Rating: 
Summary: I recommend this book to anyone who wants a good laugh!
Review: I really enjoyed this book because Jean really writes as if he is telling the story to a group of friends. I can almost hear him talking through his words. It was a little difficult to relate to because I grew up in California and none of my grandparents grew up in the US. He makes allusions to items from the Great Depression and the midwest, some of which I had never heard of. On the other hand, his stories are timeless and humorous. Everyone can relate to at least one incident in the book and laughter comes easy when Jean brings these stories to life.
Rating: 
Summary: Recommend This Book
Review: I think this book was really fun to read. The stories were told in a very interesting and humorous style. I especially like the story about prom because I could really relate to it. I could relate to a lot of the stories, and I think that's why I liked the book so much.
Rating: 
Summary: A book that takes you back to those exciting childhood times
Review: I thought that this book was all right, but I think it went into detail a little too much in some of the chapters. It was exciting reading about some of the childhood games that Shepherd wrote about. For example when Ralph and the bully played tops and how Ralph got excited when he got to go fishing with his father.But I also thought that it was kind of boring sometimes because some of the stories weren't that intersting to me at my age(17). I really like the way Shepherd writes though (how he exaggerates).
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Summary: Hilariously funny! You'll laugh until you cry!
Review: If you like the all-time classic "the Christmas Story", you'll love this book. It's a perfect example of classic literature, because one time or another we have all gone through what Jean Shepherd's main character goes through. Wheather it's you first love, the county fair, and annoying little brother, the school bully, or you prom, it's all happened to us at one point in our life or another. This is a true classic that will never die. Shepard keeps you laughing nonstop with his details of the disturbing neighbor and keeps you sitting on the edge of your seat with his details of a Game called 'kill'. This is one book I high recommend if you want to feel like a kid again.
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Summary: Excelsior!, Shep. I Miss You
Review: If you only know Jean Shepherd from the television film that ebodies three or four of his stories (A Christmas Story), you know that his take on youth, the vagaries of circumstance, the whole process of growing up, supporting a family, simply living, is skewed, and occasionally skewered by a delicious sense of humor.
If you were lucky enough to be raised in the Greater New York City Metro area and its suburbs, then you will remember Shep's story telling, nightly, on Radio Station WOR, over whose airwaves he spun tale after tale of Ralphie, Randy, their beleagured parents, Schwartz, Flick, Scut Farkas, and the others who inhabited Depression-era middle America; you know his army experiences; you relived his skirmishes with arrogance and foolishness on the streets of New York City; above all, you knew Shep. And you loved him.His apparently easy off-the-cuff style is, of course, anything but. His written words are fashioned with consummate skill and craft. His intuition into the building of a narrative fictional event is nonpareil. His brilliance with the carefully chosen metaphor, sentence, word, glints off every facet of his gemlike contributions to American letters. He was a terrific writer. It's that simple, but because he did not write gut-squeezing Major Literary Stuff, he will be, unfortunately, forgotten.
But not to his devotees. His stories in 'Wanda Hickey...' will force you to put down the book and laugh long, hard, and uncontrollably. His understanding of the gentleness and fragility of the human spirit comes through his stories like the sweet homey smell of your grandfather's pipe smoke wafting up to your bedroom when you are beginning to dream. Shep makes you appreciate what he was, what you were, what you are just because he chose to be a writer. And yes, when he died a few years ago, I was immeasurably saddened. I was hoping for just one more book, one more story, one more sentence from Jean Shepherd. That's why Wanda Hickey and those who lived in her world, all told about to us from the first person point of Ralphie's view, are so necessary to me, to all of us. Even disaster has its funny and charming moments, so let's not take ourselves too seriously. Shep will never let us forget that. Excelsior! old friend. I'm glad you're still around.
Rating:
Summary: Recommend This Book
Review: It was a great book that people of all ages can relate to. The stories are humorously told, and very enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: It was the summer of 1967, and I was parking cars at a posh L.A. apartment house, waiting to be sent to basic training, then off to Vietnam. About three in the morning, I picked up a Playboy Magazine. Amazingly, it had fallen open to a short story called 'Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories' by Jean Shepherd. It was then, and remains today, the funniest story I have ever read. It's the reigning champ, with warm recollections of Jean's grimy midwestern steel town, his cronies and the biggest night in most of our adolescent lives -- the senior prom. If you've seen or read 'A Christmas Story', you'll enjoy the gradual, precise setup and hilarious payoff of 'Wanda.' I should mention that I write (and read) for a living in the automotive magazine business.
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Summary: My first night with Wanda...
Review: It was the summer of 1967, and I was parking cars at a posh L.A. apartment house, waiting to be sent to basic training, then off to Vietnam. About three in the morning, I picked up a Playboy Magazine. Amazingly, it had fallen open to a short story called 'Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories' by Jean Shepherd. It was then, and remains today, the funniest story I have ever read. It's the reigning champ, with warm recollections of Jean's grimy midwestern steel town, his cronies and the biggest night in most of our adolescent lives -- the senior prom. If you've seen or read 'A Christmas Story', you'll enjoy the gradual, precise setup and hilarious payoff of 'Wanda.' I should mention that I write (and read) for a living in the automotive magazine business.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: It's too bad Jean Shepard is no longer with us. This is one of the funniest and most heartwarming books I've ever read. It contains several short stories about Mr. Shepard's boyhood and youth, and they are absolutely priceless. Buy it and enjoy it!
Rating:
Summary: Talking and Remembering
Review: Jean Shepard contributed to our culture with the stories that resulted in "A Christmas Story." He's hard to dislike, for that work alone.
Here, though, you get more exposure to Jean's other side. He is cynical, and not all that charming about it. He stereotypes, and it reminds us of how we used to be about assuming traits in people based on their race or ethnic origin. He excuses a lot of pretty bad behavior and, worse, expects us to agree with him that it is cute.
Well, that's the bad stuff. The good stuff is that he still has a grasp of American rhythym that's hard to find most places. You will enjoy his fresh view of our experiences, and, if you overlook your potential reactions like the foregoing paragraph describes, you'll hear an authentic descriptive voice which is now gone.
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