To complement his work as a fiction writer, John Updike accepted any number of odd jobs—book reviews and introductions, speeches and tributes, a “few paragraphs” on baseball or beauty or Borges—and saw each as “an opportunity to learn something, or to extract from within some unsuspected wisdom.” In this, his largest collection of assorted prose, he brings generosity and insight to the works and lives of William Dean Howells, George Bernard Shaw, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, and dozens more. Novels from outposts of postmodernism like Turkey, Albania, Israel, and Nigeria are reviewed, as are biographies of Cleopatra and Dorothy Parker. The more than a hundred considerations of books are flanked, on one side, by short stories, a playlet, and personal essays, and, on the other, by essays on his own oeuvre. Updike’s odd jobs would be any other writer’s chief work.

This volume answers that annoying question: "Oh yeah, and who's going to pay you to do that?" Odd Jobs offers advice on jobs which many will not have considered or dismissed as too fanciful. Grouped into logical sections the book provides a wealth of ideas, job descriptions and contact points.

Here is a book for every curious, courageous, or desperate person who's willing to set convention aside to earn a living in the face of an ailing economy. From fashioning balloon animals to promoting liquor brands to picking berries in Australia, this easy-to-read, entertaining book takes a candid look at over a hundred jobs that don't require you to sit in an office eight hours a day, five days a week.

College student Kevin Davenport is working any and every odd job to make it through school. He discovers who killed his father while working at the corrupt, mob-controlled, Kosher World Meat Factory. Now he will stop at nothing to prevent the killers from ruining other families and to get his revenge. Going to the police and conventional methods have not only been ineffective for others, but has proven to be virtual suicide for them. So all bets are off and Davenport uses the grittiest and strangest tools to bring down the killers. The characters, misadventures and odd jobs will have the readers laughing, but the hazard is real and Davenport is in over his head.

Who blows the bugle at the Kentucky Derby? Who dusts the dinosaur bones at the Smithsonian? Who sniffs dog breath for a living? Who measures the breasts of real models? ODD JOBS introduces you to the real people who perform these truly peculiar jobs. In 65 intimate portraits, photo essayist Nancy Rica Schiff captures the personalities and occupations of these oddball professionals, providing a short profile of each. A 20-year photography veteran, Schiff has spent the better half of that time discovering the behind-the-scenes people who do what others can't (or won't) do. No one can say that America isn't the home of the free, the brave, and the quirky, who will do almost anything to make an honest buck.• Profiles 65 of the most unique jobs in America.• Jobs include duck walker, coin polisher, doll doctor, and artificial inseminator.

Odd Jobs checks out the kookiest jobs in the world--jobs too strange to be made up! The book is written with a high interest level to appeal to a more mature audience with a lower level of complexity for struggling readers. Clear visuals and colorful photographs help with comprehension. Fascinating information and wild facts that will hold the readers' interest are conveyed in considerate text for older readers, allowing for successful mastery of content. A table of contents, glossary, and index all enhance comprehension and vocabulary.

To complement his work as a fiction writer, John Updike accepted any number of odd jobs—book reviews and introductions, speeches and tributes, a “few paragraphs” on baseball or beauty or Borges—and saw each as “an opportunity to learn something, or to extract from within some unsuspected wisdom.” In this, his largest collection of assorted prose, he brings generosity and insight to the works and lives of William Dean Howells, George Bernard Shaw, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, and dozens more. Novels from outposts of postmodernism like Turkey, Albania, Israel, and Nigeria are reviewed, as are biographies of Cleopatra and Dorothy Parker. The more than a hundred considerations of books are flanked, on one side, by short stories, a playlet, and personal essays, and, on the other, by essays on his own oeuvre. Updike’s odd jobs would be any other writer’s chief work.

Odd Jobs is a comic-caper love-story about a Mountie woman and entrepreneurial men, house and family, script-writers and cat-burglars. A modern tale of movie magic in the wrong hands: the Big Lebowski meets Elmore Leonard’s niece. When Marty Drysdale first meets Chick, a member of the Canadian Mounties, he has an ounce of marijuana in the backseat of the limo he’s driving and a breaking-and-entering offense on his record. He escapes that first meeting with a traffic ticket and a major crush on “Officer Beautiful.” After just a month of knowing her, Marty proposes, and against all odds, she agrees. But Chick grows frustrated with Marty’s laziness and oddities. One night, coming home from his latest job as a projectionist, Marty crashes his Flxible Flxette limousine. In the shower of sparks, glass, and twisted metal, he has an epiphany: he will make his own movie and prove to Chick that he’s a man worth having. It isn’t long, however, before Marty’s hair-brained script—the copy-cat cat burglars—makes him the target of angry investors, the police, and other unintended victims of his latest scheme. He’ll have a lot of explaining to do if he wants to get out of this mess and keep the woman of his dreams in Odd Jobs.

Meet Nick Stone. The highlight of Nick's day had always been smoking Jane, drinking beer, and causing trouble. Usually all at the same time. But that all changed when Dad woke up with a dead stripper in his bed. This story promises to offend you, insult you and entertain you, all at the same time. In Odd-Jobs, the author holds blatant contempt for literary merit, and the result comes off a little like Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. WARNING: This short novel is not recommended for those who can't take a joke. In this novel, you will find references to guns, drugs, felony crimes and a dead stripper named Sally. You will also find stereotypes toward minorities, and urban youth in-general. You will also find the works of an author who doesn't give a rat's ass about "Literary Value" and who uses Odd-Jobs, his very first novel, to mock the literary community. So in short, if Odd-Jobs doesn't offend you in the first ten pages, then you're probably just as morbid and twisted as the author.