There are very few books that I have ever read in my entire life that have made me actually laugh out loud and it is almost an impossibility to make me laugh until I cry. Then I read this book.
I was given My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest of Places by Mary Roach to review and it is one of the most humorous books I have ever had the pleasure of trying to make it through without snorting from laughter. She takes the oddities of life, the simple and mundane moments of our everyday, the irrational stresses we all face in our lives and shows you the lighthearted side of them.
The book is a compilation of essays from her Readers Digest column “My Planet”, the best of the best as it were. You will find everything from details of her first dates, rants about marital differences, the dissection of what it feels like to get older, her hypochondria tendencies and her obsession with making lists. My personal favorite story, that I could barely make it through, was about a shopping trip to the Home Depot with her husband when Self Checkout first became available.
“Please Place the Item in the Bagging Area.”
“Why?” replied Ed, and here was the start of his undoing. A talking machine will talk to you – endlessly, bossily, repetively – but it will not, no matter how fascinating or urgent your words, listen to you. It is my belief that these machines infuriate men because they remind them of the less pleasing aspects of talking to their spouses.
It is something we all use, something we’ve all probably have had problems with and she takes this one everyday moment that we’ve all had to deal with and shows you the humor inside of it. In fact, I can never look at Self Checkout Lanes the same way. I just start giggling every time it starts messing up on me.
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| Photo by PhyllisChristopher.com |
Mary Roach is a New York Times Bestselling Author, she’s been featured on The Daily Show and Colbert Report (both of which you can watch in her Videos Section) as well as her Essays have been featured on Vogue, GQ, National Geographic, and Wired! Her previously bestsellers are:
- Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
- Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
- Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
- Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
- Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal
My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest of Places is an incredible collection of little life comedies. I absolutely loved this book and I have no doubt in my mind, at all, that you are going to enjoy it. Just be ready for your family to look at you like a crazy person when you try to explain how Home Depot and the Weather Channel are hilarious.
This title just released today! You can pick up My Planet for $10.98 on Amazon!
