with no plans for a sequel. Thus the columns contained in "Paradise" are the second cut and thus just not as good, although they are enjoyable to read. Not as many idiotic South Florida politicians this time around, not as many idiotic citizens. I was also disappointed in the way he handled the Florida election fiasco for the 2000 Presidential election. This was a topic just made for his humor, but he chose to use his forum as a soapbox to get a recount and to get Al Gore elected (he doesn't say it, but it was pretty obvious to me). My hope is that he plans to use this as fodder for a future novel and thus wanted to save his material.
Hiaasen is a great columnist. I live over 1,000 miles away from South Florida, but he gets his point across pretty well. It would have been nice if each story had a little afterword as to what ultimately happened to the people in the column (i.e. did the politician give up his $15,000 desk that was paid for with taxpayer money voluntarily).
Good for the Hiaasen completest, but the first book "Kick" is the better choice.
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I love this man's writing! I started with his fiction and having devoured all there was of that at the time I stumbled on his first book of Miami Herald columns. I bought Paradise Screwed as soon as it was out. The really exciting thing about Carl is that he takes on the corruption and the sleaze and the bizarre goings on in Florida and makes people aware of them through witty yet hard hitting writing. He isn't afraid to make waves and when you read this book you will begin to wonder about the greasing of the wheels in State politics. He is passionate about his home state and what is happening to it and as a visitor to Florida on more than one occassion, he has really made me think about the affects of inconsiderate development and tourism. But even if you aren't keen on any of that, the columns are clever and well written, so it's well worth the read.
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Another collection of "baseball-bat-to-the-forehead" columns in a similar writing style as Moore. Both men use biting satire and their wicked wit to tell you what they think, and are unafraid in doing so. Hiaasen is even more impressive I think because his substantive job is still journalism and yet he can find humor in real people and events as easily as in fiction.
These columns are a selection from over the last 20 years of events in South Florida. You don't have to go back any further than 2 years to Elian Gonzalez and the 2000 presidential election to know that there's enough grist-for-the-mill here to fill much more than one book on these two topics alone. Nevertheless Hiaasen reins himself in and spreads his verbal darts around. Topics covered include "Mayor loco", the soon-to-be-gone Marlins, Chads (not a person, those bits of paper, remember?) Dolphins (both the team and the ones that frequently drown offshore), Race Riots, a con artist doctor and a pet-hating extortionist. That's the more exotic stuff. Then there's the normal South Florida fare of crooked politicians, stupid state officials, assorted mobsters and mafia, drugs, guns, and general mayhem and madness. As Hiaasen said in a recent interview "all the paths of slime and disreputability seem to lead here."
The man is a Florida treasure and for those of us who live through what he writes about his humor is a saving grace. Very few of us can express it the way he does so he is our voice of reason saying yes, it's PARADISE SCREWED allright, but we're still alive we can laugh about it.
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First Sentence:
A true tale from the Miss Universe extravaganza: On Sunday, something called a "Squirtmobile" was supposed to "dispense" suntan lotion all over 10 of the most beautiful women in the world-this according to the official Miss Universe press apparatus. Read the first pageKey Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tax train, cigarette makers, canvassing board, county contracts, county manager, campaign donations, ethics commission
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
South Florida, Dade County, Palm Beach, United Way, Orange Bowl, Supreme Court, Miami Beach, Metro Commission, Jeb Bush, Florida Bay, Fort Lauderdale, Monroe County, South Dade, Philip Morris, United States, Bob Martinez, Juan Miguel, Lawton Chiles, New York, Oral Roberts, Steve Clark, Bob Graham, Joe Carollo, Key West, Ocean Reef
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