How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard by Penn Jillette and Mickey D. Lynn

When I first found this book I thought it would be an entertaining look at poker written by a slightly off-center comedian. What I found is that it is actually a book that teaches you how to cheat your friends at poker. I shit you not. If you follow the lessons that are taught in this book, you can actually steal money from your friends at your weekly $20 buy-in game. He is so serious about this that Jillette actually put a bogus cover on the hardcover version. While the dustcover says 'How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker' the hardcover itself says 'The History of Playing Cards in America'. If he wasn't serious about teaching you how to cheat, he wouldn't have put a fake cover on the book.

Jillette tells the story of a friend of his, a guy he met while hitch hiking in his youth. For anonymities sake he calls his friend 'Dickie Richards'. 'Ol Dickie is a poker cheat. He will cheat anyone, any time, in a poker game, and in this book, he teaches you how to do it yourself. Now before you get visions of how you are going to rat-f the guy in your weekly cash game who raises every hand he is dealt and pushes all in on his 5-9 off suit, be aware that this is actually a pretty complicated strategy. Compared to this, counting cards at blackjack is relatively easy. But if you study this book, and practice a shit load, it will work. As Jillette says in the book's Disclaimer (which should be a hint in and of itself...) 'If you don't want to cheat, stop reading, sell this book on E-Bay for a couple of bucks, and quit playing poker for the rest of your life'. He summarizes his Disclaimer by saying 'If you're looking for honest money, get a job. If you're looking for fun, buy a hooker. If you're looking to hang out, go to a gay bar. If you're looking to make money in a home poker game...keep reading'. Seriously, it doesn't get much plainer than that.

Now I love playing poker (yes, I play Texas Hold-Em like every other douche-bag guy in the country). And yes, I host the occasional home game (which I did Friday night and cleaned out my friends). But no, I don't cheat. Frankly I'm so busy drinking and BS'ing with my boys that I don't even really pay attention to the game itself. Not only that, but I like my friends and would like to continue to have them. Combine that with my selective morality and I have never employed the strategies laid forth in this book. But trust me, they are logical, and they will work.

This book is brilliant. It is a must read for every guy. It is funny, thought provoking (of course in a bad way), dirty, and thoroughly enjoyable. If you play poker you have to read this book (even if you don't plan on f-ing over your buddies). That being said, if you do plan on stealing money from your friends, don't forget who turned you on to the ultimate 'How-To' book. After all, old Nats has kids to put through college too....


Nats

Pirate Latitudes: A Novel by Michael Crichton

Let's start by recognizing what a stud Michael Crichton was. Dude was responsible for Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Disclosure, and ER for God's sake. He sold over 150 million books! That being said, when they found the complete manuscript for Pirate Latitudes: A Novel in his files after his death, maybe they should have given him the benefit of the doubt and left it there.

Now don't get me wrong, it’s not a bad read. It moves pretty quickly and has some sex and a healthy dose of violence. The problem is that it is somewhat formulaic and contrived. You find yourself saying 'Come on, like that would work' after several of the pirates' adventures. Seriously, he’s a pirate, not Superman. I think I had to finally call a 20 when our heroes, while battling a kraken (giant squid) in the middle of the ocean, jumped overboard from their moving vessel on purpose, landed on the beast (which conveniently held still at a depth of about a foot), and stabbed it repeatedly until it swam away, at which point they were hauled back onto the ship by ropes thrown over the side. I know you have to suspend your disbelief occasionally to enjoy, shall we say, the nuances of a story, but you shouldn't have to be drunk and/or stoned at the same time.

If you enjoy pirate history and read everything that comes out, by all means buy this book. If not, save your money and buy one of the other pirate books I will review later.

Nats

Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler

I know, I know, why am I reviewing (let alone reading in the first place) a book by a bitchy female comedian on a blog for guys? Allow me to answer alphabetically:

A) Chelsea is basically a guy with a vagina.
B) She is absolutely bat shit crazy.
C) I truly believe, at her core, she is kind of a bad person.

Add this all together and you get a wildly entertaining book. Now I will warn you, the first chapter of this tome is a bit hard to stomach (especially if you have young daughters). Doesn't mean it's not funny, which it is, it's just tough to read. From there it just gets funnier and a lot less creepy. Her family stories are hysterical and her father absolutely steals the book.
At only 244 pages, and formatted the way it is, this is a really quick, light read. It is, however, well worth the time.

Nats

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Remember taking Econ 101 in college?  Remember how mind numbingly boring the text books were?  If this had been one of them, you might have actually gotten a decent grade in that class.  Levitt and Dubner combine in-depth social economic research with creative, humorous writing.  Seriously, the first chapter is about the economics of prostitution.  What could be better?  Although, you will be pissed when you find out how much a mid-range escort makes. 

The following chapters are a little drier and less entertaining than the first, but I guess since they don't talk about sex and money that is to be expected.  If you enjoy social economics, you won't care.  If not, the rest of the book might be a little dry.  That being said, the best line of the book is on the second to last page (don't skip ahead!).

This is a quick read.  At only 216 pages it goes by pretty fast, even if you don't dig the econ part.

Nats

Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation by Charles Glass

When I bought this book, I thought it would contain harrowing tales of American spies and underground resistance fighters battling evil Nazi thugs throughout The City of Light. It doesn't. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, just not what I expected (and certainly not as captivating).

Roughly 30,000 American citizens lived in and around Paris before WWII. Of those, 5,000 ish decided to stay even after the US State Department told them it was time to 'get out of Dodge'. This book tells the stories of a handful of these people. They range from liberal lesbian book store owners (sadly, not as hot as they sound) who were used to entertaining the luminaries of the international literature scene, like Ernest Hemingway, to wealthy international businessmen of questionable morals, to displaced low level royalty. While the stories are interesting and insightful, they are hardly heart pounding nail bitters.

If you fancy yourself an amateur WWII historian you will definitely learn some things here that you didn't know (for me, it was how the Vichy government that they talk about in Casablanca actually worked). If you like your military literature to be heavy into body counts and exposed organs, you may want to skip this one.

Nats

Ball Four by Jim Bouton

It’s that time of year again.  Major League Baseball camps have opened in Arizona and Florida and you can now see a bunch of guys you’ve never heard of in reasonable facsimiles of uniforms that you recognize playing baseball for the first time since October (September in Cleveland, Kansas City, Pittsburg, etc...).  This is a bitter-sweet time for me as I love baseball but it really means I have a long, hot summer to get through before college football begins again.  With that being said, its time for you to read the best baseball book ever written (I know this because I've read, like, three of them), Ball Four by Jim Bouton.  Jim was a hard throwing young right hander for the Yankees in the late '50's and early '60's who blew out his arm (long before Tommy John or the surgery named for him) and chronicled his comeback as a knuckleballer in the 1968 season with the expansion Seattle Pilots.

Now, if you are one of the dreaded 'baseball purists' that we hear so much about on sports talk radio during the baseball season, you know this book and probably hate it.  Why?  Because Bouton was the very first (as far as you know) professional athlete to break the code of the locker room (you know, 'what happens in here stays in here').  He took notes on all the goings on of a big league ball player, from spring training to the regular season, from the big club to the minors and back again, and shared the stories with us.  Nothing was off limits.  He basically confirmed what we already suspected, baseball players get laid a lot, party like, well, big leaguers, get paid a bunch of money, and basically live the life we all wish we could live (the bastards!).

Keep in mind, if you are younger than say, 50, you have to know your baseball history.  He tells unbelievable stories about the guys who played in that era that, if you are in your 20's or 30's, will mean absolutely nothing to you.  But for those of us who know, this book is solid gold.  The stories are funny as hell and it is almost impossible to put this book down.  At better than 400 pages, it is a bit of a read, but it is so good that the pages fly by.  I've probably read this book ten times, and it is always funny.  If you like baseball, boozing, and broads (and who doesn't?) this is a must read.

Nats

You Want Fries with That: A White-Collar Burnout Experiences Life at Minimum Wage by Prioleau Alexander

My first book is one of my favorites; You Want Fries with That: A White-Collar Burnout Experiences Life at Minimum Wage by Prioleau Alexander (pronounced: alex-and-er).  The author is a retired Marine Corp officer who was working as an advertising executive when one day he decides he can't take it anymore.  Instead of dropping all the way out of society, as our pot smoking hippie fore fathers did, he decides to simply drop down a few notches on the food chain instead.  He walks a mile in the moccasins of minimum wage employees everywhere by taking on various positions that we come in contact with every day but pay little attention to.  From ice cream scooper to pizza delivery guy, Prioleau shares his experiences with humor and respect for the people doing these jobs with him as well as the jobs themselves.  Not only is this book hysterical (It is laugh out loud funny.  Seriously, I was reading it on a plane from San Diego to Denver and I actually laughed out loud.) it also makes the reader take pause and think about the challenges faced by the service industry people around us whom we never give a second thought to and allows us to appreciate them a little more than we did before.  (Since most people treat the people who serve them like they have a communicable disease, I realize there is really no where to go but up, but I digress....). 

This is a relativly short read at only 264 pages and it is so good you'll be done with it long before you want it to end.  If I had some lame rating system, like 5 Stars or Platinum Level, I would give it the highest rating.  But I don't, so suffice it to say you should go buy it immediately and start reading it tonight.

Nats