David

Engaging prose, well-crafted, and very well read

Revisado: 03-06-15

Not the kind of book I usually listen to, but for me it was ten good hours spent exploring different kinds of relationships from different perspectives. There are a lot of ideas and well-developed feelings crammed into the taught prose - not a lot of wasted sentences. The narrative jumps around a bit chronologically, and the author and narrator both did very good jobs making these shifts clear to immediately ground us in the new times/places.

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Fine but forgettable

Revisado: 05-21-13

What would have made Dad Is Fat better?

More original jokes. This is all very well-worn territory. As other reviewers have said, people who already like Gaffigan's material will probably be disappointed and find little original material in here.

I have enjoyed Gaffigan talking about his personal life and upbringing on various other podcasts, but this didn't bring anything new to the plate. As a New Yorker I was most interested in the details about raising five children in Manhattan (five kids in a fifth floor walkup?!) but otherwise this was really quite bland and flat. Part of why I listened to this is that I've seen Gaffigan pushing a stroller in the East Village and I was curious about his urban parenting challenges ... and the book did paint a vivid picture in that regard.

Would you ever listen to anything by Jim Gaffigan again?

Yes, but only if it was trying more explicitly to be ha-ha funny throughout.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Narration itself was fine, although lack of variety in tone did cause me to 'tune out' a bit during less interesting parts.

What character would you cut from Dad Is Fat?

n/a

Any additional comments?

Glad it wasn't any longer. Nuggets of original insight or 'laugh-out-loud funny' were spread far too thinly. I'm not sure the world needed another personal narrative of 'aren't kids funny and challenging?' parenthood from a stand-up comedian.

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Colbert fan, but this book didn't do it for me

Revisado: 12-27-12

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

It needed to be just plain funnier. Only the "food" chapter made me and my wife laugh out loud. The rest was mild-chuckle stuff that sounded like rejected scripts from the "WORD" feature on Colbert Report.

It wasn't UNfunny, it just seemed that the writing was done with the TV show in mind and without the graphics and visual delivery it wound up really lacking. And after more than a few minutes the same schtick gets old, whereas on the TV show it moves on to something else fairly quickly.

Would you ever listen to anything by Stephen Colbert again?

Yes

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

The narration was quite good in terms of clarity and intensity and comic timing.

What character would you cut from America Again?

n/a

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Get to know how Zim thinks and operates

Revisado: 08-05-12

Would you try another book from Don Zimmer and Bill Madden and/or Denis McKee?

No; there's not much more autobiography left in Zimmer!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Zim?

Joe Torre calling Zimmer to offer him a bench coach job before 1996. The most interesting moments throughout were stories about how and where Zim found his next job. There is good insight throughout on the relationships between a field manager, general manager, and owner. Descriptions of baseball's "old boy network" were really well done.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Narration overall was engineered far too quietly. I had to cram my earphones into my ears, at full volume, in order to hear well on a train or plane or subway. This isn't the case with other audiobooks. There isn't much variety in tone to the writing -- it's all very matter-of-fact and not terribly earth-shattering. All baseball fans already know how every season ends, so it would have been hard to bring much more life to the narration. The writing style really lacks variety. "Working with Buzzy Bavasi was one of the great pleasures of my life in baseball... Pee Wee Reese was one of my favorite players and a real idol to me when I broke in to the big leagues, plus a great guy... I really loved Jim Rice, he was a heckuva ball player. I didn't much care much for Bill Lee, and I wasn't sad to see him leave after the season... Billy Martin kept getting in trouble off the field, but on the field he was a great manager... George Steinbrenner was always very good to me... The 1989 Cubs were a super group of guys; I really miss the times we had together." There's chapter after chapter of flat and plain writing like that, with very little drama, and no flowery poetry whatsoever. That's probably just a reflection how Zim is in person. To that extent, the narrator really didn't have much to work with, and by the end it sounds like he's just banging through it to get the book over with. And as a Mets fan I was happy to get the 2000 World Series over with as well :-)

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Not a good candidate for a movie.

Any additional comments?

Was a little disappointed it ended at 2000 season; would like to have heard more about how he wound things up with the Rays.

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disappointing

Revisado: 12-26-11

What disappointed you about In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks...?

In the first chapter Adam lets us know that he never learned to read nor write. Not a promising way to start a B-O-O-K.

Any additional comments?

Some funny moments, but Adam is much funnier on spontaneous radio shows instead of this scripted fare.

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