Becca

Have you ever done or said something stupid wish you hadn’t. Maybe you have been the witness to an act of stupidity. Well recently I was treated to the book Weirder than Marshmallows by Dan Fogg a series of essay that tackle why people do dumb things. This book was really entertaining it was like having the author sitting next to relating these tales to me. If you like a quick funny read then this book is for you. I give it two thumbs.

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jshallow01

I am always intrigued by how an author comes up with a title to a book. Sometimes they are pretty self explanatory and other times they seem more obscure. Until I dove in to this very quick read of essays, I wasn’t sure exactly what the title referred to. My curiousity as to the naming of the title was quickly answered when I read the preface and was asked to ponder why (white) marshmallows list the dye blue 1 as an ingredient. Yes, that does seem weird to me. And yes, I did check my own bag of marshmallows in the cupboard and saw it listed as an ingredient. So, I thought that this was a good start to the book and was interested to see what other essays and musings Dan Fogg had to share with us.

As I read though the section of “Do Not Stop On The Tracks”, I couldn’t help think about all the many baby products that I have read such warnings on, those warnings that were common sense and didn’t need to be spelled out but they obviously had to because more than one person lacked the common sense that was required to use such a product.

The book includes other sections titled “En Masse” “Technology Sucks” ‘That’s Just Freaky” and “Weird Stuff”. I did find some of the observations to be more critical and cynical than I am myself, but some of the other observations were entertaining to read. My favorite essay in the collection is called “The Vortex” and seemed to be the start of a movie. He did a good job describing the setting that allowed me to get a clear picture and understand his feelings. And I thought the most, shall we say – educational, was “Electile Dysfunction 2000: Heard from Florida Lately?”

I did enjoy reading though his collection of favorite quotes. Reading what inspires or provokes a person helps you to draw up a mental image of their character and provide a deeper insight to their writings.

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Jenn, Mom of Two Munchkins

I was selected to review Weirder Than Marshmallows by Dan Fogg and was surprised. Keep reading for my review.

I have to start by saying that this book was not what I thought it would be. It knew it was supposed to be funny but was expecting it to be more jokes and less real life. But I wasn’t really exactly sure what to expect.

This book was amusing and so very true. I found myself relating to many of the essays in this book. Especially on that was about elections. I thought that was had perfect timing. I found it interesting that many of my own rants were in the book. Made me feel like maybe I was not as crazy as I thought!

The book contains 5 chapters:

Do Not Stop on Tracks

En Masse

Technology Sucks

That’s Just Freaky

Weird Stuff

The first chapter immediately catches your attention and makes you keep reading out of pure anticipation of what will be said next. Brilliant!

I love how they describe the book and how the title got it’s name. “I could rant about marshmallows forever. But this book isn’t about marshmallows, this book is about stories. Stories, that are, like marshmallows, strange, mind boggling, but somehow appealing to the public at large. Hard to explain, impossible to ignore.”

I couldn’t have captured the book or marshmallows any better!

I love Daniel Fogg’s honesty throughout the book and how many of his points are things I have wondered about myself. It is a well written book that begs to be read.

Make sure you buy your copy of Weirder than Marshmallows today. This book would make a great gift or stocking stuffer!

Weirder Than Marshmallows was published by Nightfire Publications

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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Rita L.

I was sent a rough copy of Weirder Than Marshmallows to review. I really wasn’t sure what to expect but the book sounded like something I would be interested in. I have a unique sense of humor and find humor in things that many people don’t. I have that 90’s Saturday Night Live sense of humor that so many people hate. I think they hate it because they don’t get it. This book is like that. Some of the stories make you have to think about it before you get the humor. Some of them are really funny, others are ok but I don’t necessarily feel a book should have been written for them. This book is very short and I literally read it in about 35 minutes. I have placed it on the back of the toilet in our guest bathroom. It would make the perfect bathroom reader since every story is only one page. I think if the book was bigger, it would be more enjoyable. It was still a fun read even though it was short. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a quick chuckle.

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A Wonderful Read

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I grabbed my kindle and began reading Weirder Than Marshmallows which contains a series of essays and rants by the Dan Fogg, who sadly passed away over ten years ago.

The writings are based on the author’s observation of the stupidity of humanity. In the preface, Dan talks about the ingredients of marshmallows and wonders why there is blue food coloring in it. After reading the ingredients, I’m never eating a marshmallow again.

Normally I don’t read essay books, but I really enjoyed reading Weirder Than Marshmallows as the author used common sense that seems to be lacking in our culture today. I’ve never noticed the “Not Stop on Tracks” sign at railroad tracks before, but I’ll look for them the next time I cross one.

I laughed aloud as I read each humorous essays that dealt with real life situations. I’m a Garfield fan, so I got a kick out of the incident with his mother’s Garfield watch. The essay about the girl who couldn’t figure out how to heat a Hot Pocket, reminded me of my cousin, who would have done the exact same thing. Dan must have been an intelligent and funny person to write a short, but perfect book. I’m sadden to hear about his passing as he had a bright future in writing. I recommend Weirder Than Marshmallows to everyone!

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Katie H.

I recently received the eBook Weirder Than Marshmallows by Dan Fogg from NightFire Publications to read and review. I really had no idea what to expect going in, but was pleasantly surprised at the well written and humorous take on things that Dan had.

The book itself is a compilation of essays and observations written by Dan Fogg that were compiled and edited by Deborah Carney. Dan’s life was tragically cut short in 2002, but his legacy lives on among his friends and family, and hopefully through the publishing of this book, society will also hear and read the words of a man who spent most of his life confined to a wheel chair, but observed the world around him with the eyes of a cynic and comedian.

Dan shows an obvious sense of humor and heart of a comedian in his take on life and random things around us. From his thoughts regarding the unusual warning signs on products and places in our lives, to the stupid actions of society in general at times, he looks at things with a cynics heart and what I consider to be a much more honest view than most of what we read and hear. His take on peoples disabilities and how there is a tendency for “groups” to stick together and make themselves stand out more rather than being diverse and incorporating into society really hit home. It was refreshing to see someone who himself suffered a disability be honest about how it is taken advantage of and exaggerated. Yet, on the same token, not discounting or overlooking the disability itself.

Overall, I was very impressed with this eBook. The quality of writing is excellent. Both Dan in his creativity and honesty and Deborah in her editing skills managed to pull together a great book of humor and well, weirdness that I truly appreciated. This book is long enough to read a few pages a day, or short enough to read in one sitting. My only complaint or drawback has to do with the use of foul language in a few places. Although I understood the placement and get the reasons behind it, I still felt it was unnecessary to get the point across in the book. This brought the book down to a 4 star for me.

Weirder than Marshmallows is definitely a great eBook to grab as a gift for the comedian in your family or just what I would call a “coffee table” book for yourself. Something light and fun to read when you want to unwind or could use a few laughs.

http://brewingdaily.blogspot.com/

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Deborah H.

When I received this book to review, I was very excited because the title totally caught my attention, I love books that leave me thinking about those oddities of human behavior, those things we all do, but few of us would actually admit to, and if we do, we’re just all the prouder because that is what makes us unique…

I laughed hysterically in the beginning. I found Mr. Fogg to be truly funny. He had a talent for writing up things, that were not just weird, they were genuinely kick me funny but not so much in a mean way.

As the book went on, I found less humor, and more of poignant side to Mr. Fogg’s writing. I was touched by some of the stories he had to tell. Particularly those of being helped in New York as disabled person, but then thoroughly confused a while later as he talks of being lost and alone in the same city.
Over all, I felt that some of the stories could have benefited from a bit of order adjustment, because there were times I was left scratching my head in wonder of what the author was talking about. But don’t let that deter you from buy this book because it is well written, and the author’s knack for painting a picture in his short essays, and drawing you into his mind is above and beyond just mere imagination.

This book is a quick read, and worth the time for sure.

I give it a definite thumbs up!

http://itsreallyonlymyopinion.blogspot.com/

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Leslie R.

Weirder than Marshmallows is a book of essays by Dan Fogg. It was really enjoyable and pokes a little bit of fun at everyone. It’s an easy read, which I like, and each essay is short. This is nice with a little one to chase around the house.
I like Fogg because he tackles serious ideas with humor and fun. Great read, and I was happy to receive a copy!!

http://oneyeartodisney.blogspot.com/2011/11/weirder-than-marshmallows-indeed.html

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Kelly O.

This is the fifth book I have read as part of challenge no. 21 of my 52 things in 52 weeks challenge.

Bet you haven’t ever really thought about what goes into marshmallows, have you?

I’ve only just started to get into chemistry as part of my uni, and a few of our experiments involved the modification of a colour of an item using various other chemicals. Reading this introduction from Dan literally made me stop for a bit, and wonder why blue 1 would be needed. Seriously…anyone know? Did anyone else ever actually stop and look at ingredients for any food item in particular, only to wonder why a particular ingredient was actually necessary?

The rest of the book is a collection of stories ranging from the ponderings of other everyday occurrences that we never stop to really think about, or the bizarre moments in life (being certain you were in a specific place at a particular time, and someone else who was there at that exact same time not ever seeing you). There’s a lot in there that you’ll find that you think “oh yeah – why is that?”

This was the first time I’ve used an e-book in my 52 in 52 challenge, but when an offer was made for me to receive the book for free in exchange for my honest opinion, I definitely wasn’t going to turn that down! Reading an e-book was quite a different experience to be honest. I used my iPhone, and I definitely struggled as it came in a PDF format (on the iPhone you can’t change PDF font sizes using iBooks). However, if you had a dedicated e-book reader with a larger screen (iPad, kindle etc) you wouldn’t have the same problem. In addition, if it came in a format that was a bit more friendly to the iBooks app so that I could change the font size then it would be a lot better. There’s a kindle version so I would expect this problem would be resolved using the Kindle app.

Overall the book was quite enjoyable to read, and I found with the portability of the iPhone I was able to read little bits here and there. It’s not a book that will keep you gripped to your phone until you’ve finished it, but it’s still great for those moments when you want something light-hearted that will give you a laugh here and there. There was also one moment in the book where I finished the chapter, sat back and realised how lucky I am. I won’t give it all away, but the writer, Dan, lived his life in a wheelchair and shared a story of one of those moments where he completely relies on others for assistance. It truly made me feel blessed that I have every limb in my body, and my own problems seem greatly insignificant. Sometimes we all need a bit of a wakeup call so we can reevaluate our lives, and realise that most of our problems really are quite small in the grand scheme of things.

http://amyo.id.au/kelly/booksmovies-etc/52-in-52-weirder-than-marshmallows-by-dan-fogg-plus-win-a-free-copy

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