This book is clever, funny, fast-paced, outrageous, ingeniuous, and just plain fun. Moore has written a slew of books but this is the first one I’ve read. It won’t be the last.

In the book, our beta-male hero Charlie Asher all of a sudden finds himself to be, well, Death. Or at least a “merchant of death”. Hey it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it. There’s a wild cast of characters and the story takes you on a  ride. I can’t really do the book justice, so I’ll post this mini-review from Publisher’s Weekly:

“Cult-hero Moore (The Stupidest Angel) tackles death—make that Death—in his latest wonderful, whacked-out yarn. For beta male Charlie Asher, proprietor of a shop in San Francisco, life and death meet in a maternity ward recovery room where his wife, Rachel, dies shortly after giving birth. Though security cameras catch nothing, Charlie swears he saw an impossibly tall black man in a mint green suit standing beside Rachel as she died. When objects in his store begin glowing, strangers drop dead before him and man-sized ravens start attacking him, Charlie figures something’s up. Along comes Minty Fresh—the man in green—to enlighten him: turns out Charlie and Minty are Death Merchants, whose job (outlined in the Great Big Book of Death) is to gather up souls before the Forces of Darkness get to them. While Charlie’s employees, Lily the Goth girl and Ray the ex-cop, mind the shop, and two enormous hellhounds babysit, Charlie attends to his dangerous soul-collecting duties, building toward a showdown with Death in a Gold Rush–era ship buried beneath San Francisco’s financial district. If it sounds over the top, that’s because it is—but Moore’s enthusiasm and skill make it convincing, and his affection for the cast of weirdos gives the book an unexpected poignancy. “

So yeah, what’s not to like? The book is Christopher Moore’s “A Dirty Job”. It was a very enjoyable read and now I need to pick up another book by Moore. If anyone has any suggestions let me know…

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The book is “Hello, I Must Be Going” by Charlotte Chandler, and it is subtitled “Groucho and his Friends”. It’s a biography of the legendary comedian Groucho Marx (learn more about him). This lengthy book contains a world of insight into his life and a very generous helping of memories, quotes, and comments from the funniest Marx Brother.

There are lots interviews with his friends, usually with him present to wisecrack and look back fondly. The book presents Groucho in his later years and he knows he is old and doesn’t have a lot of time. He gets a little down here and there, as would be expected. So he looks back on his long, celebrated life, and tells us all about it. There are also guest interviewers, who have great discussions with Groucho. These include Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, George Burns, and many more.

It was a little sad in that Groucho was near the end of his life. But his mind was sharp and he was clever and smart. In short, I liked the book and it just reinforced what I already knew, that Groucho was one of the funniest people ever.

Have you read it? Do you have an opinion?

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The book is Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up“. I’ve always been a big fan of his, from way back in the days of the “wild and crazy guy”, happy feet, “let’s get small”, and the arrow through the head. Remember? Well, I guess that depends on how old you are. And of course since then he has made many worthy films too.

This book follows his life from childhood into his beginnings with magic and comedy. Then into his becoming famous and how it affected him. Finally he covers why he decided to never do stand-up comedy again. The book ends there, hopefully he will write another one someday that will deal with his life after stand-up. This book is written in an easy-to-read style with some subtle humor, although you do get the down side too. It was a quick read and an enjoyable one.

Here’s what Elvis Presley said about Steve Martin in 1971: