The Areas of My Expertise

An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order

By: John Hodgman

Narrated by: John Hodgman

Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

In the great tradition of the American almanac, The Areas of My Expertise is a brilliant and hilarious compendium of handy reference tables, fascinating trivia, and sage wisdom on all topics large and small. Although best sellers such as Poor Richard's Almanack and The Book of Lists were certainly valuable, they also were largely true. Here is a different kind of handy desk reference, one in which all of the historical oddities and amazing true facts are sifted through the singular, illuminating imagination of John Hodgman, which is the nice way of saying: He made it all up.

©2005 John Hodgman (P)2006 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Critic reviews

"Wonderfully absurd." (The New York Times)

"Hilarious ... Nabokov's Pale Fire as directed by Wes Anderson." (Time Out New York)

"If Borges and Ben Franklin got drunk and decided to write a book together, the result might have been something a lot like this freaky 'almanac.'" (Tom Perrotta)

Couldn't Sit Through It

Boring. I was so disappointed. I have enjoyed John Hodgman's additions to the Daily Show and I expected ot find the same side-splitting satire. Nope. This is dull, dull, dull. Couldn't sit through more than 30 minutes of it. Maybe he needs a specific topic to be funny, instead of rambling from one unhumorous idea to another. I don't recommend it, unless you are suffering from insomnia.

rudely disappointed

I had looked forward to this audiobook, having heard John Hodgman interviewed on public radio. I enjoyed his witty, intelligent repartee. I found myself offended by his seemingly (sometimes) adolescent sense of humor and disturbingly violent imagination. For instance, his "areas of expertise" often involve harm to and/or the killing of small animals. There are numerous references to masturbation. Some of it is genuinely funny, but I don't know if it is worth the price of some of the unexpectedly offensive moments.

I really wanted to like this book but...

First of all, I like John Hodgman. He is the perfect character for the Apple ads, so I was enthusiastic about this book after hearing Leo Laporte sing its praises on one of his recent podcasts.

After listening to about half of the book, I just had to turn it off. While it starts out with some funny spots, it just goes downhill from there. Most of the content sounds like something that I might have come up with after a night of heavy drinking with some friends. It's almost stream of consciousness material and most of it is simply not that funny.

I like to think that I have a pretty good sense of humor, but this book just left me cold. A shame that I wasted a credit on it.

Painful

I tried and tried again to listen to this book, and just didn't enjoy it at all. I got about 45 minutes into it and gave up.

This type of comedy, is not for me.

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Unfortunately the comedy of this book was as bad at some of the worst SNL sketches where you know they are making fun of something but you have no idea what that is.

The whole premise of the material was based on making up stuff as if it was real, but CLEARLY is not. May have been ok if it was funny, but I didn't find it to be the case.

Has The Areas of My Expertise turned you off from other books in this genre?

This was the first comedy book I read, just because I hear from some people that it was funny. I have never been interested in comedy book, I like hard science fiction.

What aspect of John Hodgman’s performance would you have changed?

While John may have been overacting I really disliked his All knowing persona and grandiosity.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Both anger and disappointment. Anger that I wasted a credit on this book and Disappointment with the whole comedy book category.

Any additional comments?

Again I have no experience with humor in books, this may be the exception but if this are what most humor books are like, I'll just have to avoid them.

Useless

Useless book. Tries to be clever but not. Tries to speak with sophisticate - not. A waste of money to purchase. A waste of time to listen to this book. Sleeping is prefable.
Rated at one star because no lower rating appeared available.

wake me when it's over

remember high school? There was that guy who thought he was clever...but he wasn't? Well, he's back...and he's still not clever.

Stupid

So random, and not funny. I felt like it was a waste of time and money. Julie Sweeney did not get as good of a rating as this guy and she was hilarious and interesting as well as smart. I figured this must be better if it got a better rating. What am I missing? It was pointless and you walked away with nothing. I could have pointed to words in the dictionary and made up definitions that would have been more interesting.
Trust me I am not a harsh critic and normally not a critic at all. I give a lot of room for humorous interpretation. Humor is a funny thing, or it is supossed to be. Everybody thinks something different about what is funny. I tried to think outside myself and imagine who would think this is funny. Blank. There is no option for Zero star rating.....too bad.

G. Talbot

Not Cool, Not Funny

I wish I could return this crappy book or sell it to some other shmuck as part of a CON .. not cool

Great entertainer, this old stuff doesn't hold up

Really loved John Hodgman's 'Vacationland' book, and I have enjoyed his appearance on various podcasts. I thought I'd dive back and see what I missed out on over a decades worth of books, and decided to start here at the (beginning?). The book was okay for me, but I gave up on it after numerous references to 'Autistic children with spoons' being a joke. I know Hodgman has discussed in 'Vacationland' that he regrets some of his older attitudes at 'punching down' humor he had in the past, and has grown as a person since then. I'm not sure I'll continue testing the waters of his old work, but I do highly recommend his latest works to anyone who might be put-off by the irreverent material in these early books. He's a really wonderful storyteller.