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Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of The Planet Earth

The Onion
Little, Brown and Company (2007)
ISBN 9780316018425
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (11/08)

“Our Dumb World” is The Onion’s “Atlas of the Planet Earth” and definitely will not disappoint!  Anyone who is familiar with and appreciates the humor of The Onion will enjoy reading this book!  I am sure that to some people the way that some of the events and people are made light of in this publication may seem insensitive and cruel but that is the type of humor that The Onion uses.  If you easily offended or sensitive to things like that then this is not the book for you.  You will not find any political-correctness in this book!

“Our Dumb World” starts out with a “How to Use This Atlas” section which is as funny as the book itself!  My favorite part of this introduction is “A Note to Barnes & Noble Browsers” which begins with “What do you think you’re doing?  Seriously, what does this look like to you?  Some kind of library?  Did you really think that you could just come in here and spend the afternoon reading the book for free?  The line to pay is over that way, buddy.  What’s that?  Just trying to decide whether or not you want to buy the book?  You don’t think we’re really that stupid, do you?” (p. 004)  The humor takes off from there and holds strong throughout the rest of the book that focuses on every region of the world. 

The remaining part of the book is divided into seven sections:  North America, South America, Africa, The Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.  Although I enjoyed the book in its entirety, I would have to say that my favorite part was the section on North America just because obviously from living here I have more familiarity with the area and the things that were being poked fun at.  From the history timeline informing us that in 1980 “A Plague of Pac-Man Fever ravages the U.S. Treasury’s quarters supply” (p.12) to the individual features making fun of different aspects and occurrences in each state this section will absolutely have you laughing out loud!  I haven’t read a book this funny in some time!

    

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