Can’t You Get Along With Anyone?

[AtomSmasher]

No, this thread isn't about Hemi   

It's about the book: Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? A Writer’s Memoir and Tale of a Lost Surfer’s Paradise

I had heard about this book a few weeks ago, but just found out today that it was released for free online.  The original publisher was sued because of this book, so the author started his own publishing company to get it back in print.  He's now trying to get word of mouth going about the book, so he released it online for free.  You can get it here:
http://www.banditobooks.com/ezine/ebook

I started to read it tonight planning on only spending 20-30 minutes reading, but I just noticed I've now been reading for a couple hours without even realizing it.  This book is starting out to be the best thing I've read in years, so I thought I'd pass along the info.

A quick look at amazon and I see that out of 128 reviews, 112 gave it 5 stars, and their description contains a quote from a review:
"As his sanity, health and existence are simultaneously mangled, Weisbecker somehow manages to solve a murder, wrestle the dark side of paradise, and wind up on multiple third world hit lists...Can't You Get Along With Anyone? is a necessity for anyone who believes truth is indeed stranger than fiction...and entrancing, thoughtful and darkly humorous calamity. --Surfer Magazine"

You can also get more info about the book straight from the author: http://www.banditobooks.com/ezine/books/cygawa/more-info

I dare you to read up through the backstory sections (where he describes how he threatened "the features editor of a national magazine to get money owed me after being semi-raped by an alpha whore who didn’t like my attitude while I was waiting to interview a Facilitator with an ear-to-ear scar across his throat while I was investigating the murder of an American expat at the end of the road in outback Costa Rica") and not instantly want to read the rest of the book 

[RayB]

Let's see... you describe the title, you describe events around the publisher and the author, you refer to Amazon reviews, your time spent reading it, where it's available...... and yet..... As my old English teachers would say: You still haven't said anything to support all your blabbering!

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?  I still have no idea why I should care about this book.

[ark_ader]

I've heard of it before a while back.

Thanks for the link, I'll read it and share my view on the book after.  

[AtomSmasher]

Let's see... you describe the title, you describe events around the publisher and the author, you refer to Amazon reviews, your time spent reading it, where it's available...... and yet..... As my old English teachers would say: You still haven't said anything to support all your blabbering!

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT?  I still have no idea why I should care about this book.

Well since I haven't finished the book, and am actually not very far into it (around 70 pages in with around 430 to go) I figured it best to put the quote from the review rather then tell what I know about it so far.  Amazon doesn't even have a synopsis I could post, they only had quotes from reviews.

The book is the true story of the events that occurred during and shortly after publishing the authors previous book and how he became black listed from publishing (and movie business) in the U.S.  So far it's all about how the editor tried to screw him over, but eventually his book is optioned to be made into a movie and all kinds of crazy things start happening from there.  At one point Sean Penn threatens to kill him, he solves a murder mystery, and barely escapes death multiple times.  The book also gets into a lot of cool stuff about Hollywood.

One thing I can say is that the book is extremely funny and well written.  I'm constantly laughing out loud while reading it, which is something I haven't done since I first read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[AtomSmasher]

I found an actually summary of the book:

At the finale of his critically acclaimed first memoir, In Search of Captain Zero, Allan Weisbecker has found his paradise at the end of the road in outback Central America (Pavones, Costa Rica), and is working of the screen adaptation of the book, commissioned by Sean Penn and a major Hollywood studio.

Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? is the story of Weisbecker’s paradise, its underbelly, his fall from grace with the powers that be in Hollywood and the publishing business, plus the near loss of his life due to the writing of the book; he exposes a double murderer and, more dangerously, “the love of his life” as a sociopath.

Interwoven through the various catastrophes that test him on every level, are Weisbecker’s reflections on the process of writing the book itself and the nature of nonfiction. Weathering his “after-writing throes,” “writer’s queasy gut,” and “hemorrhaging forehead” (from staring at the blank page), Weisbecker maintains his sanity and perspective through his wry, sometimes wildly funny take on his own fears and flaws, and through retreat into the purity of the simple act of riding a wave.

[RayB]

That does sound interesting.
 

[danny_galaga]

"the features editor of a national magazine to get money owed me after being semi-raped by an alpha whore who didn’t like my attitude while I was waiting to interview a Facilitator with an ear-to-ear scar across his throat while I was investigating the murder of an American expat at the end of the road in outback Costa Rica"

if the sentences are that long, i'll give it a miss 

[AtomSmasher]

"the features editor of a national magazine to get money owed me after being semi-raped by an alpha whore who didn’t like my attitude while I was waiting to interview a Facilitator with an ear-to-ear scar across his throat while I was investigating the murder of an American expat at the end of the road in outback Costa Rica"

if the sentences are that long, i'll give it a miss 

You should see the rest of that sentence, it's a doozy. 

Although these incidents – my threatening the features editor of a
national magazine to get money owed me after being semi-raped by an
alpha whore who didn’t like my attitude while I was waiting to interview a
Facilitator with an ear-to-ear scar across his throat while I was investigating
the murder of an American expat at the end of the road in outback Costa
Rica – are probably interesting enough to be worth the words (plus they go
to the title of this book, answering the question posed by it), they also act
as a set up for an incident to come, in which I threaten a major Hollywood
movie star, likewise to get money owed me. You’ll like that one, I think.