Simon Says...

I don't really like nonfiction. I'm not gonna lie, I think it's really boring about 95% of the time. Now, On Writing, that was a great book. Not being sarcastic. If Mr. Logsdon hadn't said Stephen King, I definitely would have chosen him as my favorite, because that guy is great.
But I also really like this guy, Simon Rich. He's hilarious. HILARIOUS. I don't really know if you'd consider him a real nonfiction writer, but he doesn't write actual fiction/novel type writing either. I remember the first time I read some of Rich's stuff. Elina actually had to do a commentary or something--for this blog, actually!--and she just brought a couple books home from the library, two of them being Free Range Chickens and Ant Farm: and Other Desperate Situations, both by Simon Rich, and the books were like little collections of anecdotes that Rich had created to teach people about life and circumstances in life, etc.
I just could not stop laughing at the stories. Rich's style is very sarcastic and very informal. He takes historic events and symbols and gives them a new, kind of ironic life. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but I mean it like this: Rich portrays Batman complaining to the mayor of Gotham City that the prison is shoddy and should be paid for by the budget for the city's symphonic orchestra; or how to save millions of people, a man goes back in time to kill Hitler while he's still young, but ends up getting run out of town for killing a baby. "...But it's Hitler!" I think I like him so much because he's so much younger than a lot of other writers, and he's more in tune with my generation's humor; I think his writing is a little more related to me.
Not only is Rich an amazing writer, I also admire all that he's accomplished. He's one of the youngest writers to be hired by Saturday Night Live, he's an alumnus of Harvard University (and he was the president of the Harvard Lampoon,) and I am just counting down the days until his third book comes out, (due in late November!)