Tastes Like Human: The Shark Guys' Book of Bitingly Funny Lists

by Noel Boivin, Christopher Lombardo

Humor writers Noel Boivin and Chris Lombardo follow up their definitive compendium of drunken feats, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death (Penguin, 2007), with Tastes Like The Shark Guys' Book of Bitingly Funny Lists.

Here the authors, who one reviewer of their first book called "fast and funny with the facts, without the morality", present a completely new and unapologetically irreverent take on the list book genre.

Tastes Like Human answers questions people didn't even know they wanted answers to Who are the Top Horniest Cult Leaders of All Time? What are the Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Never Return Things? Which incidents qualify as the Top Acts of Karaoke-Related Violence?

All of that and much more, including etiquette tips on matters as diverse as how to use an ATM machine without seeming like a complete prick, a guide to conduct when meeting Queen Elizabeth, and fighting suggestions the next time your mouth makes an online payment for which there are insufficient funds in your credit account (ass, in keeping with the analogy) to pay for.

Genres: Humor

144 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 25, 2012

Reviews

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars
I really wanted to love this book. Really I did. When I received the email asking me to review it, I thought it sounded hilarious, and pretty much jumped on that. I love clever, irreverent humor, and I was really excited to read this book - but it just didn't deliver enough for me, sadly, and I've got pretty mixed feelings about it.

This book contains some great examples of witty observations and wordplay, non sequiturs, and paraprosdokians -- fans of Mitch Hedberg will know this last one. For those who aren't, let me explain: It's the kind of joke where the back half of a sentence or phrase is an unexpected punchline for the beginning half. Such as: "I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." or "I ordered a club sandwich. And I'm not even a member!" Your brain has to kind of work in reverse to see the joke. Great stuff. I love it. One such in this book was this one, from "Top 13 Fighting Tips": "8. Never Hit a Guy with Glasses; use full bottles instead." It made me chuckle, and I like that.



Chuckling is good, but I was expecting "bitingly funny" humor that would keep me giggling for the duration, and in that I was disappointed. This ebook is only 144 pages long. I can read that easily in one day after work, but this book took me 3 days to finish, and the last bit was something of an endurance test - it felt like it was trying too hard to live up to that "bitingly funny" title, with irreverence that should be funny but towards the end here was just over the top and edged on being silly (Example: all of the "Top 20 First Date Suggestions"). In and around the funnies I've mentioned before, there was just too much that didn't do it for me. List entries that left me wondering what the point was in including them, how it related to the topic at hand, how the sub-title for the list item related to the list item, etc. There were some which would have benefited quite a bit from just another line or so of detail or backstory... or relevance.

Two examples:
First, from "Top 8 Great Achievements in Sitting", number 7 is "Giving a Sit For Charity":

"Most people change seats after making quick judgment calls - should I get up for this elderly person who might not really be all that old but has just let himself go, or do I really want to wake up to a face like that should I decide to doze off on the bus.
Briton Terry Twining made the mundane marvelous when he changed seats 40,040 times in 48 hours at a soccer stadium in Belgium. It should be said that the stadium was completely empty - free from lager-swilling hooligans who'd likely not take kindly to those making the mundane marvelous in the middle of a game, so points off for deception. (Daily Telegraph, December 2008)

Wake up to a face like what? Do they mean they don't want the first thing they see when they wake up to be the see a face of an elderly person? I'm not sure what they are trying to say here...?
But my main question is: How exactly does charity fit in here? Was this guy seat-hopping for charity or were they just going for a clever list title pun? I wouldn't have ever thought anything about charity except for the title. I'd likely have thought he was trying to set a Guinness World Record (and "Giving A Sit For Guinness" would have worked just as well), or was really, really bored that weekend. But since charity WAS mentioned, and this is "Great Achievements in Sitting" - where's the relevance to the charity? Did he raise $1 for every seat his ass touched and donate it to cancer research, or anything? I don't feel like seat-swapping 40,000 times is much of an "achievement" unless there WAS a point to it. Maybe if he was doing it to call awareness to the true horror of hemorrhoids for sitters everywhere I'd see the relevance, the achievement, but as it is, I'm just left feeling like "Hoookay then..."


...19,999... 20,000! Only 20,040 more to go... Why was I doing this again?

Second, from "Top 5 Out of Control College Parties", number 5 is "Operation Storm the Dorm":

"Return to your freshmen dorm" seems like a terrible theme for a seniors' party. Why would anybody need to revisit such recent history, especially when the rashes from irregularly washed bedding have yet to fully disappear? Presumably the only benefit is that you would now be a senior and could lord over freshmen the minor achievement of having satisfied minimum academic requirements for three years as you attempt to cajole them into your old bed.
Regardless, that was the theme for a soiree at Bates College in Maine, recently found to be the most expensive non-profit college in the US, a year there costing more than someone earning a liberal arts degree would earn in five years of intensive interning. Parents forking out that kind of cake would probably not be thrilled to see the apples of their eyes bruised in a brawl with police. But that's what happened when police tussled with some 200 "return to your dorm" partiers, pepper-spraying several who the officers said refused to get out of the way of an incoming ambulance.
With his elbow on ice and face rearranged according to the preferences of law enforcement, one of the protesters called the cops' use of force "absurdly excessive". While we would be inclined to believe exactly that in most cases, one policeman did have his leg broken in the melee. (No word if it was his opening night.) (Associated Press, May 2010; WMTW-TV, May 2010)

Now, this list is about out of control college parties. But this entry doesn't actually say what the party was or why it was out of control. They hypothesize about the theme of the party, but that sounds more like a hazing scene from Dazed and Confused than an actual party. I just wanted a little more. Rather than just compiling newsclips, I was hoping for that extra step - get in touch with someone who was there and find out what the party was about and how it got wild enough to need riot police. That's what I want to know if you're going to tell me about "out of control parties", not just the outcome like it's filler on the 10pm news. Make it interesting enough so that any of the wild people reading your book will say "Pish tosh! They call that a party? Amateurs. Lemme show 'em how it's done! Jeeves, ready Party Cave." (Or, you know, whatever they named their party planning lair.)

Moving on, I want to talk about the readability. On the whole, the book was easy to read and interesting, but occasionally -- not all the time, or even most of the time, but frequently enough to allow for quite a few highlights on my nook -- I'd run into a sentence or passage that just didn't make sense to me. I'd read it again, and on one specific occasion I read the line a total of five times, even sharing it with friends to see if I was missing something. I tried coming back to it later - sometimes that helps if I just can't wrap my brain around something, but I'm still baffled by it. The sentence is the first one in the "6 Creative Drug Smuggling Operations" introduction paragraph. For clarity, I'll quote the entire paragraph:

Drug traffickers can no longer rely only on backpackers looking to turn a quick buck for a shower back home to get their products to market. While the domestic auto industry can stamp its feet and plead for government bailouts every time foreign competition threatens its innovation-free way of doing business, drug traffickers are forced to deal directly with increasingly sophisticated police methods of detection and stiffer penalties in countries that serve as transit points.

Second sentence, a little long, but that's OK. I got that one. But that first one... It's like it's two sentences in one or something. Or if it was trying to be funny, like throwing a little dig in there at backpackers for being dirty, broke, or stranded in a foreign country, or all of the above, I think it missed the mark, at least with my test subjects friends and I. It's the "for a shower back home" that grinds the sentence to a halt for me. Take that out, and "Drug traffickers can no longer rely only on backpackers looking to turn a quick buck to get their products to market." makes sense.

This example is the most baffling one, for me, but there were others where multiple hyphenated words and long sentences contributed to that feeling I mentioned before of just trying too hard, and not always hitting the mark. Often less is more with humor.

So, overall, this book was just OK for me. Would I recommend it? Yes. Everyone's sense of humor is different, and what may not have worked for me might be exactly someone else's style. I do think that it would benefit from another edit run-through to clean up some of the long sentences and make things more concise, but that's just my preference. Not terrible, but I think my expectations let me down a bit here.

[Jill Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review copy of Tastes Like Human: The Shark Guys’ Book of Bitingly Funny Lists was graciously provided by Chris Lombardo.

As the blurb says, everyone likes lists. I am, obviously, part of everyone. I am also, obviously, a great list-fan myself – just check out yesterday’s post or any of my other top-tens, as well as my reading lists, library/book lists, my to-be-read list, my amazon.com wishlists, or the thousand lists scattered throughout my house, cell phone, computer, and brain. Lists help me stay organized, they help me remember anything and everything, and they keep me on my toes. This book isn’t exactly about those kinds of lists – but it’s still a fabulously useful collection, of trivia and randomness and just-plain-funny-ness.

With compilations of fun-yet-useless information like the “Top 10 Exploding Animals,” “Top 10 Horniest Cult Leaders of All Time,” “Top 6 Karaoke-Inspired Acts of Violence,” and “10 Etiquette Tips for Meeting the Queen,” the book is a goofy, snarky, random tilt-a-whirl ride through the crazy-ass stuff people do in this mixed-up world of ours. I didn’t find it so much a book to read start-to-finish, as one for occasional reading – a list here, a list there, was a great way to lighten a bad mood or spiff up a crummy day. It’s occasionally mean-spirited in the best possible way – by targeting those people either too stupid or too full of themselves to deserve otherwise – and very funny. My favorite were the lists of things they made up themselves – like the queen-meeting tips mentioned above (it’s a shame really that there aren’t more – I mean, in this inter-connected world of ours, who’s to say I won’t meet the queen? So an extra-big thanks for this one guys – I do like to be ready for anything…), “5 ATM Etiquette Guidelines,” “15 Public Transit Etiquette Guidelines” – and even the “Top 13 Fighting Tips.” I feel so prepared now. Thanks Shark Guys, you may well have saved my life.

I will admit I wasn’t familiar with The Shark Guys before they contacted me about doing a review (based on some other reviews I’d posted on Amazon, how cool is that?!) – once I got the review request I Googled them of course (because that’s what we do in the civilized world now, cyber-investigate anyone we come across). Turns out they’re like your cool older brother and his even cooler best friend (I will leave it to the two of them to decide which is which, teehee) – a great blend of goofy boy-humor mixed with the style and grace of well-educated, well-written, and well-traveled men of the world (check out their “About” section). After checking them out and reading the book, I’m definitely going to have to start spending quality time on their website on a regular basis. And I highly recommend you do the same!

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tastes Like Human: The Shark Guys' Book of Bitingly Funny Lists is the second collaborative book of lists by Noel Boivin and Christopher Lombardo. Boivin and Lombardo are known as The Shark Guys from their 2007 book, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery. Tastes Like Human features a wide variety of hilarious lists (see contents below).

As Boivin and Lombardo write in the introduction: "The lists here reflect some of our main interests: sloth (Chapter I – Idolizing the Idle); weird animal stories (Chapter II – Man, Goat, Love: Gone Wild Kingdom); the zany happenings in the realms of religion and the occult – with a dash of death thrown in (Chapter III – The Super Unnatural); giving society's seamy underbelly a good rub (Chapter IV – There Oughtta Be a Law Against This Kind of Chapter), and, finally, telling others what to do (Chapter V – The Shark Guys' Guide to Living). There are lists here on topics such as the world's horniest cult leaders; great feats accomplished while sitting; violent acts tied directly to karaoke; marriages between animals and humans; a study of how mass murderers measure up against the attributes most commonly associated with their astrological signs ... and at least one exploding whale. The Shark Guys take a bite at all of these and more in Tastes Like Human."

Obviously in books like this everyone will like some of the lists more than others. I have a few personal favorites and a couple that had me laughing out loud, or snorting, at almost every entry. These lists are not like a grocery list or a top ten list. The lists are written in a conversational style, so, while the lists are funny, it's the authors commentary that makes the book.

Tastes Like Human is a very quick read full of laughs and information - with plenty of added sarcasm and some adult humor. Be sure to check out The Shark Guys website. They are also fans of social media, so if you feel the need to tweet or follow, check them out. If only because of the lists I enjoyed (too much), Tastes Like Human is highly recommended. I'll leave you guessing which lists were personal favorites.

Disclosure: I was provided a Smashwords e-copy of Tastes Like Human for review purposes.

Contents:
CHAPTER I – IDOLIZING THE IDLE
Top 8 Great Achievements in Sitting
10 Reasons to Keep Found Items
Top 5 Unlucky Lottery Losers
7 People Who Should Not Win the Lottery
Top 10 Easiest College Majors
Top 10 Useless Professions

CHAPTER II – MAN, GOAT, LOVE – GONE WILD KINGDOM
Top 5 People who Married Animals
Top 10 Exploding Animals
7 Campaign Ideas for PETA
Top 15 Reasons Why Sharks Are Better Than Cats

CHAPTER III – THE SUPER UNNATURAL
Top 10 Horniest Cult Leaders of All Time
12 Murderers and Star Signs
Top 10 Jesus Spottings
Top 4 Virgin Mary Sightings
10 Famous Last Words That Could Use a Do-Over
5 Ways to Spruce up your Final Resting Place

CHAPTER IV – THERE OUGHTTA BE A LAW AGAINST THIS KIND OF CHAPTER
Top 6 Karaoke-Inspired Acts of Violence
Top 8 Criminal Prank Calls
6 Halloween Pranks Gone Wrong
Top 5 Out of Control College Parties
6 Creative Drug Smuggling Operations

CHAPTER V – THE SHARK GUYS’ GUIDE TO LIVING
Top 20 First Date Suggestions
Top 13 Fighting Tips
10 Etiquette Tips for Meeting the Queen
5 ATM Etiquette Guidelines
11 Elevator Etiquette Guidelines
15 Public Transit Etiquette Guidelines

[Meag McHugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Per my review at Baltimore Reads:

If kamikaze ants, Jesus pancakes, and cross-country lawn-mower drivers sound interesting to you, then you may want to pick up Tastes Like Human: The Shark Guys’ Book of Bitingly Funny Lists by Noel Boivin and Chris Lombardo. Anyone fascinated by the absurdity and quirkiness of our world and the human race would find Tastes Like Human a worthwhile read. Boivin and Lombardo, popularly known as “The Shark Guys” ever since their previous book, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery, have their own website where they posts lists galore and have taken their fondness for lists to book form with Tastes Like Human.

The Shark Guys note at the beginning of Tastes Like Human that their lists aren’t meant to be trivia but simply a collection of topics they (and typically others) find interesting. Within the pages you’ll find stories of unlucky lottery players, human-animal marriages, horny cult leaders, and religious fanatics who experience divine visions in the most unlikely of places. The Shark Guys also bestow upon readers their own thoughts and opinions in list form, from offering advice to PETA on how they should campaign for animal rights (i.e. banning cowbells in music, saving roaches with a “Raid on Raid) to informing the public of general etiquette guidelines at the ATM.

What sets this book apart from other list books or “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not”-esque compilations is the writing. Boivin and Lombardo team up to create lists that are both hilarious and smart. They don’t simply throw together a bunch of weird stories and absurd facts and summarize them – they find creative and witty ways to highlight the bizarreness of the topics they are covering. “12 Murderers and Star Signs” goes through each astrological sign of the zodiac and pairs it with a famous murderer to see if the supposed personality traits match up. “10 Famous Last Words That Could Use A Do-Over” takes various notable figures and considers more appropriate final words for them (i.e. Heinrich Himmler: “I, Heinrich Himmler, had the better moustache.”). And then there’s the final chapter, “The Shark Guys’ Guide To Living.” If you need some pointers on how to successfully win a fight or how to ride public transportation without infuriating your fellow passengers, this is a wonderful life guide to read.

My personal favorite list: “Top 15 Reasons Why Sharks Are Better Than Cats.” I don’t like sharks or cats at all, but I found all the points to be both true and hilarious. Here’s a couple of the reasons why sharks are obviously superior to felines:



5. If you have 100 sharks, you can charge people admission. If you have 100 cats, people call the cops.

11. No tabby has ever sent a beach full of bikini-clad beauties sprinting for the shore.

15. No one has ever purchased a baby shark because it was so adorable in the pet store only to regret the decision when it grows up to become a hissing fat-body whose constant shedding ruins your dark clothes.



Check out the Shark Guys website (thesharkguys.com) for more lists and for information on how to get your hands on this “bitingly funny” read.

[David King · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Tastes Like Human: The Shark Guys’ Book of Bitingly Funny Lists” by Noel Boivin and Chris Lombardo is as the title implies a book that contains several amusing lists. The lists cover various things such as ATM Etiquette Guidelines, Jesus Spottings, People Who Should Not Win the Lottery, People who Married Animals & Karaoke-Inspired Acts of Violence. As you may be able to tell this is quite a random collection of topics that are based on things that the authors find interesting are range from the interesting to the downright crazy.

Reading list books like this can be an easy way to pass the time but to be really entertaining I have always felt that they need to be more than a list of things. This is why I was happy to see that with this book the authors tried to discuss each item in their lists. This commentary really added to the book and at times I found it more interesting and enjoyable to follow than the lists themselves.

In regards to the lists themselves, as you would expect with a book like this, people will prefer some lists more than others and I am no different. Whilst many lists had me grinning throughout such as “Top 15 Reasons Why Sharks Are Better Than Cats” there were others like “Top 5 Out of Control College Parties“ that just didn’t capture my interest. However, personally I felt that there was more positive than negative which ensured that overall I did enjoy the book.

One specific element of the listings that I did appreciate was the fact the various sources had been cited. Some of the stories are so unbelievable that without these sources I may have begun to believe that the entire book was plain fiction. It also helped when I decided to look up various things that had captured my interest.

One issue I did have with the book is that at times it felt like the authors were trying a little bit too hard with their commentary. They tried to cram so much into a sentence or paragraph that it began to unravel and the humour was lost. It actually reminded me of the way that people can ruin a joke by trying to give you too much information when they tell it. Personally, I think that some more editing may have helped clean this up a bit more and helped to enhance the overall humour of the book.

Overall, I did enjoy this book and found sections of it to be quite funny and entertaining but I came away from reading it with a feeling of it basically just being Okay and that’s about it. I am sure some people will love it more than me whilst others may hate it entirely depending on their sense of humour. I will therefore recommend it for people looking for a bit of amusing diversion but be warned that the level of amusement will vary depending on your own personal preferences.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it's certainly biting in its snark, but I wouldn't necessarily call it funny. Tastes Like Human has its moments. It's pretty spot on with some of the lists (People Who Shouldn't Win the Lottery, ATM Etiquette, Public Transit Etiquette to name a few), but it's also a bit mean spirited and uniformed at times. I admit that my view of the book is a bit colored after having my profession insulted not once but twice in the lists, but putting that aside (I will put such insults in the "misinformation" or just plain "uninformed" categories), this is really nothing more than an a bunch of opinion pieces thrown together in book like form. I will also say that they sent me a copy for free.

Getting it for free, however, does not mean I'm going to love the book just because they were nice enough to give it to me. I never actually laughed out loud. I spent a lot of time trying to sort through whether I was meant to be appalled, incredulous, or just plain insulted. I also spent a lot of time thinking that this wasn't so much a book as it was meant to be web content thrown together in a general bookish form just because it could be. Oh, the joys of internet publishing.

But anyway, The Shark Guys' "book" should appeal to a certain demographic. I'm not quite it. If you enjoy stupid humor and reading about the idiotic things people do, this is a great book and will probably make you laugh till you cry just thinking about the ridiculousness of people. I also admit to enjoying the section on prank calls because it was actually amusing to think about the fact that people would do such utterly ridiculous nonsense. But in the end I felt like this was just a bunch of really short anecdotes tossed together and not fully fleshed out. Some stories have a little too much explanation and others could have done with more background. Or maybe this just needs a better editor. A good idea, but not all I was hoping it would be.

Note: free copy received via the authors in exchange for an honest reveiw.

[Jami Zehr · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shark Guys, Noel Boivin and Christopher Lombardo, first collaborated book, The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery, was published by Penguin. Crowned The Shark Guys by interns at Penguin, Boivin and Lombardo created a website to capitalize on the idea and promote their first book. What started as a place to plug their book, turned into a site about funny happenings in list form. Now, for their second collaboration, Boivin and Lombardo have taken their popular list site to the next level and put together an ebook of amazingly funny lists which can be purchased on Amazon for a mere $2.99. I think a book that has you laughing out loud during the acknowledgments (yes, I read the acknowledgments) is worth a cup of coffee at Starbucks. But, I’m weird about books like that.

I enjoyed the funny, absurd, and over the top, full of crazy, stories. Not every list made me laugh, but I wasn’t expecting to laugh at every story. Some of the lists were sobering reminders that sometimes the crazy of this world gets to be a little too much. And if any man tries to pull one of the Top 20 First Date Suggestions on me, he’s in for a world of hurt. I just hope people who read that list realize it’s satire. (But my experience in dealing with the public while working retail doesn’t give me much hope on that). I enjoyed the book so much I head over to their website to read some more funny stories and lists, and laughed my way through yet another list, Top 10 People You See at the Gym. If the book leaves you hankering for more, you aren’t left high and dry, you can head over to their website for my funny lists. If you are having a bad day, or just need a laugh, I recommend checking out Taste’s Like Human: The Shark Guys’ Book of Bitingly Funny Lists.

Read more at: http://absurdlynerdly.wordpress.com/2...

[Amanda (Good Choice Reading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t read non-fiction often, of any sort. Unless it’s a book written by someone I idolize (and trust me that list is short), or a topic I wish to learn about, I just don’t do it. I don’t care about a random person’s biography, or their world views and opinions on anything. But in this case, I was familiar with the Shark Guys and have actually visited their website a few times, so I figured I had to give it a shot.

Lists are a fun way to pass time. They can be entertaining even, depending on the subject. However, your run of the mill “list books” or websites don’t offer much opinionated commentary, with a few exceptions. I think this is why I enjoyed Tastes Like Human so much. Their commentary for these lists was highly amusing, even on the most mundane subjects.

There were a few lists that didn’t entertain me, but I think that’s going to boil down to preference. My favorites included “Top 10 Horniest Cult Leaders”, “12 Murderers and Star signs” (All famous crazies, and how right and/or wrong astrology gets things. Absolute favorite), “Top 20 First Date Suggestions” (a tongue in cheek “guide” to dating), and “5 ATM Etiquette Guidelines”.

I had a lot of fun while reading this book, and to my surprise, I didn’t even need to read it alongside something fictional. It kept me completely entertained until the last page, and I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a few laughs.

[Bonnie Lamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can I say that isn’t said above? Most importantly I can say – I really did want to know which serial killer shared my zodiac sign (pisces). It turns out that I do care about ATM etiquette. But I probably could have lived my life quite happily without having read about the top 10 exploding animals, though. After reading Tastes Like Human The Shark Guys’ Book of Bitingly Funny Lists by Noel Boivin and Chris Lombardo, I discovered that I cared about many things I hadn’t really given much thought to in the past, and I learned some other things along the way that I won’t mind forgetting in the near future (back to the exploding animals here).
Whether you want to learn about people who shouldn’t win the lottery or famous last words that could use a do-over, this is the book for you. Join the Shark Guys as they are alternately cheeky, rude, way too informative and educational. You will definitely find something in this funny book of lists that you didn’t know that you cared about but come away from it glad that you know it now. I thank the authors for a review copy and I give the book 4 stars.

[Bob Cantrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, Funny book

This book was just funny from beginning to the end. I had fun with every topic. I had to share some list with my wife and she got a laugh out of them too. Now I want to check out their website. This not just a list of names but a list book that has a story with it. Anyone who likes trivia should get a laugh from this book.

[Shadow Girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

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