Product Description

"Reminiscent of the snarky, opinionated newspaper articles of the great Mark Twain, Hiaasen's columns are finely crafted little gems." (Booklist)

Carl Hiaasen takes you on a wide-ranging safari, observing south Florida's wildlife in its natural habitat-from fat-cat politicians to migrating mobsters, drowning dolphins to stray chads. This collection of Miami Herald columns-written with a satiric wit and biting humor-will give Hiaasen fans a glimpse of the facts that inspire his frenetic fiction.

Harking back to the muckraking journalists of old, Hiaasen lets readers in on the comings and goings of corrupt local politicos, misguided tourist bureaus, and flailing sports franchises. He tackles such current events as the Elian Gonzalez imbroglio and the 2000 presidential election recount. All in all, more than two hundred columns chronicle the everyday circus that gives south Florida a flavor and a flair all its own.

Since 1985, Hiaasen's twice-weekly, "baseball-bat-to-the-forehead" column has given the average citizen a voice. A staunch defender of his native state, Hiaasen isn't afraid to take anyone on, including environmental despoilers, Big Tobacco, and the NRA. But as proven in his first collection of columns, Kick Ass, his righteous rage and spirited wit resonate far beyond the Sunshine State-and show readers a world-class journalist in his element.

Edited by Diane Stevenson.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18440 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 424 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780813034287
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
The Florida Chamber of Commerce undoubtedly has a dart-pocked photograph of syndicated Miami Herald columnist Hiaasen tacked to the wall. For his second anthology of 200 columns, spanning 15 years, he takes readers on a head-shaking romp through a south Florida that they won't find in any tourist brochure. A true Florida patriot, Hiaasen exposes corruption, money-grubbing and rampant development. The volume picks up where its predecessor Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen left off. Stevenson, associate director of writing programs at the University of Florida, again edits. Hiaasen's writing is fearless and the targets endless: politicians, municipal employees, judges, lobbyists, zoning boards, evangelists, athletic franchises, environmental scofflaws, Disney, the NRA, Big Tobacco. In many cases, Hiaasen took these entities to task before it became fashionable. A bestselling novelist to boot, Hiaasen is cut from that same bolt of cloth as Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill he's an acerbic, old-school columnist who can't stomach greed or hypocrisy, pulls no punches and keeps his sense of humor and outrage firmly intact. He tackles with unbridled vigor the Elian Gonzalez affair and voting irregularities in the recent presidential election. While many columns resonate beyond south Florida state vs. local control, urban sprawl, the commerce of politics some feel too localized to sink in. But if you're crooked or play loose with the public trust, watch out. Not even alligator skin is thick enough to deflect the sting of this writer's pen.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* For fans of Hiaasen's wonderful Kick Ass (1999), here is another collection of essays from the Florida writer's twiceweekly Miami Herald column. There are more than 200 essays in this volume, and every single one of them is a gem. It makes no difference if the people, places, and events being discussed are unfamiliar to most non-Floridians. Hiaasen gives them universality with his style and point of view. As readers of his many best-selling novels will tell you, Hiaasen is a playful writer, always looking for the fresh phrase, the eye-catching image. He is also--and this is essential for a writer of an opinion column--outspoken and (apparently) entirely unafraid of offending the people about whom he writes. Here, as in Kick Ass, he writes about politics and politicians, crime and criminals, ordinary people and extraordinary people, and a lot of justplain south Florida weirdness (such as a museum commemorating the deadly Hurricane Andrew). Many of the essays are tantalizing, offering up glimpses of a bigger story (like "Zucchini Could Lose Supermarket Citizenship," which hints at a bizarre language war being waged in Florida grocery stores). Others tell the whole story in a nutshell. Along with Kick Ass, this is one of the best collections of occasional journalism published in recent years. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Good, But Not As Good As The First Hiaasen Compilation
Carl Hiaasen's second compilation of his Miami Herald columns continues to show the biting wit which is prevalent in his usually terrific novels. But my guess is that the first book of columns "Kick" was probably designed to be the Best of Hiaasen with no plans for a sequel. Thus the columns contained in "Paradise" are the second cut and thus just not as good, although they are enjoyable to read. Not as many idiotic South Florida politicians this time around, not as many idiotic citizens. I was also disappointed in the way he handled the Florida election fiasco for the 2000 Presidential election. This was a topic just made for his humor, but he chose to use his forum as a soapbox to get a recount and to get Al Gore elected (he doesn't say it, but it was pretty obvious to me). My hope is that he plans to use this as fodder for a future novel and thus wanted to save his material.

Hiaasen is a great columnist. I live over 1,000 miles away from South Florida, but he gets his point across pretty well. It would have been nice if each story had a little afterword as to what ultimately happened to the people in the column (i.e. did the politician give up his $15,000 desk that was paid for with taxpayer money voluntarily).

Good for the Hiaasen completest, but the first book "Kick" is the better choice.

A crusader with a sense of humour
I love this man's writing! I started with his fiction and having devoured all there was of that at the time I stumbled on his first book of Miami Herald columns. I bought Paradise Screwed as soon as it was out.
The really exciting thing about Carl is that he takes on the corruption and the sleaze and the bizarre goings on in Florida and makes people aware of them through witty yet hard hitting writing. He isn't afraid to make waves and when you read this book you will begin to wonder about the greasing of the wheels in State politics.
He is passionate about his home state and what is happening to it and as a visitor to Florida on more than one occassion, he has really made me think about the affects of inconsiderate development and tourism.
But even if you aren't keen on any of that, the columns are clever and well written, so it's well worth the read.

What Michael Moore is to the nation, Hiaasen is to Florida
Another collection of "baseball-bat-to-the-forehead" columns in a similar writing style as Moore. Both men use biting satire and their wicked wit to tell you what they think, and are unafraid in doing so. Hiaasen is even more impressive I think because his substantive job is still journalism and yet he can find humor in real people and events as easily as in fiction.

These columns are a selection from over the last 20 years of events in South Florida. You don't have to go back any further than 2 years to Elian Gonzalez and the 2000 presidential election to know that there's enough grist-for-the-mill here to fill much more than one book on these two topics alone. Nevertheless Hiaasen reins himself in and spreads his verbal darts around. Topics covered include "Mayor loco", the soon-to-be-gone Marlins, Chads (not a person, those bits of paper, remember?) Dolphins (both the team and the ones that frequently drown offshore), Race Riots, a con artist doctor and a pet-hating extortionist. That's the more exotic stuff. Then there's the normal South Florida fare of crooked politicians, stupid state officials, assorted mobsters and mafia, drugs, guns, and general mayhem and madness. As Hiaasen said in a recent interview "all the paths of slime and disreputability seem to lead here."

The man is a Florida treasure and for those of us who live through what he writes about his humor is a saving grace. Very few of us can express it the way he does so he is our voice of reason saying yes, it's PARADISE SCREWED allright, but we're still alive we can laugh about it.