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Not Exactly What I Had in Mind

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Presents Roy Blount, Jr. reading selections from his book. Offers a humorous look at American life including reflections on John Wayne, the federal deficit, women's underwear, and other subjects.

Audiobook

First published January 1, 1985

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About the author

Roy Blount Jr.

71 books66 followers
Roy Blount Jr. is the author of twenty-three books. The first, About Three Bricks Shy of a Load, was expanded into About Three Bricks Shy . . . and the Load Filled Up. It is often called one of the best sports books of all time. His subsequent works have taken on a range of subjects, from Duck Soup, to Robert E. Lee, to what cats are thinking, to how to savor New Orleans, to what it’s like being married to the first woman president of the United States.

Blount is a panelist on NPR’s Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!, an ex-president of the Authors Guild, a usage consultant for the American Heritage Dictionary, a New York Public Library Literary Lion, and a member of both the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the band the Rock Bottom Remainders.

In 2009, Blount received the University of North Carolina’s Thomas Wolfe Prize. The university cited “his voracious appetite for the way words sound and for what they really mean.” Time places Blount “in the tradition of the great curmudgeons like H. L. Mencken and W. C. Fields.” Norman Mailer has said, “Page for page, Roy Blount is as funny as anyone I’ve read in a long time.” Garrison Keillor told the Paris Review, “Blount is the best. He can be literate, uncouth, and soulful all in one sentence.”

Blount’s essays, articles, stories, and verses have appeared in over one hundred and fifty publications, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, Esquire, the Atlantic, Sports Illustrated, the Oxford American, and Garden & Gun. He comes from Decatur, Georgia, and lives in western Massachusetts.

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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Profile Image for Erica.
23 reviews32 followers
January 22, 2014
Written in a quaint time when the federal deficit was only $200 billion, this collection of short stories is good for a chuckle at some unintentional prophecies (What if Nixon had stuck with this program and expanded it to the point where he was tape recording everybody in the nation except himself? What if our government had placed a tape recorder in every American home?), and as a Bill Murray fan I enjoyed the "Who You Gonna Call?" story, but otherwise I just can't relate to the musings of a middle-aged LA liberal from 30 years ago.
699 reviews6 followers
October 20, 2019
So, is anyone going to notice that the book description is for an entirely other book?

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed Blount’s work for a long time. This one is a bit too stuck in its time, losing something for current readers. I’ll demur on recommending it though I’ll happily pass along most of Blount’s other work as being well worth your time.
Profile Image for Kevin Kosar.
Author 28 books31 followers
April 18, 2012
Utterly cornball drivel. I made it less than halfway through this book and I simply could not read any more. It just wasn't funny.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews

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