lit_chick's review
1.0
I have been souring on Bill Maher for awhile, particularly after his recent comments criticizing vaccination, but I think this book finally did it for me. He includes a blurb condemning breastfeeding in public, which I think is a low blow. I'm not political about it, but I breastfed my son and will breastfeed my daughter, and think that his outrage over breastfeeding in public is poor choice for his rage. You should probably stick to the political comedy, Bill, but I won't be watching anyway.
nkives's review
3.0
I was going to give this a 2, but it semi-redeemed it self in the last quarter. Its not so polite either.
mrsjkamp's review
3.0
He came off as SUCH an asshole. Listening to him talk about sex was just bizarre. Gave me the creeps, honestly. I don't mind listening to graphic sex in detail, but listening to him just say the word sex got under my skin for whatever reason. I wouldn't quite call him a 'timid observer' either, or polite. He was a jerk. The only thing I appreciated was his opinion on same sex marriage.
iggnaseous's review
3.0
Maher is a social critic with a sharp wit and dirty mind. Or maybe it's just that he's willing to say what many are thinking. This was published towards the end of Bush 43's presidency and the references really date it. Still, some of the material holds up, and the rest too if you can remember the controversies and scandals that North Americans thought were important at the time.
trulybooked's review
3.0
This is one of those books that I picked up and couldn't put down, not so much because it was gripping as the fact that it is easy entertainment for me. I don't always agree with Mr. Maher's views, but I can enjoy reading him lampoon people for them. This book covers pretty much everything from history and religion to sex and politics to celebrity scandals and children. Irreverent? Yes, but also funny.
asteroidbuckle's review
4.0
I love Bill Maher. And okay, so I don't agree with everything he says, but some of the things he does say are pretty effing spot-on.
I picked this book up today off the bargain books table at my local bookstore and read it in one sitting. It was easy to do because: a) it's an easy read and b) it was so entertaining. I found myself laughing out loud several times.
Bill Maher is not a Christian conservative Republican. Neither am I, which is why I enjoyed this book. If you are a Christian conservative Republican, read Ann Coulter.
Maher's observations, while mostly political, are based largely on common sense, which is unfortunately lacking in a large percentage of the American population. He is an equal opportunity attacker, going after Republicans as well as Democrats, Christians as well as non-Christians, whites as well as blacks, gays as well as straights. The point of the book is that no one - no one - is exempt from doing something stupid, which makes us all equal.
Here are a few of my favorites:
There's no such thing as "flavored water."...Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt.
Stop saying that athletes do it for the love of the game. They do it for the love of their 32-room mansion with the live shark tank in the living room.
You can't notify people by e-mail that you've given them chlamydia. The San Francisco Health Department has a new service that lets you send an Internet greeting card to someone you may have infected with an STD: "Roses are red, orchids are gray, congratulations, you have hepatitis A."
And my #1 top favorite:
Jesus is not a candle. A company in South Dakota is selling candles with the scent of Jesus. You light one, and your friends say, "Christ, what's that smell?"
Brilliant.
This book isn't going to change the world. But maybe, just maybe, it'll make you think to yourself, "Americans aren't as superior as we think we are." Because really, it's our superiority complex that is slowly decaying our country. Bill Maher is just pointing it out.
I picked this book up today off the bargain books table at my local bookstore and read it in one sitting. It was easy to do because: a) it's an easy read and b) it was so entertaining. I found myself laughing out loud several times.
Bill Maher is not a Christian conservative Republican. Neither am I, which is why I enjoyed this book. If you are a Christian conservative Republican, read Ann Coulter.
Maher's observations, while mostly political, are based largely on common sense, which is unfortunately lacking in a large percentage of the American population. He is an equal opportunity attacker, going after Republicans as well as Democrats, Christians as well as non-Christians, whites as well as blacks, gays as well as straights. The point of the book is that no one - no one - is exempt from doing something stupid, which makes us all equal.
Here are a few of my favorites:
There's no such thing as "flavored water."...Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt.
Stop saying that athletes do it for the love of the game. They do it for the love of their 32-room mansion with the live shark tank in the living room.
You can't notify people by e-mail that you've given them chlamydia. The San Francisco Health Department has a new service that lets you send an Internet greeting card to someone you may have infected with an STD: "Roses are red, orchids are gray, congratulations, you have hepatitis A."
And my #1 top favorite:
Jesus is not a candle. A company in South Dakota is selling candles with the scent of Jesus. You light one, and your friends say, "Christ, what's that smell?"
Brilliant.
This book isn't going to change the world. But maybe, just maybe, it'll make you think to yourself, "Americans aren't as superior as we think we are." Because really, it's our superiority complex that is slowly decaying our country. Bill Maher is just pointing it out.
cheryl6of8's review
2.0
I was desperate for an audiobook and the pickings at the library bookstore were slim. It was only when I struck out on all the other things I was hoping to find that I figured I would try this. I used to watch Bill Maher's show in the last few Obama years and the first Trump one. But I stopped because I found some of his stuff offensive and then he claimed to be a feminist. It was actually the toxic masculinity that turned me off the most, so when he said you should not challenge him because he was woke and liberal and a feminist, I gave up. Occasionally I see one of his comments on recent events and agree with him and wonder if I should try again. This has answered that question: No.
Maher is biting and bitter and angry and crude, but I accepted all of that. I did not agree with it when his show was cancelled on ABC after 9/11 because he was right. The actions of the terrorists were deplorable and horrific, but they were not cowardly. Willingness to die for what you believe in is not cowardice, and the fact that he admitted that about America's enemies pissed off average Americans, even the liberals. However, what should piss of the liberals where we (I consider myself a liberal) emphasize the dignity of human beings is Maher's classism, his anti-religious prejudice (you don't have to agree with someone's religion to respect them, any more than I have to agree with the fact that he is a raging pothead to respect his right to smoke marijuana), his fat-shaming, and most of all his reduction of woment to sexual objects first and foremost. For all that he rages against religious conservatives, whether Christian or Muslim, oppressing/repressing women by not letting us express ourselves sexually or choose our own clothing, any time he mentions a woman in this collection of musings that doesn't address repression, it is to do with sexual performance or fantasies, or dismissing them entirely because he does not wish to have sex with them or -- WORSE -- they would not wish to have sex with him. For all that he claims to respect women, he just believes in a woman's right to be sexually available to him and her obligation to be sexually attractive to him. Sadly, he is not alone.
The only semi-redeeming moment for me in the whole audio collection was when the snippet on Donald Trump's hair/combover was immediately followed by him wishing that the US could have a colorful sexual-scandal laden buffoon of a president. At least now I know who really is to blame for the last 4 years.
Maher is biting and bitter and angry and crude, but I accepted all of that. I did not agree with it when his show was cancelled on ABC after 9/11 because he was right. The actions of the terrorists were deplorable and horrific, but they were not cowardly. Willingness to die for what you believe in is not cowardice, and the fact that he admitted that about America's enemies pissed off average Americans, even the liberals. However, what should piss of the liberals where we (I consider myself a liberal) emphasize the dignity of human beings is Maher's classism, his anti-religious prejudice (you don't have to agree with someone's religion to respect them, any more than I have to agree with the fact that he is a raging pothead to respect his right to smoke marijuana), his fat-shaming, and most of all his reduction of woment to sexual objects first and foremost. For all that he rages against religious conservatives, whether Christian or Muslim, oppressing/repressing women by not letting us express ourselves sexually or choose our own clothing, any time he mentions a woman in this collection of musings that doesn't address repression, it is to do with sexual performance or fantasies, or dismissing them entirely because he does not wish to have sex with them or -- WORSE -- they would not wish to have sex with him. For all that he claims to respect women, he just believes in a woman's right to be sexually available to him and her obligation to be sexually attractive to him. Sadly, he is not alone.
The only semi-redeeming moment for me in the whole audio collection was when the snippet on Donald Trump's hair/combover was immediately followed by him wishing that the US could have a colorful sexual-scandal laden buffoon of a president. At least now I know who really is to blame for the last 4 years.
amcheri's review
2.0
Meh. I agree with much of his politics and got a handful of chuckles out of it. This is pretty old so most of it is very much out of date - I thought this was the newer book when I borrowed it from the library. That'll teach me to pay closer attention. Very happy I borrowed it and didn't buy it.
Maher, much like Stephen Colbert in his I Am America, seems to equate all things gay with only men. As a lesbian, that gets pretty old. I didn't mark this down in stars because of that, it's a solid 2 star without that (and the ridiculous transvestite "rule") it's just not all that good.
Maher, much like Stephen Colbert in his I Am America, seems to equate all things gay with only men. As a lesbian, that gets pretty old. I didn't mark this down in stars because of that, it's a solid 2 star without that (and the ridiculous transvestite "rule") it's just not all that good.