Random

Penn Jillette's Random is the book for our time. I had such a great time reading it, a week later I realized just how smart it is. I have not had so much fun reading a book since....probably Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis in college. And that's not a bad comparison although Amis' book takes place in the 1950s in a tony English University and this one's a tour of prey, predators, and everyone else working on stayin' alive on the streets of the city that personifies America. Random doesn't have a boring sentence in it. Penn Jillette is crazy like a fox and hilarious.  He sees things,  thinks things and says things most of us would never have the balls to say. The story grabs you --- Bobby and his family are going to be killed in a few days unless he pays off his father's gambling debt. We dive deep into a riveting, horrifying, Xtreme situation where you're kind of stuck with Jillette playing "I'll Be Your Mirror"  as he smashes discomforting truths into your face. " Bobby never considered himself the kind of person who stole things, but Bobby was in the situation where everyone becomes the kind of person who steals things. The Fundamental Attribution Error -- we think what other people do is because of their character, but what we ourselves do because of the situation we find ourselves in." So what does Bobby, our NotEveryman hero do? He decides to take on life by throwing the dice and  following where they land. Literally. It's Random. This is life and Vegas as only a magician who has his image on the full length of a casino can tell. The story moves like lightning. The cast of characters are people you feel in your gut are geez, out there somewhere. You don't know who is going to do what, but the stuff they do is pretty wild. It's a tour of the town from a true insider, the next best thing to being there, and is it ever fun. There's Piff the Magic Dragon, a cop named Gorodetsky, and the most homey place is the freak show on Fremont Street. People do crazy things. People get laid. People get killed. You're not sure what happens next, who is/n't?  a friend or how bad things will get. Suddenly, living by the dice starts to seem like exalted wisdom, and that's when you know Jillette's really got something here. On top of all the action, by the end, you realize just how random we all really are, and that he has snuck in a deep and disconcertedly true philosophy of life. We're all living Random. We just think we're not.

I had high hopes for Penn’s first book, and they were exceeded.Vibrant and unbounded language, striking characters as well as unexpected turns are all set in an excellent depiction of both the human psyche and Sin City alike.To those familiar, recognizing a setting or persons personally known deepens the experience; to those stranger to ‘Vegas and its characters it provides a glimpse into its peerless world of wonder and facade.Excellent book, and very hard to put down.

This is a relatively short but very fun novel from Penn Jillette; the story is a nice ride and is interjected with bits of various philosophy, theory and perspective from the man himself. If you are a fan of Penn and Teller or just looking for a fun, Vegas-based novel to read, definitely pick this one up.

This book was just ok for me. Entertaining enough that I read it all the way though. I was interested in how people lived their lives according to dice. For the most part it just seemed like a ramble though.

Loved the concept of living your life by the dice. The outcomes represent parts of you that would like to be expressed but often suppressed. Loved it.On top of this, visiting with friends by proxy of Jonnie Pam Piff Jade and others was great.I’ve met one of the insurance agents who fronted for crazy things and had fantastic conversations with him. This takes it to another level.So good. Thanks