Dan Zevin is not a man to miss an opportunity to turn his life's milestones into comic prose and potential bestsellerdom.

Zevin, 33, burst onto the humor scene four years ago with "Entry Level Life," a tongue-in-cheek, how-to book for recent college graduates about surviving in the real world.

Now comes "The Nearly-Wed Handbook - How to Survive the Happiest Day of Your Life" (Avon Books), a spoof of wedding-planning guides that Zevin began writing just about as soon as his honeymoon was over.

Like his first book, "The Nearly-Wed Handbook" parodies an entire genre of pretentious how-to books.

Zevin has a prose style that's a blend of Dave Barry and P.J. O'Rourke, and, happily, the editors who worked on the "The Nearly-Wed Handbook" left the laughter in.

Useful tips for nearly wed grooms include where to get an engagement ring. "The best place to go shopping for a ring is the place your fiancee has told you to go. Make sure to bring the stack of Polaroids she has taken of the ring she has selected."

For nearly wed brides, Zevin provides capsule descriptions of various kinds of "specialty" bridal showers, such as the bachelorette party. "A favorite among gals who find male stag parties so juvenile, so vulgar, so demeaning, they are forced to have one themselves. Party antics include dressing up in toilet paper wedding gowns, engaging in adult-themed scavenger hunts and stuffing dollar bills down the athletic supporters of gyrating Chippendale dancers."

Pub Date: 7/19/98