Dave Barry
Author of Peter and the Starcatchers
About the Author
Dave Barry was born in Armonk, New York on July 3, 1947. He received an English degree from Haverford College in 1969. His early attempts at small-town journalism for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pennsylvania, were directed towards local matters, such as zoning and sewage. In 1975, he show more briefly attempted to teach business writing to business people. Since then, he has worked as a professional humorist. For many years he wrote a newspaper column that appeared in more than 500 newspapers and for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He is the author of numerous fiction, nonfiction, and young adult books. His novels include Big Trouble, Tricky Business, Lunatics, and Insane City. His nonfiction works include Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States, I'll Mature When I'm Dead, You Can Date Boys When You're Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About, and Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer Is Much Faster): Life Lessons and Other Ravings from Dave Barry. His young adult books include the Starcatchers series and the Never Land series. Dave Barry's title, Best. State. Ever, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2016. (Bowker Author Biography) Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist. His recent novel, "Big Trouble," spent several months on the "New York Times" best-seller list, & his most recent nonfiction book, "Dave Barry Turns 50," was also a national best-seller. Dave lives in Miami, Florida. (Publisher Provided) show less
Series
Works by Dave Barry
Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway : A Vicious and Unprovoked Attack on Our Most Cherished Political Institutions (2001) 528 copies, 10 reviews
Escape from the Carnivale: A Never Land Book (A Peter and the Starcatchers Never Land Book) (2006) — Author — 458 copies, 7 reviews
Dave Barry's Guide to Life (Contains: "Dave Barry's Guide to Marriage and/or Sex" / "Babies and Other Hazards of Sex" / "Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead" / "Claw Your Way… (1987) 407 copies, 3 reviews
Dave Barry's Money Secrets : Like, Why is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar? (2006) 378 copies, 13 reviews
Babies and Other Hazards of Sex: How to Make a Tiny Person in Only 9 Months, with Tools You Probably Have around the Home (1984) 261 copies, 3 reviews
Claw Your Way to the Top: How to Become the Head of a Major Corporation in Roughly a Week (2000) 221 copies, 2 reviews
You Can Date Boys When You're Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About (2014) 204 copies, 10 reviews
Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Much Faster): Life Lessons and Other Ravings from Dave Barry (2015) 165 copies, 7 reviews
All the Dave Barry You Could Ever Want : Four Classic Books in One from America's Foremost Humorist (2001) 155 copies
Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass: How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up (2025) 154 copies, 14 reviews
A Field Guide to the Jewish People: Who They Are, Where They Come From, What to Feed Them…and Much More. Maybe Too Much More (2019) 73 copies, 3 reviews
"My Teenage Son's Goal In Life Is To Make Me Feel 3,500 Years Old" and Other Thoughts On Parenting From Dave Barry (2001) 58 copies, 2 reviews
"The Greatest Invention In The History Of Mankind Is Beer" And Other Manly Insights From Dave Barry (2001) 45 copies
Dave Barry Collection: Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down, Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway, and Tricky Business (2004) 14 copies
Peter and the Starcatchers Series (Set of 5) Starcatchers, Shadow Thieves, Secret of Rundoon, Sword of Mercy, Bridge to Never Land (2010) — Author — 5 copies
How To Easily Speed Up My Computer 3 copies
Childbirth is Yucky 2 copies
Peter and the Starcatchers Set 2 copies
Life Lessons and Other Ravings from Dave Barry Live Right and Find Happiness (Hardback) - Common (2015) 1 copy
עסקים מפוקפקים 1 copy
צרות בצרורות : רומן 1 copy
2007: An Inconvenient Year 1 copy
ממאדים וגם מנוגה 1 copy
Natural Childbirth 1 copy
How To Argue Effectively 1 copy
Associated Works
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (1999) — Contributor — 480 copies, 4 reviews
The 50 Funniest American Writers: An Anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion (2011) — Contributor — 287 copies, 3 reviews
Not So Funny When It Happened: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (2000) — Contributor — 247 copies, 8 reviews
You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons - The World on One Cartoon a Day (2006) — Foreword, some editions — 244 copies, 3 reviews
There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (1998) — Contributor — 217 copies, 5 reviews
Mid-life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude (1994) — Contributor — 76 copies, 4 reviews
Peter and the Starcatcher: The Annotated Script of the Broadway Play (2012) — Introduction — 45 copies
Photo du Jour: A Picture-a-Day Journey through the First Year of the New Millennium (Focus on American History Series, Edited by Don Carleton) (2002) — Foreword — 24 copies
Reader's Digest Today's Best Nonfiction 2002 Volume 2: Public Enemies / Diana's Boys / An American Insurrection / Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway / No Finish Line (2002) — Author — 3 copies
Funny Times: A Monthly Newspaper of Humor, Politics & Fun, Volume 16, Issue 3 (2001) — Contributor — 1 copy
Funny Times: A Monthly Newspaper of Humor, Politics & Fun, Volume 16, Issue 2 (2001) — Contributor — 1 copy
Passion: Men on Men {audio} — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Barry, Dave
- Legal name
- Barry, David McAlister
- Birthdate
- 1947-07-03
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Haverford College (B.A., English, 1969)
- Occupations
- columnist
guitarist (Rock Bottom Remainders) - Organizations
- Rock Bottom Remainders (band)
The Miami Herald
Tribune Media Services - Awards and honors
- Pulitzer Prize (Commentary, 1988)
- Short biography
- The New York Times has pronounced Dave Barry "the funniest man in America." But of course that could have been on a slow news day when there wasn't much else fit to print. True, his bestselling collections of columns are legendary, but it is his wholly original books that reveal him as an American icon. Dave Barry Slept Here was his version of American history. Dave Barry Does Japan was a contribution to international peace and understanding from which Japan has not yet fully recovered. Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys is among the best-read volumes in rehab centers and prisons. Raised in a suburb of New York, educated in a suburb of Philadelphia, he lives now in a suburb of Miami. He is not, as he often puts it so poetically, making this up.
Dave's most recent books are "Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland," and "Lessons From Lucy: The Simple Joys of an Old, Happy Dog." His next book, "A Field Guide To The Jewish People," which he co-wrote with his friends Adam Mansbach and Alan Zweibel, will be published September 24. Dave is not Jewish, but Adam and Alan are, so it's kosher. - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Armonk, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA
Miami, Florida, USA - Map Location
- New York, USA
Members
Reviews
I have long been a fan of Dave Barry. Back when I was a young lad pondering what it was that made women so different from us male types I happened upon this cogent observation by Barry, then a columnist for the Miami Herald.
"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base."
Wow! How could I not make the source of such wisdom one of my go-to guys when it comes to the show more subject of, well, just about anything.
So when Barry’s publisher announced that he was going to write the definitive book on Florida aimed at correcting everyone’s misconceptions about the state that gave us Miami Vice and President George W. Bush, my immediate response was, ‘Count me it!’
Starting out with the sober dedication ‘To my fellow Floridians. Don’t ever sober up,’ Barry, a longtime resident of the Sunshine State, described how he has in recent years been receiving an ever-growing number of calls from journalists asking what is wrong with Florida. These calls have even been coming from states such as Indiana, the state with ‘people who cannot explain their nickname’ or even Kentucky, once known ‘for having a statewide total of 23 teeth’. And so, ‘without doing any research’ he set out to figure out why all the other states are now laughing at Florida. His answer was quick in coming. It was the presidential election of 2000, where for day after hellish day the nation’s eyes were focused on Florida’s apparent inability to decide who it voted for until finally the “U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a seven to two decision, that Florida should be given back to Spain.”
This event gave the rest of the nation, and may Floridians including Barry, the impression that Florida was a ‘subtropical festival of stupid’ prompting Barry to search, again without research, a scientific explanation for Florida’s stupidity. He quickly realized that the answer lies in its climate and geography. The warm climate, with the assistance of Disneyworld, attracts millions of visitors each year to Florida. The smart ones usually find their way home but the stupid visitors, not realizing that Florida is surrounded on three sides by water, find themselves unable to return home and end up staying. As explanations go, I found this pretty plausible.
Of course, not all of the people who move to Florida are stupid and Barry takes plains to explain this phenomenon. His chief explanation is that, while states like California, New York and Illinois pay high taxes for their corrupt and inefficient governments, Floridians can enjoy its corrupt and inefficient government for a lot less money.
The last half of the book actually did require Barry to hit the road and do some research. In this section he travels the state visiting and reporting on all of the wonderful places that make Florida unique. These places include:
Tarpon Springs: The Sponge Capital of the World,
Cassadaga: the Psychic Capital of the World,
And, of course, Gatorland, ‘The Alligator Capital of the World’ and ‘home of the Screamin Gator Zip Line’.
With all of these world capitals, it’s surprising that Florida has any room left for any other attractions but Barry manages to find some. There’s Dave Shealy’s Skunk Ape Research Center, and the Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, home of the World-Famous Weeki Wachee Mermaids .
For those who read this book and decide that Florida is the place to be, Barry also paid a visit to The Villages, ‘the world’s largest retirement community and the fastest growing city in the United States’. If what the stories Barry has heard are true, it is also a place where “you can lead a wild, carefree, and passionate lifestyle, possibly involving sex, even if you are a really, really old person, defined as a person my age.”
After scouring Florida to in search of a smorgasbord of non-Disney-owned attractions to delight and amaze his readers, Barry returned home to Miami to “man up and do something manly”. For him, that could only mean a visit to Lock & Load Miami, south Florida’s ‘premier machine gun experience and state-of-the-art shooting range, offering the nation's greatest variety of fully automatic firearms with over 25 fully automatic machine guns available for use in packages and a la carte,’ (gift certificates available). He hoped that his wife would want to join him on this part of his research but she declined, leaving him to muse that “I am a huge fan of females as a gender, but they tend to display a baffling lack of enthusiasm for violent destruction.” ( I told you Barry’s insights regarding the differences between the sexes are first rate.)
Barry ends up his tour of Florida with a trip to Key West, or at least the fifty some-odd bars that make up the southernmost tip of the eastern seaboard. Fun fact. All but three had musicians hired for their ability to play Jimmy Buffet songs.
Bottom Line: Dave Barry is a master of making the most ordinary scenario hilarious. Take that skill and apply it to a topic that is already strange and you have a book that is guaranteed to entertain. This review is based on the audio recording ably narrated by Dick Hill.
*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher and the fine folks at LibraryThing in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.
FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire. show less
"If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base."
Wow! How could I not make the source of such wisdom one of my go-to guys when it comes to the show more subject of, well, just about anything.
So when Barry’s publisher announced that he was going to write the definitive book on Florida aimed at correcting everyone’s misconceptions about the state that gave us Miami Vice and President George W. Bush, my immediate response was, ‘Count me it!’
Starting out with the sober dedication ‘To my fellow Floridians. Don’t ever sober up,’ Barry, a longtime resident of the Sunshine State, described how he has in recent years been receiving an ever-growing number of calls from journalists asking what is wrong with Florida. These calls have even been coming from states such as Indiana, the state with ‘people who cannot explain their nickname’ or even Kentucky, once known ‘for having a statewide total of 23 teeth’. And so, ‘without doing any research’ he set out to figure out why all the other states are now laughing at Florida. His answer was quick in coming. It was the presidential election of 2000, where for day after hellish day the nation’s eyes were focused on Florida’s apparent inability to decide who it voted for until finally the “U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a seven to two decision, that Florida should be given back to Spain.”
This event gave the rest of the nation, and may Floridians including Barry, the impression that Florida was a ‘subtropical festival of stupid’ prompting Barry to search, again without research, a scientific explanation for Florida’s stupidity. He quickly realized that the answer lies in its climate and geography. The warm climate, with the assistance of Disneyworld, attracts millions of visitors each year to Florida. The smart ones usually find their way home but the stupid visitors, not realizing that Florida is surrounded on three sides by water, find themselves unable to return home and end up staying. As explanations go, I found this pretty plausible.
Of course, not all of the people who move to Florida are stupid and Barry takes plains to explain this phenomenon. His chief explanation is that, while states like California, New York and Illinois pay high taxes for their corrupt and inefficient governments, Floridians can enjoy its corrupt and inefficient government for a lot less money.
The last half of the book actually did require Barry to hit the road and do some research. In this section he travels the state visiting and reporting on all of the wonderful places that make Florida unique. These places include:
Tarpon Springs: The Sponge Capital of the World,
Cassadaga: the Psychic Capital of the World,
And, of course, Gatorland, ‘The Alligator Capital of the World’ and ‘home of the Screamin Gator Zip Line’.
With all of these world capitals, it’s surprising that Florida has any room left for any other attractions but Barry manages to find some. There’s Dave Shealy’s Skunk Ape Research Center, and the Weeki Wachee Springs State Park, home of the World-Famous Weeki Wachee Mermaids .
For those who read this book and decide that Florida is the place to be, Barry also paid a visit to The Villages, ‘the world’s largest retirement community and the fastest growing city in the United States’. If what the stories Barry has heard are true, it is also a place where “you can lead a wild, carefree, and passionate lifestyle, possibly involving sex, even if you are a really, really old person, defined as a person my age.”
After scouring Florida to in search of a smorgasbord of non-Disney-owned attractions to delight and amaze his readers, Barry returned home to Miami to “man up and do something manly”. For him, that could only mean a visit to Lock & Load Miami, south Florida’s ‘premier machine gun experience and state-of-the-art shooting range, offering the nation's greatest variety of fully automatic firearms with over 25 fully automatic machine guns available for use in packages and a la carte,’ (gift certificates available). He hoped that his wife would want to join him on this part of his research but she declined, leaving him to muse that “I am a huge fan of females as a gender, but they tend to display a baffling lack of enthusiasm for violent destruction.” ( I told you Barry’s insights regarding the differences between the sexes are first rate.)
Barry ends up his tour of Florida with a trip to Key West, or at least the fifty some-odd bars that make up the southernmost tip of the eastern seaboard. Fun fact. All but three had musicians hired for their ability to play Jimmy Buffet songs.
Bottom Line: Dave Barry is a master of making the most ordinary scenario hilarious. Take that skill and apply it to a topic that is already strange and you have a book that is guaranteed to entertain. This review is based on the audio recording ably narrated by Dick Hill.
*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher and the fine folks at LibraryThing in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.
FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass: How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up by Dave Barry
A very funny look at 77-year-old Dave’s life, including a peek back at selected columns. Dave Barry was, for much of his career, a humor columnist with the Miami Herald, but he has also written books and screenplays. I have never read the Miami Herald, but have read many of his pieces when they were syndicated to other papers. I took a deep dive into his humor when I read ‘Dave Barry Does Japan’ shortly before we moved to Tokyo for a 3-year stint. Brilliant. This book is written show more chronologically, taking us through his childhood, the etiology of his sense of humor, and his early years as a columnist. Certain parts had me laughing out loud, like his dealings with doctors (I am also in my 70’s). His final bit of advice - It’s gonna be OK - I found surprisingly comforting.
Loved this book. show less
Loved this book. show less
Halfway through Dave Barry’s “Swamp Story,” one of the smarter characters says, “This thing is the single stupidest thing that ever happened in South Florida, if not the world.” For a place that regularly gives us Florida Man headlines, that’s a bold claim; but Dave Barry does his best to deliver a tale that lives up to his adopted state’s reputation.
What passes for a plot is this: a couple of stoners are filming a concept for an Everglades reality show that’s not half so show more baked as they are. With them is the most gorgeous woman south of Miami who just wants to get her and her baby out of this dead end swamp, and she might have her exit when she stumbles across a pile of gold. But also, two vicious ex-cons are hunting for it. But also, a couple of brothers are cooking up a monster frenzy to drive business to their failing roadside store. But also, there’s a small-time drug dealer, and also an Eastern European loan shark, and also a disgruntled Secretary of the Interior with a thirst for Florida’s twenty-nine electoral votes, and also a Gladesman named Skeeter with an airboat and a sack with a pregnant python and a pet pig named Buddy.
This is the second of Dave’s novels that I’ve read, and the first one (“Big Trouble”) almost killed me. I have a vivid memory of laughing so hard at the hallucinogenic toad that I wasn’t sure if I’d asphyxiate on the spot. Although “Swamp Story” gave me nothing more serious than a few grins and the occasional chuckle, it slips comfortably into that niche that’s a nice break from weightier fare while staying light enough and short enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome. The many forks of the plot meander around, but all paths lead to the same clearing: the most memorable Python Challenge in the history of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
I won’t burden you with the sort of deep literary analysis that Dave would love to satirize. I could go off on viral fame, the logic of mobs and social media trends, and how strings of poor decisions land us in strange situations. Dave himself offers some genuinely insightful commentary on what viral trends are actually all about. But really, this is not high literature. This is a slapstick, foul-mouthed romp through the Everglades with some of the dimmest bulbs you’ve ever met, plus a few sad sacks who are likable enough to deserve a little happiness when the sawgrass finally settles. show less
What passes for a plot is this: a couple of stoners are filming a concept for an Everglades reality show that’s not half so show more baked as they are. With them is the most gorgeous woman south of Miami who just wants to get her and her baby out of this dead end swamp, and she might have her exit when she stumbles across a pile of gold. But also, two vicious ex-cons are hunting for it. But also, a couple of brothers are cooking up a monster frenzy to drive business to their failing roadside store. But also, there’s a small-time drug dealer, and also an Eastern European loan shark, and also a disgruntled Secretary of the Interior with a thirst for Florida’s twenty-nine electoral votes, and also a Gladesman named Skeeter with an airboat and a sack with a pregnant python and a pet pig named Buddy.
This is the second of Dave’s novels that I’ve read, and the first one (“Big Trouble”) almost killed me. I have a vivid memory of laughing so hard at the hallucinogenic toad that I wasn’t sure if I’d asphyxiate on the spot. Although “Swamp Story” gave me nothing more serious than a few grins and the occasional chuckle, it slips comfortably into that niche that’s a nice break from weightier fare while staying light enough and short enough that it doesn’t overstay its welcome. The many forks of the plot meander around, but all paths lead to the same clearing: the most memorable Python Challenge in the history of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
I won’t burden you with the sort of deep literary analysis that Dave would love to satirize. I could go off on viral fame, the logic of mobs and social media trends, and how strings of poor decisions land us in strange situations. Dave himself offers some genuinely insightful commentary on what viral trends are actually all about. But really, this is not high literature. This is a slapstick, foul-mouthed romp through the Everglades with some of the dimmest bulbs you’ve ever met, plus a few sad sacks who are likable enough to deserve a little happiness when the sawgrass finally settles. show less
When I was a kid, Dave Barry was just about the funniest writer I knew. My mother got me hooked, and while his style and wit have fallen off in recent years, I find it hard not to go back to him for a chuckle or two. Because most of his classic writing was for a weekly newspaper column, it’s a bit dated but funny nonetheless. In Dave Barry Slept Here, he takes a look at American history in a way that only he can, with eye toward potential exploding animals, the absolute importance of the show more Hawley-Smoot Tariff, and acts of Congress that would also make good names for a rock band.
One of the best lines in the book has to be the following: “Notable achievements of the Millard Fillmore administration: The Earth did not crash into the sun.” For some reason, this line has stuck with me since I read this nearly two decades ago, and every time someone mentions Fillmore, I have to suppress a small smile. This book isn’t nearly as satirical as the Daily Show’s send up of American history, but rather depends on mildly corny (but still funny) reinterpretations of historical events. You won’t need more than a day to breeze through this one, but it will be a day well spent. It’s twisted and witty and lot of fun. show less
One of the best lines in the book has to be the following: “Notable achievements of the Millard Fillmore administration: The Earth did not crash into the sun.” For some reason, this line has stuck with me since I read this nearly two decades ago, and every time someone mentions Fillmore, I have to suppress a small smile. This book isn’t nearly as satirical as the Daily Show’s send up of American history, but rather depends on mildly corny (but still funny) reinterpretations of historical events. You won’t need more than a day to breeze through this one, but it will be a day well spent. It’s twisted and witty and lot of fun. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 103
- Also by
- 178
- Members
- 38,767
- Popularity
- #467
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 964
- ISBNs
- 684
- Languages
- 11
- Favorited
- 95
