100 Books Like Sick Puppy

I loved this book because it shows that the setting/particulars of the “journey” don’t actually matter.

It’s all about the author’s voice, perspective, and, in this case, their sense of humor. If these aspects are unique and engaging, it doesn’t matter where they went, or if you have any interest in seeing/doing those things for yourself.

I’ve always felt like I can resonate more with people that are willing to admit their fallibility, and even draw attention to/make light of it. To just how ignorant or clumsy or hapless or cowardly they are. I think that always makes for a better, more human story, a better connection with the reader.

On top of all this, I have a soft spot for the Appalachian Trail, since it crosses through Pennsylvania, only a few miles from where I grew up.

The mere thought of this book makes me smile – I enjoyed its style, which was charming and nicely wacky. 

Environmental expert and nature writer Gerald Durrell details his extremely unusual upbringing, when his mother transported her four (untamed, wilful, contrasting, more than lively) children from England to Corfu – and this was decades ago, when few people did daring things like that. They plunged into a culture clash adventure – filled with much alarming wildlife in the house!

I loved how it was continually surprising. I don’t see how his mother put up with all of them. It’s all valiantly shambolic and funny. 

Abby’s best novel is the primer, the bible, the fountainhead of fiction addressing the destruction of nature for profit. In this case, damming the Colorado River. In fact, “monkeywrenching,” as a verb defining an action in defense of nature, has a much broader current applicability thanks to Abbey’s novel.

Reading this book was an act of both admiration and agony, admiration for the courage of the author to look where no one else was looking, to take huge physical risks, and to prevail, and agony because I longed every moment to have the ability to myself ascend the world’s tallest trees and meet the life that lives, separated forever from the ground, at their very tops.

Everything about this book is poetry of the best kind because it’s also true.

As a woman who was raised to have a moral compass, I am outraged whenever someone in authority abuses their power and gets away with it.

While I don’t condone revenge, nonetheless, I have to admit I cheered when lewd, lecherous, law-bending Florida Judge Robert “Maximum Bob” Gibbs finally gets his comeuppance and is judged guilty by a grudge-bearing malefactor and sentenced to death-by alligator, a unique means of execution, to say the least.

Ingenious, more than slightly off-kilter Elmore Leonard is the undisputed king of criminal mayhem. His wacky, raucous Maximum Bob is a delightfully dark humorous tale chocked full of zany characters; a group of magnificent miscreants Mr. Leonard created, knowing his readers would love to hate.

Before I became an author, I enjoyed a successful career as a ladies’ swimwear sales exec. So, naturally, I spent a tremendous amount of time in the swimwear Mecca of the USA…better known as Florida.

While in the Sunshine State, I encountered my fair share of zanies…better known as buyers; a cast of kooky characters who loved to add some spice to the human stew we all simmer in with some pretty hair-brained schemes. So, it’s only natural that no one tickles my funny bone more than Tim Dorsey’s protagonist, trivia buff and certifiably crazy as a loon Serge A. Storms and his drug-addled partner Coleman who loves cartoons.

In Florida Roadkill, Tim Dorsey’s debut novel of the series, the author introduces us to socially conscious, but misguided Serge who eliminates those he deems either jerks or pests of humankind. Serge’s zany brand of frontier justice is nothing short of… show more.

Maybe it’s because the protagonist and her group of amateur sleuths in my series manage to make every mistake imaginable before they finally succeed in bringing the real killer to justice, that I am tickled pink by Donald E. Westlake’s cast of over-the-top-miscreants.

Starring in Bank Shot, Westlake’s zany characters are more like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Gang leader John Dortmunder and the most inept group of criminals ever to stumble and bumble their way through an ill-fated caper are a rollicking treat that combines fast-moving suspense with laugh-out-loud wit as they attempt to steal a temporarily relocated bank that is inside a mobile home.

All Dortmunder has to do is get past seven security guards, put the bank-on-wheels in gear, and drive away. It’s a simple plan, until it all goes wrong… 

I began my ladies’ apparel sales career as a manufacturer’s representative traveling the deep Southern states where many of my accounts were located in small, rural towns that were dead ringers for Maggody, Arkansas, a hotbed of gossip and murder, and the fictional burg where Mischief in Maggo takes place.

So, of course I have a special place in my heart for Joan Hess’s cheerfully bawdy, tongue-in-cheek second book of the Arly Hanks Mystery Series.

Brilliant, unapologetic author Joan Hess gleefully created a zany cast of characters-Madame Celeste, the psychic enthralling gullible local Yokels with her predictions of doom; a crooked Mayor who also owns the overpriced grocery store, and the fire and brimstone preacher who can’t keep his pants zipped, along with a gaggle of mantra-chanting hippies who have turned the old general store into the source for “cosmic harmony.”

With the brutal murder of Robin Buchanon-a moonshiner, prostitute,… show more.

Sam Lipsyte’s sentences are demented and perfect. He’s one of the funniest writers I have ever read.

The story behind this book is one of publishing legend. Here's the way I've always heard it told: Lipsyte’s first book, The Subject Steve, was a brutal satire of contemporary American life that had the deep misfortune of being published on September 11, 2001. (Yes, I know, it wasn’t the worst thing that happened on 9/11, but still.)

He followed it with Home Land, a vitriolic, sleazy, hilarious novel in the form of epic pissy dispatches to a high school alumni newsletter. As narrators go, Lewis Miner is as unimprovable as he is unredeemable. This book was passed around to every publishing house in New York City, read and cherished by dozens of editors who were scared to put their colophon where their heart was.

It’s hard to remember now, but… show more.

While I grew up at the tail end of the Cold War, there was something in The Mouse that Roared that really spoke to me. The way that it takes an already absurd reality to an extreme really spoke to my own sensibilities and humor. History books tell the facts, but stories like this reflect how absurd the geopolitical culture must have felt to most people. It’s akin to Dr. Strangelove, not only in being a Cold War satire, but in the absurd and extreme nature of the farce. It influenced my own political satire heavily.