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Mar 22, 2011

Kemper rated it:

I relate to comedian Patton Oswalt to an almost scary degree. We’re about the same age, we both grew up as nerdy sci-fi/comic fans in areas where there was absolutely nothing cool going on, and we both seem to share a bleak outlook when it comes to people. I loved his routine Text from his My Weakness Is Strong comedy album so much that my wife got a specially made coffee cup for me with the words I HATE on one side and a cartoon of a giant robot destroying a city on the other.*

*(I More...

8 comments like (18 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2011

Krok Zero rated it:

Hmm, is it time to write a review of Patton Oswalt's book? I expected to put the book down upon finishing it and eagerly race to Goodreads to pen a five-star hosannah extolling the multifaceted brilliance of Mr. Oswalt's first official literary endeavor, but the reality is that I was slightly disappointed by the totality of the (occasionally masterful, always amusing) text. So this review is a little more muted in its enthusiasm than the one I hoped to write but you'd still be crazy not to read More...

11 comments like (9 people liked it)

May 31, 2011

Chris rated it:

I apologize ahead of time for not even trying to aim at Point B, or even starting from Point A. Comedy and terror and autobiography and comics and literature—they’re all the same thing.

To me.

I hereby officially nominate Patton Oswalt as the spokesperson for the Generation X nerd. And would like to perhaps hire him as my personal ambassador to the world. He’s a couple of years older than I am, but we definitely share similar formative experiences and outlooks. Except he’s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 01, 2012

Brandon rated it:

I finished this at the gym while lamenting that I was riding the stationary bike instead of running.

Patton Oswalt's first book differs from most comedian books. For the most part, I've stopped buying comedian books because they are inevitably disappointing. If I like a comedian enough to follow their work to the point that I want to purchase their book, I am usually pretty familiar with their material. Unfortunately, my experience has shown that comedian books, especially initial com More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 14, 2012

James rated it:

I feel about Patton Oswalt, most of the time, the same way I feel about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: both are candylike, tailored to my nerd sensibilities, but each comes at those sensibilities with a purpose oblique enough to my own to leave a mild, sour aftertaste. In Wao's case, it was the attempt to sublimate geek culture into Real Literature, an attempt which felt insecure and somehow demeaning, as though the Nazgûl weren't awesome enough without being twisted to serve as a dozen More...

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Jan 16, 2012

Ryan rated it:

Some surprisingly introspective essays on how great culture and shitty culure alike -- but especially shitty culture -- has helped turn Patton Oswalt into the biting, brilliant stand-up comedian we all know; from working in a movie theatre to surviving a week and a half in Surrey to a the experience of a MTV Gifting Suite.

The titular essay is also a fun attempt to spawn an epic geek fight, asking every nerd to define whether or not they are a zombie, spaceship, or wasteland. But, lik More...

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Nov 08, 2011

Jon rated it:

It's hard to really get interested in a person that starts a biographical section in a book by sharing how he used to steal from his bosses, and clearly, clearly, feels no shame about it. I should also point out that it isn't played for laughs, nor is there any comeuppance that occurs or is even suggested. No, it's just matter of fact.

At times I laughed (though extremely rarely, barely got through the whole fake greeting card section), but generally I flipped pages waiting for so More...

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Sep 14, 2011

Harmony rated it:

On the back of this book, there is a blurb from Dave Eggers. He says that this is the book that finally proves Patton Oswalt is a writer as well as a comedian. This will go down in history as one of the many, many things that Dave Eggers is wrong about.

I am a lightweight comedy nerd, and I have nothing but respect for Patton Oswalt. He's definitely one of the best established comics working today. But stand-up comedy is a way, way different art form then writing. The idea behind this b More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jul 03, 2011

Mark rated it:

I've had numerous friends recommend this book to me, and apparently they know me pretty well, because I loved it and thought it was hilarious from beginning to end.

If I might digress for a brief rant, however (and this is nothing against Patton Oswalt or this book), I just want to lodge a complaint to no one in particular about the sheer amount of energy writers of my generation spend analyzing the pop culture of our youth. About 70% of this book is about legos, Dungeons & Dragons, m More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 18, 2011

Caitlin added it

My bookstore was sent a sample of Patton Oswalt's Zombie Spaceship Wasteland. It was an extremely thin book with only the intro and a couple chapters. I've always enjoyed reading memoirs and essays, so I grabbed the sample. I read it and decided to purchase the book when it came out.

I'm not uber-familiar with a lot of Mr. Oswalt's work, probably just Ratatouille, which I found a little unbelievable (I don't care how good a cook it is, I'm not eating rat food), and his guest spots on More...

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Jun 09, 2011

Adam rated it:

I came to Patton Oswalt obliquely, via his portrayal of perennial sadsack goodguy doormat Neil in The United States of Tara. I love Neil. He always does the right thing even if it hurts him.

My second exposure to Oswalt was thru his brilliant Justice League of America comic, "Welcome to the Working Week", a hipster's-eye-view of the famous superhero team going about their daily business over an entire week. It's brilliant, funny, humanising superhero stuff, and Oswalt should d More...

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May 17, 2011

Kathleen rated it:

This collection of short works--mostly autobiographical--is interesting but pretty hit or miss for me laugh-wise. I giggled at the short story told in comics and the fantastically accurate satire of a wine list, and I rolled my eyes and skimmed the sickeningly graphic 'decoding' of hobo songs. Most of all, I liked the chapters about a kid coming into puberty playing D&D or the excellent shaggy dog story about his first gig headlining a club. And--as ever--when Oswalt's humor works for me, it More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 28, 2011

Bill rated it:

I have honestly never heard of Patton Oswalt before picking up this book. Call me socially or culturally illiterate, but I guess I missed out on the whole "King of Queens" thing. Anyway, it did help me come to the book with "fresh eyes" (so to speak).

This book is sort of a "mixtape" of memoir, essay and -- I guess-- comedy routine material, and sometimes all three, with some comics thrown in as well. Being of similar age as Mr. Oswalt, I got a lot o More...

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Mar 14, 2011

Tony rated it:

These days I don't really watch TV, and I've never had cable, so Patton Oswalt hasn't really been on my radar at all. Based on a few minutes poking around online, he seems like a pretty funny comic who supplements his residual checks from The King of Queens by doing a lot of cartoon voiceover work. Anyway, a friend pressed his new book in my hand the other day and insisted that I read the first essay, and since the title touches upon various things I tend to like, I figured I'd give it a whirl More...

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Mar 03, 2011

Andy rated it:

I'm not the biggest fan of Non-fiction, but this memoir/autobiography/collection of short life experiences/etc. really hit the mark. I really liked how Oswalt was down to earth, honest, and excited about his life story (or parts of it). The best chapter was the one about the time he went to the MTV gifting house or whatever it is. He paints a picture of the greed, selfishness, and ridiculous need of the rich and famous without saying any names at all, and pissing me off because these people j More...

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Feb 21, 2011

Benjamin rated it:

I have been thinking some lately about where a person's sense of humor comes from.

This all started when I recently revisited some old episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I used to watch the show religiously back in high school. I taped it, shared copies with friends, watched with buddies, and sometimes turned it on trying to share the show with someone in my family. (They tolerated it.) Watching the show now, I was stuck by a few things: 1) It was still funny. 2) I definitely pr More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 10, 2011

Mike rated it:

Patton Oswalt is grand. What I loved about this book is the same thing I love about a lot of Tom Petty's lyrics, especially the song "Even the Losers." Namely, there's something inherently endearing about having a marginalized outcast for a protagonist. Or at least it's guaranteed to be endearing when it's done right.

A properly done loser protagonist story arc requires a few ingredients:

1. The protagonist is self-aware, and knows that he's been relegated to the cult More...

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Jan 22, 2011

Michael rated it:

A kind of yard sale of essays and reminiscences, most of which are entertaining. As opposed to witless drivel published by other comics (looking at you, Chelsea Handler, though it pains me), Oswalt isn't just making gags in this book. (Actually, the gag bits are the worst bits of the book.) Instead, he indulges in a fair bit of autobiography that creates a Portrait of the Stand-Up As a Young Man. He played D&D, was a science-fiction devotee, watched tons of bad movies and worked in suburban movi More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2011

Christopher rated it:

This isn't just a collection of Oswalt's stand-up routines, or the bits left on the wayside. Instead, we get a look at some of the things that made him, as well as jokes that would only work on the page. And it's really fascinating as well as funny, not to mention skillfully written. Anyone who's seen or heard his routines knows he's got a gift for imagery and language, but here he puts it to work in prose that's often painful, funny, and heartbreaking within the space of a few sentences. From " More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 16, 2011

Chris rated it:

A bunch of random reminiscences and humorous bits from Patton Oswalt. If you're a fan of his already, this is probably an acceptable bit of escapism, but you're not really learning anything new about the human condition or getting anything you wouldn't from his stand-up.

The first half of the book was pretty much a solid 2-stars (with the exception of his wine descriptions, which was pretty hilarious), but then he got to the part where he describes the worst two weeks in his comedy life More...

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Mar 30, 2011

Alice rated it:

I can't believe how disappointed I am in this book. I love Patton Oswalt. He is one of my favorite comedians and I usually find him witty, insightful and just plain hilarious. Usually when he goes off on a tangent, he pulls it right back to his original point in a clever and humorous manner. I don't know what went wrong with this book. I think he tried to cram too many styles into a slim volume. Did he want to write a straight-up memoir? Did he want to write a few "comedic riffs"? OK, More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

Kelli rated it:

I have a bit of an obsession with Patton Oswalt so I was happy to indulge his writing in this book. The chapters about his childhood in Virginia were très interesting but the sections where he deconstructs the meaning behind old hobo songs really only sounds entertaining as a concept, not to read. The book was a quick read and the tangential thought association that pervades much of the early chapters is thankfully missing from the chapter that I found to be the most interesting - his account of More...

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Dec 04, 2011

Margot rated it:

This is a very short book, and yet I got only a third of the way through before I had to set it aside. Whoever directed the audio version of this memoir from the Comedy Central writer/comedian, failed the author greatly. Patton Oswalt read his memoir so fast that I was never able to get comfortable within the text, and he uses a lot of adjectives, which makes it even harder to get at the meat of his sentences when he's speaking at the speed of light. On top of that, a third of the way through th More...

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Aug 29, 2011

Nicholas rated it:

I still have a book to read by Tom Lennon and Ben Garant, but after that I may halt my purchases of books by comedians I enjoy.

Patton Oswalt seemed like a safer bet compared to most comedians. He seemed so narrative in his stand up that I thought it might be safe to delve into his writing. Unlike Eugene Mirman, whose abstract style was wretched for long-form work, I thought Patton could hold it together.

Well, yes and no.

This book does indeed contain chapters More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2011

Ariel rated it:

I think I should just stop reading books by comedians I like. After being burned by lukewarm feelings (MIXED METAPHOR IN YOUR FACE!) about Bossypants, I still had hope that Patton Oswalt, king of the Nerd Comedians, would be able to deliver a funny and coherent memoir. And yet, here I am, summing up this book with the same word I used to describe Fey's -- meh.

Oswalt's book definitely has some hilarious moments, and I really enjoyed the times when he talked about ACTUAL events in More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 24, 2011

Kate rated it:

I'm a fan, and have been ever since first hearing Patton Oswalt's intelligent comedy in a late nineties HBO comedy special. Now I'm a bigger fan.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland was enjoyable start to finish, but I particularly enjoyed "Punch Up Notes," "Wines by the Glass" and "Mary C. Runfola Explains Her Gifts." Oswalt displays such a wide range of literary gifts, it's possible to imagine him among the National Lampoon writers of the 1970s, sitting at the A More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 05, 2011

Kirby rated it:

Back when I taught 9th grade English, I occasionally assigned "multi-genre projects," which are essentially a collection of 5 or so items (like essays, collages, poems, drawings, short stories, whatever) that express a central theme of a character or story. The majority were very bad.

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, on the other hand, is the ultimate multi-genre project. At first, I assumed it was an autobiography; but-- like it clearly states on the cover-- it is simply " More...

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Jan 11, 2011

Jeremy rated it:

First, the bad: it's *incredibly* short; some of the bits, while perhaps conceptually interesting - for example, an epic poem about his favorite D&D character - don't really work; it's not all that funny.

Now, the good: It's not all that funny, but it's not necessarily *supposed* to be all that funny. Look, if you're a huge fan of Patton Oswalt's stand-up comedy and you see that he's writing a book called "Zombie Spaceship Wasteland", you would expect that it's going to be More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2011

Megan rated it:

4.5 Smart comedy, you guys. I love it so much that I want to marry it. Patton Oswalt is a master of the form, and his nods to nerd/geek culture make his material, of course, right up my alley. So picking this up was a no-brainer, but it exceeded some of my expectations.

For example, although I like Mike Birbiglia's comedy, when I read his book, I felt like it was a crib sheet for his material - not meant to be read, at least not by anyone but him. Out loud. But Patton's got chops on More...

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Feb 19, 2011

Jacob rated it:

Patton Oswalt is one of my favorite working standup comedians. He’s one of the few I haven’t had a chance to see live but I hope to remedy that when he manages to drag his shebs down to Houston for a show. I think that Mr. Oswalt is one of the most refreshingly honest comedians working the stage these days, with Dave Attel, Louis C.K. and a few others riding alongside him like a sort of comedic Magnificent Seven, saying the things nobody wants to but doing it anyway.

So when I heard h More...

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