Rating: 
Summary: BALSAMIC NIGHTMARES
Review: Well I think you obviously have to compare this book to any P.J. O'Rourke book, and the difference is night and day. While Mr. Queennan drones on and on with inane dribble trying very hard to be funny, Mr. O'Rouke is somehow very funny without trying so hard.This is at best a good magazine article. On page 30 Mr. Queenan Self-reinvention paragraph makes no sense. Where was the editor? He has the nerve to say Dennis Miller is not funny. Mr. Queenan 'A short but Self-Important History'is not short enough.
Rating: 
Summary: This guy is smart -- in every sense of the word.
Review: Queenan has written an absolute masterpiece here -- and I admit that since I am a Boomer, I may be overstating. (As Joe says -- and I readily acknowledge -- everything we like is ultimate, cosmic and mega-unforgettable.) But 'Basalmic Dreams' is as funny, and erudite, and sweetly nasty book as I've read since... since... since 'Mark Twain's Speeches.' And Joe and Sam do have a lot in common. Neither is afraid of skewering the sacred cows of his day -- and not only skewering them, but marinating them, grilling them over an open spit and serving them up with plenty of hot 'n' spicy barbecue sauce as well. And who could *possibly* deserve such treatment more than the insufferable, self-congratulatory, navel-gazing Boomers, of whom, as I say, I freely admit I am one. Which brings me to the reviewers hereabouts who *didn't* like this book. Methinks they don't like the feel of a hot shishkabob fork piercing their burgeoning patoots. Truth hurts, doesn't it people. Buy this book, and laugh yourself silly.
Rating:
Summary: Joe Queenan At His Icon-Toppling Best
Review: Joe Queenan has that rare gift: the ability to be both a social critic and a very funny writer. Here he puts his enormous talent to work in criticizing the Baby Boom Generation. His observations are spot on -- and they will make you laugh out loud. Ironically, one his most telling observation of the Baby Boomers is that they take themselves way too seriously, a fact that can be aptly seen by the number of negative reviews posted here. I'm sure many of these reviewers are descendants of the people who thought Jonathan Swift actually advocated the eating of Irish children. Ignore the self-righteous reviewers and buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: "I'm not prejudiced, I just hate everybody." - W.C. Fields
Review: I read this book after hearing a short interview with Joe Queenan concerning the huge bath many baby boomers had taken in their 401K's and the (related) stock deflation. Queenan almost bubbled with glee as he sneered at those who had planned to retire in Tuscany, but might have to settle for Yugoslavia. Not knowing anyone who had either of these plans, I wondered at the high octane crowd this guy must run with. I also wondered with what accent he spoke. After reading the book, I can only guess it's neo-American arrogant snob. This book is like hearing the same ethnic joke again and again. In fact, some lines seem to be cut and paste, as he issues a disclaimer (at least three times in different chapters) that the baby boomers weren't all that bad because they had to their credit: the Freedom Riders, Woodstock, Four Dead in Ohio, driving Nixon from office, and Jon Voigt in Midnight Cowboy. From this desultory list, it all presumably goes downhill. He has particular venom for Andrew Lloyd Weber, Billy Joel, women who wear overalls, and the state of Vermont. He calls the 1971 release of Carole King's "Tapestry" album the low point of the century. He even decides to take liberty with the definition of "baby boomer" and add Tom Brokaw to his cesspool of lost souls. He then hammers Brokaw's
'greatest generation', because they couldn't have been all that great to have raised the boomers. To Queenan's credit, there is a lot of interesting history here - Joe is no slouch.
But what are these sins that bear such scorn? A whole lot of it comes down to fashion and music. Early on, Queenan describes almost to the thread what some middle aged man was wearing as he sat by the road in the Pacific Northwest. The description was so precise, yet detatched, that I began to wonder if the fabric wove its way out of Joe's head instead of thru his eyes. More fashion observations follow, each with expected disdain from the reader. In going over the cover notes, I discovered that Queenan was an editor for GQ magazine, and the fog lifted a bit. In an article about an expensive trendy leather purse, Holly Peterson wrote that Park Avenue is like a seventh grade cafeteria with money. This is the kind of attitude Queenan seems to have. He even exhorts his fourteen year old son to use a baseball bat to clobber and kill anybody who mentioned, at his funeral, any of a laundry list of Queenan's irritants. In fact, the one segment of baby boomers he appears to ignore is the Vietnam veterans, though you could only imagine their fashion faux pas. I hope that is out of respect, but it could be just an inadvertant editorial omission. There are some interesting historical tidbits about the sixties and seventies, as well as a fine understanding of world history. I'm sorry, Joe, but I'm limited by the History Channel to only boomer subjects of self-absorption. Not long after 9-11, a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show wanted to discuss Jerry Falwell's assertion that God had lifted the curtain of protection from the U.S. in retalitation for our acceptance of homosexuality and abortion. Rush doesn't really like to get into religious issues, and he cut off the conversation by saying that if the buildings had been filled with liberals, feminists and the like, he might buy into it. Well, reading the list of victims, you see a large proportion of baby boomers. And it seems that the DC sniper hit a lot of boomers, too. Joe might not see that as Tuscany's loss.
I wonder if we might better understand Queenan's venom when, at the end of the second chapter he describes a visit to a dying friend: "A couple them were hugging people. A couple of them were aging flower children. "I have nothing against hugging per se, but I never hug strangers, because a hug implies an intimacy that we could not possibly share. Moreover, flower children never let me touch them when they were young and nubile, so why should I hug them now that they are old and fat?" - "Balsamic Dreams" p. 50 I'm not real big on hugging strangers, either, but I got news for you, Joe. The young and nubile still avoid the arrogant and snobby, unless, maybe, properly compensated.
Rating:
Summary: Right On Joe!
Review: I saw a program on C-SPAN 2 that featured the author giving a talk about this book. I am in the middle of reading it at the moment and have found it to be a an enjoyable read. If nothing else, this book points out all the flaws of the Baby Boom generation, along with all the problems they have caused and the incredibly idiotic and laughable lifestyles and attitudes they have. As a card-carrying member of Generation X, I could not agree more with the ideas put forth in this book. Those in the Greatest Generation deserve all the recognition they have recently received, while I find some measure of hope in the work done by Generation X and those coming after it. But the Baby Boomers? On the whole, one big disappointing generation.
Rating: 
Summary: Relax Joe.
Review: Do you think this guy has ever just had a cold one at the corner bar, put a quarter in the juke box and watched a football game on a saturday afternoon? I doubt it. If he did, he would spend 15 minutes explaining his beer choice in terms of a generational context of why imports are popular, then spend the next half hour on why he played certain songs, and basically just drive everybody in the place crazy. Memo to Joe : relax and start living - it's actually can be pretty fun when everything doesn't have to mean something.
Rating:
Summary: a funny, yet severely disjointed social diatribe
Review: I have read Joe Queenan's hilarious articles in GQ Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, and saw him present his latest book on C-SPAN2's "Book TV," which led me to check it out at the library. What I found between the covers was an attention-starved array of random critiques (random, yet viciously funny) about my preceding generation, the Baby Boomers. Contemporary society has given Mr. Queenan plenty of targets to fire at, and he is as wicked and learned in his attacks as Dennis Miller is with his signature commentary ("rants") on world events. Queenan's central assertion is that the Boomers had essentially sold out on their Bohemian countercultural beginnings as soon as the income started rolling in, leading them to forsake originality for a herd-mentality of materialism cloaked in self-congratulatory "meaningfulness." Insofar as I believe Queenan has captured the nature of the suburbanites' social problems here, this book has perspicacious novelty above and beyond that typically found in the plethora of related magazine articles out there (in the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, the New Republic, Esquire, etc.). However, his ascerbic critique of trends in support of his thesis are charged more with scathing vitriol than with careful explication. He jumps from topic to topic without any consideration of continuity so often that his book reads as if he is just answering baited questions asked by some invisible talk show host. I was looking for a fuller argument here than what is provided. I would recommend that the reader first try David Brooks's "Bobos in Paradise" for a better explanation of the shallowness of Baby Boomers before proceeding to Queenan's work, which does a better job with selective (albeit creative) lambasting than with articulation.
Rating: 
Summary: Save your $$ and check it out from the library
Review: The dust cover of this book quotes one reviewer as
saying "HL Mencken is smiling." That he may be, but I
am not sure if I want HL Mencken in my audience,
smiling away. Granted, Queenan is less vitriolic and
hateful than Mencken (who isn't?), but he is equal
parts negative and tiresome and pompous. The first ten
pages or so of his book are mildly amusing, but after
that it becomes an ordeal. Once he makes his
basic point, Queenan has nowhere to go. His tome reads
like a magazine article that grew into a book,
doubtless with nudging from his publisher, since
publishers are actually always desperate for something
to publish. This is satire, but is it funny? And is it
even good satire? Criticizing Boomers for being
self-centered and materialistic is like shooting fish
in a barrel. I am not a Boomer (I miss Queenan's
magical date cutoff by four years, drat!), but my
older sisters are, and I was born to "Greatest
Generation" parents, so I grew up surrounded by Boomer siblings and cousins. Boomers are, surprise, surprise, a
lot like their parents: hard-working but materialistic, narcissistic,
cultural Philistines whose greatest accomplishments
were practical, not philosophical. The fact that one
group liked the Beatles while the other liked Sinatra
is hardly revealing. So the big difference is . . ?? I
guess I wanted him to find something previously unseen
about Boomers. He categorically condemns some of their
choices but gives no reason why they are condemnable.
That's bad writing because it's lazy. If Queenan thinks Jesus Christ Superstar was bad musical
theatre (a debatable point and one which he does NOT explain),
then he has certainly missed such Rogers and Hammerstein
gems like Flower Drum Song. Come on, musical theatre has always
been corny, campy, and overdone-give us something
better than that to roast. And finally, the worst he can say
about Boomers is that they invented soft rock? Huh? Criticizing a group of people because they bought Carole King albums seems,
well, out of touch with reality. Kind of like a Hughes
Rudd commentary. Remember him?
What about EST or Pyramid Power, or even Jimmy Carter,
whom Queenan mentions but does not develop. He also
misses a chance to skewer Boomers who try to
enjoy Jazz though they secretly hate it. Perhaps a rewrite is in order. But maybe
the real problem is that the object of his derision,
while being flawed and overdone, is not deserving of
an entire book and isn't all that funny, just like the
author himself. In that sense, Queenan is a true
Boomer.
Rating:
Summary: I expected a funnier version
Review: Joe Queenan's wit descends all too frequently into wise-guy cracks, and, although his book will make you smile, it quickly grows tiring. While even some of his wise-guy observations are right on target, I expected a more generous take of our shared generation. Let me say in defense of his carping view of our "self-importance", that we baby boomers are the largest, best educated generation in American history---and thus the most competitive, although many of us found that those born in the decade ahead of us had taken the most of the slots in science, in academia, and in various other fields.
Rating:
Summary: Very Funny
Review: "Balsamic Dreams," is a long rant about an easy target that takes about an hour and a half to read, and pays off with a few good laughs, and quite a few grins of recognition. I just wish he'd skewered the nature lover in his SUV, or the soccer mom with her "These colors don't run" bumper sticker. Mr. Queenan is a clever writer. His book is good for a laugh. Wait for the remainders.
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