Not So Funny When It Happened: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (Travelers' Tales Guides)

by Tim Cahill

Release Date: 30 November, 2000

Edition: Paperback

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But funny to read

This book is just what it sounds like - brief stories of travel disasters. The authors range from the usual suspects (travel writers like Bill Bryson) to humorists (Dave Barry) to other well-known authors (Anne Lamott) to a few I'd never heard of but will look into now (Nigel Barlow and Luis Alberto Urrea). The stories were mostly credible and all pretty funny when you got past cringing. I also really like the interpositioning of comics and short shorts. If there's another installment, I'll definitely read it. My only negative comment is that it seemed the funniest pieces were at the front, or maybe one should just read it in small doses.

Not So Funny When You Read It

Unfortunately, _Not So Funny_ is really not that humorous. Given the contributing authors (including Dave Barry, Douglas Adams, Anne Lamott, and, of course, Tim Cahill) one would expect this collection to have you rolling in the aisles. But it simply doesn't work. The snippets may have fit very well in their original publications, but the misadventures in _Not So Funny_ are just not surprising or amusing enough as stand-alones.

I read this book while on an extremely long flight to South Africa. As such, it was bearable, but the stories shared by my co-passengers were considerably more appealing. Stick to Cahill's earlier works and avoid this haphazard assortment.