Worth buying
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This is a very funny book and has some brilliant questions and answers. It is great, so buy it!!
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Fabulous
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I loved this book, being a real 'Fact Finder' this was the perfect book for me, and funny too. All those little questions about humans that somehow make it into your head - answered, right here. A great buy.
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Some off-color humor amid some semi-serious Q and A
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I knew why men have nipples before I read this book. Because we're all female for the first six weeks after conception until the male hormones kick in. Yes, macho men, the default human is female. But I can never resist the kind of book in which there are questions we'd like the answers to and answers.
Ah, but this book is a little different. First, some of the questions are given equivocal answers, which is to be expected, since most of what there is to know isn't known. Some of the questions, like "Will using a cell phone give you a brain tumor?" or "Is it true that left-handed people are smarter than right-handed people?" aren't answered at all. Leyner, who is a writer, and Goldberg, who is an MD, have a way of going around the question. I got the feeling that the extent of their research didn't go much past the Internet--which might raise the question, how did this book ever become a best seller and inspire a sequel? The answer, my friend, is in the comedy.
Leyner and Goldberg are a comedy team. While the bulk of the book is in the Qs and As, a good part consists of some hijinks at a cocktail party (thus the three martinis, although Leyner is mostly into Don Julio tequila). A third part seems to be lifted verbatim from their emails to each other.
Part of the fun are those emails because they seem to give the reader a realistic glimpse into the cooperative creative process. It is also kind of fun to read what a doctor writes when he lets his hair down, so to speak, or at least takes off the white coat. However all of this is carefully staged. This is one of those "best seller" ideas that actually worked. These guys trade raunchy humor spiked with some information and lo and behold it works.
Well, it semi-works. I liked the book and read it through in a setting, but some of the humor may be a little too raunchy for some.
Bottom line: diverting enough for a rainy day or for that cross country flight, or if you need a break from War and Peace.
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A good idea ruined
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Have to disagree with the other reviewers - it's the unnecessary, self congratulatory, trying-far-too-hard "humour" that forced me to put this book down before I'd barely got past the first chapter. When the writers eventually stop talking about what wacky characters they both are and realise there's a question to be answered, the answer is normally so short as to be pointless. In the right hands (think Bryson), it could have been entertaining, but this is utterly tedious.
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Not bad!
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Some funny parts to this book but there are parts too which were not that interesting really. Worth a look though, particuarly for the humour.
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