Your Memberships & Subscriptions
![Kindle app logo image](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/app/kindle-app-logo._CB668847749_.png)
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
The Survival of Marvin Baines Kindle Edition
Wake-up call required.
Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda.
Marvin Baines seemingly has it all: a loving family and a great job. He is about to turn forty, and just like that, the realization hits him--his own mortality is straight up the road. That's not his only problem. Suddenly he is unable to distinguish fantasy from reality, and his often quirky decision-making causes his whole life to begin to unravel. All he wants is an escape from his humdrum life. What he gets is something quite unexpected.
"The humour is well-judged and never forced, and overall The Survival of Marvin Baines is a highly recommended tale of mid-life dysfunction." - Indie Book Spot
"This book will stick with you like a healthy meal leaving you feeling pleased with yourself for eating, savoring, and thinking..." - Karen Luellen. author
From the author of the rollicking romp THE FAMOUS UNION.
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateJanuary 14, 2014
- File size210 KB
Editorial Reviews
Review
"An excellent book by an excellent writer" - Nick Russell, author of BIG LAKE series
"It's been a while since I read a novel with such a strong and fascinating protagonist. The Survival of Marvin Baines really is a very well-paced and memorable tale, written in an original and distinctive style. Memorable. Loved it, and will be reading more by the same author." - Crosby, Top Amazon Reviewer
"Like I said, this book will stick with you like a healthy meal leaving you feeling pleased with yourself for eating, savoring, and thinking,... yeah, it was a good one." - Karen Luellen, writer
"A book like this could easily become maudlin and dull, but Meyer keeps it moving along at a great pace. The humour is well-judged and never forced, and overall The Survival of Marvin Baines is a highly recommended tale of mid-life dysfunction." - Indie Book Spot
From the Author
I have always had a talent for writing, which was driven by my passion for stringing words together to say something that would make others take notice. My teachers, all through the school system, told me so. I have written my whole life. My cupboards are filled with my writing, which spans a forty-five year period. I have bits and pieces of stories, completed short stories, essays, and notes galore.
I became fascinated with books at a very young age. I must have read every CURIOUS GEORGE book out there. At the age of ten, I self-published my first book, a short synopsis of California history. My parents bought the only copy, but I was a published author at an early age. The writing bug struck me hard.
I have written my whole life. My study at home is filled with manuscripts of one sort or another. When I retired from my 40-year career as an English professor, I found that I now had the time to work on the unfinished manuscripts I had started years before. I have now published fours novels on Amazon Kindle, and my fifth book is nearing completion. In retirement I have suddenly found the time I need to devote to one of my lifelong passions: writing. And I also am privileged to have the time to see things through to completion. The unfinished works in my study are quickly vanishing, to my delight.
I want to write until I die. I love creating characters and plots. Writing to me is like reading. I never know precisely where things will lead. I am in good health, and my doctor told me that writing is a very healthy avocation for someone in my situation: a retiree. I love his advice.
The most difficult part of writing for me is placing the following words on my manuscript: The End. I get very involved with my characters as I write. I laugh and cry with them, and I agonize over their actions and their circumstances. They are like my own children. I am sad to see them grow up and then go off to live their lives on their own. Saying goodbye is tough, even though I know that they have found a very good home on Amazon Kindle.
When I am in the groove, which is the vast majority of the time when I am sitting at my keyboard, working on a manuscript, the characters call out to me, leading me onward, and it is exciting to me, because I never quite know where they will lead me. I have fun writing. It is pleasurable for me. The very second though that something seems too tough to handle at the moment, I stop. I will then go off and live my everyday life, waiting until the trigger I need pops into my head. That's when I run back upstairs to my study and start working once again.
It is a good life. I enjoy writing immensely. Life is too short to do otherwise.
From the Inside Flap
From the Back Cover
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B005E4I0AE
- Publisher : Pacific Books (January 14, 2014)
- Publication date : January 14, 2014
- Language : English
- File size : 210 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 145 pages
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Michael Meyer](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/amzn-author-media-prod/9r8ftj1ls68cahnmb2e1tgdvjj._SY600_.jpg)
Michael Meyer is the author of mysteries, thrillers, humorous fiction, and non-fiction: Love and romance, laughter and tears, thrills and fears.
He has resided in and has visited many places in the world, all of which have contributed in some way to his own published writing. He has literally traveled throughout the world, on numerous occasions. He has lived in Finland, Germany, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He gained the wanderlust to see the world, to experience other cultures, at an early age, and this desire has never left him. If anything, it has only gained in intensity as he has aged.
Among the many unique things that have happened to him in his world travels, he has walked the streets of Istanbul with a detective, searching for a pickpocket who got him good. He has ridden on the back of a motorcycle in Tehran while the driver, who spoke not one word of English, pointed out all the sights to him. He has wrestled an Iranian soldier who tried to break into his hotel room in Tehran. He has had the paint completely stripped from his car as he drove across Saudi Arabia in a sandstorm. He has stood on the stage of a busy nightclub in Tokyo, singing "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes" to an audience feeling no pain from the Sake they were drinking. He has been chased by a family of mongooses (yes, that is the correct spelling) on the idyllic Caribbean island of St. Croix. And that is just the beginning of his long list of worldly adventures.
As a recent retiree from a forty-year career as a professor of writing, he now lives in Southern California wine country with his wife, Kitty, and their two adorable rescue cats.
You can follow Mike at his Facebook writer's site: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMeyersWritingLife
Be sure to check out his Pinterest writer's page, which includes numerous audio readings, clips, and trailers of his books:
http://pinterest.com/temmike/#
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonTop reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2011Marvin Baines is approaching 40. When faced with the idea of his own mortality, he begins to unravel quite a bit. Allowing himself to be influenced by talking grass and songs on the radio, Marvin decides that he is tired of his hum-drum life. He wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it!
What I love about this book is that it is in no way pretentious. It is a real story told through the view of a man that feels real. he is someone everyone knows, and very relatable. Anyone with spouses and children who has had to make sacrifices for the sake of the collective "we" can easily understand the frustration of a man who reaches 40 and realizes that he is unhappy with his life.
Throughout the story Marvin often reminisces about his past, asking himself over and over again "what if"??? When finally faced with the reality of his "what if", Marvin learns a real lesson about the difference between fantasy and real life.
After watching Marvin flop around crazily, grasping at survival, in the end you will be pleasantly surprised to find that he does.
Overall, Myers has written an endearing story that Joe Everyman can relate too. That is the magic of Marvin Baines.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2016It was a lame story.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2013The Survival of Marvin Baines is a funny and poignant modern morality play in novel form. The art of author Mike Myers is such that I came to care about Marvin while I was laughing. In particular, I thought the author's crisp style was perfect for the story.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2013Marvin Baines is a man who is forced to face growing up. I found the book charming, for so many of us growing up is not quite this whimsical, but his story kept me interested. I did want to know if he faced the challenge or ran away.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2011I thought the beginning was a little chaotic and jumpy and I also failed to see the humour in it, but that is something which depends on the reader and their interpretation. It was a sad yet realistic look at how a man can lose himself in his own life. Somehow he begins to question eveything around him and fixates on what he imagines to be a lost opportunity for love, lust and adventure. It sheds a light on how destructive a mid life crisis can be and how Martin expects to be able to pick up all the pieces and glue them back together after his selfish emotional implosion. I received a free copy of this book for my review.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2011After reading The Survival of Marvin Baines I read the comments others had posted on Amazon. I was surprised by the overly positive reviews. The story line has potential and in the hands of writers like John Irving or Anne Tyler it could have lived up to the promotional. I found it trite, far from humorous and vaguely entertaining. Marvin, with his company of two dimensional characters, exchange banter which some might find funny. I found the attempt shallow. Only in the fourth section of the book when the path of a former heart throb, Janice Cromer, crosses with Marvin's does the story gain momentum. Perhaps the story should have started here and worked backwards to create anticipation and interest. I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to review it.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2011Overall Feedback: Mixed in with all the humor and wit is a real life lesson that all of us need to learn. Michael has this innate ability to draw you in with his humor but still manage to get you to learn something. Makes it seem he must have been a teacher in a former life. Doh! Check his author profile and you see that he is a former professor from a community college. That sly devil, not making that apparent and teaching me a lesson. Okay, all jokes aside this is book that must be read and you must be the one that reads it.
Point of View: Marvin Baines is the character you follow and you will learn from.
Voice: Wit and humor will always compel you to read further, especially when it is well timed and drives the story.
Character Development: Marvin becomes endearing to the reader and lessons are learned.
Plot: Without giving away anything this would be hard to describe. Oh wait, to quote the description, "Wake up call".
Dialogue: Genuine and fitting.
Pacing: The pace compels the reader throughout the story and keeps your interest page to page.
Setting: We can all relate in our own lives and setting with the setting in this book.
Continuity: I could not locate any loose ends or parts that did not mesh. A complete and perfectly told story.
Top reviews from other countries
- Jean CamplingReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 22, 2014
1.0 out of 5 stars SAurvival of Martin Baines
Must have been bought by my husband who died over 2o months ago. I cannot comment on this as I had no idea about it.
- Alex Le SoumReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 9, 2011
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful wry comedy with a subtle depth
When I first started reading this book I took it for an out and out comedy. Sentient grass - I couldn't stop giggling. As I read on I realised there was a much deeper side to the story, told very gently through the lovely wry humour. Is Marvin Baines going crazy, or is he in the process of a wake-up call, giving him the opportunity to reassess his life and his priorities? I don't want to post them here because I want readers to discover them for themselves, but subtly hidden amongst the comedy are some thought-provoking concepts. The book will leave you smiling, but also reflecting on your own life and how your actions shape your future. I highly recommend it to other readers.