“You’re not Fooling Anyone when You Take your Laptop to a Coffe Shop” is my fifth Scalzi book, and the very first non-fictional one of the lot. Released in a very limited and expensive edition by Subterranean Press, this book is for hard core Scalzi fans only. Spread out over four extensive chapters you will find John Scalzi commenting and giving you advice about writing in general. That is to say; this isn’t a book about how to write, it’s a book that deals with a writer’s life (the writer in question of course being Scalzi himself)

“Coffe Shop” clocks in at 318 pages, but in reality the book is much shorter. Why? Because “Coffe Shop” is not a real book per definition. The Whatever, John Scalzi’s eminent blog, has been going strong since the late nineties and it has of course been accumulating some really good essays on the different sides of writing. These essays are still available on net, but after being harassed by his fans, Scalzi conceded to print a book where the best and most relevant essays got collected in one single book.

The result became a book with some funny blog posts about this and that, and many of the blog posts were about the same this’ and that’s as previous ones. I am not a stupid guy, I don’t need anyone telling me things twice, so you can imagine my indignation of being told everything at least twice. The endless repetition sometimes made me want to bang the book against my head. I didn’t do it, though. The book was much too expensive.

The essays themselves were for the most pretty fine posts that got his point across in a accessible manner. The Whatever is my favorite blog of all the blogs I read (and I do read a lot of blogs). It’s the first one I check out every time I’m near a computer with an Internet connection, so to read a book with purely John Scalzi goodness was like a, way to expensive (because I could have read them for free), dream come true.

One of the things that Scalzi repeated a lot in the essays, is that he is an arrogant jackass that makes more money than most by writing and yada yada yada ya…

I can take a little honesty and insight about your failings once or twice. I’ll even give him a extra third time just because he’s an American and the cultural differences between Norway and the USA are pretty big when it comes to being arrogant and full of yourself. But for Pete’s Sake, was it necessary to repeat it all the time? I like John Scalzi. I think he’s smart and witty and write good books, but at one point I felt that I was being brainwashed to loathe him. I strongly believe that “Coffe Shop” could have been much better if the essays had been better edited. No one wants a fan to think you’re a jackass. That’s just stupid.

I did, however, learn a lot about writing, publishing and things that I doubt I’ll ever need. John Scalzi can argue your hat off, and I hope I learned a thing or two on how to be a better blogger (which we all know I need). All in all, “Coffe Shop” is not my favorite Scalzi book by far. I doubt I’ll ever reread the entire thing, but there were certain chapters and posts that I may look up. The final verdict for “Coffe Shop”: 5/10, and it’s only recommended to people who love the Whatever. Everyone else should find something else to read.