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Audio Book Review: The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman

Nathan posted this in Audio Books

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The Areas of My Expertise The Areas of My Expertise

Review Stats

Content	3/5
Reader	3/5
Overall	3/5

John Hodgman is perhaps best known for his role as “PC” in the “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” commercials. Which are annoying, of course. But to a Mac fan, they’re also awesome, because as all Mac fans know, they’re 100% accurate, and so anyone willing to poke fun at himself by being a junky computer is, inherently, hilarious. Additionally, appearances on the Daily Show and YouTube have proven Hodgman hilarious.

This book, however, is hit or miss at best. The book is an almanac of complete world knowledge, claims the author, and quite hilariously it does cover seemingly everything. That is, Hodgman goes on and on and on about certain topics for so long that you wonder if there is any more knowledge regarding hobos, the 50 states, or his career as a publisher that could possibly exist. At one point in the audio book, Hodgman quite literally lists hundreds of hobo names — we skipped through them after about 5 minutes where we’d realized that he wasn’t kidding. That is, in theory, hilarious. In practice, it’s not quite the same as a Family Guy routine of the same nature.

The book does hit a few high points of hilarity, and if you’re rollin’ down 295 out of Portland, Maine anyway, with nothin’ but time, well, you might be into throwing it in and waiting for those high points. If you’ve got a Skynyrd album itching to be played, however, you might want to just go that route.