By John Hodgman

Hodgman is everywhere. He’s on the Apple commercials playing the hapless PC versus the Mac. He’s on the Daily Show with John Stewart. Now he has a follow up book to Complete World Knowledge called More Information Than You Require. Is it more Hodgman than you require?

No. With all the bad news I need a laugh and Hodgman’s densely detailed documentation delightfully distracted me. It is a triumphant trivial tome. Hodgman would note the alliteration in the last sentences and construe it as a message from the mole-men or brain sharks that he obsesses about throughout the book. My favorite is the running gag about a rivalry between the cities of Richmond Virginia and Milwaukee Wisconsin over who has the strangest weather.

Hodgman tends to overwrite, overthink and overdo. You have to be fairly informed just to get half the jokes. In an earlier time he would compete with Donald Barthelme in the New Yorker magazine. His expository excess works fine in small doses in this format, commercials or on the Daily Show. If I had to work in the same office he would drive me mad, mad I tell you.

He reminds me of Wally Cox. Come to think of it the two have never been seen together in public, not even on Hollywood Squares, where one or the other is always “on vacation” Coincidence? I think not.

Perhaps I had said too much, which is consistent with his book.

Copyright 2008 DJ Cline All rights reserved.

Posted by dj in Books, Reviews [855 views]