Cynic's Dictionary

Rating:
Summary: A great buy for anyone
Review: A look at great thoughts, quotes, and definitions for almost everything under the sun. A humorous look at everyday life from a perspective that we can all relate to.

Rating:
Summary: Definitions for the cynical at heart
Review: Does anyone take EVERYTHING at face value? Certainly many of the great wits of history didn't. And their words on everything (religion, sex, history, literature) are compiled neatly by subject, for reference by the incurably cynical (or people with GREAT senses of humor).

Editor Aubrey Dillon-Malone compiles quotes from everyone from Oscar Wilde to George Bernard Shaw, Ian Fleming to Zsa Zsa Gabor. The country is "a kind of rural grave." Democracy is "a system in which you say what you like and do what you're told." A gourmet is "a glutton with brains." And so on, and so forth, from "ability" to "zoo."

Dillon-Malone does a pretty fair job of collecting other people's cynical quotes and organizing them into the "Cynic's Dictionary." This thick little book is a bit like Ambrose Bierce's classic "Devil's Dictionary," only less biting. Plenty of famous wits like George Bernard Shaw (who pops up frequently), Oscar Wilde (ditto), and Shakespeare, and Dillon-Malone knows just where to put them.

Some of the quotes, however, aren't as cynical or witty as Dillon-Malone would clearly like them to be. And at times it feels like he is stretching his material thin. He cobbles together quotes from just about everywhere; for example, Calvin Klein's line on makeup ("what it takes to look natural") is not witty, merely dumb. But he isn't snobby about garnering his nuggets of wit.

"The Cynic's Dictionary" is an amusing light read with an acidic edge. Just don't expect anything that hasn't been said before, and was funniest the first time.

Rating:
Summary: WEAK
Review: Rick Bayan's "The Cynic's Dictionary" (which is now out of print, but can still be found online at his site or on eBay every now and then) is far superior to this.

Rating:
Summary: WEAK
Review: Rick Bayan's "The Cynic's Dictionary" (which is now out of print, but can still be found online at his site or on eBay every now and then) is far superior to this.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, but there's a better one out there
Review: This "Cynnic's Dictionary" is pretty good, but it's not a patch another book which shares its' same name, "The Cynic's Dictionary" by Rick Bayan (Quill, 1994), which is nothing less than brilliant.

Rating:
Summary: Close - but no cigar
Review: This is a very enjoyable (witty and fun) collection and in a way I agree with all of the reviewers: It's good but could be better. (Bayan's book is better) And in that way, it can be annoying at times. Some of his "definitions" are absolutely hilarious but others are somewhat lame.

It's one of those books that you tend to wish you had written (compiled) yourself and done a better job of searching and editing. But still, I get a kick out of it and am glad I have it for "reference". Cynics and curmudgeons who still have a few discretionary dollars to spend might want to add this volume to their "I know what's REALLY going on/underneath the spin" collection. NOTE TO WRITERS: this book will challenge you to come up with your own, better (obviously) definitions...

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece for Cynics and friends of cynics everywhere!
Review: What a witty piece of work. Every cynic should have one!

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece for Cynics and friends of cynics everywhere!
Review: What a witty piece of work. Every cynic should have one!