How to Be Inappropriate and over 400,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
More Buying Choices
37 used & new from $8.70
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
How to Be Inappropriate
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book
Start reading How to Be Inappropriate on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

How to Be Inappropriate (Paperback)

~ (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
List Price: $14.95
Price: $10.17 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $4.78 (32%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Thursday, February 11? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
32 new from $8.70 5 used from $9.11

Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition $9.99   -- --
Paperback $10.17   $8.70 $9.11

Frequently Bought Together

How to Be Inappropriate + The Quotable Douchebag: A Treasury of Spectacularly Stupid Remarks + Passive Aggressive Notes: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Writings
Price For All Three: $29.56

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Quotable Douchebag: A Treasury of Spectacularly Stupid Remarks

The Quotable Douchebag: A Treasury of Spectacularly Stupid Remarks

by Margaret McGuire
3.0 out of 5 stars (1)  $9.32
Dirty Spanish: Everyday Slang from "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!" (Dirty Everyday Slang)

Dirty Spanish: Everyday Slang from "What's Up?" to "F*%# Off!" (Dirty Everyday Slang)

by Juan Caballero
4.2 out of 5 stars (8)  $8.00
Get High Now (without drugs)

Get High Now (without drugs)

by James Nestor
4.8 out of 5 stars (14)  $10.17
Drunk: The Definitive Drinker's Dictionary

Drunk: The Definitive Drinker's Dictionary

by Paul Dickson
4.0 out of 5 stars (4)  $14.96
Happiness on $10 a Day: A Recession-Proof Guide

Happiness on $10 a Day: A Recession-Proof Guide

by Heather Wagner
3.3 out of 5 stars (3)  $8.00
› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

Review


"If there was Nobel Prize for Achievement in Inappropriateness, Daniel Nester would be Laureate of the Universe. Until then, he'll have settle for having written this shockingly innovative stunner of a book. Nester brings his irreverent, elegiac sensibility to subjects from ranging from the essence of literary truth to the enduring mystery of flatulence, managing in the bargain to highlight the bleak hilarity of human existence—which, when you think about it, is the most inappropriate thing of all." —Rachel Shukert, author of Have You No Shame?

"Daniel Nester is funny as hell." —Stephen Elliott

"Daniel Nester is a stone-cold genius. Clever, lyrical, inappropriate in all the right ways—I'd rather read him than just about anyone right now." —Darin Strauss, author of More Than It Hurts You

"Daniel Nester's essays are haunted by a Victorian perversity. His writing exhibits a kind of Tourette syndrome in which the author continuously abases himself and revels in his own shortcomings. It's a painful kind of comedy leavened by gentle good humor and wonder." —Thomas Beller, author of The Sleep-Over Artist and How To Be a Man

"Former McSweeney's editor Nester (English, Coll. of Saint Rose), whose writing has appeared in The Best Creative Nonfiction, The Best American Poetry, and Poets & Writers, presents his debut collection of humorous nonfiction, amassing 41 years' worth of experience in nonconformity. His stories are, as the title suggests, inappropriate, and they often engender squeamishness, discomfort, and laughter. But they are fresh and, at times, touching, qualities that make this an enjoyable read. Subjects include teaching curse words to Chinese ESL students, reimagining a Terry Gross NPR interview of Gene Simmons by substituting Gene Simmons with an AI computer, a collection of references to flatulence in English poesy, the history of mooning, and out-of-context comments he made as a college professor in order to clarify and expand upon his students' writing. Nester includes photographs, illustrations, and a time line of his inappropriate acts from birth to the present. VERDICT Recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs and essays." —Library Journal

Product Description

Dry, offbeat, and mostly profane, this debut collection of humorous nonfiction glorifies all things inappropriate and TMI. A compendia of probing essays, lists, profiles, barstool rants, queries, pedantic footnotes, play scripts, commonplace miscellany, and overly revealing memoir, How to Be Inappropriate adds up to the portrait of an artist who bumbles through life obsessed with one thing: extreme impropriety.

In How to Be Inappropriate, Daniel Nester determines the boundary of acceptable behavior by completely disregarding it. As a twenty-something hipster, he looks for love with a Williamsburg abstract painter who has had her feet licked for money. As a teacher, he tries out curse words with Chinese students in ESL classes. Along the way, Nester provides a short cultural history on mooning and attempts to cast a spell on a neighbor who fails to curb his dog. He befriends exiled video game king Todd Rogers, re-imagines a conversation with NPR’s Terry Gross, and invents a robot version of Kiss bassist Gene Simmons.

No matter which misadventure catches their eye in this eclectic series of essays, How to Be Inappropriate makes readers appreciate that someone else has experienced these embarrassing sides of life, so that they won’t have to.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Soft Skull Press (October 1, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1593762534
  • ISBN-13: 978-1593762537
  • Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #155,530 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Daniel Nester
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Daniel Nester Page
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

How to Be Inappropriate
73% buy the item featured on this page:
How to Be Inappropriate 5.0 out of 5 stars (3)
$10.17
F U, Penguin: Telling Cute Animals What's What
7% buy
F U, Penguin: Telling Cute Animals What's What 4.5 out of 5 stars (15)
$10.20
Get High Now (without drugs)
7% buy
Get High Now (without drugs) 4.8 out of 5 stars (14)
$10.17
Passive Aggressive Notes: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Writings
6% buy
Passive Aggressive Notes: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Writings 4.1 out of 5 stars (28)
$10.07
Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
Agree with these tags?

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a manic & fearless writer who isn't afraid to expose it all!, September 24, 2009
Ondi Timoner's documentary, "DiG!" follows two bands: the blandly successful Dandy Warhols, and the raucous, combustible, insanely talented and brilliantly inexplicable Brian Jonestown Massacre. The Brian Jonestown Massacre spends the entire documentary alternating between creating stunningly original, genre-mashing music and systematically trying to destroy their opportunities through booze-soaked infighting and bizarrely normalized instability.

And I mention this all to say this: Daniel Nester's "How To Be Inappropriate" is the Brian Jonestown Massacre of autobiographical / non-fiction essay books.

"How to Be Inappropriate" is fresh, and manic, and exhilaratingly weird. Nester fearlessly allows all the strange incarnations of his id to run rampant, from his misguidedly perverse MFA lit major side ("Pulling the Muse's Finger: A Fartspotter's Guide to Poetic Passing of Wind"), to his mulleted Jersey yahoo side ("Mooning: A Short Cultural History" ), to the surprising vanity of his upstate professor side ("Yes I Tan: The Indoor Tanning Diaries").

Mixed in with these straightforwardly funny musings are oddball non-fiction articles -- such as his interview with "classic video game king" Todd Rogers and his expose of ApologetiX, a Christian Rock Parody Band -- and compelling prose pieces, like "Queries," which is a collection of actual comments Nester has made on his students' creative writing papers and "A.I. Wanna Rock 'n' Roll All Night," where Nester replaces Gene Simmons' responses during his famous Fresh Air with Terry Gross interview with comments written by "ALICE, an artificial intelligence chatbot."

But what really makes the book for me are when Nester defies expectations again, and showcases some incredibly personal and humanizing writing, such as the heart-breaking "Garden Path Paragraphs," where he speaks with brutal honesty about his and his wife's troubles conceiving their first child. Or "Goodbye to All Them," an unapologetic reflection on being a New York City poet who commits the cardinal sin of leaving New York City.

Daniel Nester doesn't hide anything, nor does he try to fit into any prescribed molds about what a book of collected non-fiction / autobiographical essays should be. Rather with "How to Be Inappropriate," he smashes those expectations, sets 'em on fire, and then stand over the smoldering ashes to play an extended solo on talk box guitar.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and artful, January 13, 2010
This is a great book, and not only for the reasons you (if you are drawn to it for the "inappropriate" content) may think. The attention grabbers are the ones about the most taboo subjects (read the table of contents), but How to Be Inappropriate, at it most comic and its most serious, is so much more than that. My favorite of the super funny essays is "Queries," which lists comments he's made on students' writing assignments--"Isn't everything tucked lovingly tucked?," "Is there another, non-legendary Kraken?" The gentleness with which the author treats his students' work heightens the funniness of their contorted language while celebrating the strange products that can result from the awkward effort to put words on paper.

But (and I hope I don't turn off anyone who wants a funny book, because it IS funny) Daniel Nester's book is also quite moving. Several essays--my favorite is "The Difference Between Chickens and Goats"--explore in between times in the author's life, when he has finished one part of his life and is waiting for another to begin. They convey the poignancy of those moments, the lost feeling, the uneasiness of transition. This is a different kind of inappropriate--the feeling of being out of place, the sense that you are acting in ways that do not fit your context. And it is a different kind of funny, the in-retrospect kind you experience when you look back on a painful time in your life and recognize the humor of the human condition.

How to Be Inappropriate is a great humor book, but it is also great writing. It is ideal for anyone who appreciates the art of the personal essay.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that stealthily gets at the very serious through humor, January 20, 2010
No doubt about it, there are hilarious moments in this book--the furious, outrageously violent, new endings composed by ESL students for The Catcher in the Rye, the bizarre queries his student's even more bizarre writing assignments required the he make--but this is not a book of jokes. The humor is often daringly dark--it's sad and little troubling that a young artist the author dates allows a security guard at the defunct investment company "Stair-Burns" pay to lick her feet. Also, at the heart of the book is a series of essays that describe his life from the time he moved to New York to become a writer (only to find out the first that an estranged ex-girlfriend happens to live next door) to the time he left to try with much worry-making help from science to start a family. It is a complex book that is sad, serious, and moving all at the same time.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   

So You'd Like to...


Create a guide

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)

Look for Similar Items by Category

Look for Similar Items by Subject

Search Books by subject:











i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...
 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.