2024 the best man synopsis review

Price: $26.00 - $21.99
(as of Dec 03, 2024 17:36:09 UTC - Details)

*An Amazon Best Book of the Month
*A Barnes & Noble Booksellers' Pick
*An NPR pick for 2013
*A Vanity Fair Hot Type pick
*A Publishers Lunch Buzz Book 2013
*An iTunes/iBookstore Best Book of the Month
*A Parade magazine 2013 Summer Read

A Curious Man is the marvelously compelling biography of Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley, the enigmatic cartoonist turned globetrotting millionaire who won international fame by celebrating the world's strangest oddities, and whose outrageous showmanship taught us to believe in the unbelievable.

As portrayed by acclaimed biographer Neal Thompson, Ripley’s life is the stuff of a classic American fairy tale. Buck-toothed and cursed by shyness, Ripley turned his sense of being an outsider into an appreciation for the strangeness of the world. After selling his first cartoon to Time magazine at age eighteen, more cartooning triumphs followed, but it was his “Believe It or Not” conceit and the wildly popular radio shows it birthed that would make him one of the most successful entertainment figures of his time and spur him to search the globe’s farthest corners for bizarre facts, exotic human curiosities, and shocking phenomena.

Ripley delighted in making outrageous declarations that somehow always turned out to be true—such as that Charles Lindbergh was only the sixty-seventh man to fly across the Atlantic or that “The Star Spangled Banner” was not the national anthem. Assisted by an exotic harem of female admirers and by ex-banker Norbert Pearlroth, a devoted researcher who spoke eleven languages, Ripley simultaneously embodied the spirit of Peter Pan, the fearlessness of Marco Polo and the marketing savvy of P. T. Barnum.

In a very real sense, Ripley sought to remake the world’s aesthetic. He demanded respect for those who were labeled “eccentrics” or “freaks”—whether it be E. L. Blystone, who wrote 1,615 alphabet letters on a grain of rice, or the man who could swallow his own nose.

By the 1930s Ripley possessed a vast fortune, a private yacht, and a twenty-eight room mansion stocked with such “oddities” as shrunken heads and medieval torture devices, and his pioneering firsts in print, radio, and television were tapping into something deep in the American consciousness—a taste for the titillating and exotic, and a fascination with the fastest, biggest, dumbest and most weird. Today, that legacy continues and can be seen in reality TV, YouTube, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Jackass, MythBusters and a host of other pop-culture phenomena.

In the end Robert L. Ripley changed everything. The supreme irony of his life, which was dedicated to exalting the strange and unusual, is that he may have been the most amazing oddity of all.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown Archetype; First Edition (May 7, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 077043620X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0770436209
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.38 x 9.56 inches
Reviewer: koreamuscle
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A stunning and well written book
Review: As being a very large Robert L Ripley fan, I had decided to purchase this book and read it. It was very hard to put down. The reason is that it gives a emotional and very unique view into the world of Robert L Ripley. For those who don't know who Robert L Ripley is he was the creator of Ripley's Believe It or Not and the plethora of museums around the world. The book is a Chronicle of things that he had done and some unique things he had done for American history that no one even knows about. Here was a man who even have his own ZIP code at one time due to the amount of mail he was receiving at the height of his Fame. This book is truly a great and well-researched chronicle. Extremely well-written. The one amazing part was it Indulgence into his love life, he was surrounded by beautiful women and he had a particular love for Asia. I wanted to share that the most climatic part of the book is when I had got to the part he was in the hospital, and had just talked to his friend on the telephone and........ I will not spoil it for the rest of you, however the next line in the chapter emotionally moved me to tears.Do I recommend this book? If you are Ripley's Believe It or Not fan absolutely. I'm so hoping that one day they will finally make a Robert L Ripley Ripley's Believe It or Not movie for I have been told it was in the works for many years and I do believe that they will use this book blueprint for the movie.

Reviewer: Bill
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: good - a bit long?
Review: Great read . Interesting man, and well researched and presented. Not too long for the full story, but having just gotten to this from casual interest it was maybe a bit more than I needed depth-wise. Still, the fun of ripley was in all the little pieces that made up the man, so there aren't that many good shortcuts available. Very well written.

Reviewer: Serena
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Very Interesting, but Sometimes Tedious
Review: A fascinating man who lived the kind of life that many successful driven people do. When huge amounts of money start rolling in the excesses can become ridiculous. That's what happened with Ripley. He worked like a fiend, he drank, he womanized, he traveled, he bought people, houses, pets, and boats. Unfortunately, the book seemed to dwell way too long on the later years of his life and becomes tedious. The last hundred pages or so need serious editing.Ripley was a generous man to his family and the people he felt helped him become successful. Some people have criticized his treatment of his researcher, Pearlroth. Pearlroth, however, loved his job and Ripley did help him send his son to school and did leave him $5,000 in his will which was a lot of money in 1949. I agree that Pearlroth should have been given more public recognition for his work, but I am not sure that he wanted that recognition. If he was unhappy he got his revenge by outliving Ripley by 31 years. He was 90 when he died while Ripley was only 59. He continued to work for the Ripley organization until 1975 when he was 82.Ripley was a very interesting man and the book is very well researched. However, I wished that most of the last 1/3 of the book wasn't there as Ripley's life became a cliche in an outrageous Hefner sort of way, Too much of a sad thing.

Reviewer: R PRIUS
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Believe It
Review: When I was 13 I went to the Ripley Museum St. Augustine. Boy, was I impressed with the oddball exhibits. Boquets made of human hair, a two-headed fetus that looked like it had been pickled in formaldehyde for a few centuries, suits of armor, a chastity belt, asian oddities galore, lots of shrunken heads, and a real bonifide iron maiden. This Ripley was my sort of guy. He liked the stuff a kid liked.Needless to say, this book was something that was impossible to ignore. A curious man? Maybe Ripley ranks as the most curious person I ever heard of.Ripley grew up poor in Santa Rosa, CA. He was sort of a cute kid with bucked teeth. His father died as he approached his teens. His mother struggled to support the family which included a baby brother. Leroy, as Ripley was then known, wanted to become a cartoonist. Determined to become one, he was fired from his first job but persevered and got another job as a cartoonist. Eventually, he met with some success. He even married as a young man though his short lived marriage would be his only marriage. His love for travel, the exotic, and oddities lead him to what would become an empire as he volleyed his strange interest into a cartoon column, movie shorts, a radio program, odditoriums, and other equally strange yet compelling ventures. He owned lavish homes including a lavish Westchester County estate called BION. He acquired artifacts for his homes and he acquired veritable harems of exotic looking women that catered to him as they volleyed for his attentions. He traveled to mysterious locales and made claims about his virility that on the face of it sounded strange but was undoubtedly true. He was still buck toothed but a lot less cute as he aged and had a receding hairline, but this guy had charisma.....believe it or not.This book chronicles the life of Ripley and presents the compelling story of a boy that never completely grew up, had varied interests that dipped toward the strange and bizarre, and an unquenchable curiosity that always pointed toward life's next great adventure.I really liked this book though admittedly i didn't read it as critically as I normally do. It was darn interesting and presented Ripley in a more human light while telling a rags to incredible riches story that in part reminded me of a mythic character like Citizen Kane.

Reviewer: mimi-new mexico
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: intriguing a life!
Review: as a little kid, my dad and I would look at the "believe or not articles".....and wonder if they were always true. and they were! i foundthe book interesting and full of snippets of his life, and how he pursued his interests and curiosity. the footnotes are just as great.the issues of the times was worked very well in with his life, his friends and his family. what a great dinner partner he must of been.take the time to read it, it is a easy read...

Reviewer: Karys
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I enjoy biographies and this was a good one. The man behind the curtain, so to speak. What a crazy life, one that would probably not be possible now with the decline in newspapers.

Reviewer: Sieg
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is an interesting book, and tells the story as it was.

Reviewer: L Hutton
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Interesting man, but the biography is too long. I ended up reading it in three instalments, taking breaks to read other book in between. Some details of his life could have been omitted in the interests of making the book more compelling. However if you are a fan of Ripley, you are sure to like it.

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Long overdue!

Reviewer: Debra
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A pleasure to read..well researched and unusual....compelling to read, right to the very end...Ripley would be proud of this book