The Great Indoors

Favorites 1987–1996

by Eric Broder

  • Format: Softcover, 320 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 inches
  • Illustrations:
  • ISBN: 978-1-886228-34-4
  • Price: $13.95
Description

Certain classic elements make a humor column irresistible. Workplace humiliation, weird food, rotten vacations, cats getting rubdowns, sex machines, raging self-delusion, enraged babies, at-risk squirrels, and of course pitiful date fantasies with Madonna and Katarina Witt— pure catnip to the modern reader. At least, that is, if you judge by the regular readers of Eric Broder's "The Great Indoors" newspaper column.

Since 1987, Eric Broder has been captivating and even astonishing readers of Cleveland's alternative weeklies (the Free Times and the Edition) with just such intimate and rarely believable details from his own remarkable life.

And he has done it with remarkable style. In fact, Broder's writing style has been said to recall an unholy combination of Dave Barry, Barry White, Dr. Laura, Super Joe Charboneau, Walt Disney, and former Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker Jack Lambert.

This book, which collects the very best of Broder's columns from the period 1987–1996, is a treasure sure to be cherished throughout the first years of the next millenium. Or at least to be left in the bathroom until it gets too mildewed to pick up. Either way, it will change your life.

Book Excerpt:
Amazing Stories!

Most of that is right. I do give myself shocks because I don't pick up my feet when I walk. I'm trying to conquer this. I do watch a lot of TV, but that's my job. I cover the waterfront. I admit I lie around on my can quite a bit. However, lots of things happen to me— amazing and exciting things. And they happen indoors.

I'd like to begin with my most exciting indoor incident. It involves Irma La Douce and a roach.

My friend Barbara and I went to the video store one summer evening last year and rented two movies on videodisc, Irma La Douce and A Thousand Clowns. We watched A Thousand Clowns, and enjoyed it very much. It was funny and heartwarming. Thought-provoking, too. It was dynamite entertainment, and I recommend it without reservation.

Anyway, we finished watching that and put on Irma La Douce. This movie was directed by Billy Wilder, one of my favorites. It wasn't very good, but it was a handsome production, set in Paris and starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine.

I should mention at this juncture that it was brutally hot and humid that night, and I was just wearing shorts. Total vulnerability! Naked human flesh that any vermin would be delighted to chew on! This is important to the story.

So we are watching this movie and having a fine time when we hear a small scuffling sound come from around the TV. We're not children. We know this . . . [ Read More Free Samples ]

Reviews
[The Great Indoors is] the most consistently funny column in Cleveland . . . maybe even America (Tom Kelly) — WERE AM Radio
Mundane subjects, yes. Unlike most confessional columnists, however, Broder is conscious of that fact. With him, wallowing in boring doings isn't an exercise in navel-gazing, it's a head-first dive into absurdity. And when it works, as it does in The Great Indoors, it's very funny. — The Plain Dealer
About Eric Broder
Eric Broder

Eric Broder's weekly column, “The Great Indoors,” ran for many years in Cleveland alternative papers the Edition and the Free Times. He has also written for local and national publications such as Men's Journal, Profiles, Cleveland Magazine, the Plain Dealer, Northern Ohio Live, and Ohio Writer. An editor for Funny Times, he lives in Cleveland with his wife, Barbara, and their cat Corny. More About Eric Broder

Contains References to:

Cat Lovers, Cleveland Columnists, Cleveland Free Times, Column Collection, Dating, Everyday Life, Humorists, Television

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