How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country

I won an early, uncorrected proof version of this in a GoodReads giveaway. Right now, I'm giving it 3.5/5 stars partly because it's unfinished and partly because there were a lack of citations/sources/further reading. There are still some grammatical and typographical errors and no conclusion, but this book was hysterical. The writing is crass, funny, and somehow, downright New Jerseyan. In between learning just how tough many of our Presidents were (Polk and Garfield, anyone?), I found myself laughing out loud many times. In fact, I wanted to know more about their badassery, so to speak, but was woefully disappointed that the author did not share the titles of what he read. It is clear, though, that he did a ton of research. I'm show more looking forward to buying a finished version!

(I was also slightly disappointed that there were no chapters on Jimmy Carter or any President post-Reagan, but then I realized that's probably best, lest the reader get it into his or her head to fight the Presidents that are still very much alive.) show less

Did you know that a number of former American Presidents would fit in quite well in a Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger action film? Imagine that they now want to beat you to a pulp. What do you do?

Thomas Jefferson designed his own tombstone (among many other things). He intentionally left out any mention of his time as President, because he didn't think it was that important. To quote from this book, "If "leaving your Presidency off of your tombstone" isn't the nineteenth-century equivalent of "walking away from an explosion without turning around to look at it," then I don't know what is." John Quincy Adams was involved in fighting the British when he was eight years old (What were you doing at eight years old?). He also swam the show more width of the Potomac every day at 5 AM, and thought that having sex outside in the snow was a good idea. James Madison may have been short and scrawny, but he did grab a couple of pistols and a horse, and rode out to the front lines to fight the British during the War of 1812 (as a sitting President).

It takes a peculiar amount of ego and ambition to want to be President, but Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson belongs in a category by himself. At age thirteen, as a British prisoner of war, Jackson was forced to march forty miles, barefoot, with an undressed head wound, and suffering from smallpox. If there were no wars to fight, Jackson liked real duels. On one occasion, Jackson allowed the other man to shoot first. The bullet almost hit his heart. Jackson then shot and killed the other man.

If a person wanted a private word with Lyndon Johnson, the person frequently had to follow Johnson into the bathroom and watch him poop. Johnson's sexual conquest numbers, while President, were comparable to John Kennedy, the King of Presidential Sexual Conquests. Chester Arthur is compared to Lex Luthor, and Ronald Reagan is compared to Wolverine. William Howard Taft once got stuck in a bathtub; it took four men to extricate him. The biography of Calvin Coolidge reads like the origins of a serial killer. Every day, Herbert Hoover played a game with his friends called Hooverball. Think of volleyball played with a ten-pound medicine ball.

Get past the foul language in this book, and this is a huge eye-opener. The reader will look at the past inhabitants of the Oval Office in a whole new way. It's also really funny. This is highly recommended for everyone. show less

Interesting, irreverent... and also sexist and fatphobic. An engaging read that both amused and pissed me off (you could have cut the entire chapter about Taft and I probably would have given it another star). Also, some of those stories I knew to be more myth than fact, which made me question the veracity of the whole book.

Though I can credit this book for bumping Garfield to maybe one of my favorite presidents now.

I received my copy of How to Fight Presidents through the Goodreads' FirstReads program. This was my first book received through this program and Oh. My. God. This was seriously the most hilarious book I have ever read.

Daniel O'Brien has managed to cull some of the most interesting facts of our presidents (from Washington to Reagan) and combine them into a book that is shockingly educational. Not only will you be prepared to beat the heck out of ANYONE at presidential trivia...but as the title suggests, should you find yourself traveling back in time and having to FIGHT any of these great men, you'll be prepared. And, if you're like me, you'll laugh until you pee while you're doing it.

If you like the site, Cracked.com, you'll absolutely show more love this book, since its basically one big, extended Cracked.com article. However, if that's not your brand of humor and/or you're easily offended by liberal use of the F word and wang talk, then this might not be the book for you. But, luckily, I absolutely love history, trivia, and hilarity...so this was the perfect book for me. I cannot believe how insanely crazy and dedicated some of our presidents have been...and how crooked others were. Many of these facts were things I already were vaguely familiar with, but something about the writing style really emphasized and brought to life the highlights of our former presidents. As a tour guide who gives haunted history tours, I often tell people that ghost stories are the best way to teach history...and now I may need to rethink that theory!

There were a couple of reasons why I only rated this 4 stars, and most of those reasons probably stem from this being an uncorrected proof. There were some minor typographical errors and the conclusion had not yet been added, which was no big deal. However, I would have LOVED to see a bibliography and I would have enjoyed it if the book extended through our current president...but I understand why that was not to be, lol.

Overall, I really loved this book and am proud to promote it to anyone and everyone who will listen. I'll also be keeping a close eye out for any further works by this author. Oh, and did I mention the illustrations were awesome, too?!

(Also posted on my Goodreads account) show less

Total. boy. humour. And it's hilarious. Really silly and did I mention the boy humour? There's a lot of it.

At a guess I'd bet that maybe 60% of the information in each section covering each president (except those that are still alive - is that for legal reasons, do you think?) is probably factual. 20% is blatantly called out by the author himself as just wishful thinking, and the other 20% could go either way.

But I hope nobody thinks they're picking this up in order to expand their factual knowledge of presidential history. There's a lot of good stuff I didn't know before, but the focus is very narrow and aimed solely at making the presidents all look like bad asses. How to Fight Presidents is a fun, entertaining, wishful thinking show more sort of book that will accidentally import some small inconsequential facts into the reader's brainpan when they aren't paying attention; guaranteed to make them only slightly quirky at the next cocktail party, or the dark horse at their next trivia night. Or maybe just slightly better prepared should he or she accidentally find themselves in a dark alley with a sitting president-pretender. You never know I guess.

Book themes for Festivus: Read anything comedic; a parody, satire, etc. Books with hilariously dysfunctional families (must be funny dysfunctional, not tragic dysfunctional). Anything that makes you laugh (or hope it does). show less

This is funny but the concept gets a bit tired cause there's a lot of presidents (even if you skip all the ones still living who would likely sue for slander) and there's not a great deal of factual information presented.

Hands down one of my favorite comedy books ever. I'm not a fan of the genre but this was great! History majors everywhere will appreciate the historical accuracy and blunt badassery of our presidents.