Customer Reviews

The Urban Hermit: A Memoir

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read The Urban Hermit in a couple of hours and found that Sam MacDonald has a very engaging, honest, funny and captivating style of writing and speaking to the reader. In the introduction, he states that:"I was a big, fat bastard. No excuses. No complaints. That's just the way I was."He was having a good time, drinking, eating and hanging out. Things probably would have continued for another 10 years, had not bills and credit card debt began to get out of hand.From that point, he takes the reader along with him on his journey. I was especially amazed at his ability to stick to a radical change in eating and living, that he devised.Perhaps he didn't have any choice or maybe his inate self-respect made it hard to look for an easy way out. Memoirs often give the opportunity to walk with someone in their shoes. This particular memoir is special because the author is a good guy to hang out with. By the end of the book, I was happy that his hard work had found him with much to be thankful for.

The Urban Hermit is a quick, clever, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny book. Sam MacDonald is in his late 20s when the life that he's always enjoyed (drinking, hanging out, not really caring about money) comes to a grinding halt when he discovers how much money he owes to the IRS and credit card companies. He decides to try an "urban hermit" plan for month, where he exists on the cheapest food possible (tuna, eggs and lentils) while saving up money to pay his creditors back. Unlike a lot of other memoirs where the author decides to follow some self-improvement plan for a year, MacDonald originally plans on being an urban hermit for only a month. Due to a series of unforeseen events, he ends up being an urban hermit (with some breaks) for many, many months. During that time, we see him travel to Bosnia for a reporting job, bust a porn shop for illegal viewing booths, save a trailer park, travel to a huge hippie gathering in Montana, get what sounds like his first real girlfriend, and various other adventures. MacDonald's style of writing is perfect for a book like this, and he has a way of describing situations and scenes that will make you laugh out loud. The parts where he is attempting to cook the lentils and traveling to Montana in a VW Bus are particularly funny. If you are from Maryland or the DC area, you will enjoy familiar sights being mentioned in the book.

The book around 280 pages, but is a very fast read. MacDonald is a sympathetic, likeable character and his discipline is admirable. One warning - because I know some people don't like this - there is a fair amount of drug use in the book, so if you are squeamish about that, be forewarned. If you don't care, then dive right in!

The Urban Hermit was totally hilarious and got me through my train ride like no other book. After hitting bottom financially, MacDonald is forced to concoct a crazy idea to save money that consists of him eating only lentils and tuna. This story takes us through those surreal months--once the local bar regular, he starts pitching magazine stories to make the horrible time go by and lands a gig to cover the Rainbow hippie cult and is then flown to report from Bosnia. We meet a slew of equally absurd and hilarious characters in this very entertaining and funny story, including MacDonald's strange cousins and a few randoms. A fascinating insight to a generation that wracked up the worst credit in history. This book is about the extremes one guy went to in order to break those shackles. I can't look at lentils and tuna the same way anymore. I laughed out loud numerous times while reading this and so will you.

I travel a lot for work, and I often take my lunch in libraries. Today, I was in Smethport, PA, and I was skimming the aisles of the library when I stopped at this book, picked it up, and skimmed the dust jacket. I sat and read the first six chapters. I didn't want to put it down and nearly ended up late because of it.

I really enjoyed the desription of being low as a brown colour. It made sense to me. The leap from excess to austerity also hit me, because I do the same in my own life (like when I lived a week without gas because of one exorbitant bill [I quit after I remembered how cold March in Pennsylvania can be]).

Maybe a lot of my interest in the story has to do with a lot of personal similarities. Either way, as soon as I got back to my hometown, I checked the library for a copy of the book. When I couldn't find "The Urban Hermit" at my library, I logged on here and ordered a copy.

I love a good book, but its rare that I'll sample one and then have to immediately get it. A totally enjoyable book and I cannot wait to finish it.

A very charming book about living within your means and realizing what is important in life. I highly recommend this one.

OK. Here's the presmise: This guy goes on a diet of very simple and basic food and gives up drinking and drugs -- all this intended, mostly, to save money not lose weight. Because he knows he would slip back into drinking and drugs if he were to go out to bars and hang out with his friends there, which, as he tells it, seems like was the main focus of his life before the diet, he considers his life like that of a hermit in the city -- an "urban" hermit, get it?

First of all, I considered the guy before the diet as something of a loser. A degree from a good school wasting his life as a frat boy well past college age...happens all the time, I have friends who did it -- failure to launch.

This guy also got fat, real fat!

So he starts his "diet" and becomes a reporter of sorts, He loses a bunch of weight too fast to be healthy but because he can do pushups he figures he is not doing any damage to himself. This is a story of going from one extreme to another, neither real good for you or responsible in a functioning adult sense.

It is told in a style that is not literature but he does manage to keep the story rolling. I kept thinking the book was boring but kept reading and was sort of suprised that I stuck it out to the end...is that a ringing endorsement?

A story of what not to do both in the before and during phase of his urban hermit diet.

I'm not even sure why I gave it four stars...so make it three and a half!

I found this book hard to put down, and I'm not quite sure why. It was like opening a bag of potato chips - I couldn't eat just one. Yet, at the end, I'm not sure of the nutritional content.

In this first-person narrative, author Sam MacDonald finds himself a few years out of college with a Yale diploma. Living near Baltimore, he lets himself go to seed, both physically and vocationally. His big accomplishment is his ability to ingest mass quantities of beer and liquor. He has become a 300+ pound lard-ass. Making matters worse, he mismanages his finances and finds himself being hounded by creditors and the IRS.

In response, he embarks on a draconian frugality kick. He lives on lentils and beans. Spends little money. Scrounges for writing jobs and other sources of income.

The story is traced by the reduction in his waistline and his steady progress toward financial equilibriums. His journalistic duties take him to Bosnia and to a hippie gathering at the Rainbow Gathering.

With hit swigs of single-malt whiskey and hits of Ecstasy, MacDonald at times evokes the travels and journalistic approach of Hunter Thompson.

Nevertheless, MacDonald comes across as an earnest, likeable guy who - by sheer dint of iron will power - is able to transform himself physically and fiscally. CAUTION: do not try this at home.

As a journey in self discovery and self-transformation, the "Urban Hermit" was a relatively quick and fun read. I can't decide whether it was the reading equivalent of fast food, however.

I think this is my first review of any books, but I enjoyed it so much I had to share this with the world. Sam is a down to earth, down on his luck loser, who realizes his life of excess has come to an end. It's crazy what he does to get his finances (and weight) back in line. I wouldn't suggest it as a diet, but I found myself eating more beans (to sympathize with him) while reading this book. I tried the lentils only once. Not good no matter how you serve them.

You have an overweight messed up young male out of college who knows it is time to stop the partying nonsense and grow up. He is deep in debt so he begins with a diet which may well threaten his life, while zipping to Bosnia and other locales on writing assignments for various publications. Very easy read and a lot of humor !! A great read.

A stumbled upon this book on a trip through the small town of Ridgway, PA, alerted to it by a fun, counter-culture couple that makes the best bread I ever tasted. (full disclosure).

This book took me back to Hunter Thompson's earlier works -- irreverent, honest, disturbing and hilarious. McDonald's sojourn(s) through his careers, indulances and dieting ring(s) true. I would hope that after this autobiography McDonald has enough juice to continue his writing. This is like a tincture of Thompson and Twain.