I find Peter Sagal fun, and enjoyed the book, although I thought it dragged as it went on. It's one that I finished but won't read a second time ( )

This was given to me for Christmas by my daughter & son-in-law because they knew I love "Wait Wait". I was bemused by the choice because so much of the material was such that we couldn't converse about the book over the dining room table. Some of the material (I found the gluttony chapter particularly hilarious, since my daughter works as a dessert plater at a similar restaurant)--about one paragraph per chapter brought a chuckle, but few guffaws. I think if I had bought it for myself, I probably would have been disappointed. ( )

Peter Sagal takes a look at some common American vices and the people who practice them.

A lot of this book is really funny, as you'd expect from the author. He's got a gift for noticing the absurd and displaying it for maximum laughs--a textual, less political (and a bit less skillful) Jon Stewart. And the range of topics is good, too: swinging, fine food, strip clubs, lying, gambling, consumption (of goods), and pornography.

My biggest problem with the book is that it covers much the same ground as Dan Savage's Skipping Towards Gomorrah, and it isn't as insightful most of the time. Sagal seems to come to his subjects with a few too many preconceptions, and will twist his observations to affirm those beliefs whether or not the actual events agree with them. This was most noticeable for me during the chapter on pornography, where -- despite only having known the porn stars in question for a couple of hours -- he seems to just know that the sexual versions they display during an event celebrating porn stars are not their true selves. That may very well have been the case, but it's also clear that Sagal's own discomfort with the situation isn't letting him get a real sense of whether or not it's true. In particular, there's this sentence: "But now they had, easily and professionally and even enthusiastically, slipped on their sexual selves, which functioned in the manner of a carnival mask, vivid but obscuring." If it's enthusiastic, is it possible this is another facet of their personalities, rather than an obscuring mask? Sagal seems unable to entertain the possibility, and it limits the chapters where he deals with people different from himself: swingers, foodies, strip clubs, and pornography. The foodie chapter also has him run afoul of his own desire to catch someone out in an unexpected moment of awareness of their own absurdity. (To his credit, he points this out.)

However, all of that, while annoying, was worth it for the gambling chapter. It's the only thing I've ever read that made me understand why gambling is so popular, since I don't have the urge at all myself. Read this part, if you don't read anything else!

Looking back on this, it seems like my review is more negative than the star rating might imply. I think my main problem is not that the book is bad, but that basically all of it (except the gambling bit) can be found done slightly better by other people, so I didn't get a lot out of reading it. I think, actually, that combining this gambling chapter with Dan Savage's book minus the gambling chapter, then including the description of Sagal's fine meal (which was exceptionally funny, even if the commentary was a bit slight), would be just about the right book on the topic. ( )

I got this book from my son in return for introducing him to NPR's Wait, Wait. Don't Tell Me I love listening to the show but I found a book on people acting on their vices just plain sad. ( )

Part of the reason I rated this book so high is because of how much I love Peter Sagal and "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell me." The books is often hillarious, though very little feels original about it. I kept reading this thinking "Dan Savage did this already in Skipping Towards Gamorrah." Oh well, it's still funny. ( )