Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living Author: Nick Offerman | Language: English | ISBN:
B00C1N5WRU | Format: PDF
Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living Description
Parks and Recreation actor Nick Offerman shares his humorous fulminations on life, manliness, meat, and much more in his first book. Growing a perfect moustache, grilling red meat, wooing a woman—who better to deliver this tutelage than the always charming, always manly Nick Offerman, best known as
Parks and Recreation’s Ron Swanson? Combining his trademark comic voice and very real expertise in woodworking—he runs his own woodshop—
Paddle Your Own Canoe features tales from Offerman’s childhood in small-town Minooka, Illinois—“I grew up literally in the middle of a cornfield”—to his theater days in Chicago, beginnings as a carpenter/actor and the hilarious and magnificent seduction of his now-wife Megan Mullally. It also offers hard-bitten battle strategies in the arenas of manliness, love, style, religion, woodworking, and outdoor recreation, among many other savory entrees.
A mix of amusing anecdotes, opinionated lessons and rants, sprinkled with offbeat gaiety,
Paddle Your Own Canoe will not only tickle readers pink but may also rouse them to put down their smart phones, study a few sycamore leaves, and maybe even hand craft (and paddle) their own canoes.
- File Size: 2262 KB
- Print Length: 353 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 052595421X
- Publisher: Dutton Adult (October 1, 2013)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00C1N5WRU
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,736 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Gender Studies - #7
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Gender Studies > Men - #18
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Essays
- #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Gender Studies - #7
in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Gender Studies > Men - #18
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Essays
As soon as I saw this book was available I purchased it for my Kindle and read it that same evening. As a long time fan of Parks and Rec as well as Offerman's other work, I was really excited. I know that Ron Swanson is a fictional character, but one of the things that sets the charachter apart is how little Offerman has to "act" to be believed. As a trip to the Offerman Woodshop website will show you, he truly is passionate about some of the same things that Ron Swanson espouses. He also has a killer 'stache. That's sadly where the similarities end.
(SPOILER ALERT: I reflect on things I didn't like in the text, with minor specifics. Proceed with caution if you want to be suprised by the tale of his life)
I didn't expect a book "by Ron Swanson" but the only amusing parts of this work are written in the spirit of the character. I laughed out loud several times only to realize it was Mr. Offerman "taking his character's voice" briefly. He then promplty rebukes the sentiment that was amusing in the first place. Offerman takes great pains to point out that he is not the source for Ron Swanson, and is even somewhat self referential about why anyone would find his real story compelling. He's right there, as I struggled through several chapters that only served the purpose of recounting his experiences with high school girls. These stories are neither unique nor meaningful, in fact they're mostly boring. Awkward teenage romance has been mined pretty well, Offerman strikes nothing new here.
Perhaps the greatest dissapointment was the sheer amount of time spent on opinions. I'm inclined to accept Mr. Offerman's opinion on things he likely knows a great deal about, like growing a mustache or using a hand plane.
I don't remember where I first heard about this book, but I recall someone telling me it sounded like the kind of thing I wound enjoy and - based on the title - I agreed. I'm interested in things like being independent and self-sufficient and pragmatic and all of those things seem to be summed up in that title. I should also add that I don't watch a lot of TV and so didn't have the slightest idea who Nick Offerman or Ron Swanson are.
What this book should have been called is "Pat Yourself On The Back" because that's mostly what it is - Nick Offerman talking about how lucky he is and how well he's doing and how even when he wasn't doing well he was doing well and how even the mischief he got into was better than yours. I actually listened to the book during my commute and after reading things Offerman seemed to find funny (he reads it himself) he even stops to chuckle at his own amusing anecdotes, which made me cringe every time.
I did get a couple laughs out of it - mostly at the way some things were phrased than out of any of the actual content of the stories in it. I guess I thought this would be more philosophical and less biographical - but in a nutshell, that's what it is. Nick Offerman's Biography. The thing is - I don't really give a crap about Nick Offerman and if it was titled "Nick Offerman's Biography" I wouldn't have purchase it and having purchased it and listened to it, I don't feel any differently about that.
The last - oh, let's say 1/3 of the book - is B.O.R.I.N.G. I don't care how Nick met his wife or what a good interior decorator she is. I don't care about Courtney Valenti or how sweet "Sandy" Bullock is in real life. I don't really care for a roll call of people Mr.
Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living Preview
Link
Please Wait...