TOP DRAWER BOOK REVIEW
by
HL Carpenter

 

Fun Is Good
by Mike Veeck and Pete Williams
ISBN 1-59486-152-8
240 pages; hardcover; $23.95
Rodale, United States, 2005

Work should be fun. If yours isn’t, Mike Veeck, part owner of minor league baseball teams, wants you to figure out why.

Then he wants you to make the necessary life changes so you can have as much fun at work as he does.

Okay, maybe it’s not that easy. But as Fun Is Good helpfully, if tritely, points out, attitude is 90% of life. Additionally, you shouldn’t take yourself too seriously, while recognizing that the journey is the reward. Oh, and by the way, keep your childhood sense of humor.

If you’ve gotten the idea Fun Is Good is a typical self-help book, you’re right. Mixed in with the standard fluff is marketing advice and vignettes from various friends of the author who gamely try to convince you they have fun doing what they do. There’s an excess of name-dropping (Bill Murray should have been credited as a co-author) and an overload of autobiographical/confessional information. There’s also very little doubt Mr. Veeck enjoyed the task of writing Fun Is Good.

Whether you’ll enjoy reading it is another matter. So here’s a suggestion: Have fun doing something productive with your time instead.

 

Review originally published November 2005.