Dave Barry is not making this up

New York: Crown Publishers, Inc, 1994. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Jeff MacNelly (cartoons) and Bill Wax (Jacket phot. The format is approximately 5.75 inches by 8.5 inches. xii, 244 pages. Illustrations. Inscribed by the author on the half-title page. Inscription reads For Gloria--Dave Barry. David McAlister Barry (born July 3, 1947) is an American author and columnist who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for the Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. He has also written numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comic novels and children's novels. Barry's honors include the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary (1988) and the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism (2005). Barry has defined a sense of humor as "a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge." Barry was hired as a humor columnist in 1983. Barry's column was syndicated nationally. Barry won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1988 for "his consistently effective use of humor as a device for presenting fresh insights into serious concerns." Derived from a Kirkus review: Pulitzer Prize-winning Miami Herald columnist and funny guy Barry has once again collected a bunch of goofy anecdotes. Barry knows exactly where he stands in the ranks of American journalists, noting that things like facts can get in the way of what he does, ``which is sitting around and thinking stuff up. This is what I mainly do, which is why I have been able to achieve a level of high-quality journalistic productivity, as measured in booger jokes, that a guy like David Broder can only dream about.'' Since Dave Barry writes about weird things, you might be tempted to think he has a weird brain. He does, of course, but that's not the whole explanation: A lot of the things he writes about -- exploding Pop-Tarts, for example -- are real. In fact, Dave's main job as a humor columnist is to point out what is already funny in a world that is seriously bonkers. In Dave's world, amazing but true adventures occur every day, as the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist investigates a ground-breaking anti-flatulence product recommended to him by a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; the ecologically dangerous shellfish attacking women's undergarments; and the epidemic of snakes and woodland creatures currently appearing in people's toilets. Dave's bad song contest required him to read thousands of entries; now, people have the pleasure of being badgered all those bad songs. Dave also participates in real-life form of investigative journalism that actually require him to leave the house: marching with the Lawn Rangers precision lawnmower drill team of Arcola, Illinois; playing lead guitar in an extremely mediocre rock band with Stephen King and other literary lights; and taking his little boat Buster from its happy berth in the Barry garage onto Miami's high seas, only to run it aground. Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up includes longer feature pieces by Dave in which many of the featured facts happen to be accurate. Now you can read Dave Barry on UFO thrillseekers and the Elvis lovers who hang out at Graceland -- all articles that show Dave at his best and smartest. Complete with illustrations by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, Dave Barry is Not Making This Up brings you straight into the truly twisted center of Dave's world. On Buying His Son Sneakers: The salesperson's tone of voice carried the clear implication that he was going to call the Child Abuse Hotline if I didn't care enough, as a parent, to take out a second mortgage so I could purchase sufficient sneakerage for my son.... We need Congress to pass a law requiring the sneaker industry to return to the system we had when I was growing up, under which there was only one kind of sneakers, namely U.S. Keds, which were made from Army surplus tents and which cost about $10, or roughly $1 per pound. On Being Left-Handed: According to the researchers, left-handers die sooner than right-handers because they have more accidents. I know why this is: We read books backward...This saves us a lot of time with murder mysteries, but it's a bad habit when we're reading, say, the instructions for operating a barbecue grill, and we begin with "Step 147: Ignite Gas." On The Uses Of Exploding Pop-Tarts: When we detected incoming missiles, we'd simply hold the toaster levers down via some method and within a few minutes Whoom the country would be surrounded by a protective wall of flames, and the missiles would either burn up or get knocked off course and detonate harmlessly in some place like New Jersey. On Readers' Reaction To The Bad Song Contest: Sometimes the voters were so angry that they weren't even sure of the name of the song they hated. There were votes against "These Boots Are Made for Stomping"; the Beach Boys' classic "Carolina Girls"; "I'm Nothing But a Hound Dog"; and "Ain't No Woman Like the One-Eyed Gott."