“The sport of business is the ultimate competition.”

– Mark Cuban, How to Win at the Sport of Business

I tend to avoid celebrity books, even if they’re about business. Most of them are pretty lame and a little too self congratulatory. I’m not paying $25 to read authors patting themselves on the back. With that said, I’ll snatch up virtually any book if it’s cheap enough. For less than three dollars, I figured that How to Win at the Sport of Business, by Mark Cuban, would be worth a read. “As long as I get one useful thing out of it, the book will pay for itself;” I thought.

It turns out I was wrong. How to Win at the Sport of Business pays for itself many times over. It also gave me a new appreciation for Mark Cuban. Before reading this book, I’d always thought Cuban was kind of dorky. He was on Dancing With The Stars after all. But, by the time I got through the book’s first segment, I had nothing but respect for Cuban.

Almost every single page of How to Win at the Sport of Business contains at least one great quote, and the whole book reads like a massive kick in the pants. I started reading it early Saturday morning, and got so pumped that I spent the entire afternoon hustling and racking up money.

My favorite section of the entire book was the title chapter “The Sport of Business.” It’s quote city with gems like:

“The edge is knowing that when the four girlfriends you had in the past couple years asked you which was more important, them or your business, you gave the right answer.”

and

“The edge is knowing that while everyone else is talking about nonsense like the “will to win” and how they know they can be successful, you are preparing yourself so that you will be successful.”

I really enjoyed How to Win at the Sport of Business and found it to be hugely motivating. If you’re looking for something to read this week, I encourage you to pick up a copy.

“I was terrified of what might happen if I shut my eyes.”

– Matt Forney, Life During Peacetime

I generally hate erotic literature, or, as I like to call it, porn in a book. When women write it, it reads like a goofy Mad Lid of sexual euphemisms. When men write it, it reads like a low budget skin flick written by a guy who typically authors instructional manuals for vehicle maintenance. Erotic literature, more often than not, is unsexy and poorly written.*

When I learned that Matt Forney’s newest work, Life During Peacetime, was a sex story, involving a blog groupie none the less, I scoffed. Based off my past experiences with “erotic” literature, I was prepared to endure the worst: a novelization of “I Just Had Sex.” Fortunately I was dead wrong.

Life During Peacetime isn’t as much a sex story as it is a story with sex in it. It’s a memory. A slice in time. There’s humor, drama, conflict, and some genuine emotion. While there is a decent amount of fornication, the book has a lot more going on.

Initially the plot seems pretty straightforward, a groupie spends the weekend at Matt Forney’s house. Yet, as the action progresses, the plot begins to thicken. Matt’s groupie is a little bit different than what you might expect, she’s a mash-up of batsh*t craziness and small town innocence. As Matt puts it:

“You flew all the way to New York to lose your virginity to me and you think that’ll make you look crazy?”

If you’re looking for a quick and enjoyable read, I encourage you to check out Life During Peacetime. I enjoyed it immensely and think you will too.

* I like to flip through romance novels while waiting in line at the supermarket. Sue me.

“Weren’t you really dreaming of a full-color paperback edition of cartoons about people wondering whether it’s possible to pee in somebody’s butt?”

– English Teacher X

As a fan of cartoons, crude humor, and travel; I was ecstatic to discover Complete Collected Comics by English Teacher X.

I went into the book with the expectation of being simultaneously disgusted and amused. I was not disappointed. Shoe fetishists, bizarre co-workers, Thanksgiving themed pornography, and “gonorrhea of the eyes;” make this book a hilariously entertaining read. There’s even a great joke involving cuisenaire rods and unwanted sexual advances.

Aside from being funny, Complete Collected Comics is also a fascinating read. Spanning over a decade’s worth of material the book chronicles the evolution of X’s cartooning and provides some interesting backstory into his teaching and blogging career:

“I started my own website in 2003. I had a Pentium 1 desktop computer that a student had given me, and most of the original website poured out of me in great violent vomitous red-and-black spurts of unedited typing and hastily-cut together cartoons, between 2003 and 2005.”

If you’re a fan of X’s other work and want some additional laughs, I highly recommend Complete Collected Comics.

“You can’t live off your soul. You can’t pay the rent with your soul. Try it sometime.”

– Charles Bukowski, Hot Water Music

I’m burnt out and coming down from a crazy summer, women who mix Buddhism with Hydrocodone, a stagnate writing career, and a creeping sense of nihilistic despair.

I was feeling alone. Like these problems were unique to me. Then I read Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski. Just like that, my troubles vanished.

Hot Water Music is one of those rare refuges in audacity that manages to withstand the test of time. While it’s filled with toilet humor and sex jokes, it also manages to capture real life experiences and filter them through the lens of fiction. I read a great article about Bukowski, claiming that almost all his work is actually nonfiction. I believe it.

Reading Hot Water Music was a lot like conversing with someone who’s either incredibly brilliant or seriously insane. The humor is dark and twisted, as an adulterous man gets murdered by his wife Bukowski manages to sneak in a fart joke. Nothing is sacred, be it feminists, Ronald Reagan, book publishers, or Trueman Capote. Every other sentence contains swear words, or graphic descriptions of bodily functions.

The least offensive portion of the book I felt like posting about comes from an exchange between Bukowski’s thinly veiled alter ego and a doctor treating his lacerated genitals:

“I knew a girl in a small town. She was in her early teens and she was playing around with a coke bottle. She got it stuck up there and couldn’t get it out. She had to go to the doctor. You know how small towns are. The word got out. Her whole life was ruined. She was shunned. Nobody would touch her. The most beautiful girl in town. She finally married a midget in a wheelchair who had some kind of palsy.”

I thoroughly enjoyed Hot Water Music and am going to pick up some more Bukowski later this week. If you’re a fan of artists like Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Hunter S. Thompson, or Matt Parker and Trey Stone; you’ll enjoy this book.