I've recently started reading a book that was recommended by a basketball website SLAM magazine. The book is called Ant Farm (and other desperate situations) by Simon Rich. This book is a compilation of short essays, stories and monologues. The author displays a knack for creating humor from scenarios of discomfort and despair. There's the son who unwittingly exposes his single mother's promiscuity with the local hockey team, the nerd who becomes cool in the eyes of his Bulgarian pen pal through misinterpretation. Jon Stewart lends his name for recommendations and even he says "open this book, anywhere, begin reading, and you will laugh. I'm not kidding-do it! I can wait...[humming Jeopardy! theme song]...See?".
Ant Farm is simple, smart and easily understandable, and that’s a potent combination these days. It is definitely targeted to younger generations and is very easy to read. The only real knock against it is that it is ridiculously slender, I mean I don't like my books on no Rosie O' Donnell shit but I'm sayin, I could finish the book in one sitting.
An excerpt from the book called I still remember when I got my first Calculator:
teacher: Okay, everyone, today we're going to go over some word problems.
me: What the hell else do you have back there? A magical pen that writes book reports by itself some kind of automatic social studies worksheet that....that files itself out? What the hell is going on?
teacher: If a farmer farms five acres of land a day-
me: So that's it, then. The past three years have been a total farce. All this time I've been thinking, "Well, this is pretty hard and frustrating but I guess these are useful skills to have." Meanwhile there was a whole bin of these things in your desk. We could have jumped straight to graphing . Unless, of course, there's some kind of graphing calculator!
teacher: There is. You get one in ninth grade.
me: Is this... Am I on TV? Is this a prank show?
teacher: No.
Gold! Jerry! Gold!!
I literally laugh out loud or LOL if you will, at the end of each little monologue or story. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thought provoking, rib spliting literature.
I'm out.
Peace!
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