Rating: 
Summary: Meet a brand-new day.
Review: I imagine many people have lifted "The Boomer Bible" off a bookstore shelf, given it a cursory flip-through, thought "weird", and put it right back. That's what I did -- but fortunately, a couple months later my mom saw it in the store while Christmas shopping and decided it would be a good gift for a weird kid. That was over a decade ago, and I still return to it regularly... sometimes for entertainment, sometimes for inspiration, and sometimes to dig for hidden treasure.TBB can be read linearly, from front to back, just like any other book, and that alone is worth the price of admission for its immense variety of jokes, memorable turns of phrase, and observations about the often-unacknowledged dogma that permeates the modern mind. The "Past Testament" takes us through the history of the world and the bases of the "Baby Boomer" worldview; the "Present Testament" relates the story of Harry, a man of wealth and taste who inspires the Boomers to do all kinds of fun things; the "Book of Harrier Brayer" codifies the Boomer Way into a secular religion; and finally, a "Punk Testament" tells the story of some nobodies who react to the Boomer Way with crazy ideas. When you've finished reading "The Boomer Bible", though, you've only finished reading it one way. There's a lot more to it, and if you enjoy puzzles, "The Boomer Bible" has countless hours of brain-teasers in store. (I should emphasize, though, that the book stands just fine on the merits of linear reading alone -- in my case, I had hardly any idea of the iceberg under the surface until I found discussions of TBB on the Internet, long after it had become my favorite book.) The only reservation I have about recommending "The Boomer Bible" is that it might give some readers dangerous ideas. If you apply the Boomer Way properly this shouldn't be a problem, but if you fail to do so, don't blame me.
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Summary: Outstanding!!!!!
Review: I laughed until I cried. It is the BEST. I've bought several copies for friends and they love it, too! The Book of Brayers is my favorite.
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Summary: Best book ever. Laird is a genius
Review: I read the Boomer Bible 5 years ago. At first I thought it was just a humor book. It's sold in the humor section of book stores. The book is indeed hilarious. But it's also a profound and frightening journey into our modern world. Virtually every subject from the beggining of time is touched upon and we learn from Laird's distinctive style of writing just how we got into this modern mess we're in. After reading the censored chapter (where some harrier has crossed out all the lines they don't want you to read-a very clever device), I felt profoundly depressed. I believed I was a harrier and that there was no hope. Laird's satire really hit home. But the punk testament pulled me right out of the myre and gave me new hope. Laird is a genius, the book is hilarious and brilliant. At first you hear of Harry and you are excited and amused by his teachings. You want to believe in the things he believes in. He speaks for you, but slowly you learn that holding on to those beliefs and not questioning them are where we've gone terribly wrong. When I started the book, I was indeed a Harrier, after reading it, I'm a punk with an axe to grind. I've bought at least 15 copies of this book as gifts for friends. I think it's one of the most importants book ever written. It should be read and studied by everyone.
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Summary: Simply brilliant and mind-boggling.
Review: I received it as a gift from my brother when it was first released. I was awed and amazed by it's insight into our modern culture. But, the thing that amazed me the most was the hundreds of cross-references in the columns. An incredible book to read through once and then read again in a random manner by skipping through the references.
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Summary: Greatest Book Ever Written
Review: I stumbled upon this tome quite by accident. I saw it sitting on my moms nightstand and was intrigued by the hologram on the cover. By the middle of that afternoon I had realized that in my hands was probably the funniest, most intriguing, most disturbing, and overall, the greatest book ever written. Laird has managed to sum up thousands of years of history into the first third of the book. He then makes you agree and soon vehemently detest the ways of Harry. In the Punk Testament, he gives you hope and the way out of the Harrier mess the world is today.
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Summary: Below the surface
Review: I think that the prior reviewers missed the deeper point that this book was trying to make, beyond satire. On the surface it is a satire of christianity but it is actually a very popular christian book. All the self-references aren't just there for looks, but have meaning if you follow them. Like they reveal that the satirical part of the book is intended to create a picture of the modern secular intellectual mind and later to show why it is inferior to hope and faith (because they can't coexist for some reason).
It is not really a parody of christianity but is making fun of christianity for being a parody of what it is supposed to be. it is designed to get christian readers upset and show how science and human nature have negated religion, but later on it shows that humans lost hope when they lost religion. The boomers in this book aren't just the baby boomers, they are the generation of the Bomb. The invention of which allegedly proved to everyone that we will all destroy the planet and ourselves one day, and killed our hope. And science had already taught that we are insignificant, and accidental, and so we became apathetic non-thinking people, "Harriers." Harry was following the scientific idea of a deterministic universe to its logical conclusion, which is, exploit others, embrace materialism to create the illusion of satisfaction, and who cares because there is no punishment or responsibility and we're going to nuke ourselves anyway.
I think that non-religious people can get a lot out of the book too. I don't understand why non-theism is regarded as hopeless or soulless. The essential lesson of christianity that this book wants to recreate is the idea that people should be responsible for their actions, and the golden rule. It's making fun of christianity because it is not supposed to be about killing people who don't believe in your god, or believing god doesn't want you to have any fun, and hating people who do, or getting comfort from the thought that your enemies are gonna fry-all the things it has been about historically. It's supposed to be about brotherly love, which is why Philadelphia is the most important city in the book. It's a metaphor for the mental state of tolerance.
These are just my opinions, but I think it is superficial to see it just as a satire. I give it 5 stars because it was really funny and thought provoking on several levels. Strangely, this book's website is run by people who think evolution is exceedingly silly, and charity doesn't exist without gods, and Stanley Kubrik helped NASA stage the moon landing.
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Summary: SomeOfTheMostBeautifulAndImportantWritingInEnglishHerein.
Review: In this gorgeous book, R F Laird accomplishes many miracles, foremost among them an old man is lying on a gurney in a hospital doped up waiting to die and thinking back through his life and questioning his choices, his fate, his disappointments, and at one point his much addled mind grabs hold of first Jesus then Lincoln and makes a glorious amalgam of them in the torque of his heart's strings and the end of his rope and it is as beautiful as any passage written in English. This book was poorly marketed and its literary heights and cerebral depths and perceptual vistas are masked by the cover which is only in the most superficial and banal sense compatible with its content. Buy this book--it is the most important thing you can do if you care about rescuing a book that should never be forgotten from the jaws of potential (likely) obscurity.
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Summary: An viscious romp through the psyche of the 20th century
Review: Laird creates a satire the way Orwell built allegory. You recoil in horror at his blatant accuracy, but must laugh at how preposterous our world has become. If literature provides the most accurate reflection of its time, this witty, scathing commentary will define the last half of the twentieth centur
Rating: 
Summary: The Funniest Sad Book I've Ever Read
Review: Laird has something to say about the human condition - and he says it with a striking amount of style and humor. Copying the format of an actual bible (books divided into chapters and verses, complete with cross-references) the Boomer Bible gives an irreverent and scorching account of every nation's history. The prose favors brevity and hilarity. Very quickly the reader gains the impression that we humans have botched it. From the very beginning we've been nothing but bad news, killing each other with pointed sticks and spending all our time inventing new ways of murdering one another. It's been the same all through the centuries; we're bad, bad, and worse. There's no reason to expect the future will be different, there's no point in changing, so why try? Or so says Harry, the Christ-like effigy that pops up in the "New Testament" portion. The Boomer Bible was poignant, touching, and so funny there were times I had to stop reading just to appreciate it. Praise is cheap, but this truly was an amazing book. Why only 4 stars? The books meant to parallel the prophets of the Old Testament were just plain dry, and I suspect the author might have intended them to be skipped. I slogged my way through much of them hoping for something, but surrounded by the humor and significance of the rest of the book, they were a barren desert. I ended up skipping very many pages, though I hated doing so for fear of missing something. I unconditionally recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Funniest Sad Book I've Ever Read
Review: Laird has something to say about the human condition - and he says it with a striking amount of style and humor. Copying the format of an actual bible (books divided into chapters and verses, complete with cross-references) the Boomer Bible gives an irreverent and scorching account of every nation's history. The prose favors brevity and hilarity. Very quickly the reader gains the impression that we humans have botched it. From the very beginning we've been nothing but bad news, killing each other with pointed sticks and spending all our time inventing new ways of murdering one another. It's been the same all through the centuries; we're bad, bad, and worse. There's no reason to expect the future will be different, there's no point in changing, so why try? Or so says Harry, the Christ-like effigy that pops up in the "New Testament" portion. The Boomer Bible was poignant, touching, and so funny there were times I had to stop reading just to appreciate it. Praise is cheap, but this truly was an amazing book. Why only 4 stars? The books meant to parallel the prophets of the Old Testament were just plain dry, and I suspect the author might have intended them to be skipped. I slogged my way through much of them hoping for something, but surrounded by the humor and significance of the rest of the book, they were a barren desert. I ended up skipping very many pages, though I hated doing so for fear of missing something. I unconditionally recommend this book.
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