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Free-Range Chickens | 
 enlarge | Author: Simon Rich
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy New: $9.49
You Save: $7.51 (44%)
New (41) Used (9) from $7.50
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 19567
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 1400065895
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.602
EAN: 9781400065899
ASIN: 1400065895
Publication Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In his riotous debut collection, Ant Farm, Simon Rich found humor in some of life’s most desperate situations. Now this former editor of The Harvard Lampoon and current writer for Saturday Night Live has returned to mine more comedy from our hopelessly terrifying world.
In the nostalgic opening chapter, Rich recalls his fear of the Tooth Fairy (“Is there a face fairy?”) and his initial reaction to the “Got-your-nose” game (“Please just kill me. Better to die than to live the rest of my life as a monster”). He goes on to present Count Dracula’s desperate Match.com profile (“I am normal human looking for human woman to come to castle. I am normal, regular human”). Later, he gets inside the heads of two firehouse Dalmatians who can’t understand their masters’ compulsion to drive off to horrible fires every day. And in the final chapter, he tackles some of life’s biggest questions: Does God really have a plan for us? Yes, it turns out. Now if only He could remember what it was. . . .
Praise for Simon Rich’s Ant Farm
“Ant Farm has an imaginative power that can trigger snort-fests. . . . Ferociously creative, this book is for readers craving both smart humor and belly laughs.”
–People (four stars)
“Savagely funny.”
–The New York Times
“Hilarious. Open this book anywhere, begin reading, and you will laugh.”
–Jon Stewart
“Ant Farm is what all humor books should be: full of brief, high-concept musings that you wish you’d thought of yourself.”
–Time Out New York
“A satirical salmagundi that bites back . . . Imaginative premises abound. . . . As unpredictable as YouTube, as in your face as MySpace.”
–Publishers Weekly
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| Customer Reviews:
 Very funny stuff October 30, 2008
This book is every bit as amusing as it promises to be. It was a great read.
 (3.5) "All-you-can-eat-buffet-fantasy." August 30, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
When all else fails, humor is the saving grace of a world awash in crisis. Thus, a sob becomes a hysterical segue into burst of laughter inspired by a twenty-four year old writer for- why not?- the infamous "Saturday Night Live". Rich's random flights of wit and fancy are presented in sections: "Growing Up"; "Going to Work"; "Relationships"; "Daily Life"; "Animals", and- again, why not? "God".
A quirky kid already hip to the craziness around him, Rich's collection kicks off with threat assessment, the same old canards adults have poured into the fertile imaginations of children for generations: "Got your nose.-Please just kill me. Better to die than to live the rest of my life as a monster." Then there is the matter of the tooth fairy: "Is she... a cannibal? What else does she take? Does she take eyes?" Or an intimate conversation between two frogs: "Why do human children dissect us?"
As the inquisitive boy grows through the awkward stages of adolescence no one can avoid, he betrays his geekiness, vaguely hoping to slide through a series of social blunders. The oddities only become more specific and embarrassing. Reality is closing in, time travel the only option for changing the past, unsuccessful Opium Wars, a Greek marathon, a creative approach to a seriously bad actor's presence in the world, life's absurdities served up as a rich buffet no mean feat for this young torturer of logic.
And who else but Rich could manufacture the hubris to challenge God, to ask the harsh questions ("Why did Seth Brody of Hartford, Connecticut, have a seizure while ordering a hamburger at Denny's?"). The age-old question of why bad things happen to good people is sometimes resolved as a simple case of mistaken identity. Okay, so certain types of humor are an acquired taste. But you never know until you sample the menu. It takes a unique mind to imagine these bizarre scenarios, the perspective of an absurdist and the free-floating anxiety of youth channeled into a universe that sorely needs a good laugh. Luan Gaines/ 2008.
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