Toolkit in Paradise: The Self-Helpless Guide to a Decade of American Wit and Wisdom

Toolkit in Paradise: The Self-Helpless Guide to a Decade of American Wit and Wisdom
B. Elwin Sherman
Publish America
ISBN: 1-4241-0511-0
Humor
Reviewed by Dr. Tami Brady

Toolkit in Paradise: The Self-Helpless Guide to a Decade of American Wit and Wisdom takes a humorous, somewhat cynical look at life in the modern world. The author calls himself an ultracrepidarian, a person out of his or her element. Much of his stories are based upon this viewpoint as the author looks at a particular situation as only an outsider can do. In doing so, he points out the silliness of the moment or a pattern of behavior that we’d never recognize (or rather admit to participating in). The results are often comical and always thought provoking.
Though this book is aimed primarily at the Baby Boomer generation, I believe that almost everyone will enjoy this book. The humor is smart often catching the reader off guard. There are so many great stories, lists, and one liners that the reader will find him or her self telling all his or her friends.
Some of my favorites include:
The ten-point checklist designed to restore order to the baby and hula boomer and hooper sides of our nature that yearns for simplicity, love and peace.
“If I am an agnostic male chin-nicker, I can live in the world with bearded female Baptists, as long as they don’t hide my razors in their Bibles. Let me sing the clean-shaven body electric, and you can holy-roll your whiskers ’til the cows come home. There’s room for all.”
The two stages of male hormones.
The kiss.