Dave Barry's Bad Habits: A 100% Fact-Free Book

A collection of columns by the author of Dave Barry Does Japan offers the humorist's profound observations on the institutions and mores of American society, from smoking to the battle of the sexes. Reissue. 125,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo. Tour.

"To most people, news means information about events that affect a lot of people. On local TV news shows, news means anything that you can take a picture of, especially if a local TV News Personality can stand in front of it."

Dave Barry is the modern master of silliness; there's a party in his pen. While he's more recently branched out into books and magazine articles, the form where he shines brightest is the newspaper column. Dave Barry's Bad Habits is a cracking-good collection of his syndicated column taken from the early 1980s. And Barry at his best can stand among the greatest humorists America has produced.

First of all, let me assure you that we are not in a depression. The key economic indicator of a depression is that you suddenly start seeing a lot of primitive black-and-white newsreel films of people wearing old-fashioned hats and overcoats and forming lines in the streets of major cities to obtain bread. So far, all the lines of people have been videotaped in color, which is the sign of a stable economy. Also, the people have not been lining up for bread. They have been lining up for cheese, which the government has several million tons of."

When you're looking for a good belly laugh, sometimes only Dave Barry will do. Dave Barry's Bad Habits skates from topic to topic, always light, always rambunctious. For the dedicated fan, it's an essential volume; for the rest, it's yet more evidence that Barry is the Zen master of written mirth. --Michael Gerber

I put this one down on my Christmas list as I was looking for humor and odd fact sort of books. Prior to reading Bad Habits, I'd never heard of Dave Barry but was definitely intrigued by the "100% fact-free book" quote and it peaked my interest.

Barry looks at a plethora of issues that faced America in the 1980's and pokes fun at the Reagan Administration, the economy, government jobs, taxes, health habits, pop culture, the solution for kids to stop smoking (skip the 10th grade of course), attempts to communicate with alien life, family vacations/traveling, and of course no book is complete without commentary on our sports. Among my favorites is easily the air traffic controller dialogue :D


Pilot: This is Flight 274, requesting landing instructions
Controller: Well, if it was me, I would put the wheels down first, but don't quote me on that.
Pilot: No, I already know how to land, I was hoping you could tell me which runway I should land on.
Controller: Ah. Let me just turn on the little screen here and -- There we are. Say, is that you about to plow into the mountain?
Pilot: No.
Controller: Oh. That must be one of Bob's. (Yelling to another controller:) Bob, could you turn your screen on for a second? One of your planes is about to -- Wait, forget it.
Pilot: Um, look, we're running out of fuel here, so I'd really appreciate if you could possibly --
Controller: Hey, lighten up, will you? Do you want to make me tense and crazy so Reagen can fire me? (Yelling to other controllers.) Hey guys! I think I got a Republican here! (Laughter in background, shouts of "Steer him into the mountain!")
Pilot: Look please --
Controller: Hey, no sweat. We're just having some fun. I'll get back to you with a runway right after my break.
Pilot: But -- , Controller: (Click.)

Equally as interesting is Barry's synposis of popular classics and poems. Such as Moby Dick's central theme, "Don't mess around with large whales, because they symbolize nature and will kill you", as well as A Tale of Two Cities with "French people are crazy". I give this book four stars though because some of the parts were just too corny. Kind of I guess pg-13 humor and with my warped sense of humor, I want something a little more adult/darker I suppose :).

All in all, not a bad book and seeing as how a lot of Barry's books on here are fairly cheap, I'll definitely be looking to pick up a few more in the near future.

-Travis

I didn't like this book at all. I got to page 32 and laughed only twice. I guess I don't get his humor.

I didn't have a clue who Dave Barry was when I checked this book out of a library in 1984. I just saw the disclaimer, "A 100% Fact-Free Book," and was attracted by that kind of truth in advertising. There were three adults living in the house, and you could always tell, day or night, when somebody had picked up "Bad Habits" by the sounds of choking laughter. We spend two blissful weeks periodically resuscitating each other. Quintessential Dave. Read it.

Dave Barry's Bad Habits has comedy fiction writer Dave Barry trying his hand at the non fiction market. Although he achieved quality work in this genre with later attempts such Homes and Other Black Holes, this book was clearly just cashing in on the success of his fiction with little effort put in whatsoever. There's lots of references to Commies which either means Barry was extremely paranoid and brainwashed by his government of the time or he is retelling the same joke over and over again throughout the book, a joke that isn't that funny the first time and is really irritating when repeated and repeated and repeated. Barry also insists on telling us his personal stories in this book, obviously the publishers had a word in his ear with future non fiction books as these stories are hardly evident in those books but unfortunately they are here and aren't that interesting.

Dave Barry can write some really good stuff, both fiction and non fiction. Dave Barry's Bad Habits unfortunately is not one of those occasions.

Washington Post humor columnist Dave Barry dedicates this book "To Mom and Dad, who never made me go see Santa Claus." Perhaps he avoided that trauma, but as the book attests, he has encountered other horrors including housework, pet ownership, taxpaying time, child raising, traveling, and gift giving. My favorite is the school section, in which Barry dissects the American educational system, why we don't read (blame Dick and Jane), as well as the sections on culture and health. He may not be making these things up, but they are as hilarious as if he had.