![\"3](\"\/weblog\/wp-includes\/images\/stars-3-5.gif\" "\\"3")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Phil Doran, 2005<\/p>\n
When I picked out this book I was in the mood for some fun, light reading and the excerpts from the reviews on the cover caught my eye as they suggested that the book would elicit belly laughs.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about\u00c2\u00a0 a former TV sit-com writer in L.A. who moves into an old, delapidated house in Tuscany and gives up his former career.<\/p>\n
Funny? Hardly.\u00c2\u00a0 I read the book and found a few passages where I found myself smiling a bit, but that was all.\u00c2\u00a0 After reading it, I understand why Phil Dorn was being phased out as a sit-com writer; he’s just not that funny.\u00c2\u00a0 He is not a bad writer, however, and the real value of reading the book is to look into the struggles of a middle-aged man as he tries to reinvent himself into someone he didn’t think he was.\u00c2\u00a0 As he goes through this process, he discovers that there is much more in life than his former job and he is restored in health and happiness.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite this obvious transformation, Phil still seems to cling to the idea that he can go back and be successful at what he once was.\u00c2\u00a0 By the end of the book, I felt that he had only\u00c2\u00a0 made it about 95% of the way there and still needed to get over that last little bump to understand what he really had accomplished.<\/p>\n
Dorn’s characters are somewhat enjoyable, but if you are looking for that belly laugh, read Janet Evanovich because his Tuscan friends and acquaintences just don’t make the grade.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Phil should drop any idea that he is really funny and concentrate more on just telling the story.<\/p>\n
I think the book is worth reading, however, as it is fairly well-written and the struggle this guy is going through is an interesting story in itself.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just not what it was advertised to be.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Phil Doran, 2005 When I picked out this book I was in the mood for some fun, light reading and the excerpts from the reviews on the cover caught my eye as they suggested that the book would elicit …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[25,18,40],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-humor","tag-memoir","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilsonld.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}