This is a beautful book with photos of gorgeous countryside. Owen Franken has a keen eye for accentuating the aesthetics in an already stunning environment.

This fabulous book absolutely transported me! The incredible text beautifully complements the photos. You can almost smell the thyme and feel the soft sea breezes... A fantastic book!

a delightful little book of pretty photos of provence.a very nice memory for those who forgot their camera and a nice source book for those who want to return to provence and see place and things one might have missed.

The author is one of the founders of "Pathography" -- the science associating biography and the diseases that affected the composers. The association of creativity and disease is resolved by documenting that disease had minimal or little effect on originality, productivity and the like. How did Mozart truly die? The conflict with with Sallieri is well documented and fact and fiction is deliniated. How is it that Schubert composed his most famous Lieder while hospitalized and suffering? How was it that Bartok composed even though dying? What was Robert Schumann's true diagnosis? Did Clara Schumann have an affair with Brahms while Robert Schumann was in an Insane Asylum. What about Chopin and Sand? Did love relate to creativity?
This beautifully illustrated book relating 250 years of music from Bach to Bartok should have its place in every musician's and music lovers library. Reading it it make me cry when I read parts of it. The translator kept aptly some "Germanisms" of the original German in his very readable English translation, it is a deffinite plus. Those who want to know more about Bach, Handel, Mozart, Wagner, Mahler, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy etc (in all 24 composers) will reach for this magnicant small folio. How did women, such as Cosima Wagner and Alma Mahler relate to their genius husbands? And all this is well documented, with an appropriate bibliography and index. Go and get it!

This book is never boring and rarely hermetic. It does not lack distancy and really offers a kind of detailed commentary on the content of Stein's writings. Before reading it, I would not have believed that Dante or the Cabala could have anything to do with Stein. Now I read Stein with different eyes. Perhaps a new Stein biography will be written on the basis of the insights of this book.

I have read all of Al Franken's books up to this point with the exception of this one. I had been a fan of Franken since his days of Saturday Night Live, particularly his Stuart Smalley character. This book further demonstrates the depth and intelligence of his humor.

The book is very similar to the movie based on it (Stuart Saves His Family). Having already seen the movie, I was anticipating certain events in the book once I started reading. Despite my previous knowledge, I found the book to be laugh out loud funny. The humor of the Stuart Smalley character is based in him trying to help out others, yet being a mess himself as is demonstrated by his membership in several support groups.

Even people passing through my home who picked this book up from my coffee table and read a few pages have enjoyed what they read. It is not hard to get the joke. This is a easy, but fun read.

When Stuart Smalley first came out I didn't quite see the appeal. Now with 5 years in The Program, I finally get the joke. I have lent this book to a lot of folks in my home group and we all agree that it's pretty impossible not to laugh out loud while reading it. What a funny, smart insightful man. Seriously one of the funniest books I've ever read, though I might not have "gotten it" without my familiarity with 12 step programs.

I'M GOOD ENOUGH, I'M SMART ENOUGH, AND DOGGONE IT, PEOPLE LIKE ME!, is a year in the life of Stuart Smalley, the character created by Al Franken, seen on Saturday Night Live. The book is written in journal format - each day is a daily affirmation, and Stuart gives us advice and tips on various subjects as he works his way along the road to recovery (he belongs to several 12 step groups).

The book had me laughing so hard - especially the references to the 12 step lingo - he refers to his higher power constantly - and his affirmations themselves are funny unto themselves. Each page is a new day, and a new problem to tackle: social problems, ex boyfriends, jealousies, insecurities... at one point he becomes the executor of a will, of all things! And the book reads as one big gossip-fest.... he rambles on in his journal as if he's talking, and THAT'S okay!!!

I am having a hard time describing this book, but all i can say is READ IT. It had me in stitches!!

Franken's "Stuart Smalley" is probably his most brilliant character, and the short bits on SNL are absolute classics. But somehow it falls flat on tape without the visuals and Francken's mugging.

Perhaps those who are more intimately familiar with the self-help culture will find it funnier. For me, it seemed somewhat lifeless.

This cassette is so funny that I almost cried. I loaned it to a friend who listened to it while driving and had to pull over to laugh uncontrolably. It is very, very funny in that Al Franken/Stuart Smalley way. I would reccommend this for all those Stuart fans who need a fix. It is worth owning.

Being a member of a 12-Step Program and having endured many well meaning attempts at guided meditation, I thought I would "bust a gut" the first time I started listening to this tape. For all that I laughed, the ending is truly Adult Child work, and it moves me to tears every time I listen. In fact it is one of those "non conference approved" aids that I recommend to those I sponsor.

Al Franken's "Why Not Me?" is a satiric account of politics documenting his fictional but successful run for the U.S. presidency in 2000. The story is presented through a pastiche of faux diary entries from the campaign trail, chapters of a Bob Woodward novel documenting the first 100 days of the Franken presidency, several magazine and newspaper stories, and transcripts, among other things. As such, the novel reads somewhat like a scrapbook--with similar ease and discordance.

There are certainly laugh-out-loud moments in the book, but it is in general flat and lacking the political insight that Franken's "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations" had. The story is about Franken running for the Democratic nomination on a single issue, ATM fees charged by banks. When that platform does not seem to capture the nation's interest, he turns to insurance companies for funding and agrees in return to add deregulation of the banking industry (thus allowing insurers to enter the market) to his platform. Along the way, he and his staff lie, commit battery, manufacture and take drugs, and run a phone-sex line.

Ultimately, the novel portrays Franken as an oversexed moron, an image that does not work entirely well. Franken, as author, has difficulty presenting an insightful political satire about Franken, the bumbling candidate. The majority of the funniest jokes, therefore, are more often salacious than politically insightful. In the end, there is simply too little to justify the 289 pages, and the real laughs are therefore too few by comparison.

This is a hilarious account of Al Franken's campaign for presidency, election win, and then disgrace that ended with his resignation as president after only 144 days in office. It is classic Al Franken, though it felt to me a little more teenage boy humor than he usually has - this is not a bad thing, just a different thing. In the context of his campaign in New Hampshire and Iowa with Dan Haggerty, Al's alcoholic brother, Dick Morris, and a few others using rented cars and sharing hotel rooms, it makes sense to include lots of fart and physical humor jokes.

The best part of the book, as others have noted, is the campaign diary. I laughed out loud many, many times, even on the subway with lots of people around. It is simply hilarious, sometimes gutbustingly hilarious, almost always at least a chuckle. The diary works so well, because it is so honest. He recorded all his bad thoughts (hating New Hampshire people enough to refer to them as "inbred", his time spent with prostitutes, etc.), his brother's drunken fests of hitting people with boards, etc. Franken's writing is such that the characters have a real consistency in their actions throughout the course of the campaign year, and after the election. The demise of his presidency reads like a really funny Greek tragedy, filled with ennui and hubris. This is very good writing - tight, succinct, and awfully funny - and very good at skewering people, politics, and traditions, of all faiths, beliefs, and inclinations, whether on the right or on the left. The rest of the book is also very good. If the book were only the non-diary material, it would still be very funny. The situation is simply that the diary is ***so*** extra-hilarious, that the humor in the other parts seems diminished in comparison. The transcripts of Franken's debates against Gore will leave you shaking with laughter, too.

Franken takes many digs on Gore and Democrats, and of course nails the republicans and corporations, and the whole political machine, with his wonderfully funny sarcastic wit. This is a book that you should read, especially if you like humor.

Conservatives, probably especially of the Christian Right type, will probably not like it because Franken doesn't worship Ronald Reagan. Normal thinking people, though, will find this wonderfully funny and entertaining and get a few hours of decent laughter out of this skewer of the political process - skewers that are aimed at Democrats and Republicans and Independents alike.

This was one of the funniest books I have ever read. In it comidian Al Franken wins the democratic nomination and becomes US President running only on one issue, ATM fee's. The book start's off with Franken's autobiography, "Daring to lead". That is followed by Franken's diary of his campaign. I thought that the diaries start off fairly boring but slowly get more interesting and funny as they progress. The many attack ads against Gore are very entertaining. I didn't get some of the US political inside jokes, and it didn't measure up to Franken's other book, "Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot" but I certainly enjoyed it.

Read Al Franken's OH, THE THINGS I KNOW! . . . it contains
tongue-in-cheek advice for just about anybody, ranging from
those about to start work ("Oh, Are You Going to Hate Your
First Job!") to the golden years of senior citizenship ("Oh,
the Nursing Home You'll Wind Up In!").

Franken tries to be helpful, but sometimes he can't help
telling it like it REALLY is . . . for instance, he notes, "Someone once said it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich person as with a poor one. Actually that's not true. It's easier to fall in love with a rich person. But to get them to love you back, that's harder."

My only regret is that he just wrote the book . . . had he
written it earlier, I could have avoided the oh-so-many mistakes that I've made in my life.

Some of Franken's wit and wisdom falls flat, but overall, I laughed at several passages . . . among them:

[on investing] Follow your gut! If you find yourself using a product, invest in it. You see, I wasn't using Enron, but I was using Bounty towels. Had I made an equivalent investment in Bounty's manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, I would have reaped a
disappointing, but respectable, 3 percent return rather than
suffering a 99.8 percent loss.

[on dieting] Do you really need that pork chop? No. Especially
since you didn't even order it, and it's on the plate of the person next to you. Resist the urge to take food off the plates of other people in restaurants. Or, if you must, at least ask, "Are you going to finish that?"

[on getting along with his wife] Another secret to our long
and successful accommodation is a little trick we have for
smoothing over the many rough patches. It's very simple but
very effective. We don't go to bed angry. We stay up and fight!

Al Franken...you really need to give all the proceeds of this book to your wife...and maybe that will begin to make up for all the fun we're having at her expense! Franken, author of one of my most favorite titled books of all time, "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot", scores another winner with this little book.

With his sharp wit and conversational style (you can almost hear him speaking these words while you read them), he leads us through the too-often-times hellacious rollercoaster ride of life. He starts with college graduation and goes forward, till the bitter end of life and beyond. It's quite a journey through most of life's misadventures.

The title, is done in Dr. Seussian style and that style is repeated throughout the contents. Examples include chapters titled: "Oh, you shouldn't skip the introduction"; "Oh, the drugs you will take"; "Oh, the orgasms you will fake".

In the drug chapter, he advises people to use drugs responsibly, and that he would be a hypocrite to say not to use them at all, as he is high on drugs right now "prescription drugs, but drugs nonetheless". I can believe that one, but I can't believe his statement in "Oh pick a religion, any religion", that "he has absolutely no idea what he will write next". Franken knows what he wants to say and how to say it.

There's a whole lot of practical advice -- ok, maybe not so practical. Some examples include: every marriage has a "stomach-turning" phase you need to get yourself through. Or, how about, "try to view your stay in a nursing home as merely temporary, because in one way or another, it is". There's some advice for men: resist the temptation to cheat on your wife, and try instead to make sex with her reasonably diverting, by thinking about a younger, more attractive woman.

Along with his suffering wife, he gets some jabs in at Bill Gates, Kenneth Lay, Ann Quindlen and Maria Shriver to name a few. He shamelessly dedicates his book to that inspiration to us all, (especially to wannabe book-of-the-month club authors such as himself), Oprah.

All in all a funny book, almost worthy of five stars. "AL" (see the drug chapter) would probably want me to conclude this review by saying something like, oh well, if you can't be successful, just be happy. "AL" Franken does makes us feel happy, despite all of our shortcomings, or perhaps, because of them.

"Oh, the Things I Know!", by Al Franken, bears the subtitle: "A Guide to Success, Or, Failing That, Happiness." This book is a hilarious parody of the genre of book that offers the reader advice for good living. In the course of the text Franken particularly singles out two contributors to the genre--Anna Quindlen and Maria Shriver--for mockery.

Franken covers a wide range of life experiences: sex, drugs, religion, marriage, parenthood, finances, volunteerism, etc. Along the way he pokes fun at many targets: commencement addresses, Oprah's Book Club, the Enron scandal, etc. Both brainy and playfully vulgar, he's not afraid to hit below the belt--or go for the jugular. His prose style is mischievous and engaging, yet drips with sarcasm.

The chapters have such amusing titles as "Oh, the Weight You Will Gain!" and "Oh, the People You'll Sue!" This book made me laugh out loud several times. In fact, at one point I laughed so hard I nearly fell down and injured myself. And that's probably the best praise one can give to a book like this.

I am English, and picking up a random satirical political book from the shelf seemed like a good idea for learning a bit about American politics. And having a good time.

I didn't like the title, because it is somewhat...confrontational. But between the covers of this aggressive book lay a very, very funny man. He combines an astute political sense with a level of indignant humanitarianism which allows him to put radical conservatives in a very bad light. Franken uses stats and figures to support his claims, but never attempts to pretend his book is any more than satire - slightly less political than P.J. O'Rourke, for example.

Radical conservatives might struggle to enjoy this, but anyone with a sense of humour should be able to appreciate most of Franken's character portraits and, even better, anecdotes - for example, when he played with the President American football and made a play which won his team the game...but the President forbore to congratulate him. The quick prose is funny and witty...

But...it does go a little far at times, and though I learned to share some of Franken's views on Rush Limbaugh, to whom I have never listened, I still thought some of the writing went too far. It reassured me tremendously to read in Franken's "Why Not Me" that Limbaugh himself had bumped into him and instead of pummelling him had yelled - "hell of a book!". This, and grudging praise to men such as Bob Dole gives Franken a bit more depth than an out-and-out liberal satirist with no punches pulled.

Think of all those liberal talking heads out there. Dan Rather. Peter Jennings. Jesse Jackson. Eleanor Clift. Mario Cuomo. Charlie Rangle. Hillary Rodham.

They're all about as funny as a root canal.

Thank goodness Al Franken is on the left side of the fence. Franken is a genuinely funny writer who is a welcome respite from the otherwise overwhelming sea of liberal vinegar faces who only open their mouths to whine, vent, accuse, and obfuscate. Franken's book, RUSH LIMBAUGH IS A BIG FAT IDIOT: AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS, is witty and funny because he plays Limbaugh's game: establish your position through humor and satire.

This book is a quick, entertaining read, sprinkled with deliciously wicked little barbs and jabs. Some of the author's rebuttals of Limbaugh's statements and beliefs are less than sincere and well-reasoned, but come on, this is satire, not rocket science. Franken pushes the envelope just as effectively as Limbaugh's railing against "femi-nazis" and "environmentalist whackos." He gives conservative satirists a taste of their own medicine, and manages to generate some laughs in the process.

As a conservative, I appreciate good humor and satire, regardless of its political slant. RUSH LIMBAUGH IS A BIG FAT IDIOT: AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS is darn good satire. To my fellow conservatives who are offended by this book, I say: lighten up. If we can't laugh at ourselves, how are we going to laugh at those zany liberals?
--D. Mikels

Let's face it: If you are conservative then you probably will agree with Rush but if you lean towards liberal then you probably can't stand him.

In my case, I've read Rush's first book "The Way Things Ought to Be" and found it to be full of inaccuracies, unsubstantiated and outrageous claims, and misinformation. That's not to say Rush is a complete moron because he does put forth some good arguments, but overall, I think Al Franken proves his case to convince me that Rush is a (big fat) idiot.

I like this book because it is hysterically funny and quite entertaining. Al's wit it dry and sometimes vicious. I laughed to tears when I read the chapter about Phil Gramm ("I own more guns than I need, but not as many as I want.")

He lampoons the right wing, and I think he does it well. If you are a conservative with no sense of humor, you will not like this book.

From the moment I first saw this book in my local library and noticed that it had a cover that looked almost exactly like "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" (which I own), I had to pick it up and at least scan it, if not check it out and take it home with me.

I'm giving Mr. Mauro two stars for trying, but in this book you will not hear the voice of a die-hard Rush Limbaugh fan who was so incensed and outraged over some of the things that Mr. Franken writes about his beloved idol that he just had to go out and write a book of his own in response. No, this is just an everyday conservative Republican lawyer (or is it two everyday conservative Republican lawyers?) doing his best to add fuel to the already burning-out-of-control fires of conservative ire over how there are too many liberals in America today. It's telling, for instance, that Mauro doesn't even bother to devote as much time to defending Limbaugh as Franken does to dissecting Limbaugh. Mauro appears to be more interested in comparing the person Franken was in his years on "Saturday Night Live" to the person he is today as a result of writing the Limbaugh book.

To give Mauro credit, he does do a great job of cutting PETA up like a buzz saw and pointing out how tiresome some of Franken's most repetitive jokes can be, case in point: the one about former Senator Alphonse D'Amato. At least those parts are funny.

Someone told me that Matt Drudge has been touting this book recently as "the funniest conservative book ever" or some such thing, so I picked up a used copy for a song off of Amazon. I don't know if it's the funniest conservative book ever, but it IS damn funny. It's also surprisingly accurate -- I can't believe it wasn't a bigger deal when it came out (the Jesse Jackson stuff alone is scarily prescient). Definitely worth the few bucks I paid. I howled.

I was recently (February 2003) in the library looking for Ann Coulter's new book when I ran across the gem that is Mauro's book. I bursted with laughter when I read the title ( obviously a faux paus in a library) and haven't stopped laughing since. I wish I had known about this book sooner.
Another reviewer on Amazon stated that the book was "dated" but it is more accurate to say that Mauro's book is ahead of its time. Published in 1996, it is a precursor to Bernard Goldberg's "Biased"; in fact Goldberg mimics most of Mauro's observations on liberal bias in the media and uses the same data as Mauro to support his assertions.
I have let several co-workers read just the first chapter and they too laughed out loud. Anyone on this webpage that gave "Al Franken is a Buck-Toothed Moron" less than five stars is probably eating a "not-dog" with Barbara Steisand at this very moment or out protesting the war against Iraq.
You owe to yourself to read this book. I still can't believe that I overlooked this book for so long.