What a hilarious and thoughtful read. I enjoyed Golby's essays from start to finish, and found myself laughing out loud on my train commute home. As a lover of dry humor, the tone of these tales was just right for me, and I appreciated the author's ability to find lightness in the darker side of his experiences. Definitely a book I will recommend to friends and patrons!

New essays by the very funny Joel Golby. He writes about surviving dinner parties, traveling to Saudi Arabia to watch a camel pageant and other hilarious subjects.

The writing is well done, I just felt like some details were not needed. I found myself bored in most se sections. Joel has a magical intellect, but I didn’t connect with the book. It felt slow and rushed all at the same time. I wanted to like it so badly.

The low rating I am giving this book is partly my fault. I should've read some of Golby's articles on Vice before requesting this, that way I would have quickly found out that I likely would not get along with the tone of the writing in this collection.

But the tone was only part of the problem - often the subject matter was puerile (I'm thinking specifically of the essay where Golby talks about *that* thing Marilyn Manson is supposed to have had ribs removed to be able to do, and how he spent a lot of his childhood wishing he could do that too), or just incredibly mundane. These are the kind of essays you may find funny if you know Golby personally, but most of them contain oddly specific and unfunny lists filled with rants about topics which don't hold the readers interest. For example, one essay innumerates all the properties Golby has rented in his lifetime, the price of the rent and the gripes he had with said house and/or landlord. Who wants to read about that?!

Recommended to fans of Vice, and probably nobody else.

What can I say. Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant is a hilarious book. I really admire the tone of the essays, and each essay is funnier than the last.