Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage. Author: Visit Amazon's Rob Delaney Page | Language: English | ISBN:
081299308X | Format: EPUB
Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage. Description
Review
“A book as funny, sincere, weird, wet, and wonderful as Rob Delaney himself.”
—Jimmy Kimmel “Rob Delaney has done it again! Actually, this is his first book, so he has not ‘done it again.’ Actually, this book is so good, I doubt he will be able to do it again. He’s peaked.”
—Judd Apatow“Rob’s transition from tweets to book is like a gold medal sprinter winning the marathon the next day. I am jealous and angry.”
—Seth Meyers“WARNING: This book may cause involuntary seepage. Some funny, funny, funny, funny s*** from the most dangerous man on Twitter. The fact that he’s just as funny in long form makes me want to vomit with envy.”
—Anthony Bourdain“All it takes to be as funny as Rob Delaney is luck, good timing, deep compassion, reckless imaginative agility, a flawless grasp of the inner workings of language, and criminally vast quantities of mojo. What a jerk.”
—Teju Cole, author of Open City“Although the aphorism ‘We laugh to keep from crying’ risks sounding clichéd, Delaney proves the point in this alternately melancholy and madcap depiction of an adolescence and early adulthood fueled by booze (‘I sought booze with a fervor measurably more intense than that with which I sought to get into young women's underpants’)…A surprisingly moving story of how humor can alleviate sorrow, if never completely eradicate it. The chapter about visiting the abandoned Danvers State Hospital-infamous for carrying out countless lobotomies in the 20th century-is worth reading on its own for the empathy it evokes for the casualties of early mental health treatment. Candid and conversational, this memoir shows there's more to Delaney than pithy tweets.” —
Kirkus ReviewsAbout the Author
Rob Delaney has been named the “Funniest Person on Twitter” by Comedy Central and one of the “50 Funniest People” by
Rolling Stone. He writes for
Vice and
The Guardian. This is his first book.
- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Spiegel & Grau; 11.12.2013 edition (November 5, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 081299308X
- ISBN-13: 978-0812993080
- Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Whenever I hear someone sneering at Twitter by saying that nothing worthwhile can fit in a 140-character message, I know that person has never spent any time on Twitter. The pseudo-profound criticism is wrong on two levels: first of all, it turns out you can say a lot of worthwhile things in 140 characters. You can be poignant, funny, and incisive, stripping an idea or a feeling or a joke down to its essence. (Oscar Wilde would have loved Twitter. He also would have loved not being thrown in prison for being gay.). But on a broader level, people who think Twitter is limited to 140 characters are just misunderstanding the medium. Following someone's Twitter feed over a period of time lets you build up a pretty good idea of their worldview, their priorities, their strengths and weaknesses. When I first started following Rob Delaney on Twitter, it was because I found his one-liners and absurdist observations funny. But as I continued to follow him, and to read the longer pieces he would link to on his feed, I got a much more complete picture of his views on depression, substance abuse, health care, parenthood and other things that matter to me.
So I was extremely excited that Rob Delaney was writing a book, and I was not disappointed. The book is funny - laugh-out-loud funny - in the way that only real honesty can be funny. It's also heartbreaking, and hopeful, and still funny, all the way through. His account of his alcoholism manages an almost impossible feat: recounting horrific experiences without glamorizing them, while still finding the humor at the core of the most harrowing experiences. One of the things that struck me most was that of all the terrible experiences he relates - enough to fill a lifetime of AA meetings - the deepest regrets are failures of kindness.
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