Well worth getting the audiobook version so you can hear it read by Hodgman. ( )

The thing that makes "fact"-filled books like this work so well is that the reader recognizes something in Hodgman: even if he is talking out his ass a lot of the time, that is one extremely intelligent tuckus. The only way a tome like this works is if the creator has both the ability to let brain synapses stray into bizarre directions AND he is already brilliant.

Of course, one also needs the sticktuitiveness to follow through on a concept to its end, whether that end ends up proving his genius or becoming painfully laborious. No better example can I point to than the chapter on hoboes, the centerpiece being a list of 700 hobo names. (I hear the audiobook version of the hobo list is especially wonderful, and so to try to replicate it, I read much of that list out loud. Don't worry, my wife was fast asleep.)

Truth be told, this book works best as the damned funniest bathroom reader I've ever come across. Though I read most of it in bed (and can speak, by the way, to its utter lack of aphrodisiac qualities), I believe I just might leave a copy of this in the guest bathroom. Of course, I'll have to drill a hole through it for the titanium chain that will attach it to the water pipes. ( )

Between the hobo names and the analysis of literature, this is one funny and eternally surprising book that you can go back to when you need a laugh. ( )

I don't suppose I need to add a review, but I want to urge this smart wordplay along. An author could have fun writing a book like this, and I hope that Hodgman did. It was fun to read; I read it in sequence on two evenings. The dead pan inventiveness kept it rolling for me and will get me to buy the sequels as they come out in later printings of trade paperback editions.

This book should be on the bookshelf of everybody who reads fictional non-fiction. ( )

A very funny book, best read in small doses, preferably in the bathroom, as to avoid raising the suspicions of any remaining hobos or the Secret World Government. ( )