Shane M.

If "the Devil is in the details" concerning this book, then the "details" were what kept me turning the pages as I continued to read this book in the first place.

The "afterlife" as we know it isn't at all what anyone has been taught. Such an "afterlife" as we might experience it more than overwhemingly ought parallel what happens to the protagonist of this novel. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you really want to live to be 100, you might altogether simply not need to read this book to accomplish said task, if and when such a task proves to be your overriding goat.

With the publicatiion of this book, I realize after some forty years that I didn't think Dave Berry's columns were at all funny, even though the appeared in Sunday's PARADE newspaper 'zine, along with Weekly reserved space for such hilarity in the Denver Post and/or Rocky Mountain News, at least until RMN folded.

Both Dave Berry and David Sedaris write with both equal parts of alacrity and aplomb.

Really one eye-opener and head–scratcher of a book, seeing as David "Moses" Berg is literally a blood relative of the author as her grandfather.

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The COG's (Children of God) new religious movement was introduced in the 1970's as an offshoot of the California centered "Jesus People Movement," but was far more radicalized for the time and place of origin where and when this new belief system was introduced.

Though no longer a hotbed of controversy in 2023, the group was once a prominent fixture on late night night television shows with the likes of (the now deceased) Barbara Walters, Hugh Downs, and 20/20 on the ABC television network.

At one time all the literature in association with the Children of God. (today simply regarded and known as "The Family," even following the demise and passIng of David "Moses" Berg as the original founder and. lifetime leader of this group) was uploaded in the form of the now so-called "Kult Komiks" for any and all individuals to read and simultaneously download by a group or groups of disgruntled and former members of "The Family."

Once widely known for casual and open policies on both polyamory and indiscreet behavior in sexual relations, "The Family" as an example of a "communal, Christ-centered, and Bible-based "Christian" cult or other New Religious Movement has all but disappeared.

In this volume, Bukowski claims that, "it took me 15 years to humanize poetry but it’s going to take more than me to humanize humanity." Night time seems the right time for any and all of these poems as the overwhelming thematic impetus overlaying the current inspiration and introspection found in this all-encompassing work.

Regardless of how much he never gave a shit about what people thought about him, I’m pretty sure that every human being has some level of self-preservation. There’s a natural instinct not to share certain things because you know that it could change the way people look at you. That’s why I feel like this book – and some of his other posthumous work – is somehow more honest than most of his other writing. This collection contains a soul of its own, wizened and wretched, his own womanizing not withstanding. The poems somehow seem to go together to create a new cohesive whole that’s bigger than its parts, which gives it an edge over other collections.

At the very least these poems appear to be "invitingly open" on the surface (or at least as an 'initial' or 'precursory' read for many of those unfamiliar with Bukowski's work) if not all together (or altogether) openly inviting as a whole.

With Bukowski's musings on end-of-life obsessions in this collection, his wisdom on the subject remains both invitingly open as well as openly inviting, but this sort of nihilism and death-obsessed simplicity is all-permeating.

I like Bukowski. I like his blunt honesty. I like how he manages to give a damn and not give a damn at the same time. I like how easy it is, how natural it feels. It's very human poetry. It isn't posed or faked, it isn't trying to drown itself in pity, misery or self-loathing. There's a feeling of tender detachment in it. Like he's looking back on it.

An impeccable & incontrivertably inspiring biographical account of all that which the members of the Kennedy family both were & are, inseperably linked through all the turmoil, tragedy, and ultimate triumph of the American people.