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HAPPY ACCIDENTS "These essays brim with profound insight. They are tales of ordinary life, extraordinarily observed. And they're funny. So funny you hardly know he's making you think 'til you catch yourself doing it." --Patty Kadel, Cartoonist "These stories take you on a sardonic ride as curvy as it is bodacious. Sardonic, curvy, bodacious. Yeah, that's what I said." --Julie Ann Weinstein, author of Flashes From the Other World "These essays are poignant, funny and intellectually charged." — Traci Foust, author of Nowhere Near Normal, A Memoir of OCD Buy the Happy Accidents Kindle book |
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X MARKS THE SPOT: We're All Going to Die! So… What's for Lunch? by David Boyne 13 More Offbeat Essays Boldly Exploring the Irony of the Ordinary Hilarious, deceptively meaningful essays of ordinary, everyday events, in which the author sets out to prove his startling, radical, highly controversial assertion that we are all going to die. In these fast and furiously funny essays we ride shotgun as David Boyne arrives in a new city and is given a map by a mysterious stranger (X MARKS THE SPOT), or reads his email (GRUDGE HOLDING LETTER BOMBING SHIT LISTERS), or strains to curb his inherited gene of East Coast sarcasm as he mixes it up with goofy new-age Californians (IT’S ALL GOOD, ADVENTURES IN THE LAND OF THE LOTUS EATERS). We breeze down a wacky detour back to high school (WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!) but then take a wrong turn and find ourselves lost in the woods (JUST PASSING THROUGH) and wind up parsing the meaning of a Japanese obituary (EITHER AND OR). And after this wild, bumpy, exhilarating, ironic odyssey through the ordinary, we will look up and find -- that we are right back where we started. The world around us is exactly the same as when we left it. But we’re not. Buy the X Marks the Spot Kindle book |
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Four memoir-essays filled with scenes of a young boy's life, from the ridiculous to the sorrowful, as observed by his stepfather-in-training. "Beautifully crafted, poignant, and humorous. Essays by David Boyne capture the magic in daily life, if we stop and pay attention. He reminds us that happiness, indeed, is not an accident." —Paula Margulies, author of Coyote Heart |
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TRAVELS IN MY 3 POUND UNIVERSE : 12 Essays Proving That All Roads Lead to Where We're Going by David Boyne From a Review by Ann Bancroft
It happened to me. It could happen to you. Buy the Travels In My Three Pound Universe Kindle book |
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VELOCITY: Odd Stories of People in Motion (fiction) The lively and decidely offbeat stories in this collection of fiction include darkly hilarious lampoons, such as NEWTON’S COMEUPPANCE, the author’s entry into the venerable shaggy dog genre, in which, thanks to a 90-pound beach combing golden retriever who discovers secret anti-gravity technology—the entire world is transformed—for better AND for worse. Or THE CONFESSION BOOTH, in which a lean and hungry and horny young lawyer discovers sexual release—and insightful career counseling—behind the Green Door inside the Pink Pussycat Theatre. Other stories are quietly unsettling, with common elements, that may or may not be connected, with a flow of events that leave us at the end, like the characters, with new unanswered questions. There is the history professor who takes a book from the body of a dead homeless man in THE IMMIGRANT, and the 11-year-old boy at the center of IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, who steals a book from the library. Other stories, such as THE SURVIVOR and OUT IN THE COLD, show a middle-aged woman and a teen-age boy responding to the overwhelming power of accident, and of anger. Then there are stories of small-scale ridiculousness, with the “roommate from Hell” story, THE DAWN OF JOY. And large-scale ridiculousness, such as BUMS: A NEW YORK CHRISTMAS STORY that, believe it or not, takes place in August, inside the Third Street Mens Shelter, opening with a food fight that escalates into a city-wide riot. |
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Books Stink, By Kathleen T. This review is from: Happy Accidents: 12 Offbeat Essays Exploring the Irony in the Ordinary (Kindle Edition)
I just read Books Stink, an essay by David Boyne on his website ICBWB.com, and almost feel compelled to buy a Kindle just so I can download Happy Accidents to read more of his pithy observations on life, which is really saying something because I LOVE books (You need to read his eassy...). I love how they smell, how they look (especially in a library with lots of shelves loaded with books, no extraneous decorations or statuettes necessary), and how just the presence of books make me feel (we could analyze that one). But David's thought provoking sarcasm and alternative view points make me question this love affair with books. He's right - books kill trees, and I happen to like trees and think we raze too many of them....a moral dilemma. I'm not a big fan of electronic gadgets and the technology revolution, but in the name of sustainability and breaking the monopoly of corporate giants (my healthy disrespect for big dogs and excessive mainstream authority), I just might buy a Kindle to keep reading. :) -- Kathleen T.
Tales from the Farside, By Zurdo - This review is of: Happy Accidents: 12 Offbeat Essays Exploring the Irony in the Ordinary (Kindle Edition)
For those of you who miss the 'Farside' comic strips a new venue for such humor has arrived. This ebook is filled with twist, turns, and off the cliff humor to get you chuckling once again at our day to day lives in the fish bowl. As we swim through the sea of humanity sometimes we just have to stop and wade around to see what kind of fish comes by to get our attention. This writer got mine after reading his website and perusing his archives. Very humorous and if you can't laugh after reading the first two stories you are not human but a cyborg without a funny bone. Think Data from Star Trek. I'm going to follow up with other writings from this author and post my comments. Just like a good joke these stories will become timeless.
You'll Never Again Watch Ballet Without Laughing Out Loud, April 9, 2011 By annban This review is of: Happy Accidents: 12 Offbeat Essays Exploring the Irony in the Ordinary (Kindle Edition)
Reading David Boyne's essays is like meandering through a pleasant day and then suddenly deciding to pay very close attention. Everyday occurrences become sweet, often very funny, and more meaningful the closer you look. Whether he's writing with tenderness about raising a child or hilariously describing how and why we dance and sing, you'll want to keep following Boyne through the happy accidents of his days.
Outstanding Novel, September 17, 2011 By David West This review is of: Happy Accidents: 12 Offbeat Essays Exploring the Irony in the Ordinary (Kindle Edition)
David. I read your book "Happy Accidents" today in less than an hour. Not entirely sure if it's because it was absurdly well written or if it's because it was only 100 pages (on the kindle). It was "recommended" through my Amazon account because I have read and purchased books by David Sedaris and Augusten Buroughs. I thoroughly enjoyed the context of the book and it made me absolutely laugh out loud. I also enjoyed it because it made me stop and smile. And stare off into space and imagine things I normally wouldn't. Your book lifted my spirit and warmed my soul page after page. I cannot wait to be engulfed in your other works of art. As an inspiring writer, I would like to thank you for your genius of a brain. :) Thank you.
It’s obvious that San Diego writer David Boyne has been in some kind of accident, clonked over the head with a dose of hard reality and is now living in the streets of Astoria—or maybe a semi-nice walk-up in Queens—as the muse of Russell David Harper and Chip Kidd. To be clear: Boyne has hit the mark with Happy Accidents. In this first of a four book collection covering objective—sometimes delicate—subjects as step-parenting and America’s obsession with consumerism (see what I mean about the Russ Harper part?) Boyne takes the reader to that scary, gorgeous, hopeful/less place called What The Hell Were You Thinking? It’s where he lives. From the sincere writing and down-to-earth tone it’s clear he’s been a resident for some time and knows his way around without a map, thank you. (Actually, Google shows this area to be somewhere in the vicinity of Flushing and Sinji’s Yoga Studio in West Hollywood.)
In a similar narrative voice as Bob Powers who waved goodbye to American manners in Happy Cruelty Day and the harmonious blend of Tom Robbins in Wild Ducks Flying Backward, Boyne takes the reader through his no holds barred style of nothing is obvious—but everything is there. In the essay Hurry Up and Wait, Boyne opens by asking a set of seemingly unrelated questions : Why we suffer, why we tell stories, why we wait— then lays bare all the examples of what the reader will experience should they choose to come along for this imaginative ride (as if we have a choice after such titles like Black Teeth and Bubonic Plague.) …
I confess I also liked watching the voluptuous dyed-blonde barista because the tight black tank top she wore was all used up in covering the wave of her breasts, with no material left to keep from public display, the wide expanse of her rounded belly and the ski-slope curve of the small of her back and the top of the swell of her ample hips—and how all the taut, tan skin in view was adorned with a colorful, dense, complex tapestry of tattoos.
This goes further than just the irony of the complex being the simple. See Also: If it walks like a duck… These essays are poignant, funny and intellectually charged. Threaded with the susceptible civic tightrope of where we are walking today, it’s clear Mr. Boyne needs to take a trip to Washington and begin a set of new documents for the likes of those who would thrive in a Lorne Michaelesque democracy—written for the smart people, by the smart people.
If you’re looking for an In Persuasion Nation complexity of authentic humor, look no further—a pretty little calendar narrative with Dave Matthews up-thumbing each carefully plotted ending?
This isn’t that.
This is real writing, really good writing, often showing Boyne at his best when he steps back just enough from the make-nice platform giving his reader room to tie themselves to their own tracks, yet all the while you get this feeling he is standing right behind you, his lyrical prose threatening a nudge, maybe even a push ..not with both hands lest a complete fall shove you into the obvious, maybe just a finger or two, just enough to make sure you’ve been moved.
Buy a Kindle Now! (Or just check them out.)
Click this link to BackTalk db!
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David Boyne has failed at everything he has tried. He once considered becoming a better person. But when told identity theft was illegal, he abandoned the idea. When not boldly staring into Space, being distracted, or scheming for Total World Domination, he exposes himself in public at DavidBoyne.com and ICouldBeWrongBut.com |
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