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Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass: How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up
America’s most beloved wiseass finally tells his life story with all the humor you’d expect from a man who made a career out of making fun of pretty much everything.
How does the son of a Presbyterian minister wind up winning a Pulitzer Prize for writing a wildly inaccurate newspaper column read by millions of people?
In Class Clown, Dave Barry takes us on a hilarious ride, starting with a childhood largely spent throwing rocks for entertainment—there was no internet—and preparing for nuclear war by hiding under a classroom desk. After literally getting elected class clown in high school, he went to college, where, as an English major, he read snippets of great literature when he was not busy playing in a rock band (it was the sixties).
He began his journalism career at a small-town Pennsylvania newspaper where he learned the most important rule of local never confuse a goose with a duck. His journey then took a detour into the business world, where as a writing consultant he spent years trying, with limited success, to get corporate folks to, for God’s sake, get the point. Somehow from there he wound up as a humor columnist for The Miami Herald, where his boss was a wild man who encouraged him to write about anything that struck him as amusing and to never worry about alienating anyone.
His columns were not popular with He managed to alienate a vast army of Neil Diamond fans, and the entire state of Indiana. But he also developed a loyal following of readers who alerted him to the threat of exploding toilets, not to mention the fire hazards posed by strawberry pop-tarts and Rollerblade Barbie, which he demonstrated to the nation on the David Letterman show. He led his readers on a crusade against telemarketers that ultimately caused the national telemarketers association to stop answering its own phones because it was getting—irony alert—too many unwanted calls. He has also run for president multiple times, although so far without success.
He became a book author and joined a literary rock band, which was not good at playing music but did once perform with Bruce Springsteen, who sang backup to Dave. As for his literary merits, Dave “I’ll never have the critical acclaim of, say, Marcel Proust. But was Marcel Proust ever on Carson? Did he ever steal a hotel sign for Oprah?”
Class Clown isn’t just a memoir; it’s a vibrant celebration of a life rich with humor, absurdity, joy, and sadness. Dave says the most important wisdom imparted by his Midwestern parents was never to take anything too seriously. This laughter-filled book is proof that he learned that lesson well.
How does the son of a Presbyterian minister wind up winning a Pulitzer Prize for writing a wildly inaccurate newspaper column read by millions of people?
In Class Clown, Dave Barry takes us on a hilarious ride, starting with a childhood largely spent throwing rocks for entertainment—there was no internet—and preparing for nuclear war by hiding under a classroom desk. After literally getting elected class clown in high school, he went to college, where, as an English major, he read snippets of great literature when he was not busy playing in a rock band (it was the sixties).
He began his journalism career at a small-town Pennsylvania newspaper where he learned the most important rule of local never confuse a goose with a duck. His journey then took a detour into the business world, where as a writing consultant he spent years trying, with limited success, to get corporate folks to, for God’s sake, get the point. Somehow from there he wound up as a humor columnist for The Miami Herald, where his boss was a wild man who encouraged him to write about anything that struck him as amusing and to never worry about alienating anyone.
His columns were not popular with He managed to alienate a vast army of Neil Diamond fans, and the entire state of Indiana. But he also developed a loyal following of readers who alerted him to the threat of exploding toilets, not to mention the fire hazards posed by strawberry pop-tarts and Rollerblade Barbie, which he demonstrated to the nation on the David Letterman show. He led his readers on a crusade against telemarketers that ultimately caused the national telemarketers association to stop answering its own phones because it was getting—irony alert—too many unwanted calls. He has also run for president multiple times, although so far without success.
He became a book author and joined a literary rock band, which was not good at playing music but did once perform with Bruce Springsteen, who sang backup to Dave. As for his literary merits, Dave “I’ll never have the critical acclaim of, say, Marcel Proust. But was Marcel Proust ever on Carson? Did he ever steal a hotel sign for Oprah?”
Class Clown isn’t just a memoir; it’s a vibrant celebration of a life rich with humor, absurdity, joy, and sadness. Dave says the most important wisdom imparted by his Midwestern parents was never to take anything too seriously. This laughter-filled book is proof that he learned that lesson well.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 13, 2025
About the author
Dave Barry
141 books2,293 followersDave Barry is a humor writer. For 25 years he was a syndicated columnist whose work appeared in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Many people are still trying to figure out how this happened.
Dave has also written many books, virtually none of which contain useful information. Two of his books were used as the basis for the CBS TV sitcom "Dave's World," in which Harry Anderson played a much taller version of Dave.
Dave plays lead guitar in a literary rock band called the Rock Bottom Remainders, whose other members include Stephen King, Amy Tan, Ridley Pearson and Mitch Albom. They are not musically skilled, but they are extremely loud. Dave has also made many TV appearances, including one on the David Letterman show where he proved that it is possible to set fire to a pair of men's underpants with a Barbie doll.
In his spare time, Dave is a candidate for president of the United States. If elected, his highest priority will be to seek the death penalty for whoever is responsible for making Americans install low-flow toilets.
Dave lives in Miami, Florida, with his wife, Michelle, a sportswriter. He has a son, Rob, and a daughter, Sophie, neither of whom thinks he's funny.
Dave has also written many books, virtually none of which contain useful information. Two of his books were used as the basis for the CBS TV sitcom "Dave's World," in which Harry Anderson played a much taller version of Dave.
Dave plays lead guitar in a literary rock band called the Rock Bottom Remainders, whose other members include Stephen King, Amy Tan, Ridley Pearson and Mitch Albom. They are not musically skilled, but they are extremely loud. Dave has also made many TV appearances, including one on the David Letterman show where he proved that it is possible to set fire to a pair of men's underpants with a Barbie doll.
In his spare time, Dave is a candidate for president of the United States. If elected, his highest priority will be to seek the death penalty for whoever is responsible for making Americans install low-flow toilets.
Dave lives in Miami, Florida, with his wife, Michelle, a sportswriter. He has a son, Rob, and a daughter, Sophie, neither of whom thinks he's funny.
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March 28, 2026
__________________________
Dave Barry vs. The Horrible Green-Eyed Monster
Look! I am not jealous of Dave Barry. I’m not. I’m not. But when I read this memoir, I realized that Dave Barry has stolen my life. The following parallels in our lives are absolutely true, as far as I know.
Dave Barry and I were both born in 1947, which is suspicious. I’m not saying he copied me, but the evidence is piling up.
DB and I have the same traumatic memories of first grade. It was 1954; a horrible disease called Polio had been running wild around the world for years, and some SOB named Jonas Salk had created a vaccine to eliminate that horror. Neither young Master Dave nor I thought the vaccine was a good idea. We were more scared of getting the shots than we were of getting polio. We were both forced to stand in line within our respective schools so a nurse could poke a needle the size of the school’s flagpole into our arms to inoculate us with the Salk Polio vaccine. Dave, I expect—though he won’t admit it—burst into tears when he reached the front of the line. I, on the other hand, galumphed out the door like the beamish boy I was, at least until the principal ran me down in the parking lot—with her 1949 De Soto. Looking back, this seems like the use of excessive force to me, but, hey, it was a different time.
We both wrote a few humorous pieces for our high school newspapers and English classes. Dave’s humor in general was more sophisticated. For example, he didn’t wear pants under his graduation gown. HA!. Barry says he came across some of the articles he wrote in high school recently and was embarrassed by them. I, conversely, don’t have to be embarrassed by the things I wrote; I have many friends, relatives, and complete strangers who are embarrassed for me.
We both attended small, distinguished colleges. He went to some religiously affiliated men’s college—I forget the name, but I believe it was Quaker State Oil. I attended the Yale of the West. That’s the nickname they gave the college in the early 1800s when it was founded by a band of Yale professors and former Yale students who thought they could bring enlightenment to the hicks in Illinois. Since then, the West has moved past Illinois and across the Mississippi, so now we IC alums simply call our alma mater the Yale of South Jacksonville. The school still caters to the same hicks, however.
Both DB and I were English majors, but in writing this book DB has broken the first commandment of the sacred English Major Code of Secrecy by admitting that English majors only read about one-third of the books they are assigned to read. The Traitor. He will be court-martialed by the English Major General and then will be stripped of his degree and thrown into a stack of Henry James novels to drown.
After college, DB took a job teaching Business Executives how to write in clear English. I got a job with a well-known business computer company as an editor in their “educational publications” department, trying to get IT professionals whose native tongue was COBOL to write manuals in something that resembled English. Neither Dave’s nor my efforts were appropriately appreciated by our charges.
I was hired by a publisher to be a staff writer and editor of elementary and middle school textbooks making $12,000 a year. This was about the same time DB left his job teaching business geeks and was hired by the Miami Herald for $60,000 as a columnist and reporter. Does that seem fair to you? I do want to point out that it only took me about 8 years to catch up with his 60K a year but by that time Barry was making a fortune syndicating his columns to over 500 newspapers. Stupid Dave.
We both have accomplished offspring. Dave’s son Robbie became a journalist and won a Pulitzer Prize. But that is nothin’, even Dave has one. When my granddaughter was 11, she got a call from casting directors on Broadway inviting her to come to NY to audition for The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman. OK, she didn’t get the role, but it was an honor just to be rejected.
I started reading Dave’s syndicated columns around 1983. I loved them, but it was obvious his sense of humor was suspiciously similar to mine. I began telling friends and family that I could write like Dave Barry. They laughed at me, which conclusively proves I’m a very funny guy.
I am not jealous. I just want to have a syndicated column fortune, appear on late night television, write for Steve Martin, hang around with famous people, write New York Times bestselling books, have a television sitcom (like DB's Dave’s World) based on my life and books, drive the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, have a toilet explode under me, have three wives, and live a swamp state with cockroaches the size of Shaq O'Neal's shoes. Is that too much to ask?
🌟🌟🌟🌟 Stars
Class Clown is not as funny as most of Dave Barry’s books. Hey, it’s an actual memoir and no one's life is all booger jokes. DB fans will probably appreciate it though--it'd be just my luck. I should be more kind, I suppose. Dave Barry is getting old, and I feel sorry for him.
A friend asked me what I would do if a genie granted me one wish. Would I wish to go back in time and live Dave Barry’s life? I pondered this possibility and I realized my daughter would be very upset if she found out she never had a father. And my granddaughter would be furious if she lost her chance to be rejected by Hugh Jackman. I will think about it some more.
HELP WANTED: Genie or Fairy Godmother with 100 years or more experience granting wishes. No Leprechauns Need Apply.
Dave Barry vs. The Horrible Green-Eyed Monster
Look! I am not jealous of Dave Barry. I’m not. I’m not. But when I read this memoir, I realized that Dave Barry has stolen my life. The following parallels in our lives are absolutely true, as far as I know.
Dave Barry and I were both born in 1947, which is suspicious. I’m not saying he copied me, but the evidence is piling up.
DB and I have the same traumatic memories of first grade. It was 1954; a horrible disease called Polio had been running wild around the world for years, and some SOB named Jonas Salk had created a vaccine to eliminate that horror. Neither young Master Dave nor I thought the vaccine was a good idea. We were more scared of getting the shots than we were of getting polio. We were both forced to stand in line within our respective schools so a nurse could poke a needle the size of the school’s flagpole into our arms to inoculate us with the Salk Polio vaccine. Dave, I expect—though he won’t admit it—burst into tears when he reached the front of the line. I, on the other hand, galumphed out the door like the beamish boy I was, at least until the principal ran me down in the parking lot—with her 1949 De Soto. Looking back, this seems like the use of excessive force to me, but, hey, it was a different time.
We both wrote a few humorous pieces for our high school newspapers and English classes. Dave’s humor in general was more sophisticated. For example, he didn’t wear pants under his graduation gown. HA!. Barry says he came across some of the articles he wrote in high school recently and was embarrassed by them. I, conversely, don’t have to be embarrassed by the things I wrote; I have many friends, relatives, and complete strangers who are embarrassed for me.
We both attended small, distinguished colleges. He went to some religiously affiliated men’s college—I forget the name, but I believe it was Quaker State Oil. I attended the Yale of the West. That’s the nickname they gave the college in the early 1800s when it was founded by a band of Yale professors and former Yale students who thought they could bring enlightenment to the hicks in Illinois. Since then, the West has moved past Illinois and across the Mississippi, so now we IC alums simply call our alma mater the Yale of South Jacksonville. The school still caters to the same hicks, however.
Both DB and I were English majors, but in writing this book DB has broken the first commandment of the sacred English Major Code of Secrecy by admitting that English majors only read about one-third of the books they are assigned to read. The Traitor. He will be court-martialed by the English Major General and then will be stripped of his degree and thrown into a stack of Henry James novels to drown.
After college, DB took a job teaching Business Executives how to write in clear English. I got a job with a well-known business computer company as an editor in their “educational publications” department, trying to get IT professionals whose native tongue was COBOL to write manuals in something that resembled English. Neither Dave’s nor my efforts were appropriately appreciated by our charges.
I was hired by a publisher to be a staff writer and editor of elementary and middle school textbooks making $12,000 a year. This was about the same time DB left his job teaching business geeks and was hired by the Miami Herald for $60,000 as a columnist and reporter. Does that seem fair to you? I do want to point out that it only took me about 8 years to catch up with his 60K a year but by that time Barry was making a fortune syndicating his columns to over 500 newspapers. Stupid Dave.
We both have accomplished offspring. Dave’s son Robbie became a journalist and won a Pulitzer Prize. But that is nothin’, even Dave has one. When my granddaughter was 11, she got a call from casting directors on Broadway inviting her to come to NY to audition for The Music Man starring Hugh Jackman. OK, she didn’t get the role, but it was an honor just to be rejected.
I started reading Dave’s syndicated columns around 1983. I loved them, but it was obvious his sense of humor was suspiciously similar to mine. I began telling friends and family that I could write like Dave Barry. They laughed at me, which conclusively proves I’m a very funny guy.
I am not jealous. I just want to have a syndicated column fortune, appear on late night television, write for Steve Martin, hang around with famous people, write New York Times bestselling books, have a television sitcom (like DB's Dave’s World) based on my life and books, drive the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, have a toilet explode under me, have three wives, and live a swamp state with cockroaches the size of Shaq O'Neal's shoes. Is that too much to ask?
🌟🌟🌟🌟 Stars
Class Clown is not as funny as most of Dave Barry’s books. Hey, it’s an actual memoir and no one's life is all booger jokes. DB fans will probably appreciate it though--it'd be just my luck. I should be more kind, I suppose. Dave Barry is getting old, and I feel sorry for him.
A friend asked me what I would do if a genie granted me one wish. Would I wish to go back in time and live Dave Barry’s life? I pondered this possibility and I realized my daughter would be very upset if she found out she never had a father. And my granddaughter would be furious if she lost her chance to be rejected by Hugh Jackman. I will think about it some more.
HELP WANTED: Genie or Fairy Godmother with 100 years or more experience granting wishes. No Leprechauns Need Apply.
June 26, 2025
Dave Berry is a national treasure, as far as I'm concerned. What a fun and varied career he's had! Just like comedies rarely ever win an Oscar for Best Picture (and I don't count Birdman as a comedy - I actually thought it was tragically awful), it was a surprise that a humorist might win a Pulitzer. Obviously it happens, but not very often, and I think it's fair to say Berry was as surprised as anyone else. Nonetheless, I'd say it was well-deserved.
I see Berry as the embodiment of someone who followed his path, doing what he loved and leaning into his strengths. I know it's harder to do these days. Most of the young people I worked with came out of colleges with very practical and directly relevant degrees. Heck, that was true 30 years ago when I started in the workforce! But it does seem to get narrower and narrower each year, and the value of a liberal arts education less and less so. As a fellow English major from a small liberal arts college, cheers to you, Dave Berry!
Rounding up to 4.
I see Berry as the embodiment of someone who followed his path, doing what he loved and leaning into his strengths. I know it's harder to do these days. Most of the young people I worked with came out of colleges with very practical and directly relevant degrees. Heck, that was true 30 years ago when I started in the workforce! But it does seem to get narrower and narrower each year, and the value of a liberal arts education less and less so. As a fellow English major from a small liberal arts college, cheers to you, Dave Berry!
Rounding up to 4.
June 26, 2025
As always, Dave Barry is funny. This memoir had me laughing out loud multiple times in each chapter, because he has no respect or reverence for anything, including himself. When he does get serious, about his parents, his family, his friends, then it makes more of an impact.
The last chapter includes life wisdom from an old man, most of it cheeky fun from a geezer, but he leaves us with this little nugget, which I may frame and hang on my wall:
"It's gonna be okay.
Life goes on. It did for my generation; it will for yours. So when the next Very Bad Thing comes along, and the winds of panic start to whirl around you, try to remember:
It's gonna be okay."
The last chapter includes life wisdom from an old man, most of it cheeky fun from a geezer, but he leaves us with this little nugget, which I may frame and hang on my wall:
"It's gonna be okay.
Life goes on. It did for my generation; it will for yours. So when the next Very Bad Thing comes along, and the winds of panic start to whirl around you, try to remember:
It's gonna be okay."
February 22, 2026
Can a person really give George Orwell and Dave Barry 5 stars on the same day? Yes. One for scaring the heck out of me and one for cheering me up, all with words.
I am a longtime Dave Barry fan after being given his childbirth column by our Lamaze teacher before the birth of our first son. I never laughed so hard in my life.
Over the years I read most of his books and even one of his novels which I didn’t hate.
While I am no Dave Barry, as a writer and speaker it kills me when people take seriously something I said off the cuff as a joke.
Needless to say I loved his story and laughed out loud frequently as usual with Dave.
I am a longtime Dave Barry fan after being given his childbirth column by our Lamaze teacher before the birth of our first son. I never laughed so hard in my life.
Over the years I read most of his books and even one of his novels which I didn’t hate.
While I am no Dave Barry, as a writer and speaker it kills me when people take seriously something I said off the cuff as a joke.
Needless to say I loved his story and laughed out loud frequently as usual with Dave.
May 24, 2025
ARC for review. Published May 13, 2025.
Review published in Charleston Gazette-Mail, Saturday-Sunday, May 24-25, 2025.
CLASS CLOWN - THE MEMOIRS OF A PROFESSIONAL WISEASS: HOW I WENT 77 YEARS WITHOUT GROWING UP by Dave Barry, May 13, 2025, Simon & Schuster, 204 pages.
“I began my education at Wampus Elementary. ‘Wampus’ comes from the Native American word ‘wampus’ which means, as far as I’ve been able to determine, ‘wampus.’”
And we’re off with the autobiography of Dave Barry from childhood on. There’s some not-so-funny stuff - his dad was an alcoholic, his mom died by suicide - but Barry is always hysterical, so the Miami Herald’s”columnist’s wit always shines through.
Take, for instance, his story about how he was in the “control” group for the first polio vaccines and only got a placebo and, therefore, had to get a second set of shots: “I had to get TWICE AS MANY SHOTS AS MY SISTER. I think this at least partly explains why I ended up being an atheist.”
He worries he might not be famous enough to write a memoir. He notes that in Barbra Streisand’s recent 970 page behemoth of an autobiography (which I, personally, have been listening to for about a year and I think I’m only on chapter 12. It is 48 hours long. Will I finish it before I’m “finished”? Betting pool currently open.) she questioned whether she slept with Warren Beatty, then decides she probably did.
Barry is certain he’s never even MET either Streisand or Beatty, but notes, several times, that he’s been in a rock band, the Rock Bottom Remainders (“remainders” are books that don’t sell) with Stephen King for about 30 years and he hopes that brush with fame is enough to get him over the threshold.
Oh, Dave…I think you get in just under the wire.
His parents were Democrats but had good friends who were Republicans and they all went to loads of cocktail parties (the thing to do in 1960 - not that I haven’t been to a few in my day) where people talked politics and disagreed, and even got “emotional, sometimes angry. But never nasty. At the end of the night everybody hugged everybody because they were friends and they understood that they could disagree about politics without believing the other side was evil. Mistaken, maybe. Evil, no.”
Also in his early years , Glenn Close was in his eighth grade homeroom. And he was at Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington in 1963. And he WAS voted male class clown. He went to Haverford College where he was in rock bands and wrote an occasional humor column for the college paper.
The book moves through his work history. He did not have a meteoric rise to greatness, but was eventually discovered by the Philadelphia Inquirer and then the Miami paper came calling and he remained with them through his retirement, winning a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He could write about pretty much whatever he wanted and one of the delights of the book is reading about some of his favorite columns.
He went to the 1984 First Annual French Wine Sommelier Contest in New York and participated in tastings. “‘Much too woody,’ said one journalist. ‘Heavily oxidized,’ said another. ‘Bat urine,’ I offered.
I made so many notes for this review I’m having to leave out some of the best material, but you’ll see it all when you read the book.
Dave Barry is now 77. He no longer writes his weekly column, but he does an occasional bit for the Herald. He’s as sharp as he ever was and he has a seemingly unlimited supply of great potential band names: Fugitive Squirrel and the Clearly Disturbed Beavers and Earl Piedmont and the Dipthongs are, at press time, both still available.
Review published in Charleston Gazette-Mail, Saturday-Sunday, May 24-25, 2025.
CLASS CLOWN - THE MEMOIRS OF A PROFESSIONAL WISEASS: HOW I WENT 77 YEARS WITHOUT GROWING UP by Dave Barry, May 13, 2025, Simon & Schuster, 204 pages.
“I began my education at Wampus Elementary. ‘Wampus’ comes from the Native American word ‘wampus’ which means, as far as I’ve been able to determine, ‘wampus.’”
And we’re off with the autobiography of Dave Barry from childhood on. There’s some not-so-funny stuff - his dad was an alcoholic, his mom died by suicide - but Barry is always hysterical, so the Miami Herald’s”columnist’s wit always shines through.
Take, for instance, his story about how he was in the “control” group for the first polio vaccines and only got a placebo and, therefore, had to get a second set of shots: “I had to get TWICE AS MANY SHOTS AS MY SISTER. I think this at least partly explains why I ended up being an atheist.”
He worries he might not be famous enough to write a memoir. He notes that in Barbra Streisand’s recent 970 page behemoth of an autobiography (which I, personally, have been listening to for about a year and I think I’m only on chapter 12. It is 48 hours long. Will I finish it before I’m “finished”? Betting pool currently open.) she questioned whether she slept with Warren Beatty, then decides she probably did.
Barry is certain he’s never even MET either Streisand or Beatty, but notes, several times, that he’s been in a rock band, the Rock Bottom Remainders (“remainders” are books that don’t sell) with Stephen King for about 30 years and he hopes that brush with fame is enough to get him over the threshold.
Oh, Dave…I think you get in just under the wire.
His parents were Democrats but had good friends who were Republicans and they all went to loads of cocktail parties (the thing to do in 1960 - not that I haven’t been to a few in my day) where people talked politics and disagreed, and even got “emotional, sometimes angry. But never nasty. At the end of the night everybody hugged everybody because they were friends and they understood that they could disagree about politics without believing the other side was evil. Mistaken, maybe. Evil, no.”
Also in his early years , Glenn Close was in his eighth grade homeroom. And he was at Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington in 1963. And he WAS voted male class clown. He went to Haverford College where he was in rock bands and wrote an occasional humor column for the college paper.
The book moves through his work history. He did not have a meteoric rise to greatness, but was eventually discovered by the Philadelphia Inquirer and then the Miami paper came calling and he remained with them through his retirement, winning a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He could write about pretty much whatever he wanted and one of the delights of the book is reading about some of his favorite columns.
He went to the 1984 First Annual French Wine Sommelier Contest in New York and participated in tastings. “‘Much too woody,’ said one journalist. ‘Heavily oxidized,’ said another. ‘Bat urine,’ I offered.
I made so many notes for this review I’m having to leave out some of the best material, but you’ll see it all when you read the book.
Dave Barry is now 77. He no longer writes his weekly column, but he does an occasional bit for the Herald. He’s as sharp as he ever was and he has a seemingly unlimited supply of great potential band names: Fugitive Squirrel and the Clearly Disturbed Beavers and Earl Piedmont and the Dipthongs are, at press time, both still available.
June 3, 2025
This memoir of a professional wiseass/humor columnist was entertaining.
Unfortunately, it was short on LOL moments.
(Sorry, Dave!)
I especially enjoyed learning about Dave Barry's early years in the once-thriving newspaper industry and his vulnerabilities.
I appreciated his openness about his father's alcoholism and his mother's suicide (Ouch!)
His passion for journalism and his career triumphs were palpable.
The funniest chapter?
Dave's recount of what happens when a 77-year-old man goes to a doctor.
WHY NOT 5 STARS?
I would have enjoyed this memoir more if it contained fewer excerpts from his column and more interesting Dave facts.
I listened to the audiobook and Dave Barry did an outstanding job with the narration.
September 2, 2025
Tactical Assault Clown
There is one living human who can write prose that makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe. That person is Tactical Assault Clown Dave Barry. Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass—How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up had that effect on me at least twice -- an automatic five-star rating. ("Tactical Assault Clown" is right up there with "Combat Epistemologist" (The Jennifer Morgue) on my list of creative military specializations. And if you're one of those people who get their knickers all in a twist when someone uses parens inside of parens, you know what you can do about it.) (Yes, I know I'm not funny.)
It's not all ROFL funny. In fact, he tells about his father's alcoholism () and his mother's suicide (). Later in the book he tries to convince us that his real life is nothing like the wacky sitcom life of the main character of Dave's World.
For many years Barry worked as a columnist at the Miami Herald. The Herald not infrequently sent him out into the field to do Real Honest-to-God News Reporting. And he had experiences that were quite unlike staring at a computer screen and thinking: This is not funny. For instance, he played in a rock band called the Rock-Bottom Remainders whose musicians (using the word loosely) are authors, and in that role he once sang lead to Bruce Springsteen's backing vocals. While some of his columns are pure invention, some are not. In fact, "I am not making this up," became a tag phrase of his (Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up), and as far as I can tell he was always honest when he wrote it.
Of course, he is 77 years old, and that is plenty of time both to rack up a score as history's most effective Tactical Assault Clown, and to spend many hours staring bleakly at computer screens.
Class Clown is a short book, and much of it is excerpts from Barry's columns. The best and funniest parts, though, are the new material. If you're one of those folks who gives one-star ratings to short books and complains of being cheated, you're not going to be happy. Personally, I think it is worth every penny I paid for it. (Well, OK -- I got a free Advance Reader Copy from Edelweiss and Simon and Schuster. (Thank you!) But I have pre-ordered the book and will pay full price for it on release.)
Blog review.
There is one living human who can write prose that makes me laugh so hard I can't breathe. That person is Tactical Assault Clown Dave Barry. Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass—How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up had that effect on me at least twice -- an automatic five-star rating. ("Tactical Assault Clown" is right up there with "Combat Epistemologist" (The Jennifer Morgue) on my list of creative military specializations. And if you're one of those people who get their knickers all in a twist when someone uses parens inside of parens, you know what you can do about it.) (Yes, I know I'm not funny.)
It's not all ROFL funny. In fact, he tells about his father's alcoholism () and his mother's suicide (). Later in the book he tries to convince us that his real life is nothing like the wacky sitcom life of the main character of Dave's World.
My real life was nothing like that. My real life, at that time, consisted of sitting in a room with two dogs and zero other humans, hour after hour, day after day, staring at a computer screen and thinking: This is not funny.Although I believe him, this book does a poor job of conveying that message. The message is undermined by the Tactical Assault Clown parts of his story.
For many years Barry worked as a columnist at the Miami Herald. The Herald not infrequently sent him out into the field to do Real Honest-to-God News Reporting. And he had experiences that were quite unlike staring at a computer screen and thinking: This is not funny. For instance, he played in a rock band called the Rock-Bottom Remainders whose musicians (using the word loosely) are authors, and in that role he once sang lead to Bruce Springsteen's backing vocals. While some of his columns are pure invention, some are not. In fact, "I am not making this up," became a tag phrase of his (Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up), and as far as I can tell he was always honest when he wrote it.
Of course, he is 77 years old, and that is plenty of time both to rack up a score as history's most effective Tactical Assault Clown, and to spend many hours staring bleakly at computer screens.
Class Clown is a short book, and much of it is excerpts from Barry's columns. The best and funniest parts, though, are the new material. If you're one of those folks who gives one-star ratings to short books and complains of being cheated, you're not going to be happy. Personally, I think it is worth every penny I paid for it. (Well, OK -- I got a free Advance Reader Copy from Edelweiss and Simon and Schuster. (Thank you!) But I have pre-ordered the book and will pay full price for it on release.)
Blog review.
December 16, 2025
Ever since I picked up my first Dave Barry book, I've been a fan. His way of looking at things and finding the absurdity in life helped to shape my own humor.
Here he revisists some of the more important events that stand out to him in his 77 years on this planet. A must read for any Dave Barry fan, as well as humor lovers.
Here he revisists some of the more important events that stand out to him in his 77 years on this planet. A must read for any Dave Barry fan, as well as humor lovers.
June 25, 2025
Brilliant
March 10, 2025
Full disclosure: I believe I am semi-intimately related to Mr. Dave Barry even though we've never met or enjoyed carnal knowledge. At only 9% into an advance e-copy of Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass—How I Went 77 Years without Growing Up (pub. date, May 13, 2025), I was so delighted, entertained, and aroused that I prematurely ejaculated on Facebook:
But it turns out that's where our parallel existences diverged.
Although Barry claimed to have been aimless after leaving college, flitting from bookkeeping to a local paper to misery at the Associated Press to teaching writing to business people, from my point of view as a writer who's slogged through publishing mud for more than 40 years, he was a goddam bird dog—zeroing in on Gene Weingarten (another writer who makes me guffaw) at the Miami Herald's Sunday magazine, Tropic … which is where this book became my personal hilarious writer's tutorial.
Lessons from Dave Barry: To do a successful humor column, it is critical to care nothing about the truth of your subject, what your subject is, or basically anything. Sometimes the stupider the questions, the more entertaining the column. Hence, my imagined interview with Dave Barry about his new memoir:
BETSY: Why class clown? For goodness sake, you were only in school for 12 of your 77 years (well maybe 16 if you count college, but by then you seemed to have outgrown clowning for clowning's sake). So isn't it kind of disingenuous to qualify your life by 1/6.416666666 of its duration? Speaking of which, what do you think of clowns? In my experience, they are often sad and depressed and they make lousy dates.
DAVE: Aw gee, I never dated a clown, Betsy. I'm sorry you had such traumatic experiences. We only picked that title because everybody in the focus group voted for the cover with six-year-old me in a party hat. I do look pretty cute, despite the buzz cut my father insisted on giving me, but he was probably drunk when he did it, or in the middle of writing a sermon—did you like the parts about my dad?
BETSY: Very much, Dave. Your dad seems like a swell guy, the way he helped so many people and took you, with his camp group, to the march in Washington, DC, to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. speak. (BTW, nice historical significance, giving the memoir the obligatory gravitas required for a Pulitzer. Smart move.*) Speaking of which, you said you didn't realize at the time that you were witnessing history. What were you doing standing there in the crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial?
DAVE: To be honest, Betsy, my mom had insisted I wear laced shoes, and one of the staffers in my Camp Sharparoon inner city kids group thought it'd be a great joke to tie them together. So I spent a lot of the speech trying not to faint from the heat or fall down because we were packed so tight I couldn't bend over to untie them. But I've heard the speech on video many times—thank goodness for YouTube—and, like I said, it's mind-expanding.
BETSY: Speaking of almost dying, (I know we weren't but you seem okay with leaps of nonlogic), one of my favorite of your millions of quoted parts in the book (Great recycling! More leisure time to practice your broom and lawnmower marching skills and think about what to eat for dinner!) was your interview with Bob Graham, the then governor of Florida. And speaking of almost drowning in a harmonica accident (readers, you'll have to buy and maybe read the book to understand that—You're welcome, Dave!), have you ever played harmonica? I know you spent and spend a lot of time in a band—currently with a lot of famous writers—but how do you feel about blowing into a small box?
DAVE: Wow, what a creative question. Well, honestly, Betsy, I long ago stopped blowing into anything because it makes me hyperventilate, and particularly if I were to do so while standing next to a pool. I really valued Bob Graham's warning and establishment of the Harmonica Safety Day (Read the book!). Who knows how many lives besides mine have been spared. Full disclosure: I still do have impulses to blow into small containers, particularly if they make funny noises.
BETSY: What's a mutilated verb? I've heard of mutilated body parts and your description of your colonoscopy made me laugh so hard I may have fractured one of mine. But until your book, I never heard of "mutilated verbs."
DAVE: Wow, you're a real word person, aren't you? Try this:
It is my conclusion that the explosion in your head at the mention of this mutilation is due to the failure of the relief valve in your ears and may in the future result in sentences that are just too long for their own good.
See what I did? Lots of verb ideas have been mutilated into nouns: "conclusion," "explosion," "failure" and maybe some other ones that you added to this totally unauthorized revision of my book. Thus you pressed some really dull verbs into service. An unmutilated way to write it is:
"I conclude that your head exploded because your ears are blocked."
BETSY: Okay … So how about farts? You talk a lot about body emissions. Any final toots?
DAVE: Speaking of "toots," how come they don't rhyme with "foots" which brings me to footnotes. Did you like them?
BETSY: About footnotes**
_____________
*I'm not being cheeky. Dave has a whole section where he makes fun of newspaper writers' obsession with winning Pulitzers, so this sentence is a bit of an homage. BTW, Dave did win a Pulitzer—I'm not making that up—so I'm sure he won't take offense if he ends up reading this after all his book tour interviews, signing autographs, and setting fire to many pairs of perfectly good underpants (Read the book!).
**There are lots of footnotes in this book and, in the digital edition, the way they pop up when you tap the footnote number makes the jokes on top of jokes even funnier. Way to go, Dave!
_____________
DAVE: Thanks, Betsy.
BETSY: My pleasure, Dave. And thanks for the free book in exchange for an honest review … which I guess this really isn't. Whoops. Well, thanks anyway, and I'll think of you whenever I have nothing else to think about.
Dave grew up in the 1950s in Armonk … just a hop, skip and a jump from where I was growing up in Briarcliff Manor.
His parents were married the same date as mine were. They were both smart and funny like mine. His father became an alcoholic but recovered. Mine didn't. And on and on and on.
I don't know whether to be jealous or in awe that I'm seeing a kind of parallel life in an alternate reality if only my family had been sane, nonviolent, and Presbyterian.
But it turns out that's where our parallel existences diverged.
Although Barry claimed to have been aimless after leaving college, flitting from bookkeeping to a local paper to misery at the Associated Press to teaching writing to business people, from my point of view as a writer who's slogged through publishing mud for more than 40 years, he was a goddam bird dog—zeroing in on Gene Weingarten (another writer who makes me guffaw) at the Miami Herald's Sunday magazine, Tropic … which is where this book became my personal hilarious writer's tutorial.
Lessons from Dave Barry: To do a successful humor column, it is critical to care nothing about the truth of your subject, what your subject is, or basically anything. Sometimes the stupider the questions, the more entertaining the column. Hence, my imagined interview with Dave Barry about his new memoir:
BETSY: Why class clown? For goodness sake, you were only in school for 12 of your 77 years (well maybe 16 if you count college, but by then you seemed to have outgrown clowning for clowning's sake). So isn't it kind of disingenuous to qualify your life by 1/6.416666666 of its duration? Speaking of which, what do you think of clowns? In my experience, they are often sad and depressed and they make lousy dates.
DAVE: Aw gee, I never dated a clown, Betsy. I'm sorry you had such traumatic experiences. We only picked that title because everybody in the focus group voted for the cover with six-year-old me in a party hat. I do look pretty cute, despite the buzz cut my father insisted on giving me, but he was probably drunk when he did it, or in the middle of writing a sermon—did you like the parts about my dad?
BETSY: Very much, Dave. Your dad seems like a swell guy, the way he helped so many people and took you, with his camp group, to the march in Washington, DC, to hear Martin Luther King, Jr. speak. (BTW, nice historical significance, giving the memoir the obligatory gravitas required for a Pulitzer. Smart move.*) Speaking of which, you said you didn't realize at the time that you were witnessing history. What were you doing standing there in the crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial?
DAVE: To be honest, Betsy, my mom had insisted I wear laced shoes, and one of the staffers in my Camp Sharparoon inner city kids group thought it'd be a great joke to tie them together. So I spent a lot of the speech trying not to faint from the heat or fall down because we were packed so tight I couldn't bend over to untie them. But I've heard the speech on video many times—thank goodness for YouTube—and, like I said, it's mind-expanding.
BETSY: Speaking of almost dying, (I know we weren't but you seem okay with leaps of nonlogic), one of my favorite of your millions of quoted parts in the book (Great recycling! More leisure time to practice your broom and lawnmower marching skills and think about what to eat for dinner!) was your interview with Bob Graham, the then governor of Florida. And speaking of almost drowning in a harmonica accident (readers, you'll have to buy and maybe read the book to understand that—You're welcome, Dave!), have you ever played harmonica? I know you spent and spend a lot of time in a band—currently with a lot of famous writers—but how do you feel about blowing into a small box?
DAVE: Wow, what a creative question. Well, honestly, Betsy, I long ago stopped blowing into anything because it makes me hyperventilate, and particularly if I were to do so while standing next to a pool. I really valued Bob Graham's warning and establishment of the Harmonica Safety Day (Read the book!). Who knows how many lives besides mine have been spared. Full disclosure: I still do have impulses to blow into small containers, particularly if they make funny noises.
BETSY: What's a mutilated verb? I've heard of mutilated body parts and your description of your colonoscopy made me laugh so hard I may have fractured one of mine. But until your book, I never heard of "mutilated verbs."
DAVE: Wow, you're a real word person, aren't you? Try this:
It is my conclusion that the explosion in your head at the mention of this mutilation is due to the failure of the relief valve in your ears and may in the future result in sentences that are just too long for their own good.
See what I did? Lots of verb ideas have been mutilated into nouns: "conclusion," "explosion," "failure" and maybe some other ones that you added to this totally unauthorized revision of my book. Thus you pressed some really dull verbs into service. An unmutilated way to write it is:
"I conclude that your head exploded because your ears are blocked."
BETSY: Okay … So how about farts? You talk a lot about body emissions. Any final toots?
DAVE: Speaking of "toots," how come they don't rhyme with "foots" which brings me to footnotes. Did you like them?
BETSY: About footnotes**
_____________
*I'm not being cheeky. Dave has a whole section where he makes fun of newspaper writers' obsession with winning Pulitzers, so this sentence is a bit of an homage. BTW, Dave did win a Pulitzer—I'm not making that up—so I'm sure he won't take offense if he ends up reading this after all his book tour interviews, signing autographs, and setting fire to many pairs of perfectly good underpants (Read the book!).
**There are lots of footnotes in this book and, in the digital edition, the way they pop up when you tap the footnote number makes the jokes on top of jokes even funnier. Way to go, Dave!
_____________
DAVE: Thanks, Betsy.
BETSY: My pleasure, Dave. And thanks for the free book in exchange for an honest review … which I guess this really isn't. Whoops. Well, thanks anyway, and I'll think of you whenever I have nothing else to think about.
August 23, 2025
Let's see if I can remember the review I just wrote and deleted since GR failed to do so as promised...
Dave Barry is a very talented, good man, who manages to write social commentary, sometimes critical, while offending virtually no one. I have followed his career since the sixties when his column appeared in the Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine and find him as relevant and hysterical today as I did back then.
I'm glad NetGalley knew me well enough to send me a comp copy... just sorry it took me so long to read it!
Dave Barry is a very talented, good man, who manages to write social commentary, sometimes critical, while offending virtually no one. I have followed his career since the sixties when his column appeared in the Chicago Tribune Sunday magazine and find him as relevant and hysterical today as I did back then.
I'm glad NetGalley knew me well enough to send me a comp copy... just sorry it took me so long to read it!
Read
May 29, 2025This was just a delight - I've loved Dave Barry my whole life!
June 22, 2025
This was tough to rate. I grew up reading Dave Barry. I owned many of his books (I still own four, and that was a vast paring-down) and read them many, many times. I got to interview him when I did a story about Gene Weingarten for a writing class and it was an absolute thrill for me. (He was lovely, and in retrospect I appreciate that he took the time to talk to me, someone who was just doing a class assignment, not even something that would be published.) He liberally quotes from his own material throughout this book and I recognized a lot of it.
That both is and isn't a complaint, but it did ultimately bump this from a 3.5 to a 3. This book is called a memoir. We get chapters on his family (which is genuinely illuminating) and education, but a lot of the book covers his career. I liked some of the more behind-the-scenes stuff when he discussed his writing, particularly about how in the 1980s, a humor journalist could, for example, rent a helicopter for a few hours in New York to get a particular photo--without prior approval. A lot of the names are familiar to me, many because they eventually wound up at The Washington Post and getting glimpses into the logistics of his work was enjoyable. The story of him finding out he won the Pulitzer was adorable. And while I vaguely knew about his early, pre-humor column career, I enjoyed learning more.
That said, I felt like reasonably large chunks of this were rehashes of things that he wrote about over the years. The kinds of stories he wrote, the things his readers were passionate about (did I wind up with the Neil Diamond song "I Am, I Said" in my head? I did), some highlights over the years. I mean, true, I didn't know about his involvement in the popularization of Talk Like a Pirate Day (though I'm not particularly surprised by it). But a lot of the book felt almost like an annotated greatest hits to me.
Which I'm honestly not totally against! Like I said, I read a LOT of his stuff growing up and it was nostalgic to re-read. I had forgotten about Judi (who I believe he referred to as his research department), and was delighted when he mentioned Earnest (his dog) and Zippy (his small back-up dog). I always loved his dog columns. And his columns about book tours, which he mentions here. He also does discuss his post-column career of writing fiction, including a fun story about a trip to Russia.
I didn't love his chapter on politics. I did like the first part of the chapter, where he wrote about being sent to cover primaries and conventions and what the actual experience was like for him and other journalists. But once he got into the specific elections...pass. Particularly his concluding belief that the problem is that journalists were too hard on Trump (who, for the record, he does not like); he's one of those who thinks that the media leaned too anti-Trump and it turned people off. He does mention the other argument--namely, that journalists who were anti-Trump went too easy on him in an attempt to appear fair, which firmly is where I land--but doesn't think it. And honestly, I didn't want or need any discussion of Trump in this book.
What I did want was more insight into Barry's actual life. Early in the book, after the chapter on school, he mentions getting married, then says he's been married three times, takes the blame for his divorces, and then says that he's not going to talk about his marriages. He mentions briefly the birth of his son Rob (and gave a life update on him, which I appreciated, having read a bunch about him growing up), but his personal life is basically not a part of this memoir at all. He mentions things like moving and picking job offers and there's just nothing about what anything meant for him as a person. We get a little insight into his decision to retire from his weekly column, but that's about it. I kind of get it, but also, I spent years reading about his wife Beth, so I was bummed. I don't need the sordid details, but just more about his non-work life.
It comes down to me wanting this to include more of Dave Barry, the person, and less Dave Barry, the humor columnist. Still, if you're a fan of his, you'll enjoy this walk down memory lane.
That both is and isn't a complaint, but it did ultimately bump this from a 3.5 to a 3. This book is called a memoir. We get chapters on his family (which is genuinely illuminating) and education, but a lot of the book covers his career. I liked some of the more behind-the-scenes stuff when he discussed his writing, particularly about how in the 1980s, a humor journalist could, for example, rent a helicopter for a few hours in New York to get a particular photo--without prior approval. A lot of the names are familiar to me, many because they eventually wound up at The Washington Post and getting glimpses into the logistics of his work was enjoyable. The story of him finding out he won the Pulitzer was adorable. And while I vaguely knew about his early, pre-humor column career, I enjoyed learning more.
That said, I felt like reasonably large chunks of this were rehashes of things that he wrote about over the years. The kinds of stories he wrote, the things his readers were passionate about (did I wind up with the Neil Diamond song "I Am, I Said" in my head? I did), some highlights over the years. I mean, true, I didn't know about his involvement in the popularization of Talk Like a Pirate Day (though I'm not particularly surprised by it). But a lot of the book felt almost like an annotated greatest hits to me.
Which I'm honestly not totally against! Like I said, I read a LOT of his stuff growing up and it was nostalgic to re-read. I had forgotten about Judi (who I believe he referred to as his research department), and was delighted when he mentioned Earnest (his dog) and Zippy (his small back-up dog). I always loved his dog columns. And his columns about book tours, which he mentions here. He also does discuss his post-column career of writing fiction, including a fun story about a trip to Russia.
I didn't love his chapter on politics. I did like the first part of the chapter, where he wrote about being sent to cover primaries and conventions and what the actual experience was like for him and other journalists. But once he got into the specific elections...pass. Particularly his concluding belief that the problem is that journalists were too hard on Trump (who, for the record, he does not like); he's one of those who thinks that the media leaned too anti-Trump and it turned people off. He does mention the other argument--namely, that journalists who were anti-Trump went too easy on him in an attempt to appear fair, which firmly is where I land--but doesn't think it. And honestly, I didn't want or need any discussion of Trump in this book.
What I did want was more insight into Barry's actual life. Early in the book, after the chapter on school, he mentions getting married, then says he's been married three times, takes the blame for his divorces, and then says that he's not going to talk about his marriages. He mentions briefly the birth of his son Rob (and gave a life update on him, which I appreciated, having read a bunch about him growing up), but his personal life is basically not a part of this memoir at all. He mentions things like moving and picking job offers and there's just nothing about what anything meant for him as a person. We get a little insight into his decision to retire from his weekly column, but that's about it. I kind of get it, but also, I spent years reading about his wife Beth, so I was bummed. I don't need the sordid details, but just more about his non-work life.
It comes down to me wanting this to include more of Dave Barry, the person, and less Dave Barry, the humor columnist. Still, if you're a fan of his, you'll enjoy this walk down memory lane.
March 1, 2026
I had fun laughing with Dave Berry at his many life experiences. I enjoyed reminiscing about growing up in a time without helicopter parents, social media, and disagreeing with people but not being demonized for it.
October 2, 2025
Not quite as enjoyable as Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, as this book deals with Barry's full life, not just his childhood growing up in the '50s. But still brought back a lot of memories (although thankfully without the alcoholism and suicides); and I also enjoyed the later chapters which basically presented a "greatest hits" of his weekly columns, which ran for a remarkable 22 years.
I'm sure the actual book included some photos, but I enjoyed Barry's self-narration here, and it was a welcome pick-me-up after the endless downer of another recent "comic" memoir, Youngmi Mayer's I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying.
___________________________________
PERSONNAL THOUGHTS: I coincidentally finished listening to this book on my first day of full retirement (after a full half century of non-stop "work"), and so Barry's concluding chapter included a few points I found particularly relevant. In describing the passing of his long-time friend and colleague, the Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, Barry states:
"The hospital staff had no idea who Jeff was. They didn't know he was a famous cartoonist with many accolades; to them he was just 'Mr. McNally, the patient in room whatever.' What (I) realized then was…in the end, your professional achievements don't matter. In the end, all that really matters, all you really have, is the people you love. Not your job, not your career, not your awards, not your money, not your stuff. Just your people…just your family and friends."
He then follows that with a short list of concluding "life lessons that I still thinks are fundamentally true and worth passing along," the first of which is: "You should not confuse your career with your life."*
So very true...especially at this point in my own life, which hopefully will not be a door closing so much as a new window opening, through which my aching bones will climb in the company — and with the support — of those I love!
* The second and third of which are "a person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person," and "there is a very fine line between hobby and mental illness" — both true and well worth remembering.
I'm sure the actual book included some photos, but I enjoyed Barry's self-narration here, and it was a welcome pick-me-up after the endless downer of another recent "comic" memoir, Youngmi Mayer's I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying.
___________________________________
PERSONNAL THOUGHTS: I coincidentally finished listening to this book on my first day of full retirement (after a full half century of non-stop "work"), and so Barry's concluding chapter included a few points I found particularly relevant. In describing the passing of his long-time friend and colleague, the Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, Barry states:
"The hospital staff had no idea who Jeff was. They didn't know he was a famous cartoonist with many accolades; to them he was just 'Mr. McNally, the patient in room whatever.' What (I) realized then was…in the end, your professional achievements don't matter. In the end, all that really matters, all you really have, is the people you love. Not your job, not your career, not your awards, not your money, not your stuff. Just your people…just your family and friends."
He then follows that with a short list of concluding "life lessons that I still thinks are fundamentally true and worth passing along," the first of which is: "You should not confuse your career with your life."*
So very true...especially at this point in my own life, which hopefully will not be a door closing so much as a new window opening, through which my aching bones will climb in the company — and with the support — of those I love!
* The second and third of which are "a person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person," and "there is a very fine line between hobby and mental illness" — both true and well worth remembering.
August 16, 2025
This was a really good autobiography combining all of Dave Barry's classic bits, actual interesting details about how he became a humor columnist, and some surprisingly insightful reflections. He writes fairly seriously about his family, which was a loving one, despite his parents' struggles with alcoholism and depression. He has a pretty long chapter about all the political campaigns he covered, which provides a snapshot of the '80s and '90s, as well a reminder of a time when we used to be able to laugh at politicians.
My favorite chapter was the one about the letters he gets from readers, many of whom take him inexplicably seriously on all manner of topics from Neil Diamond lyrics to the location of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He describes one of his personas as "Wildly Incorrect Expert," and this seems to get the most outrage. In one column he speculates that "Hoosier" (as in Indiana, The Hoosier State) could be a Native American word meaning "has sex with caribou," resulting in a huge backlash of angry letters. He says: "My favorite was from a man who blew my theory completely out of the water by pointing out that 'Indiana has no caribou.'"
Toward the end, he offers this reflection, which I totally agree with.
My favorite chapter was the one about the letters he gets from readers, many of whom take him inexplicably seriously on all manner of topics from Neil Diamond lyrics to the location of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He describes one of his personas as "Wildly Incorrect Expert," and this seems to get the most outrage. In one column he speculates that "Hoosier" (as in Indiana, The Hoosier State) could be a Native American word meaning "has sex with caribou," resulting in a huge backlash of angry letters. He says: "My favorite was from a man who blew my theory completely out of the water by pointing out that 'Indiana has no caribou.'"
Toward the end, he offers this reflection, which I totally agree with.
All my life I've been told that some Very Bad Thing or another was going to happen. I've been told that there was going to be nuclear war. I've been told that the planet would become an uninhabitable wasteland because of global cooling, and also because of global warming. I've been told that we were going to run out of food, and oil, and water. I've been told that civilization would collapse because of a pandemic. I've been told multiple times that a worldwide economic catastrophe is imminent. I've been told that the United States government was going to be taken over by communists, and also by fascists. I've been told that someday breakdancing would be an Olympic sport.
OK, that last one happened. But the others did not. My point is, I've been hearing apocalyptic predictions, often from people considered to be authorities, for going on eighty years. If I'd believed all of these predictions, I'd have lived my entire life in a state of abject quivering terror.
Fortunately, I didn't. Most of us didn't. Most of us lived our lives as if we expected life to go on. We had careers and kids, and now our kids are having kids, because they also expect life to go on, because that's what life does.
August 18, 2026
My sister gave my husband an autographed copy of this book ("For Bill, my hero" ... read the book to get the joke) at Christmas and I just got around to reading it as well. I have enjoyed Dave Barry for a long time. He has a great way of poking fun at all kinds of things - politicians, Florida (and other states), books, basically anything. This time he gives his readers a look at his life - growing up in Armonk, his family, his early career at a variety of jobs from small time (and bigger) newspapers to writing consultant for big business. It was interesting and sometimes touching. My only complaint, and really it's minor, is that this book seemed to include a lot of excerpts from his columns over the years - but even then they were still hilarious, so it wasn't a chore to read them. This was definitely a nice break from some of the very serious books I've read lately.
Quote I liked:
In the end, your professional achievements don't matter. In the end, all that really matters - all you really have - is the people you love. Not your job, not your career, not your awards, not your money, not your stuff. Just your people.
Quote I liked:
In the end, your professional achievements don't matter. In the end, all that really matters - all you really have - is the people you love. Not your job, not your career, not your awards, not your money, not your stuff. Just your people.
July 19, 2025
3.5 I’ve followed Barry for years - he’s a great writer. I enjoyed the first half of the book far more than the second, which morphed into a greatest hits from his columns vs. memoir. He doesn’t share much about his adult personal life ( his prerogative)
May 2, 2025
“Atomic war was part of the school curriculum in the fifties… aside from polio and nuclear war, elementary school was a pretty good experience,” Dave Barry writes in his memoir Class Clown.
Of course, he finds the humor in everything. Puberty. Politics. Great Literature (which he read thirty percent of as an English major). Hawking your books. The dangers of fire-starting Barbie Dolls. Did I mention politics?
Barry’s memoir shares his childhood, which was a pretty good one. His high-minded clergy dad ran an inner city nonprofit while building their house in a small town. Barry credits his mom’s sharp, dark, humor for his own sense of humor. But his parents had their dark sides; his dad’s drinking turned into alcoholism and his mom’s depression, in the end, won out.
In high school he found his niche, and was elected Class Clown.
What surprised me was his early newspaper career as a serious journalist at small papers and the AP, and as a business writing consultant,teaching writing to businessmen.Through these jobs he honed his skills in writing and public speaking. Teaching writing “made me a better humor writer,” Barry admits. During this time, he was also sending out columns to a small paper, which eventually led to the Philadelphia Inquirer hiring him full time, and then his move to Miami Herald.
Barry inserts excerpts from his columns as he shares his career highlights. We read him back in his Philadelphia Inquirer days, and when our son was growing up his syndicated column kept our whole family in stitches.
His career included a TV show inspired by his life, movies, playing in a band, co-writing a spoof novel, and authoring books for adults and kids.
To conclude, he shares his advice for all of us aging boomers.
It’s a laugh out loud book with genuine heart.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
Of course, he finds the humor in everything. Puberty. Politics. Great Literature (which he read thirty percent of as an English major). Hawking your books. The dangers of fire-starting Barbie Dolls. Did I mention politics?
Barry’s memoir shares his childhood, which was a pretty good one. His high-minded clergy dad ran an inner city nonprofit while building their house in a small town. Barry credits his mom’s sharp, dark, humor for his own sense of humor. But his parents had their dark sides; his dad’s drinking turned into alcoholism and his mom’s depression, in the end, won out.
In high school he found his niche, and was elected Class Clown.
What surprised me was his early newspaper career as a serious journalist at small papers and the AP, and as a business writing consultant,teaching writing to businessmen.Through these jobs he honed his skills in writing and public speaking. Teaching writing “made me a better humor writer,” Barry admits. During this time, he was also sending out columns to a small paper, which eventually led to the Philadelphia Inquirer hiring him full time, and then his move to Miami Herald.
Barry inserts excerpts from his columns as he shares his career highlights. We read him back in his Philadelphia Inquirer days, and when our son was growing up his syndicated column kept our whole family in stitches.
His career included a TV show inspired by his life, movies, playing in a band, co-writing a spoof novel, and authoring books for adults and kids.
To conclude, he shares his advice for all of us aging boomers.
It’s a laugh out loud book with genuine heart.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.
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March 18, 2025
⤅ Nonfiction Book of the Month: July 2025
I can't believe how well my nonfiction reading resolution is going, I'm more than halfway through the year and it's only March...
I've been a fan of Dave Barry since I was 14 or so, and in fact I'd say he's the only humour writer I actually know about or have sought out, although it appears he was a MUCH bigger sensation in the latter half of the 20th century. Or, you know, decades before I was born. Periodically I Google him to see if he's still alive (he's 77 so one can't be too careful) and that's how I discovered he had this memoir coming out. I've long thought he'd write a great memoir, so I was on this ARC in milliseconds.
Unfortunately, it kind of... was really meh?
By far the strongest chapter is the first one, where Barry talks about his parents and his childhood in a lot of detail. It's not always a happy story - his dad was an alcoholic and his mum later committed suicide - but that first chapter is infused with life and, more importantly, a ton of originality. The rest of the (very slim) book is mostly just excerpts from a few of his columns. If you read this book hoping to get to know more about Barry as a person, as I did, you'll be disappointed. His personal life isn't mentioned at all, other than a throwaway line which leads one to suspect adultery, and there are large swathes of this book which are honestly just dry.
Overall the main impression I got, leaving this book, is a sense of tiredness. The world has changed a lot in the last 77 years and let's just say he seems to be over it. Time to reread his older stuff, I reckon.
September 6, 2025
The story of how I acquired my signed copy of this book is long and involves an unethical bookseller and what was essentially theft, not on my part. But I have it, which is what matters.
I liked it. I didn't love it. I guess I was expecting more humor; the excerpts Barry posted to his Substack (yes, I am that kind of fan) were pretty funny, but a lot of the book wasn't. Not that I expected the parts about his parents' deaths to be a laugh riot, obviously, but the rest of it... anyway, it wasn't what I hoped for. The funniest moments ended up being when he included parts of columns he'd written over the years--especially ones I have read more than once.
I was also disappointed that he left out any account of his first two marriages. Sure, it's his memoir, he can curate it the way he wants. And he puts it in terms of respecting his ex-wives' privacy, which I get. But his second wife, Beth, was so frequently referred to in his columns while they were married, it felt more like erasure not to at least talk about her influence. My favorite book of Barry's is Dave Barry Does Japan, and Beth's experiences were a huge part of what I loved. So losing that part of his life was sad.
Overall, I enjoyed the material. It was fun to get a look at the different circumstances that led to Dave Barry becoming one of our great comedic writers. But mostly, it made me want to pick up one of his old collections and revisit the ones that cracked me up most.
I liked it. I didn't love it. I guess I was expecting more humor; the excerpts Barry posted to his Substack (yes, I am that kind of fan) were pretty funny, but a lot of the book wasn't. Not that I expected the parts about his parents' deaths to be a laugh riot, obviously, but the rest of it... anyway, it wasn't what I hoped for. The funniest moments ended up being when he included parts of columns he'd written over the years--especially ones I have read more than once.
I was also disappointed that he left out any account of his first two marriages. Sure, it's his memoir, he can curate it the way he wants. And he puts it in terms of respecting his ex-wives' privacy, which I get. But his second wife, Beth, was so frequently referred to in his columns while they were married, it felt more like erasure not to at least talk about her influence. My favorite book of Barry's is Dave Barry Does Japan, and Beth's experiences were a huge part of what I loved. So losing that part of his life was sad.
Overall, I enjoyed the material. It was fun to get a look at the different circumstances that led to Dave Barry becoming one of our great comedic writers. But mostly, it made me want to pick up one of his old collections and revisit the ones that cracked me up most.
August 19, 2025
I’ve been a devoted Dave Barry reader since I was a teenager and his writing has shaped my own sense of humor and what I view as funny. For example:
1. Embrace the ridiculous and the absurd.
2. I should be able to laugh at anything. Most of all, myself.
3. Poop is funny.
The first couple chapters of Dave’s memoir were my favorites, particularly the first chapter, where he talked about his parents. In reading it I was reminded that funny writers begin by first being good writers, and man is Dave a good writer. I could see his mom and dad with all of their humanity, both the triumphs and tragic flaws. I thought of my own parents and their legacy. That chapter broke me. ♥️
As the book went on the chapters felt more like a collection of ‘greatest hits’ from Dave’s writing career. He shares extensively from some of his most memorable columns. Remember when Dave wrote about his colonoscopy? Remember when Dave started a feud with the Orlando Magic? I was cry-laughing all over again. But I also kinda wished for the poignancy and emotional punch of chapter 1.
I’ll always be grateful to my husband and our friend Mary for urging me to talk to Dave at a Washington Post event. I have a picture with him too. ☺️
1. Embrace the ridiculous and the absurd.
2. I should be able to laugh at anything. Most of all, myself.
3. Poop is funny.
The first couple chapters of Dave’s memoir were my favorites, particularly the first chapter, where he talked about his parents. In reading it I was reminded that funny writers begin by first being good writers, and man is Dave a good writer. I could see his mom and dad with all of their humanity, both the triumphs and tragic flaws. I thought of my own parents and their legacy. That chapter broke me. ♥️
As the book went on the chapters felt more like a collection of ‘greatest hits’ from Dave’s writing career. He shares extensively from some of his most memorable columns. Remember when Dave wrote about his colonoscopy? Remember when Dave started a feud with the Orlando Magic? I was cry-laughing all over again. But I also kinda wished for the poignancy and emotional punch of chapter 1.
I’ll always be grateful to my husband and our friend Mary for urging me to talk to Dave at a Washington Post event. I have a picture with him too. ☺️
February 20, 2025
This was an ARC copy, thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley.
I grew up with a daily newspaper that I usually devoured, especially the Sports section. I can’t say I read Dave Barry’s syndicated column weekly but I did read it. I loved his humor. This book is an autobiography. There were some revelations. I won’t spoil them for you.
I grew up with a daily newspaper that I usually devoured, especially the Sports section. I can’t say I read Dave Barry’s syndicated column weekly but I did read it. I loved his humor. This book is an autobiography. There were some revelations. I won’t spoil them for you.
June 9, 2025
Dave Barry, much to my father's delight, is writing a weekly column again. And much to my delight (my brother and I went through a Peter and the Starcatchers phase). His column on tariffs made me laugh until I cried, despite the fact that I do not have a prostate. What can I say. I don't usually find toilet humor funny, but it's funny coming from Dave Barry, who is still alive. I enjoyed his memoir about working in journalism; it wasn't overly personal and nearly entirely focused on his career, with lots of passages from his columns and other articles. I appreciated that because I was not alive for most of his columnist career. Those who were will, hopefully, find some long-lost favorite passage printed and preserved here. I liked his perspective on news media and journalism, and found his thoughts on the state of the industry reasonable (in some of the few serious moments). Father's Day is almost here, folks, and your dad might find this book excessively diverting.
August 13, 2026
I've never found Dave Barry to be very funny but was hoping that in a memoir he might at least shed light on why he is the way he is. That he certainly did, but not in the entertaining way he intended. This is purely performative gimmicky storytelling where he inserts certain "serious" moments to try to tug at your heart while ignoring the devastating underlying currents of his life.
Start with his parents, who he overpraises and swears gave him an amazing upbringing. His minister father was supposedly funny and Dave's hilarious non sequitur-spewing mother was a housewife. That sounds fine until the author slips in that dad was a chain-smoking alcoholic who refused to get help and mom was a depressed suicidal wisecracker.
Both proudly Democrat parents used profanity liberally around the children and Dave has no problem including much of it here in the opening pages about his early years. They were certainly not the great role models he makes them out to be, with his father dying in his mid-60s and then mom committing suicide. It's wishful thinking for Barry to memorialize them as wonderful parents who were simply hilarious. The truth is much more complex than the author leads us to believe. As they say, behind every comedian lies tragedy.
It gets repetitive quickly and he recycles way too many of his columns, quoting them liberally. So this isn't really an entirely new book--just him commenting on the reaction to what he considers profound things he previously wrote. The man also has this incredibly annoying habit of using footnotes to make side comments, which should have simply been included in the narrative.
The longest chapter is devoted to politics and his self-important praise from major names (like a U.S. president or Supreme Court justice). I honestly found all of this pretty dull, especially when the purpose seemed to be for him to show off.
In discussing first grade Barry thinks it's humorous to claim, "My first reading textbooks were the famous Dick and Jane series...youngsters afflicted with some kind of nervous tic that caused them to speak like actors in the climactic scene of a porn movie." HUH? Despite what he claims, Jane did not say "Yes, Dick. Yes, yes, yes" with the boy responding "Ohmigod, Jane." You have to wonder about a guy who uses elementary children to push this kind of comedy.
He spews a lot of offensive (and unfunny) crap on these pages...maybe that is his way of dealing with that negative childhood he keeps trying to hide with his humor?
It's called the "sad clown complex," and that would have been a better title for this book. Or, even better, just call the whole thing "Sad."
Start with his parents, who he overpraises and swears gave him an amazing upbringing. His minister father was supposedly funny and Dave's hilarious non sequitur-spewing mother was a housewife. That sounds fine until the author slips in that dad was a chain-smoking alcoholic who refused to get help and mom was a depressed suicidal wisecracker.
Both proudly Democrat parents used profanity liberally around the children and Dave has no problem including much of it here in the opening pages about his early years. They were certainly not the great role models he makes them out to be, with his father dying in his mid-60s and then mom committing suicide. It's wishful thinking for Barry to memorialize them as wonderful parents who were simply hilarious. The truth is much more complex than the author leads us to believe. As they say, behind every comedian lies tragedy.
It gets repetitive quickly and he recycles way too many of his columns, quoting them liberally. So this isn't really an entirely new book--just him commenting on the reaction to what he considers profound things he previously wrote. The man also has this incredibly annoying habit of using footnotes to make side comments, which should have simply been included in the narrative.
The longest chapter is devoted to politics and his self-important praise from major names (like a U.S. president or Supreme Court justice). I honestly found all of this pretty dull, especially when the purpose seemed to be for him to show off.
In discussing first grade Barry thinks it's humorous to claim, "My first reading textbooks were the famous Dick and Jane series...youngsters afflicted with some kind of nervous tic that caused them to speak like actors in the climactic scene of a porn movie." HUH? Despite what he claims, Jane did not say "Yes, Dick. Yes, yes, yes" with the boy responding "Ohmigod, Jane." You have to wonder about a guy who uses elementary children to push this kind of comedy.
He spews a lot of offensive (and unfunny) crap on these pages...maybe that is his way of dealing with that negative childhood he keeps trying to hide with his humor?
It's called the "sad clown complex," and that would have been a better title for this book. Or, even better, just call the whole thing "Sad."
February 20, 2025
This is self proclaimed "wiseass" Dave Barry’s memoir. For those not fortunate to be familiar with some of his work, this Pulitzer Prize winner is most known for his syndicated newspaper humor columns through the years. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, he recounts memories of those times, his family, his early career, his foray into following politics as a journalist, being involved in the film industry, a member of a rock band, and other experiences. And, yes, he was voted “class clown” in high school.
Reading this, I was laughing out loud by page 2. It is entertaining, witty, intelligent, irreverent, poignant as he shares his autobiography sprinkled with snippets from his columns. Boomers will particularly enjoy his reminiscences through the years and his take on the aging process.
In these dark days, we all need something light and humorous to raise our spirits. I particularly liked his reassuring message to readers at the end of the book. It is worth reading for that alone….
Thanks to #NetGalley and @SimonBooks for the DRC
Reading this, I was laughing out loud by page 2. It is entertaining, witty, intelligent, irreverent, poignant as he shares his autobiography sprinkled with snippets from his columns. Boomers will particularly enjoy his reminiscences through the years and his take on the aging process.
In these dark days, we all need something light and humorous to raise our spirits. I particularly liked his reassuring message to readers at the end of the book. It is worth reading for that alone….
Thanks to #NetGalley and @SimonBooks for the DRC
June 26, 2025
This one was really good. A memoir not a collection of his columns or short humor pieces. With all the Dave Barry I’ve read the last year and some, I feel like I could write a book about him. 🤣
September 2, 2025
Dave Barry has been one of my favorite writers since his syndicated column was in the Inquirer. I LOVED listening to this book. His life story is wild and unique, his stories are mostly self-deprecating, and I laughed out loud 100 times.
March 3, 2026
So I went into this book thinking “oh great…. Here’s a comedian, that’s my mom’s age, who thinks he’s funny”. Growing up my mom always thought she was hilarious with her lame-ass jokes. Ultimately I can guarantee I’m the same way to my kids. By that, I mean I am HILARIOUS! Anyway, I thought this book was also going to be a little lame-ass’ed. Turns out this guy is actually funny. Dave Barry never set out to be famous, but he always had a joke. When he did get in the public eye he took full advantage of it and his career took off. Every little step he took he fine tuned his craft ,which in turn, caused him to be more carefree with the jokes.
If you don’t know who Dave Barry is, well I’ll tell ya. He was a humor columnist and wrote excerpts in many news papers. For the kids those are almost like flimsy books that were generated on a schedule, usually weekly. Sometimes daily. Sometimes monthly. They have a lot of information about current events, and some are just out of pocket. His column ran in close to 500 different papers around the world. He wrote books and screenplays and performed on late night talk shows and also is currently in a rock band with Stephen King. Many other authors were in this band but the only other name I recognized was Barbara Kingsolver.
This book is about memoir/life story. If you want to run the gamut of emotions from laughter to tears give this book a try. The audio book is self narrated which is always fun.
I am impressed 5-5-4
5 for the story
5 for roller skate Barbie and a New York City fire chief
4 for the review. It started feeling like I was writing a book report for school.
“No one cares if you can’t dance. The point is getting up dancing.” - Dave Barry (paraphrased)
If you don’t know who Dave Barry is, well I’ll tell ya. He was a humor columnist and wrote excerpts in many news papers. For the kids those are almost like flimsy books that were generated on a schedule, usually weekly. Sometimes daily. Sometimes monthly. They have a lot of information about current events, and some are just out of pocket. His column ran in close to 500 different papers around the world. He wrote books and screenplays and performed on late night talk shows and also is currently in a rock band with Stephen King. Many other authors were in this band but the only other name I recognized was Barbara Kingsolver.
This book is about memoir/life story. If you want to run the gamut of emotions from laughter to tears give this book a try. The audio book is self narrated which is always fun.
I am impressed 5-5-4
5 for the story
5 for roller skate Barbie and a New York City fire chief
4 for the review. It started feeling like I was writing a book report for school.
“No one cares if you can’t dance. The point is getting up dancing.” - Dave Barry (paraphrased)
January 4, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I grew up listening to my dad read Dave Barry's newspaper column to my mom. I think he even wrote a piece about a family member back in the 90s.
This book is typical Dave Barry humor. Some parts are serious but most of it is humorous. There are excepts from some of his writing that tie nicely with the backstory of what was going on in his life at the time.
I grew up listening to my dad read Dave Barry's newspaper column to my mom. I think he even wrote a piece about a family member back in the 90s.
This book is typical Dave Barry humor. Some parts are serious but most of it is humorous. There are excepts from some of his writing that tie nicely with the backstory of what was going on in his life at the time.
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