Product Description
In his latest act of literary terrorism, the author of "Et Tu, Babe" and "Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog" navigates the most remote tributaries of popular culture, making readers weak with laughter and telling unnerving truths about life today.Amazon.com Review
Mark Leyner's hyperactive, relentlessly vivid The Tetherballs of Bougainville stars a fictionalized 13-year-old version of himself. Young Leyner--who soundsjust like the author, the conceit is insincere--must watch the state of NewJersey execute his PCP-addled father; lose his virginity in a drunken, druggedrevel with the comely warden; and write a screenplay about these things, allwithin the space of a day. Don't be alarmed, just turn off your left brain and keep reading. The Tetherballs of Bougainville is a soup of observation, weird juxtaposition, parody, and ribaldry that willleave some people stymied, but others positively delighted. The satire--and sense--iswhere you find it.

Here's Mark, with an aside:"As I browse through this astonishing array of contraband, I can't help butmarvel at the ingenuity of the inmates. In the Body Cavity/Rectal section, forinstance--I can imagine someone smuggling in a wrapped shank ... But four 5-pieceplace settings of Bastille stainless-steel flatware? I can see how, during avisit, a girlfriend could convey, through a kiss, a condom partially filledwith heroin. But a 959-piece Alsatian Village Puzzle? How? Piece by piece, onekiss per visit per week? Imagine the incarcerated hobbyist's Zen-likeequanimity."

Rich stuff, this. But as disorienting as the book may be, it possesses abrutal amount of horsepower--the amount of laughs it will induce excuse myriad indulgences. Half novel, half screenplay, packed to the endpapers with popculture, The Tetherballs of Bougainville is a full-body experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (42)

abandoned read
Well could be fancy and say its a post modernist novel with a form that counters the tyranny of the outdated narrativeand naturalist tradition. Its plot: son at father's failed execution; father enrolled in the State's lotto prisoner execution programme, son writes a screenplay is merely a rack for lots of streams of conciousness/montage pieces.

I love books that break with conventions but when they engage me and not being just fun for the writer. I loved 253 or The Saddlebag for example. This is supposedto be his most novel like book but it reads like he lacks the discipline to write for the reader. Or at least not the sober drug free reader...it must be a profound read if stoned

ADVENTURES IN HEBEPHRENIC NARRATIVE
This must be the best of Leyner's books, but it's still a difficult read. It's like drinking down a jug a Frank's Red Hot Sauce, and I don't think I'd wanna meet anyone who read it in one sitting. (Surely you've seen such people on the cop shows.) Getting through the novel was especially difficult for me, as I had placed a large C-clamp on my head while reading, and with each mention of anything morbid or lewd, I'd tighten the clamp a half turn. The purpose of such an exercise was to reshape my cranium to match the Brainiac forehead of Mr. Leyner. Only a dedicated votary of his work would do such a thing, although Caryl Chessman might've done so too had he lived to read Leyner.

2nd greatest book I've ever read, no...THE GREATEST
This is one of those books that if you get it, you love it, but if you don't get it you're in for 300 pages of extreme pain.You need some sort of touch on the pulse of pop culture for one thing and you need some sort of touch on the pulse of what it's like to be a young teenage male.With those two tools you are ready for the greatest ride in all of literature.

The jokes actually rarely fall flat, which is amazing considering there are like 25 on every page.The book is hysterical from start to finish, the ending of the book is absolutly perfect.And leyner definalty succeeded in making it seem like I was the main charector.Forget Holden Caufield, I was Mark Leyner.

He must be on drugs...
I laughed so hard I almost puked--many times. I don't know how else to describe his writing, because I've never encountered anything like it anywhere. It's the best anti-depressant I can think of.

Leyner writes a plot driven story
"The Tehterballs of Bougainville" while far from your standard fiction novel is still Mark Leyner's most accessable book and most plot driven.

The narrative is, as usual with Leyner, taut with jackhammer style bursts of narrative. Leyner dispenses with detail and spends his time creating vivid, drug-like situations.

A execution goes wrong and the person to be executed is given a letter explaining he will be killed at a later date of the state's choosing without his knowledge, it may be while he's eating, etc.
The young protagonist gets it on with the female warden in a drug stupored sex scene.
The young protagonist is constantly interrupting procedings to take calls from his agent.

These are Mark Leyner themes. They crop up in all his work but here he manages to keep the narrative together and still deliver on the super-charged writing style that at once reads like a travel poster and a crazed rant.

Read the excerpts to see if this appeals to you. Leyner has some readers that dismiss him as fast food, faux literature. You may be one of these people, or you may appreciate the style which some newer authors have taken note of or have been influenced by.

Read Leyner and then read Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk is still a dense, fast read but seems languid compared to Leyner. Intentional or not these authors remind me of one another for their terse prose and cutural obsessions. Leyner tends to stick to seemingly lighter subjects but in fact makes the same points with the use of broader comedy and absurdism.

A fun, quick read that can be enjoyed more than once. ... Read more

Product Description
The Doctor Is In . . . Again!

Did the mega-bestselling Why Do Men Have Nipples? exhaust your curiosity about stuff odd, icky, kinky, noxious, libidinous, or just plain embarrassing? No, you say? Well, good, because the doctor and his able-bodied buddy are in! Again! Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D., now take on the differences between the sexes—those burning questions like Why doesn’t my husband ever listen? or Why does my wife ALWAYS have to pee? And of course, Why do men fall asleep after sex?, plus plenty of others to keep you fully informed.

Full of smart and funny answers to an onslaught of new questions, all in a do-ask-we’ll-tell spirit that entertain and teaches you something at the same time, Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? offers the real lowdown on everything everyone wants to know about all things anatomical, medical, sexual, nutritional, animal, and mineral, but would only ask a physician after a few too many, like:

• Why do you have a “bionic” sense of smell when you’re pregnant?

• Does peeing in the shower cure athlete’s foot?

• Is a dog’s mouth clean?

• Can you breastfeed with fake boobs?

• Does thumb sucking cause buckteeth?

• Do your eyebrows grow back if shaved?

Bigger, funnier, and better than ever, Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex? proves that in the battle of the sexes, as in most things, a little Q&A is a safe, effective, minimally invasive remedy.


Also available as an eBookAmazon.com Review
The authors of what is now casually referred to as "that nipple book" are back, with more answers to questions "you'd only ask a doctor after your third whiskey sour." Smart, funny, and informative, Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex offers answers to questions you may be too embarrassed to ask, like"Does peeing in the shower cure athlete's foot?" and "Can you breastfeed with fake boobs?" We had the opportunity to ask authors Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg a few questions of our own--read their responses below.

Product Description
CONGRATULATIONS!

Your purchase of this book means that the admissions committee has thoroughly reviewed your application and we are pleased to welcome you to the Why Do Men Have Nipples School of Medicine.*
*A not quite fully accredited institution

Let’s Play Doctor is your instant guide to becoming a Real Fake Doctor. At the Why Do Men Have Nipples School of Medicine, we offer an informative, immersive, and incredibly entertaining course of study that will give you the special skills needed to get your M.D. on! By following the lessons in Let’s Play Doctor, you’ll learn:

• Special mental exercises to give yourself that buff, bulging Doctor brain
• How to impress your peers with big, polysyllabic, esoteric medical lingo (can you say pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis?)
• Easy ways to diagnose your girlfriend’s goiter or your father’s fistula
• Do-it-yourself surgeries from hemorrhoidectomy to breast enlargement
• And, most important, how to craft a completely believable, official-sounding get-out-of-work-for-medical-reasons note

Tuition? Just $14.95. Enroll today! It’s time to play doctor!


From the Trade Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Wacky Fun
After a busy week in an academic medicine training program, this book is a delightful way to decompress. It is absolutely hysterical and those in the medical model will enjoy reading it. Other people in the household will hear the laughter, it is that funny!

So Hilarious!
My boyfriend and I are both medical students and we read this book together on a break. It is SO hilarious. Easy to read and very accessible humor for health care and non-health care related people. He (who read it before his first year) still quotes it every so often and finds it lightening his outlook in classes. I sometimes share jokes from it with my patients and fellow students. I think the quiz questions in it are possibly among the funniest part. :)

A fun bathroom or flight book primarily "for guys"
Entertaining stuff for quick-reading and geared towards the male mindset.
Super for leaving by the toilet or bringing along on a flight.
The kind of book you can read snippets of while riding in a car or waiting for the dentist.
Includes crude sexual language and material.
It's great if you like this kind of thing. I like it.

Silly bathroom reading!
The book is full of random thoughts, quirky questions and useless information.It's entertaining and I got a few good laughs from it.

Not worth the $14.99 price
I've read the previous two books and I enjoyed them immensely but this is the worst book I've read in a while. Almost as if they already signed the check but then had to put out a book. And why is more than the price of the other books but far less material? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

Totally Pomo
This was a very post modern book, a fast read and very enjoyable!Leyner writes in a sarcastic over the top way that made me laugh throughout most of the novel.

Cool Stuff
If you're looking for a book that has a conventional structure (plot, story, etc.) you might not like this, since it's a lot of abstract humor about absolutely nothing. But it's great at what it is. It's like a very spicy food. It will burn a hole right through your brain.

Bizarre and hilarious
Mark Leyner is a strange, strange man. Weird and outrageously funny, this narcissistic pseudo-autobiography made me laugh so hard I thought I'd choke. You'll either love it or hate it.

Hilariously Funny Babe!
Mark Leyner is a strange writer to describe, whose work crosses genres with equal abandon. Here he tries to sound a bit like William Gibson (Though maybe a more apt comparison is Neal Stephenson, since his style and sensibility is much closer to Stephenson's than Gibson's.), Kurt Vonnegut, and of course Hunter S. Thompson. Indeed, "Et Tu, Babe" is what I'd expect from someone who had been cloned to resemble the worst excesses in literary style from the likes of both Stephenson, and especially, Thompson. Leyner goes well beyond a hilarious zone of neutrality at maximum warp speed, slicing and dicing celebrity culture with ample terse literary aplomb, while tossing some funny bon mots in a clever cyberpunk twist. Here Leyner imagines himself as some famous bigshot writer who is out to change the course of human history - and maybe, he almost does in this weird, though often, hysterically funny, brief tome of a novel.

Et Tu, Bah
Having read, My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, I had high hopes for Et Tu, Babe. However, other than a few hilarious venues(the "everything" sandwich, visceral tattoos, and the Schwarzeneggerization of America), this was a disappointment. I wound up skimming through too much tedium. I suspect Leyner had personal problems midway (the Arlene Scene) as the 2nd half of the bookd r a g s. Nun thee less, Leyner when he's on is one of the funniest orgasmic writers around. ... Read more

Product Description
A fiendishly innovative young writer ups the ante on his cult classics Et Tu, Babe and My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist with a book so funny that it ought to be a controlled substance. "With his pumped-up prose and steroidal satire . . . You could call him the Quentin Tarantino of cult fiction."--Newsweek. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Give this man back his medication
Leyner leaves his "teeth imprints" with the 17 stories, plays, ramblings, and dedications contained within. With his Dennis Miller-ishvocabulary, Reyner remarks on the absurdity that is prevalent in modernlife.

"The Mary Poppins' Kidnapping" throws a nod to thepresent censoring of the media. After viewing "Mary Poppins"three teenagers kidnap an English woman so that they could have a nanny.This triggers an across the board censorship for anything from "MaryPoppins" to "The Sound Of Music" stating that it's"...irresponsible to expose young people from middle- and low-incomefamilies to films depicting ostentatious affluence." which"...has the potential for provoking very explosive antisocialbehavior."

"The (Illustrated) Body Politics" exposes thatsenators have hidden tattoos that represent their true standings on issues.In "Oh, Brother", two Melendez type brothers kill their parentswith Howitzer shells, rocket-propelled grenades and 9mm Luger rounds thenplead innocent using the "imperfect self-defense" concept.Stating that since their parents were understanding, supportive, andcompassionate towards them, they didn't act like other parents and werecovering up a plot to kill them so they struck first.

And that's just thetip of the iceberg.

Writing like Christopher Moore with a newly acquiredthesaurus, Leyner makes you laugh, cringe, and wonder. After possibly thelongest dedication in written history the fun begins. Although he lovesusing big words don't be scared off. Bring a dictionary (optional) and anopen mind (mandatory) and enjoy.

oooooohhhhh yeah
Nah, I think I would have to say that this book IS falling down funny, in fact I've never laughed so much.Burroughs, Thompson, I hear people compare Mark Leyner to so many beat or other post-modern writers, but Iguarantee you that you will NEVER read something quite like this.I endedup reading at least half the book aloud to my roommate while tears werefalling down my face from my fits of laughter.It may not be for everyone,but it is surely for anyone like myself that likes their humor fast,random, and fantastically absurd.

Not Really Based On "Jokes"
The reviewer who gave this book only one star seems to have been anticipating a great number of punchlines in this book.There aren't that many.The book isn't based on "jokes" as such but on wry, pithyobsevations of the world at large, seen through the lens of Leyner's senseof the absurd.If you want "jokes," there are plenty of bookslike that out there.This book is not for a general audience anyway -- ittakes a special outlook to even appreciate this book -- but for those withthe mind set to appreciate this kind of humor, while it may not befalling-down funny, it is enjoyable.

Cheeky obviosities
To tell you the truth, I bought this book because some reviewer said that Leyner is William Burroughs and Beavis&Butthead combined. Well, no need to rush to your nearest internet bookstore -- he is neither. His jokes arenot funny, they are at most cheeky (and by that I mean the kind ofcheakiness that people in their 40s have when they try to sound young,fresh, hip, clever and imaginative). At first you allow yourself a smile,in anticipation of "the funny stuff", but it just never comes.This collection of short stories is probably "ok" for a column inEsquire, but it is simply inadequate as a book, because while inmens'magazines apart from the text you also have pictures of pretty chicks, thiscompilation has nothing else to offer.

Granted, it is difficult to judgea writer by short stories, but reading this is a total waste of time and Ican only blame myself for being too thick to realise it only after I almostfinished the book. Oh, by the way, here in the UK the book has a differenttitle: "A dream date with Di". Well, a person fantasizing about adate with Princess Di does not strike one as a progressive writer, and onewho actually tries to make fun of the idea is even worse.

Hillarious comments about life.
This book was the most hillarious thing i have ever read. I laughed so hard i cried.Everyone needs to read this book, it is wonderfully relaxingand therapeutic. ... Read more

Product Description
Welcome to Mark Leyner's America, where you can order gallium arsenide sushi at a roadside diner, get loaded on a cocktail of growth hormones and anabolic steroids, and support your habit by appearing on TV game shows. Here is fiction the brain can dance to, by one of the funniest and most subversive young writers of this, or any other, decade. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

One of the funniest books I've ever read
I read by the pound and am not easily impressed by the output of most wordsmiths.Leyner is at his hyperactive best here, delivering insanely comic bits peppered with his broad knowledge of culture, tech, medicine and car bombs.I'm on my third copy of this book because I lend it out and it never comes back.

hilarious
Very very clever and full of anarchic wordplay. Enjoying the absurdity of the wordplay is enough to give these stories meaning. despite a previous reviewer saying it was infantile - it think in this era of sappy books designed to enlighten people, which hardly seems to be saving society as we know it - a dose of weird and crazed thinking may do more to impact the way people think than a straightforward native with a "moral." Dig it.

Why no love?
In a world of hate and war, we must take a look back on this book. "My Cousin" was the first book by Leyner I read.
And, I still read it. This tome of delightful, poetic anarchy is not for everyone; But, if you can be distracted by the rantings of a stick figure in a Jhonen Vasquez comic, then this should definetly be a treat for you.
I recommend "Enter The Squirrel".

I say "Ole`!" to this author. (That's a good thing.) And, I recommend this book to everyone I meet, pass by, or steal from.
My rating?
Two fists up.

Fizz
I must ask your indulgence for a brief autobiographical anecdote (it is relevant).When I was seventeen-years-old, I was an aspiring author, and this was one of my favorite books, along with Henry Miller's BLACK SPRING.MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST, I thought, expanded language to the breaking point.Flash-forward ten years later.I found a jaundiced copy of this book in my parents' basement, along with BLACK SPRING, and re-read both during a week-long visit.

Was I ever THAT young????

My impressions had changed radically.The book now seemed infantile to me: it is nothing more, really, than a frivolous, badly strung-together collection of verbal sound-bites.The book is superficial and hollow at its core.Now, I'm not a fan of transcendental meanings or linear narratives, but, FOR GOD'S SAKE or for the sake of WHOMEVER, even experimental fiction should have at least SOME formal consistency.The surrealists' experiments (one thinks of SOLUBLE FISH or THE MAGNETIC FIELDS) or the work of Alfred Jarry all have an internal logic.This book has none.It is completely meaningless and disjointed.

In fact, the book is a mess: a hastily written, blithe little throwaway of a book.

MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST is pure entertainment, nothing more.If that is all you are interested in, so be it.But if that is the case, then you must accept that there is ESSENTIALLY nothing to distinguish this book from an episode of the TV show, FRIENDS, except that the latter is probably more memorable.

This book belongs on the shelf next to BLACK SPRING, a much more "illustrious" book (if only because it was reviewed by Maurice Blanchot), but also one that suffers from a similar disorder.

I've given this book two stars only because to give it one would be to demean my prior self.

Not as good as his others
I was a little disapointed in this one. Not as good as Et Tu, Babe, and Tooth Imprints on a Corndog. I guess his later work is the best. ... Read more

Product Description

Did the mega-bestselling Why Do Men Have Nipples? exhaust your curiosity about stuff odd, icky, kinky, noxious, libidinous, or just plain embarrassing? "No," you say? Well good, because the doctor and his able-bodied buddy are IN! Again! Now go-to authorities for that sort of thing, Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D., take on the differences between the sexes&#8212those burning questions like, "Why Doesn't My Husband Ever Listen?" or "Why Does My Wife ALWAYS Have to Pee?" and of course, "Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?" plus plenty of others to keep you fully informed.

Customer Reviews (1)

It looked good on paper...
I wanted to like this CD, I really did.But I just couldn't.This is a perfect example of a product that has everything going for it--catchy title, valuable information, good writing--but just can't deliver.The reason?They chose to go with the writer as the reader, instead of a trained professional.Huge mistake.Mr. Leyner is no stand-up comedian.He has no sense of comic timing and his voice is annoying as heck.Still, the bio-medical explanations provided by co-author Dr. Goldberg are pretty interesting.My advice is to get the book version and skip the CD.I wish I had. ... Read more

Product Description
A kaleidoscopic collection of some of the most exuberant and imaginative fiction being written in this country today. ... Read more

Product Description
In his debut collection, the author of Et Tu, Babe and My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist and one of our finest young practitioners of the art of literary disorientation plays the English language the way Jimi Hendrix played the guitar--at dangerous volume, blinding speed, and with a fine mixture of lyricism and sheer menace. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

There's Nothing To "Get"
As I was reading (and not at all enjoying or understanding)this, I thought of all the people who probably deem this "brilliant", and would suggest that I just don't "get it". Well, maybe not. But if someone would like to explain to me even one redeeming quality of this, I'm all ears. It's just random nonsense. I actually suspect it's Leyner being subversive, and putting out the worst thing possible and seeing who would be fooled into thinking that its on another level. I have now read three Leyner books, and I know that there is brilliance hidden in there somewhere if I keep looking. It came out in The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel, which I enjoyed very much. My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, um...not so much. Based on Tetherballs, I'll keep trying, but so far Leyner is 2/3 pure literary hoax, 1/3 brilliant. I Smell Esther Williams is in that 2/3.

A level of genius so high as to be unrecognizable as such
If you couldn't get through ten pages of William S. Burroughs the one time you tried, if you stared at Andy Kaufmann and wondered why anybody would think what he was doing was comedy, if The Residents produced what is, to you, an offensively pointless mish-mash of sound, then you will certainly not be able to finish this brilliant book.Move on to Leyner's equally excellent easier stuff.

Not the smart satirist and absurdist he would later become
Leyner is more often than not a solid 4-star writer (My Cousin, Et Tu, Tetherballs), but his first book offers little pleasure beyond the fun of its title.A number of years passed between this debut and the much more worthwhile "My Cousin" and it was a healthy period of artistic growth, evidently.There are a few flashes of cleverness here and there, but this is overall a soggy and underdeveloped effort that makes you realize how delicate and precise his unique style is: in later works, it's a marvel of pop culture satire, rapid fire wit, and intriguing arcania.Here, it's a sophomoric dud that too often reads like really bad Barthelme.Or really bad Leyner.

Beware
Don't misunderstand: everything Leyner's done after this first collection is brilliant writing and mandatory reading. But ESTHER WILLIAMS is the most godawful hodgepodge of literary conceits and pratfalls you may ever be unlucky enough to read. Obviously, some episode of satori marked the time between this and his next book, the now-classic MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST. I'm being harsher than I should be, perhaps, considering how great a satirist Leyner has become. But even he probably wishes this book would crawl off his resume. Take a pass on ESTHER and go straight to his other four collections.

Don't get me wrong...
I like Mark Leyner, but this book (his first) is way below par.It's obviously juvenilia, dressed up by Vintage after Leyner's success, and recovered from the tiny press (the Fiction Collective, Boulder) who tookthis unformed, trivial, pretentious book on in the first place.There area few funny lines and some evocative moments in here, but overall it's notworth the time or money.Work your way back to this one from the bookspublished since Leyner learned how to write. ... Read more

Product Description
Based on the #1 New York Times bestsellers Why Do Men Have Nipples? and Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?, this calendar answers hundreds of fascinating medical questions that are just too awkward or embarrassing to ask your doctor. Like: Can you breast-feed with a pierced nipple? In most cases, yes—though it's a good idea to remove the jewelry first. And: Do some people really have tails? Not really—it's usually just an outgrowth of skin at the base of the spine. Plus pop quizzes, On This Day, DIY medicine, and Great Moments in Self-Surgery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Hilarious
I have yet to find why men have nipples, but the daily medical commentary is enough to make a day start with a smile. ... Read more

Product Description
Word count: 1682. ... Read more

Product Description
The Greyhound Diary Travel Guide is a depressingly hilarious roaming narrative. A postmodern Odyssey from the backwoods of Wheatland to the lost highway in West Memphis. From the trashed streets of Newark to the industrial cesspool that is Cleveland. Trapped inside the Turtle Boat with tattooed clowns and freak-show white trash, a grueling masochistic non-stop journey into the heart of fear. Everyone, regardless of age, race, color, creed, sexual orientation, class distinction and/or drug and alcohol dependency will relate to this universal saga steeped in American popular culture. This horrid tour is a cynical account of what it feels like to be out there on the bus in the middle of nowhere crawling around at ten miles an hour with Amelia Earhart's retarded brother at the controls. This is everything you've forgotten on those trips home from college. A fascinating, compelling ride. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

coachman
MY GOD!!!, How the hell did Greyhound let this book get printed good god I think the writer needs more time in the hospital, in all my trips on the hound I have never had any trips like he said he had. All the driver's I ever met were the nicest guy's and gal's out there.

Your pretensions will fit underneath
Any national discussion of elitism should begin and end with one question: "At any point since you reached the age of majority, have you had the occasion to travel by Greyhound Bus Service?" If the answer is affirmative, no further discussion is required.

James Inman`s journal of one such trip is laugh aloud funny and wipe your eyes depressing often within the span of a single page. I've had this experience and due to a confluence of circumstance not all that long ago.You can't help but to smile as you recall each and every idiosyncratic person he mentions and cringe at the disparity of many others. The complete text is less than 70 pages so it's pretty likely that you will even think of a couple of other examples he was fortunate enough to have avoided during his journey.

Then it dawns on you...I was on that bus..I'm normal guy.

Alcohol would make a nice companion piece.
Thank all that is evil that James Inman got on the wrong bus. If he hadn't, then we wouldn't have his 'Greyhound Diary'. My own experiences on the bus have been quite pleasant -- in sharp contrast to Inman's -- but I also have no story to tell (and it's only a coincidence, James, that I'm writing this while traveling on the bus).

To its credit, Inman's story is a fairly quick read. If it weren't, you'd wonder how he lived to tell the tale or why you were still reading it.

Inman's lists, his rants, his smoldering, smelly details all add up to a laugh-out-loud read no matter where or when you read them, though alcohol would make a nice companion piece.

'Greyhound Diary' is 'On the Road' for the homeless, 'Oh, The Places You'll Go' for the chronically mentally ill, and 'The Grapes of Wrath' for people who would never read that book in the first place. It's a sweet, sloppy slice of America's yawning underbelly.

James Inman isn't a genius, but his work is.

The blue water words of an American Treasure


James Inman is an American Treasure.

No one else yet has been able to capture the world of Greyhound the way that James Inman has.

If you have ever ridden on a Greyhound bus, this book is for you.

I'll say it again, James Inman is an American Treasure.


Okay,
Father Luke

Night ... at the Grey Cafe ...


Having just finished reading this book, I had to leave a positive review after having laughed myself silly for the last two nights. At a mere 79 pages, Inman's travel diary reads like a polished novella of the caliber of Paul Bowles.

James Inman touches on a subject that many people have dealt with but few people have written about - without sounding like an ad brochure or meaningless moan from Lake Wobegon. This is a great literary tour through an unlisted United States.

I gave this book four stars instead of five, because I could've read for another hundred pages or so. ... Read more

Product Description
Is There a Doctor in the House?

Say you’re at a party. You’ve had a martini or three, and you mingle through the crowd, wondering how long you need to stay before going out for pizza. Suddenly you’re introduced to someone new, Dr. Nice Tomeetya. You forget the pizza. Now is the perfect time to bring up all those strange questions you’d like to ask during an office visit with your own doctor but haven’t had the guts (or more likely the time) to do so. You’re filled with liquid courage . . . now is your chance! If you’ve ever wanted to ask a doctor . . .

•How do people in wheelchairs have sex?

•Why do I get a killer headache when I suck down my milkshake too fast?

•Can I lose my contact lens inside my head forever?

•Why does asparagus make my pee smell?

•Why do old people grow hair on their ears?

•Is the old adage “beer before liquor, never sicker, liquor before beer . . .” really true?

. . . then Why Do Men Have Nipples? is the book for you.

Compiled by Billy Goldberg, an emergency medicine physician, and Mark Leyner, bestselling author and well-known satirist, Why Do Men Have Nipples? offers real factual and really funny answers to some of the big questions about the oddities of our bodies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (250)

Disgustingly frank
Have you ever bumped into a person who uses vulgar language freely and speaks in an offensive and overly casual way? That's the tone of this book, combined with unfunny, self-serving attempts at humor. While some of the medical trivia was interesting, completing the book left me hoping that I never have to endure a meeting with the authors.

White Elephant
I work with a group of individuals who share a superb sense of humor. Gave this book for our white elephant exchange at the holidays. There were quite a few laughs on the title and premise, but later my co-worker admitted how much fun the book was - my sediments exactly! Great coffee table (and better yet bathroom) book.

Entertaining
Entertaining book with answers to some odd medical questions. But they never really answer the title question...

Answers a lot of weird medical questions
Fairly interesting, sometimes funny but informative.Scope is narrow, the authors even admit this. This book discusses some of the most unique questions about the body as well as urban legends that have accumulated over the years.This topic is not as extensive and some people like to think.

annoying
Yet another one of those "wacky questions with sober, scientific answers"-type books.This one's a little different because it concerns mainly medical questions concerning the human body, especially those dealing with waste and the privates.

This one, though, is left of the median:about 20% of the book is an annoying dialogue between the two authors, largely about what strategy they should employ in writing the book.This was completely uninteresting and marred the book.In fact, far fewer questions were answered than could have been since so much space was taken up with this drivel. ... Read more