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    Drink, Play, F@#k: One Man's Search for Anything Across Ireland, Las Vegas, and Thailand by Andrew Gottlieb

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    Details from Seller

    • ISBN: 0802170528
    • Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
    • Pub. Date: February 2009
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    Comments from the Seller: BRAND NEW

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    Synopsis

    In Drink, Play, F@#k Bob Sullivan, a jilted husband, sets off to explore the world, experience a meaningful connection with the divine, and rediscover his passion. His travels lead him from his home in New York City to a drinking bender across Ireland, through the glitz and glamour that is Las Vegas, and to the hedonistic pleasure palaces of Thailand. After a lifetime of playing it safe, Mr. Sullivan finally follows his heart and lives out everyone's deepest fantasies. For who among us hasn't dreamed of standing stark naked, head upturned, and mouth agape beneath a cascading torrent of Guinness Stout? What could be more exhilarating than losing every penny you have because Charlie Weiss went for a meaningless last-second field goal? And what sensate creature could ever doubt that the greatest pleasure known to man can be found in a leaky bamboo shack filled with glassy-eyed, bruised Asian hookers? Bob Sullivan has a lot to teach us about life. Let's just pray we have the wisdom to put aside our preconceptions and listen. Because what Bob Sullivan finds isn't at all what he expected.

    Publishers Weekly

    As an impudent retort to Elizabeth Gilbert's best-selling Eat Pray Love, the book that swept book clubs and bestseller charts throughout 2006, this comic travelogue is nothing if not a conversation starter. Fortunately, it's also a dizzyingly fun parody that apes Gilbert in its premise (Ireland, Las Vegas and Thailand replace Gilbert's post-divorce destinations, Italy, India and Indonesia) and its particulars, mirroring plot developments and platitudes line by line (where Eat Pray Love opens with its protagonist contemplating a kiss with an Italian named Giovanni, Gottlieb starts moments from a liplock between his narrator, divorcee Bob Sullivan, and Giovanna. That kind of parody can wear over pages, but Gottlieb's protagonist is a likable and entertaining enough rascal to carry the story and, with the help of a happy-go-lucky personal trainer named Rick, do some good-humored philosophizing on the gender-trumping predicament of heart-break. Still, anyone who has suspected that boys have a bit more fun than girls will find their theories confirmed, as Gottlieb packs in just as much adventure as Gilbert, with a quarter of the self-seriousness.
    Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

    Customer Reviews

    Cleverly devised and very readableby Marks_girl

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    04/28/2009: My personal experiences of late allowed this book to touch a nerve with me - Gottlieb manages to convey a sense of floundering despair without ever coming across as maudlin or pitiable. His stoic acceptance of life after divorce was inspiring. In particular, the reactions of others to his coping mechanisms spoke volumes and were unfortunately all too easy to believe. The humor was smooth, dry, and often unexpectedly brilliant. A great, fun read with just enough of a message to make it memorable.

    I Also Recommend: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

    CLEVER - HONEST - FUNNY - REALby FreyaSS

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    04/24/2009: Okay - so maybe this book isn't really balanced if read in isolation but I'd just finished the Italian section of Eat Pray Love and thought it just didn't ring true. A self obsessed, self interested, vain New York woman moaning about her husband and while her story didn't ring true I also realised the dates of her marriage ending and new lover arriving didn't match up with how she'd related the order of events - nor did her spending. Gilbert came across as another obnoxious Yank woman author on some ingenuous self discovery path. I was ready to give up. I so wanted to read the male side of the story and by sheer luck found Drink Play F@#k the next day - thank God.

    What fun. I finished the books by reading them concurrently which made it even more fun. Reading her (at that stage unchallenged) selfish moans then reading his side. Gottlieb's version comes across as so much more realistic than his wife's selfish moans and rants. His book is honest, revealing and balances his wife's appallingingly self interested version(no great wonder that this marriage broke down - how on earth did he put up with her for so long?). 'Bob's' journey is a much more humanly honest reflection of a wrenching marriage break up. The betrayal, dishonesty and confusion are so much more real and believable from his perspective. Even his guru has more integrity than hers. His exes pure self interest and manipulation is replaced by real human confusion on being cheated on - emotionally, physically and financially. Thanks to Andrew Gottlieb. I had no idea you'd written this book and I'm grateful to you. I so hope you make millions out of the movie and laugh all the way to the bank in Gilbert's face of course.

    The only thing Gilbert deserves credit for is writing such a load of tripe that her husband was prompted to challenge it - well done.


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