B. J. Novak

One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak is a sassy debut collection of short stories that will confront the reader with what feels like a slap in the face—a narrative that will obliterate the ideas readers have about the convention of the short story format.

This wallop of a book doesn’t tease or hint at readers with a subtlety of what needs to be unwrapped or revealed through a number of paragraphs or pages. The stories in this book will flash themselves buck naked show more screaming, You see this?!? This is a story. You didn’t think so, but it is.

But, it isn’t an unintelligible collection that brags plus points for feigning surprise or unconformity. Underneath the antics of its narrative, which doesn’t pull you in, but rather grabs your full attention right off the first few lines and will keep you hooked until the close of the short; there is an incredibly intelligent and wry humour that will make you laugh at the truth and audacity of its claims.

To read the rest of this review, you're more than welcome to visit my blog, The Bibliotaphe Closet at: http://zaraalexis.wordpress.com

- Zara show less

This book is a hilarious romp through all the silliness words can have. Being a "picture book" with no pictures, this book introduces the youngest readers to the idea that books can still be entertaining even without illustrations. It accomplishes that by having the adult reader need to say a bunch of ridiculous things like " ... I am reading you this book with my monkey mouth ... " and struggle through pronouncing nonsense sound effects like "GLuURR-GA-wocko," all against their protests show more peppered throughout the text. While the emphasis is on the words and their meanings (or non-meanings as the case may be), the book is still a little more exciting to behold than your average paperback novel as it does have a smattering of different colors and fonts. All in all, this is definitely a book I would recommend for a read aloud story time, whether one on one with your favorite little one or in a library or school setting. show less

So clever, that’s what I kept thinking over and over again and I read this collection of short stories. I knew who Novak was and so I was curious about his book and the sense of humor behind it did not disappoint. The topics are wide, everything from a bit about Wikipedia Brown (as opposed to Encyclopedia Brown) and a rematch between the famous tortoise and the hare.

Some of the stories work better than others, which is almost inevitably the case with collections like these. But I was show more surprised by the sheer number of ones that really cracked me up.

The stories cover such a variety of subjects that there’s no chance for them to feel repetitive. There’s an invention gone wrong in Vegas, an ambulance driver who chases his dreams, stealing writers, the only way to get closure, dating a war lord, concerts in heaven, receiving constructive criticism, and even an update on where Elvis has been. Some of them feel more like an idea than a fleshed out story, but there’s enough meat there to carry the book. Some are just short little gems, other are more elaborate, funny, or poignant.

BOTTOM LINE: The collection shows Novak’s skills as both a comedy writer and short story writer. I’d highly recommend for fans of David Sedaris. show less

A friend of mine is an Awesome Super Librarian (can leap stacks of books in a single bound!). She happened to share a youtube video of BJ Novak reading this at some kind of kids assembly. I thought it was brilliant.

I don't watch TV (on occasion I may catch Netflix) so I was unaware that the author was a famous actor. Knowing that now makes no difference to me. I still think this is an engaging and fun book for kids...for all ages, really.

My favorite part about this book is the pictureless show more notion introduced to kids by encouraging them in a humorous and non-intimidating way to progress to chapter books. Books without pictures can be enjoyable, too...and a decidedly fun bonus to hear a grownup read aloud,

"My only friend in the whole wide world is a hippo named Boo Boo Butt." show less