Puss Reboots: Blog: March 2010: Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit?

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Reviews:
Amulet 2: The Stonekeeper's Curse by Kazu Kibuishi
Arthur's New Puppy by Marc Brown
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Cat Dreams by Urusla K. Le Guin and S. D. Schindler (illustrator)
Clementina's Cactus by Ezra Jack Keats
Creepy Crawly Crime by Aaron Reynolds and Neil Numberman
Dinosaur Train by John Steven Gurney
Duma Key by Stephen King
Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Death and Dementia by Edgar Allan Poe and Gris Grimly
Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom by Eric Wight
Gravitation Volume 2 by Maki Murakami
Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation by Tom Siddell
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Hour of the Olympics (Magic Tree House #16) by Mary Pope Osborne
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond
Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit? by Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur
Henry's 100 Days of Kindergarten by Nancy Carlson
Hip Cat by Jonathan London
Knuckleboom Loaders Load Logs by Joyce Slayton-Mitchell
The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl
King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak
Muse and Reverie by Charles de Lint
The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint
No Mad by Sam Moffie
Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
Pharaoh's Flowers by H. Nigel Hepper
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
Private Eye by Albert E. Cowdrey
Return of the Homework Machine by Dan Gutman
Salmon Doubts by Adam Sacks
The Shrinking of Treehorn by Florence Parry Heide
The Silent Boy by Lois Lowry
Snowfall by Jessie Thompson
Songwood by Marc Laidlaw
Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder
Tonight on the Titanic (Magic Tree House #17) by Mary Pope Osborne
What Pete Ate from A to Z by Maira Kalman
When Cats Dream by Dav Pilkey

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Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit? 03/15/10

Apparently there's a new American edition of Is It Just Me or is Everything Shit? by Steve Lowe. Brendan Hay of The Daily Show collaborated on the Americanization of this encyclopedia of all things shit. Although I'm an American and an active book blogger, I apparently missed the memo on this new edition.

By strange book karma I got a copy of the original British edition through BookCrossing and that's the edition I read. So when reading my review please keep in mind I am reviewing an older and different book. For your convenience, I am providing links to reviews of the 2009 American edition.

Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit is an encyclopedia of whinging on the worst pieces of modern culture: it's excesses, it's celebrities, government, politicians, food and so forth. As it is a critique of British (for the most part) pop culture as it was in 2005 the biting humor by 2010 has lost a few teeth.

My two biggest problems with the book stem from just how dated much of it felt and the constant whining from the author. Yes I got the jokes and the references and the slang but after about letter F or G, I stopped caring.

I don't think the Daily Show revisions will make the book any better. If you've read both versions, let me know in the comments how they compare.