Excerpts-

• From the cover The Bookkeeper for the Church of Satan
  
  I apologize for my beard. Not only because it is terrible-thin, patchy, and asymmetrical-but also because it is inexplicable. Many people have asked me why I grew it, and most of those people are my wife, and to them and to her I say: I don't know. I'm sorry.
  
  Before my beard I just had a mustache, and that was not mysterious at all. In fact, I have grown two mustaches in my life, for equally banal, emotionally transparent reasons. I grew the first one in 1999, in the yearlong run-up to my marriage to the woman who is still my wife. I had only ever been clean-shaven before then (aside from an obligatory early-'90s flirtation with a soul patch in college), and I suppose now I was testing her. A few very good-looking people I know turn mean when they drink, mocking and abusing the people who care about them. They make themselves ugly to see if people will still love them that way. I think my mustache-thick and dark and unwanted in the middle of my round pale face-served the same function: to be repulsive on purpose. I looked like a bushy nineteenth-century president who also happened to be a baby.
  
  Luckily, my then-fiancée, whom I have known since high school and who had already seen me through various thicks and thins, did not take the bait. She did not confirm my fear that I was an unlovable fraud and did not decline to marry President Chester A. Baby. So I shaved off my mustache the morning after my bachelor weekend in a dilapidated mansion in Atlantic City that I had rented with a group of friends. I cannot remember whether this was my decision or her command. Maintaining such fogginess about free will is, I think, a secret to a lasting marriage. And ours has lasted. You have the numbers in front of you, so you can do the math. (I have never been good with subtraction, especially with odd numbers like 1999 and 2017.)
  
  I grew my second, and currently enduring, mustache in 2011. By that time we had two children, whose actual names will never be revealed. As you know, I have always hesitated to talk about my children and, when pressed, would refer to our daughter only as "Hodgmina" and our son as "Hodgmanillo." In the past I have said that this is to protect their privacy, and that is true of our son who is, as of this writing, still young enough to like us. There are many joys of parenting, but ultimately we are robots training our own upgrades to replace us. But my son doesn't know this yet. He doesn't know that his job is to grow and thrive apart from us and conspire with time in our destruction. He still holds our hands and does not treat us like we are hopelessly stupid and so I wish to protect him.
  
  But Hodgmina is now a luminously smart teenager with a strong social media presence who I think would enjoy being named in this book. So I keep her anonymous to spite her. I love her. I hope of course that she will outlive me (these are the fun hopes you nurture when you are older). But I do not need to help her outpace me in fame.
  
  Insecurely teasing a teenager is a privilege of fatherhood. And I grew my second mustache for the same reason all your weird dads grew theirs: it is an evolutionary signal that says, "I'm all done." A mustache sends a visual message to the mating population of Earth that says, "No thank you. I have procreated. My DNA is out in the world, and so I no longer deserve physical affection. Instead, it is...

About the Author-

• John Hodgman is a writer, comedian, and actor. He is the author of three New York Times bestselling books—The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All. After an appearance to promote his books on The Daily Show, he was invited to return as a contributor, serving as the show’s “Resident Expert” and “Deranged Millionaire.” This led to an unexpected and, frankly, implausible career in front of the camera. He has performed comedy for the president of the United States, at a TED conference, and in a crypt in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. He is the host of the popular Judge John Hodgman podcast, in which he settles serious disputes between real people, such as “Is a hot dog a sandwich?” He also contributes a weekly column under the same name for The New York Times Magazine.

Reviews-

• It's no surprise that an audiobook by humorist John Hodgman is funny. More surprising, though, are the emotional depths Hodgman reaches in this assortment of essays. Hodgman is known for his work on "The Daily Show" and as the stodgy personification of a PC in Apple's "Get a Mac" commercials. He brings the expected dose of sardonic humor to his narration but is also a gifted storyteller. With expert timing and pacing, he explores the foibles and malaise of middle age, in turn lampooning his own perspective of "white privilege." ("The central conflict of my life and this audiobook is this: I OWN TWO SUMMER HOMES.") This John Hodgman is more bittersweet than his comedic personas but also more compelling for those who appreciate some hard truths within their comedy. A.T.N. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
• 

  January 1, 2018
  

  This represents humorist, podcaster, and former Daily Show contributor Hodgman's first venture into nonfiction after three books of "fake trivia." Here, Hodgman drops his customary voice of deranged authority for a much more personal, but no less funny, memoir. This set of stories about his youth in Massachusetts and his move in middle age to a small town in Maine can turn on a dime from absurd fish-out-of-water small-town adventures to surprisingly affecting meditations on mortality. Hodgman demonstrates that he's capable of turning his wit upon any target, including himself, with both skill and compassion. It's impossible to imagine anyone else but the author narrating this audiobook, given his expertise as a podcaster and performer and the autobiographical nature of the material. The author's performance is intimate, conversational, and hilarious. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Hodgman's podcast or previous books who are interested in seeing a new side of the author; fans of intellectual humorists such as David Sedaris; and listeners interested in idiosyncratic travel memoirs. ["This comedic spin across life in the Northeast will be enjoyable for those who relish the travel disasters of others or comedic nonfiction": LJ 10/1/17 review of the Viking hc.]--Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta

  Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

• 

  August 28, 2017
  Mild departures from the routine inspire neurotic palpitations in these dourly funny essays by humorist Hodgman (The Areas of My Expertise), who pegs his shaggy-dog stories to several unnerving locales. One is around his second home in rural Massachusetts, where he wrestles with anxiety about taking his garbage to the wrong town’s dump (the right dump is a longer drive), gets high and builds witchy cairns in a river, and fights a seesaw battle against raccoon droppings on his property and field mice in his kitchen. Other essays concern his postcollege arrival in New York, where he revels in sliding-scale-priced therapy with a trainee psychologist (“I could talk about jazz violin all day long and she was professionally obligated to listen thoughtfully and pretend to be interested”), and his horrifying Maine sojourns, featuring taciturn locals, insufferable summer people, and blighted confections (“Fudge is repulsive... like a dark, impacted colon blockage that a surgeon had to remove”). Recurring themes include the yearning for perpetual adolescence, the baffling burdens of adulthood (“Homeowners advice: do not put even a single box of stale Cheerios down the garbage disposal, never mind three”), and liberal self-loathing (“There is no mansplaining like white mansplaining”). Hodgman’s sketches ramble a while and then peter out, but the twists of mordant, off-kilter comedy make for entertaining excursions.

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