Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, by Tim Cahill
Well, three-and-a-half (four stars)
(Review posted 6 Jan 2000 12:12:12)

(Copied from an old review originally posted elsewhere.)

Cahill is fun to read; not as funny as Dave Barry, and not as (what?) thoughtful or thought- provoking as John McPhee, but fun. Cahill is (or does a good job of convincing us he is!) a Regular Guy in the Dave Barry sense, but he gets paid to go to interesting places and do exciting things. He tells us what that's like in a friendly journalistic style laced with well-done humor.

One warning: the sequencing of the essays leaves something to be desired. In particular, the last four or five pieces are all rather dark and dismal contemplations of tragedy and mortality, with almost no humor. You might want to read them first, or sometime in the middle, rather than come away from the book on such a depressing note.