Reading the newspaper was an institution of my childhood. My parents always subscribed to the Deseret News, one of Utah’s two major papers. I remember seeing my mom and my dad read the paper. When I was really young, my interaction with the newspaper was limited to asking my parents to “read me the ‘Circle,’” which is what I called the Family Circus, since it was the only comic published in a circle instead of squares or rectangles. Later on, I started to read the newspaper for myself. I found it fascinating and read articles and columns from all the sections, but admit that the comics and the sports were the priorities. Sunday’s massive paper with extra sections and tons of advertising inserts also featured Dave Barry’s nationally syndicated column, and I usually thought they were amazing.
Dave Barry’s Money Secrets: Like: Why Is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar? (ISBN: 1-4000-4758-7) is a parody of financial advice books or self-help books and contains a lot of Barry’s goofball humor as well as the kinds of juxtapositions of what people are always saying and what actually happens in real life that have kept comedians in business since the dawn of time. He talks about the need for money, the lack of money, the history of money, investment opportunities, financial gurus, famous rich people (the bit on Donald Trump was surprisingly germane), tipping, and the stock market, among other things. None of it is sound financial advice, but it the vast majority of it hits home, like all good humor, because there’s some truth to it.
With the demise of newspapers, I haven’t read Dave Barry in close to twenty years, so the book was a fun read. I had never read a book by Barry, so this was also a new experience. As always, I enjoyed the most of the humor. I made the mistake of reading it on an airplane and I unsuccessfully stifled a few laughs out loud. I think the book format was just maybe a little too much for me. The column once a week was probably more the portion size I prefer. I also thought there was more gutter humor in the book than I remember in the columns (unsurprising, given that I was reading the columns over twenty years ago, when standards were a little different, especially in the newspaper industry as opposed to the book industry).
Dave Barry’s Money Secrets: Like: Why Is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar? (ISBN: 1-4000-4758-7) is a parody of financial advice books or self-help books and contains a lot of Barry’s goofball humor as well as the kinds of juxtapositions of what people are always saying and what actually happens in real life that have kept comedians in business since the dawn of time. He talks about the need for money, the lack of money, the history of money, investment opportunities, financial gurus, famous rich people (the bit on Donald Trump was surprisingly germane), tipping, and the stock market, among other things. None of it is sound financial advice, but it the vast majority of it hits home, like all good humor, because there’s some truth to it.With the demise of newspapers, I haven’t read Dave Barry in close to twenty years, so the book was a fun read. I had never read a book by Barry, so this was also a new experience. As always, I enjoyed the most of the humor. I made the mistake of reading it on an airplane and I unsuccessfully stifled a few laughs out loud. I think the book format was just maybe a little too much for me. The column once a week was probably more the portion size I prefer. I also thought there was more gutter humor in the book than I remember in the columns (unsurprising, given that I was reading the columns over twenty years ago, when standards were a little different, especially in the newspaper industry as opposed to the book industry).
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