Book-It 'o12! Book #23
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one, two, and three just in case you're curious.) This was a secondhand find.
Title: The Onion Presents Our Front Pages: 21 Years of Greatness, Virtue, and Moral Rectitude from America's Finest News Source 1988-2008 by The Onion with a foreword by Brian Williams
Details: Copyright 2009, Scribner
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "From The Birth Of A Nation To The Death Of Journalism
Since its founding by a bloodthirsty tyrant in 1756, The Onion has not merely changed the way we think about the news -- it has changed whether we think about the news at all. As the first decade of this new millennium draws to a close, Our Front Pages shows us the first thing that presidents, kings, prime ministers, and popes saw when they opened their eyes each morning for the last 21 years. Now you, the common reader and citizen, can see what they saw and be as informed as they were with this important retrospective of the past two decades. You, too, will realize what generations before have realized and generations yet unborn will some day realize in turn: The Onion is not merely the chronicle of America. The Onion is America."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'm a fan of The Onion from way back. Specifically from around the Our Dumb Century release.
How I Liked It: I'm a devoted fan of The Onion with a weird quirk: I'd rather read it in print form, if possible. I am extremely glad that the online version exists, particularly since it has a fabulous backlog (great for the "This reminds me of an Onion article... have you ever seen this?" moments). But there's something about the punchlines that work better in a format that the website doesn't really support (which makes sense; they are arranging their content to parody a news website, rather than a newspaper). What to do? I have all the offered collections, and were it not for the fact it's printed in actual newsprint (and the fact I'd have to admit that it's actually free somewhere) I'd get a weekly subscription (DC is one of the few cities still lucky enough to have its own Onion, but my DC Onion contact now lives in Glen Burnie). Unfortunately, The Onion hasn't released a collection since 2006's Homeland Insecurity: The Onion Complete News Archives, Volume 17 (which ended somewhere in fall 2005) meaning I've been kind of out of luck.
I'd been wondering when (and if) The Onion would release a new volume, particularly since they're so back-logged now and they'd be trying to sell these in a recession. I enjoyed Our Dumb World (full of fresh material) but was still looking for a new volume I was pretty sure would never come.
As it turns out, Our Front Pages might be the closest thing we get to that missing volume. While occasionally frustrating for the insufferable Onion completist such as myself still yearning for the missing books, Our Front Pages is no less hilarious for what it actually is. It offers plenty of rare print (including selections from their early, poorly-Xeroxed, local-coupons-on-the-front-page Madison days; apparently it took until 1995 for their format to adjust to the fonts and layout still in use) including some never-before-published material, like the alternate Election 2008 edition arranged just in case there was a McCain victory (headlines: "NATION ELECTS FIRST EVER 44TH WHITE PRESIDENT"; "Palin Abandons Russia-Watching Post"; "Nation Not Yet Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress"; "Obama Unable to Wrest Silmaril From Iron Crown of Morgoth"; "Maverick Put in Charge of World's Largest Nuclear Arsenal"; "Loss Blamed on Joe Biden's Salacious MySpace Page"). The editors' selections of what was chosen to "make" the decade (obviously there is not every front page in the paper's history) are interesting, particularly as it shows the paper delving (as much mainstream humor did) further and further into actual current events with the turn of the century, particularly after 9/11 (as expected, if not required, the now-legendary 9/11 cover is included).
The book, while not the delve that volume-hungry fans like myself might have preferred, is still enormously entertaining and rare in that it strikes perfectly for both seasoned fans (rare and/or previously unpublished material) as well as rookies, or that friend or family member you've been trying to recruit into the fandom (while I might complain that the rest of the articles can't be found since it's, as the name states, the front pages and the front pages alone, it's an easy reading hook for those unfamiliar/new to the publication).
In short, the book is for Onion fans of every level, fake news fans, and quite possibly also devotees of current events (one of the brilliant things about Our Dumb Century was the fact it's funny whether you know the history or not; the same is true here).
Notable: With each year of publication, a short timeline is offered at the beginning of what could be called each chapter, each month punctuated by a headline from that year (if one that not necessarily was published in that month-- yes, that's how much of an annoying fan I am; I can tell the difference).
I quickly flipped to 2001 and expected to see the defining event listed as one of the headlines from the famous 9/11 issue, probably "American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie," or maybe "Rest of Country Temporarily Feels Deep Affection For New York."
I was then somewhat surprised to see they picked instead "Bush Actually President, Nation Suddenly Realizes," actually a fairly spot-on piece from late that May, a salient jibe at the rather quiet end of the Election 2000 hoopla.
Given the amount of work that went into the 9/11 issue (Nathan Rabin, staff writer for The AV Club, noted in his memoir that at least three days (no sleep/stopping) of nonstop writing and correction from the writing staff took place to ensure they struck the perfect, most relevant, funny-yet-respectful note), choosing another headline seems odd.
Title: The Onion Presents Our Front Pages: 21 Years of Greatness, Virtue, and Moral Rectitude from America's Finest News Source 1988-2008 by The Onion with a foreword by Brian Williams
Details: Copyright 2009, Scribner
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "From The Birth Of A Nation To The Death Of Journalism
Since its founding by a bloodthirsty tyrant in 1756, The Onion has not merely changed the way we think about the news -- it has changed whether we think about the news at all. As the first decade of this new millennium draws to a close, Our Front Pages shows us the first thing that presidents, kings, prime ministers, and popes saw when they opened their eyes each morning for the last 21 years. Now you, the common reader and citizen, can see what they saw and be as informed as they were with this important retrospective of the past two decades. You, too, will realize what generations before have realized and generations yet unborn will some day realize in turn: The Onion is not merely the chronicle of America. The Onion is America."
Why I Wanted to Read It: I'm a fan of The Onion from way back. Specifically from around the Our Dumb Century release.
How I Liked It: I'm a devoted fan of The Onion with a weird quirk: I'd rather read it in print form, if possible. I am extremely glad that the online version exists, particularly since it has a fabulous backlog (great for the "This reminds me of an Onion article... have you ever seen this?" moments). But there's something about the punchlines that work better in a format that the website doesn't really support (which makes sense; they are arranging their content to parody a news website, rather than a newspaper). What to do? I have all the offered collections, and were it not for the fact it's printed in actual newsprint (and the fact I'd have to admit that it's actually free somewhere) I'd get a weekly subscription (DC is one of the few cities still lucky enough to have its own Onion, but my DC Onion contact now lives in Glen Burnie). Unfortunately, The Onion hasn't released a collection since 2006's Homeland Insecurity: The Onion Complete News Archives, Volume 17 (which ended somewhere in fall 2005) meaning I've been kind of out of luck.
I'd been wondering when (and if) The Onion would release a new volume, particularly since they're so back-logged now and they'd be trying to sell these in a recession. I enjoyed Our Dumb World (full of fresh material) but was still looking for a new volume I was pretty sure would never come.
As it turns out, Our Front Pages might be the closest thing we get to that missing volume. While occasionally frustrating for the insufferable Onion completist such as myself still yearning for the missing books, Our Front Pages is no less hilarious for what it actually is. It offers plenty of rare print (including selections from their early, poorly-Xeroxed, local-coupons-on-the-front-page Madison days; apparently it took until 1995 for their format to adjust to the fonts and layout still in use) including some never-before-published material, like the alternate Election 2008 edition arranged just in case there was a McCain victory (headlines: "NATION ELECTS FIRST EVER 44TH WHITE PRESIDENT"; "Palin Abandons Russia-Watching Post"; "Nation Not Yet Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress"; "Obama Unable to Wrest Silmaril From Iron Crown of Morgoth"; "Maverick Put in Charge of World's Largest Nuclear Arsenal"; "Loss Blamed on Joe Biden's Salacious MySpace Page"). The editors' selections of what was chosen to "make" the decade (obviously there is not every front page in the paper's history) are interesting, particularly as it shows the paper delving (as much mainstream humor did) further and further into actual current events with the turn of the century, particularly after 9/11 (as expected, if not required, the now-legendary 9/11 cover is included).
The book, while not the delve that volume-hungry fans like myself might have preferred, is still enormously entertaining and rare in that it strikes perfectly for both seasoned fans (rare and/or previously unpublished material) as well as rookies, or that friend or family member you've been trying to recruit into the fandom (while I might complain that the rest of the articles can't be found since it's, as the name states, the front pages and the front pages alone, it's an easy reading hook for those unfamiliar/new to the publication).
In short, the book is for Onion fans of every level, fake news fans, and quite possibly also devotees of current events (one of the brilliant things about Our Dumb Century was the fact it's funny whether you know the history or not; the same is true here).
Notable: With each year of publication, a short timeline is offered at the beginning of what could be called each chapter, each month punctuated by a headline from that year (if one that not necessarily was published in that month-- yes, that's how much of an annoying fan I am; I can tell the difference).
I quickly flipped to 2001 and expected to see the defining event listed as one of the headlines from the famous 9/11 issue, probably "American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie," or maybe "Rest of Country Temporarily Feels Deep Affection For New York."
I was then somewhat surprised to see they picked instead "Bush Actually President, Nation Suddenly Realizes," actually a fairly spot-on piece from late that May, a salient jibe at the rather quiet end of the Election 2000 hoopla.
Given the amount of work that went into the 9/11 issue (Nathan Rabin, staff writer for The AV Club, noted in his memoir that at least three days (no sleep/stopping) of nonstop writing and correction from the writing staff took place to ensure they struck the perfect, most relevant, funny-yet-respectful note), choosing another headline seems odd.