Lunatics

A Novel

By: Dave Barry, Alan Zweibel

Narrated by: Dave Barry, Mark Thompson, Sean Kenin, Orlagh Cassidy

Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

One of them is a best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist. The other is a winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Together, they form the League of Comic Justice, battling evildoers in the name of... Okay, we made that line up. What they do form is a writing team of pure comic genius, and they will have you laughing like idiots.

Philip Horkman is a happy man - the owner of a pet store called The Wine Shop, and on Sundays a referee for kids' soccer. Jeffrey Peckerman is the sole sane person in a world filled with goddamned jerks and morons, and he's having a really bad day. The two of them are about to collide in a swiftly escalating series of events that will send them running for their lives, pursued by the police, soldiers, terrorists, subversives, bears, and a man dressed as Chuck E. Cheese.

Where that all takes them you can't begin to guess, but the literary journey there is a masterpiece of inspiration and mayhem. But what else would you expect from the League of Comic Justice?

©2012 Dave Barry (P)2011 Penguin Audio

Very entertaining unless you don’t like swear words

This Is a fast-paced and Funny listen. Don’t expect a lot of depth, just a series of madcap adventures that keep on flowing from one continent to the next.

Funny Books Are Rare and This One Is Rare

What made the experience of listening to Lunatics the most enjoyable?

The story is outlandish and adeptly done with two separate narrations. Moreover, I think this is a stunt format, whereby the two authors separately wrote their parts. They also do the narration.

What's funny about this book? The story starts as a commonplace squabble between two polar opposite characters. Hilarity ensues when they unwittingly go about changing the world through no fault of their own.

Barry has written some funny novels. This is a good companion to his work.

Zaniest book I have ever encountered!!!!

Would you listen to Lunatics again? Why?

I would listen again because I know I failed to hear some parts due to laughing so much.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Horkman was my favorite character. I could relate to everything about him. And Peckerman was my least favorite. But without him, there could have been no story.

Have you listened to any of Dave Barry’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This is a great Dave Barry performance and Alan Zweibel is fantastic!!! They sounded like all this had actually personally happened to them!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I listened to this every chance I got till I finally finished it. It was spellbinding. Really, this book is so, so zany, which I loved, and the whole crazy storyline makes sense. It was great the way it poked well-deserved fun at many current world situations and the media's coverage of them. Some people say about a difficult situation, "I could laugh or I could cry. I chose to laugh." This is the book's take on some major problems in today's world. It will make you laugh. And if you are in a better mood, you will be better able to deal with whatever life throws at you. And that is why I like funny books, and the more funny books, the better!

Any additional comments?

Lunatics is like a very calm and subdued version of The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson and Narrated by Steven Crossley, but with a lot more action and cussing. If you don't mind rude language (and normally I DO mind, but in Lunatics it was okay- it was appropriate and integral to the storyline...I know, I know...but take my word for it, if you can) and if you like funny books, you will like this. Just don't play it while the children are within earshot. Other authors I have read (listened to) who write stories like this are P.G. Wodehouse, Dave Barry (of course), Janet Evanovich, M.C. Beaton, Rhys Bowen, Jerome K. Jerome, and Woody Allen. But their stories dilute out or distribute out the zaniness much more so than does Lunatics which is "chock full of nuts"!

hysterical

Any additional comments?

just when the story started to get a little far fetched for me, I would catch myself laughing out loud. Great dynamic.

Listener Discretion Advised

The characters in this story are vile. One more than the other, but both are despicable. To enjoy this book, you must be able to handle comedy about awful people speaking and behaving terribly in absurd situations. There is offensive dialog about every type of person, a few instances of inadvertent animal cruelty, more than a little literal bathroom humor, and a large dose of political humor that might be too much for some (though keep in mind that this book was published in 2012).

If you can handle all that, this is one funny book. The plot is completely ridiculous. The way the authors turn a phrase creates many comedic surprises. The interplay between the two authors' contributions, at times seeing the same part of the story from two or more perspectives, adds to the humor. This is, of course, enhanced by the tag-team nature of the audio performance.

This book is the cousin of properties such as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Men Behaving Badly, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. If you enjoy that style of comedy, you will likely get some enjoyment from Lunatics.

Lunatics

What did you like best about Lunatics? What did you like least?

At times very funny. The authors seemed to try to throw every joke at the wall to see which ones stuck. The plot was so over the top ludicrous that it seemed to make me want to cringe

Would you ever listen to anything by Dave Barry again?

Probably not

Lunatics

What did you like best about Lunatics? What did you like least?

At times very funny. The authors seemed to try to throw every joke at the wall to see which ones stuck. The plot was so over the top ludicrous that it seemed to make me want to cringe

Would you ever listen to anything by Dave Barry again?

Probably not

Take That Carl Hiiason!

This book was such a wonderful surprise. Much better than Big Trouble! Never a dull moment, beyond clever, but still a comic romp through today's headlines and habits. I know Hiiason is Barry's friend but he really smushed him in the comic romp where one event happens, then comedy takes over and characters enter the lives of two bozos who are much like your next door neighbors. I listened to it twice as I painted a room - and was sorry when I finished painting.

F the Heading read the review come up w\ your own

This story will put humor in almost every aspect of a situation or topic that no matter who you are you can relate to, in some way. It could crush or confirm your moral values, political views, your religious beliefs, sexual orientation and over all who you are as a person but it's ok cause it's funny and if you don't laugh at some point or get the humor you are probably not a human being or a person I'd like to hang out with, but that's ok I'll hang out by myself listening to books like this or with my Dad that first introduced it to me or whoever wants to. Long review short give it a chance.

Scary how it foreshadowed the Trump Presidency

I have always been a fan of Dave Barry, and leapt at the opportunity to get a book that he performs in. Lunatics is a hilarious ride, and it's off-the-wall rhetoric turned out to be repeated practically verbatim by the 45th President (rants about low flow toilets)... it's scary how a ludicrous satire became reality.