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Summary: ?You need to know about life?
Review: ?You're a writer. Go back out there. You need to know about life. It was my rationale for morbid curiosity?.
It's humorous, moving, perfectly written - but you'll notice it just re-reading this book, since the first time you will be too involved in the narration. Semi-autobiographical stories, fiction, reviews... in every page you'll see the world trough Ames' eye: people are described as they are, in their weaknesses, our weaknesses, but you can see also their beauty, our beauty. When Ames' persona complains about getting bald, sex troubles or tell us about his brief career as a boxer, you'll laugh, see yourself in the mirror and will like every word - I wonder if he stays up at night looking for the right word, like Flaubert did... One of the best books I've ever read (more than once, of course).
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Summary: Ames has cast his pearls to swine once again...
Review: Ames has cast his pearls to swine once again and I drink them down with delight! A natural storyteller, his prose is witty and his escapades ordinary men can only dream of. He peels off the layers and reveals his own nakedness, stark and admirable. 'My Less Than Secret Life' is for the voyeur in each of us.
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Summary: BEST BOOK OF THIS YEAR, OR ANY YEAR
Review: Ames writes with such honesty about the human condition it is amazing, and he does so with such humor I find myself laughing outloud, which can get me in trouble on subway when i read the book going home. But it's worth it, his writing is so real and true and honest. He really gets it. Definitely the best book of this year, or any year.
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Summary: Real life hilarity and pathos
Review: Ames' honest and humorous tone is at its best here, especially in his essays about his real life adventures. "The Pop and My Pop," a true account of his visit to the set of an X-rated movie with his dad, will tickle your funny bone so hard that you will have to rest afterwards. There are also other classics like "Bice," (just read it) and "The Fight" (about his experiences boxing under the nickname "The Herring Wonder.") The fiction pieces that are included maintain Ames' usual wistful yet witty style, and the inclusion of a serious essay, "A Live Death," adds more poignancy to this already rich collection. A diverting, heartbreaking, and hilarious read, I highly recommend it.
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Summary: Ames redeems the memoir
Review: Bored, lonely, depressed and poor? Of course you are. So you look for solace in the recent glut of memoirs and find that although Andrew Solomon was vomiting from depression he once worked 12 hour days followed by attending 4 parties. Who does that? And don't get me started on the "Girl's Guide to Sex in the City" subgenre. Jonathan Ames, on the other hand, describes the world I inhabit - one where where every sexual encounter is fraught with anxiety and guilt, where the daily choice is between the horrible and the miserable. Yet he somehow does it with a kindness, sense of decency and a wistfulness that is redeeming. The author-reader connection is intimate and the end result is a feeling of being allowed a view into someone else's life while taking a vacation from your own.
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Summary: My Less Than Secret Life
Review: Despite chapter headings,(...) My Less Than Secret Life is a bold self-effacing look at the fragility of the human condition, a modern comic tragedy for the aging Generation X populace. The book is written in a tastful prose style with the author/protagonist being the punchline of every joke life throws at him. The book is a hilarious introspective look at what makes each of us human, our blind determination to cut through the chaos with equal parts courage, fear and humor. I would highly recommend the book to any who chooses to participate in this sick pageant called life rather then sit safely on the sidelines.
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Summary: From Ames--With love and squalor
Review: Even if he effectively lost his only fight as amateur boxer "The Herring Wonder" (viscerally documented in MY LESS THAN SECRET LIFE), Jonathan Ames has a lot of experience fighting his own formidable demons--depression, isolation, poverty, social anxiety, sexual confusion, fear of illness and death. And clearly he's been battered and bruised a lot. Yet he still manages to rise above his occasionally sordid and/or humiliating circumstances to find the comedy and humanity in them. Filled with wacky adventures (in Ames' world, accepting a challenge with a seasoned pugilist is tantamount to making himself a poisoned breakfast or leaving the house with a wet head in severity of risk) and genuine moments of yearning, this is a fierce suckerpunch to the jaws of all the jaded ironists out there. Unforgettable!
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Summary: Not so great at all
Review: I bought this book based on the tittilating title, but found it to be sorely lacking in both originality and excitement. This guy's really got to get over his (balding) self and find something new to do with his life. Maybe he could write for a boring little local newspaper or something. Don't bother.
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Summary: funny, funny, funny
Review: I came across this book in a very weird way, but that's another story. This book comes in three parts: a collection of diary entries (from an autobiographical column in the New York Press), short fiction, and essays. We begin with the diary, and what a diary it is. As Chip Kidd blurbs, "This book is yet more proof that Jonathan Ames's life is infinitely more interesting than mine. And yes, yours." Mine too. I mean, my life hasn't always been as dull as it is now. In fact, at times it's been downright fascinating. But never in the way that Ames' life is. This "shy exhibitionist" finds glory and pathos in the details, the endless minutiae. He also has friends whose freakishness is unmatched (most notably his best friend, The Mangina), and stumbles into situations that would be unimaginable for anyone else. All of which made me somewhat flattered by the comparison (someone mistook me for a writer with four books to his credit!) and somewhat apprehensive (someone mistook me for a balding alcoholic pervert!). The fiction section, coming after the diary, is hard to read as fiction, focusing as it does on first person narration by protagonists who resemble the author himself: the single girl-crazy struggling Jewish author. It's hard to separate author and subject, except to think that maybe the fiction is the daydream that he only wished happened (i.e., he gets the girl). I'm curious to read his novels, to see if they provoke a similar reaction. The final sections are devoted to essays of various kinds: criticism, "Essays With Sexual Content (A warning or a recommendation, depending on your personality)," and "Essays Without Sexual Content (A warning or a recommendation, depending on your personality)." Ames brings the observation skills of a scientist to his subjects, rendering them in a style that only occasionally veers from interested objectivity into pathos (this is a man whose heart breaks a little regularly). Whether the topic is Life on the Set of a Porn Film or his own experiences in rehab, he brings a humour born of fondness to the task at hand, never condescending or making fun, but trying to understand. In any case, My Less Than Secret Life is addictive, funny, enthralling despite its repeated forays into bodily functions (nosepicking is a frequent topic, and testicle waxing makes a rare appearance). I couldn't put it down even when I wanted to.
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Summary: BEST DAMN BOOK OF THIS YEAR, MAYBE ANY YEAR
Review: I couldn't put the book down and devoured every chapter, laughing out loud at Ames' humor which is always a result of his honest portrayal of the human experience. You feel like you know the guy, and that he knows you. He is always right on target with his honesty and clarity, and I keep wanting to read more. It [is terrible] when the book is finished, but you got to reread it again and again as there's more there with each rereading. I first discovered his essays in NY Press, and they are amazing, and perfect, and the best...book of this year, or any year. He's a modern Hemingway with a splash of Howard Stern. Or a...Hemingway.
Tony
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