Review (PDF) Dave Barry In Cyberspace
"RELENTLESSLY FUNNY . . . BARRY SHINES."--People A self-professed computer geek who actually does Windows 95, bestselling humorist Dave Barry takes us on a hilarious hard drive via the information superhighway--and into the very heart of cyberspace, asking the provocative question: If God had wanted us to be concise, why give us so many fonts?Inside you'll find juicy bytes onHow to Buy and Set Up a Computer; Step One: Get ValiumNerdstock in the Desert; Or: Bill Gates Is ElvisSoftware: Making Your Computer Come Alive So It Can Attack YouWord Processing: How to Press an Enormous Number of Keys Without Ever Actually Writing AnythingSelected Web Sites, including Cursing in Swedish, Deformed Frog Pictures, and The Toilets of Melbourne, AustraliaAnd much, much more!"VERY FUNNY . . . After a day spent staring at a computer monitor, think of the book as a kind of screen saver for your brain."--New York Times Book Review
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st Ballantine Books Ed edition (September 23, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0449912302
ISBN-13: 978-0449912300
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (107 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #1,128,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #180 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Computers & Internet #795 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Political #1476 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Parodies
For starters, this could easily be the best Dave Barry's collection of columns ever. His account on the Very First Thanksgiving, his solution to the Drug Problem (thru the use of modern packaging) and his depiction of the fears that bees inflict upon him, are just some of the bits that really make this one of his best books. Dave Barry is the master of humor synthesis. And in "...from Venus and Mars" he demonstrates it again and again. He also goes back to the typical use of hyperboles (the closing of an article re-taking a priorly referred subject) and also is great again on his "mind" and "I.Q." level comparisons. His keen (real keen) sense of observation it's poured easily and with grace on these pages. You cannot avoid laughter. But it's a laughter with a sense of "familiarity": I'm laughing at this, yes. But, oh, my gosh, this is also SO TRUE!. If you don't know the works of Dave Barry you are just missing the works of (as the New York Times once put it) "the funniest man alive". Read this book. It's a great start for a great addiction. And, in the end, you'll be experiencing the same consequence than me: mainly, the need to have, read. and re-read ALL of his books. By the way, a piece of advice on the picture that appears on page 143. The person shown on the left IS Stephen King, and it's not a fake picture. The caption in this picture is funny, as the rest of the captions in the other black and white Dave's pictures that appear randomly thru the book. It's great to see a younger Dave Barry (and to see even a photograph of his Catholic Confirmation certificate) to feel closer to the life and circumstances of one of the finest humor brains ever: the brain of the author of "...from venus AND Mars", Mr. Dave Barry. Believe me. It's impossible (absolutely IMPOSSIBLE) not to laugh reading him! Get this book and ...enjoy!
Let me start by saying that I love Dave Barry's work -- I've been reading everything he's written since the early-'80's, always with great anticipation. With that said, I regret to report that this book is merely OKAY. Of course it was funny (how could Dave Barry not be?!), but I only found maybe two or three rolling-on-the-ground-laughing parts. So, if you're a fan of his, or if you have an interest in computers, you should definitely read it. Just don't expect as much side-splitting as other reviewers have claimed. For laugh-out-loud-til-you-wet-yourself Dave Barry humor, I recommend any collection of his weekly columns, and also *Dave Barry Slept Here*.
Although I love Dave Barry, and his writing always cracks me up, this is by far the least funny of his books. A far better book to start with is Dave Barry's Greatest Hits, or Dave Barry's only travel guide you'll ever need.
Dave Barry Is From Mars And Venus is probably his best work yet (even displacing the hilarious Dave Barry Does Japan). All the essays touch some hidden button that makes the audience gasp while holding its sides with laughter, "Yes! I know exactly what he's talking about!" Also notable are the small handful of essays where he sheds the slapstick facade for a few seconds for a rare look at the bitterness and anger he feels towards certain institutions of America. Definitely a must-buy for any Dave Barry fan.
What other author could sum up Jerry Pournelle in one sentence, make jokes about the Radio Shack TRS-80, tell an enticing tale about a cyber romance, and still manage to work the word "booger" in at least once per chapter? Updike couldn't do it. Mailer certainly couldn't do it. Only Dave Barry can do it.
This book is rip-roaring, side-splitting, and downright howlarious! Oh my god. I read it cover to cover as though I were taking the bar exam except that every other minute I was literally rolling on the carpet howling as though someone was performing the "Tunisian Tickle Torture" on me. And I'm not even exaggerating.The first few chapters are incredibly funny, and as you get accustomed to his kind of humor you start to want more and more of it and you eventually start laughing in preparation for his jokes!Coming to the actual content of this book - it is an extremely comically cynical look at computers and how they affect everyone everyday. The guffaws begin with his description of evidence of computer usage in the stone ages, continue through to his tips on selecting a computer to buy, persist with his description of software and its purpose and culminate with a tongue-in-cheek description of the "information superhighway", internet and chat rooms. My personal favorite is his definition of "electricity" - it should appear in all physics text books.Somewhere towards the end, there is also a somewhat touching story about a couple that meet in a chat room. I wonder if it landed up in this book as a mistaken cut-and-paste operation. Nice to read all the same.All in all, if you are ever bored, forget TV and everything else - pick up this book and do yourself a favor. You never thought you could laugh so much.
The first 3/4 of this book are reliable, hilarious Dave Barry. You really don't need to know much more than that to know that you are in for a hilarious read.I found it really interesting, as a young person, to read about the 'early internet'. As often happens with Barry's books, this was surprisingly informative!Then something strange happens. He writes a semi-serious short story about a married woman who has a cyber-affair. It felt sort of out of place.
Dave Barry in Cyberspace Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster): Life Lessons and Other Ravings from Dave Barry Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States Dave Pelz's Putting Bible: The Complete Guide to Mastering the Green (Dave Pelz Scoring Game Series) The Barry Halper Collection of Baseball Memorabilia (3 Vols.) Making Time in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon: Art, History, and Empire The Real Barry Humphries CONAN UNCENSORED: La Censura en los Comics de Conan de Barry Smith (Spanish Edition) Arizona Highways, May 1988 (Bald Eagles; Barry Goldwater on Photography) (Vol. 64, No. 5) Cyberethics: Morality And Law In Cyberspace Virtual Reality - die digitale Welt wird zur Wirklichkeit: Augmented Reality, VR-Brillen, Cardboards, Cyberspace (German Edition) Cybercrime: Criminal Threats from Cyberspace (Crime, Media, and Popular Culture) Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version 2.0 Hate Crimes in Cyberspace Hacked: The Inside Story of America's Struggle to Secure Cyberspace Network Forensics: Tracking Hackers through Cyberspace A Fierce Domain: Conflict in Cyberspace, 1986 to 2012 Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace Cyberspace Law: Cases & Materials, Third Edition In Search of Jefferson's Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace (Law and Current Events Masters)
