Greg Proops

Greg Proops is a horrendously funny man. His self-styled Smartest Man In The World podcast is chock full of savage wit, baseball, movies, pop culture, politics and the sound of a middle-class white dude railing against the world. The Smartest Book In The World covers much of the same ground and is none the worse for that.

This book is like wandering through the canyons of Proops' mind. It is full of his preoccupations, passions and written in such a way that you can, if you've ever heard him, show more hear his voice in your head. But in a good way, not a psychotic way. Ahem.

Yes, there is a LOT of baseball, which Proops acknowledges in the afterword, but it's informative and shows his love for the sport. However, maybe one too many fictional Baseball teams?

There is poetry here, art too. Movies and books too. Proops loves classic cinema and here we get short chapters on Sidney Lumet and Foreign Film amongst others. History is thrown into the mix and we get potted histories of Caesar and Alexander the Great.

If you know of Proops you'll love this book. If you don't, crack open a bottle of vodka-flavoured vodka, put your feet up and luxuriate in the ramblings of one of the world's best comics. You won't regret it. show less

I seldom rate a book 2 stars, because i've learned to abandon books which i would give that low a rating to. I persevered and finished this book, just because it occasionally had a few interesting things. The entire book is basically made up of lists. Lists of movies, music, people, and a lot of baseball. Each item in each list has elaboration on the reasons the author thinks it to be noteworthy. The reason i gave it 2 stars is that the author seems unduly preoccupied with pointing out show more sexual proclivities for anything he possibly can throughout all the lists. In addition, he is almost as fixated on the smoking habits of each person or movie in his lists. It's not that these things are not occasionally relevant or interesting, but they very much are not relevant and interesting constantly. It becomes very tiresome. show less

A collection of snarkily described facts and anecdotes, often quite funny but always very acerbic. It's actually really fun to read in parts, but wow is there ever so much baseball. So much! Seriously, if you don't care about baseball, this book may be a bit of a slog at times. But Proops does work hard to make baseball history entertaining to people who don't care about it, and succeeds to a certain extent. I wish there had been more general history and less, say, movie recommendations, but show more all in all it was decently enjoyable. Just not enough to, say, convince me to start listening to his podcast. show less

The central theme of the book is that women and blacks are all that is great and good in the world. White men on the other hand are the great oppressors and demons of the world. If you can get beyond that which is cycled repeatedly through the book it actually is at times an entertaining read and much to ponder.

Proops uses baseball as a ranking of people throughout history in the position roles. He also offers topics to explore in books, movies, art, and poetry. Decidedly not the smartest show more book in the world but worthy of some limited praise. show less