About the Author: Michael N. Marcus
Michael N. Marcus is a journalist, bestselling author, editor, publisher and award-winning advertising copywriter.
His writing career started when he published a newspaper in elementary school, and since then he has been an editor at Rolling Stone and has written for many other magazines and newspapers. Michael has provided the words for over one hundred websites and blogs. He specializes in making technology understandable, and often humorous
Born in 1946, Michael's a proud member of the first cohort of the Baby Boom, along with Dolly Parton, Candy Bergen, Donny Trump, Billy Clinton and Georgie Bush.
At the urging of a misguided guidance counselor, he went to Lehigh University to become an electrical engineer, and was quickly disappointed to learn that engineering was mostly math—and slide rules were not as much fun as soldering irons.
Michael was one of a few literate people in his engineer-filled fresh-man dormitory and made money editing term papers. While in college he co-owned a band management company. One of its groups turned down the chance to record "Yummy Yummy Yummy, I've Got Love in My Tummy," which later became a hit for Ohio Express.
Later, his college apartment had an elaborate and illegal multi-line phone system, a phone booth with a toilet in it and an invisible phone activated by two hand claps.
Michael lives in Connecticut with his wife, Marilyn, Hunter, their golden retriever and a lot of stuff—including both indoor and outdoor telephone booths, a "Lily Tomlin" switchboard, lots of books, CDs and DVDs, and many black boxes with flashing lights. Marilyn is very tolerant.
LAUGH & LEARN
This bestselling book is a collection of amusing anecdotes and useful advice on a wide range of subjects: money, relationships, parenting, business, work, cars, food & drink, life & death, education, health, technology, media, aging, time, animals, baseball, sailing, sex, writing & publishing and law.
The book is the sad—and also humorous and helpful—story of what the author did wrong over a lifetime and what he learned from his mistakes, plus what he learned from observing other people, companies, animals and events.
Marcus often fantasizes about traveling back in time to warn himself not to make stupid mistakes.
He says, "The ten-, twenty- and sixty-year-old me might have ignored the advice of parents, teachers, doctors and accountants—but not the advice of me. If I talk to myself I have to listen. While technology will not yet allow me to go back and talk to myself, I can warn and advise anyone else who's willing to pay attention. That's why I wrote this book. And maybe by looking back I can influence my own future."
