“Dave Barry Slept Here, A Sort of History of the United States” by Dave Barry
If there is such a thing as literary sleight of hand, this writer, comedian & magician has it down! Analytically, there are so many tongue-in-cheek references, hammy malapropisms & schlock terms interwoven with wry humor & a smidgeon of facts in this paperback as to make one think it a complete waste of time and a tree. Yet the man’s unique spin & talent for knowing just when to use each is what separates this work from other fictitious trash.
It’s very tempting to list examples, however there are so many good ones that it would be like “showing you the whole movie in the trailer”. I will say that if a person is not well-versed in actual American history, they could be thoroughly confused, though possibly not as badly as many people who fell asleep in class seem to be anyway.
One definitely would not want to read this to get any real sense of historic events; yet the reasonably astute student should get a ton of belly laughs out of the twisted points of view & hilarious ironic observations.
