By The Time You Finish This Book You Might Be Dead: Changing and Improving Your Life Through CUTLAS by Eliot Greebee [Paperback]

Aaron Zimmerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2003

Eliot Greebee, a lonely, overweight, middle-aged Certified Public Accountant, is the creator of the Cost/benefit Unit-based Transactional Life Analysis System (CUTLAS ), a mathematically based system designed to justify a purely hedonistic lifestyle. Prac

Editorial Reviews

Review

Greebee's antic pursuit of a maiden fair in this send-up of the self-help industry. -- Publishers Weekly, August 18, 2003

About the Author

Aaron Zimmerman has been leading creative writing workshops since 1997 through Manhattan Writers, a writing workshop program he founded. His fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals, and he holds an MA in Creative Writing from City College, where he has also taught creative writing. Aaron is the founder and executive director of New York Writers Coaliton, which provides free creative writing workshops for people from groups historically deprived of voice in society. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his girlfriend and their beagle, Chester.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Spuyten Duyvil (January 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881471225
• ISBN-13: 978-1881471226
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,185,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved it, March 15, 2004

By 

frank haberle (brooklyn ny) - See all my reviews

This review is from: By The Time You Finish This Book You Might Be Dead: Changing and Improving Your Life Through CUTLAS by Eliot Greebee (Paperback)

I love this book. This fast-paced story takes a walk through a new york city culture with dark and disturbing overtones, but it is ultimately a hysterically funny and rewarding read. I found myself drawn immediately into the inner voice of Eliot Greebee, the obese, self-absorbed, self help guru and protagonist. The story follows Eliot's corpulant mass on an ill-conceived quest for beauty and self acceptance ripe with great, vivid, lasting scenes-- like a drug-addled coney island freak show on a hot summer night, and a vegas one-man banquet. Eliot's self-help manifesto worked into the story adds great humour and insight. At first I wished the worst for Eliot, but I quickly gained sympathy and even empathy as he struggles to break free of the cruel nihilism that engulfs him. Sometimes we have to come to grips with the self serving, consumerist world we live in, and Eliot fights gamely to accept himself and his place in it. I see this book as a lesson-- a dark and funny parable of the course of self-gratification our society is in danger of accepting.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unique and funny!, March 16, 2004

By 

shaina feinberg - See all my reviews

This review is from: By The Time You Finish This Book You Might Be Dead: Changing and Improving Your Life Through CUTLAS by Eliot Greebee (Paperback)

This book was so funny! The main character and narrator, Eliot Greebee is a riot! He is so gross and odd. He meets this hottie and follows her around like a puppy. It is so easy to read this book because you just want to know what will happen next to Greebee and this chick. The structure of this book is so unique--every other chapter is devoted to a chapter in Greebee's self-help manual called CUTLAS. If you are addicted to self-help books, but never seem to learn anything from them, you should read this book. It is what all self-help addicts deserve! Great concept.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to like it!, July 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: By The Time You Finish This Book You Might Be Dead: Changing and Improving Your Life Through CUTLAS by Eliot Greebee (Paperback)

I really wanted to like this book, I just couldn't get through it. The premise was confusing, and I found it the book boring.