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The Ridiculous Race
 
 
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The Ridiculous Race [Paperback]

Steve Hely (Author), Vali Chandrasekaran (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)

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Book Description

July 8, 2008

The most absurd, hilarious, and ridiculous travelogue ever told, by two hit-TV comedy writers who raced each other around the world—for bragging rights and a very expensive bottle of Scotch

It started as a friendly wager: two old friends from The Harvard Lampoon, now hotshot Hollywood scribes, challenged each other to a race around the globe in opposite directions. There was only one rule: no airplanes. The first man to cross every line of longitude and arrive back in L.A. would win Scotch and infamy. But little did one racer know that the other planned to cheat him out of the big prize by way of a ride on a quarter-million-dollar jet pack.

What follows is a pair of hilarious, hazardous, and eye-opening journeys into the farthest corners of the world. From the West Bank to the Aleutian Islands, the slums of Rio to the steppes of Mongolia, traveling by ocean freighter and the Trans-Siberian Railway (pranking each other mercilessly along the way), Vali and Steve plunge eagerly and ill-prepared into global adventure.

The Ridiculous Race is a comic travelogue unlike any other, an outrageous tale of two gentlemen travelers who can’t wait to don baggy cardigan sweaters, clench corncob pipes between their teeth, and yell at their sons, “You lazy bums! When we were your age, we raced around the world without airplanes!”


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hely and Chandrasekaran are friends, TV comedy writers, and 20-something Los Angelinos who decide to circle the globe and make a race of it, starting in LA and going in opposite directions. The hook: no planes. Told in alternating voices, their story fails to engage, but is funny. Hely, for example, arranges passage on a container ship from Long Beach to Shanghai: "about as exciting as a giant floating Kinkos... Entire days I spent staring at the ocean. I read so much that my eyes broke and I couldn't see words." Chandrasekaran begins his adventure with a days-long drive to Mexico City, where he makes an absurd attempt to purchase a jetpack. Beyond comedy, the experiment yields little. Virtually formless, the narrative becomes a slave to its subject, racing from antic to antic without slowing for reflection or a sense of the world's impact on the travelers. At the finish line, Hely confesses that their conclusion is "impossibly anticlimactic," but given the setup it's more like an inevitability. What's seemingly impossible (and unfortunate) is how quickly this speedy narrative runs out of momentum.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"No one should set off for a plane ride, a day at the beach, or a lengthy visit to the bathroom without a copy of The Ridiculous Race. I laughed so much I almost died from a lack of oxygen reaching my brain."—Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad!

"…will make readers laugh and cry, often simultaneously. Hely’s Victorian notions of world travel and the glory of bygone eras provide the perfect foil for Chandrasekaran’s glib embrace of the comforts of modern life. Their comically inoffensive braggadocio is akin to your older brother’s tales of his misspent youth; Chandrasekaran and Hely might be slightly obnoxious, but therein lies their charm. Hilarious travel writing for the chronically snarky."—Kirkus Reviews

"Riotous fun."—People Magazine

"Hilarious."—Entertainment Weekly

“Reads like a 300-page Simpsons episode.”—WIRED
 
“Hilarious race around the world.”—Publisher’s Weekly
 
“This is one of the funniest books I’ve read in years….The hilarity lasts the whole way.”—Anne Stephenson, The Arizona Republic

Product Details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; First Edition edition (July 8, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0805087400
  • ISBN-13: 978-0805087406
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #850,885 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

34 Reviews
5 star:
 (21)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The funniest, most interesting travel book I've ever read, July 10, 2008
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This review is from: The Ridiculous Race (Paperback)
My review title says it all, folks. Hely and Chandrasekaran are simply amazing. (Full disclosure: I wrote this book.)
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Funny Travelogue For Those Who Appreciate Silly Humor, September 5, 2008
This review is from: The Ridiculous Race (Paperback)
I haven't laughed while reading a book as much as I did reading this one in a while. It is exactly what you would expect from a couple of television comedy writers (My Name is Earl and Family Guy!) who decide to race around the world without using airplanes. If you're not a fan of those shows/that type of humor, then you may want to stay away.

While their comedic talents really shine through in the book, the book is also fascinating from a travel and cultural perspective. For example, this is personally the most I've ever read about Mongolia. Of course, based on the descriptions in the book, it may also be the most I WILL EVER read about Mongolia, but it made for several very funny stories.

The book is a light, easy read, with no real chapters, but instead with short sections, alternating between the two authors. Easy to get through, very funny, very entertaining and very recommended for anyone who likes a little bit of humor thrown in with their travelogues.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Immature, Yes. Hilarious, Yes. Heart in the right place, I think so., December 2, 2008
This review is from: The Ridiculous Race (Paperback)
This book is not a classic travel memoir, but it is quite funny. I particularly enjoyed the vastly different perspectives of the authors. In order to have a good time reading this book, I believe it's important to recognize that it's really a contest about two things. One is the linear concept of going around the world, and the other is a little more difficult to define: the awesomeness quotient.

The authors are immature at times and not the paragons of good taste. But they are comedy writers. And it's rare to find a book that truly makes you laugh so hard that others are looking at you as if to say, "What are you reading?"

It also makes you truly want to travel, and that is the most important thing about a travel book in my opinion.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
Off the coast of Kamchatka, Siberia, bundled up and standing on the deck of a German container ship, I gripped the railing with oil-stained gloves to avoid being pitched into a heaving ocean the color of a wet gravestone. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Los Angeles, United States, Ridiculous Race, Hanjin Athens, Genghis Khan, New York, Khmer Rouge, Middle East, Long Beach, World War, Awesomeness Contest, Queen Mary, West Bank, Peter the Great, Jack the Ripper, Phnom Penh, Victory Scotch, Bar Hemingway, San Marino, Barren Mountain Tears, Saddam Hussein, Nomad Son, Sanduny Baths, Siem Reap, American Dad
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