Books about Humor

Perhaps the most famous cat in the world, Garfield delivers in this book. This is a collection of past Garfield comic strips with the cartoonist Jim Davis explaining some of his decision making process. Davis has a different idea about commercialization than Watterson (of Calvin and Hobbes) and he makes a compelling argument.

Garfield, as usual, torments his owner and everyone who comes in his path. There is lovable Odie. There is the gluttony and mad rushes at lasagna. There is Garfield's laziness which results in the audacity of the mice in the house. And finally Garfield's terrible singing on the fence in the wee hours of the night.

Tags: comics humor

The classic anti-war story. The phrase "Catch-22" has become part of the language. You will never forget the black humor and characters in this book.

Tags: humor satire

Calvin and Hobbes is among my favorite comic books, up there with Tintin and Asterix. This particular edition is more than just a collection of comic strips. Bill Watterson explains some of the background stories and considerations behind some of the more popular and controversial strips that he created. He also reiterates his commitment to keeping Calvin and Hobbes free from being commercialized.

Tags: humor comics

The first 2 years of Peanuts strips and a collector's dream. The book also has a short biography of Charles Schulz, an interview with him and an excellent essay on the influence and reach of the Peanuts strip.

Tags: humor comics

A fictional boat trip by three blundering men and their dog. Will keep you laughing all the way.

Tags: humor

Funny, sweet anecdotes and nuggets of wit. A delightful collection to while away your time.

Tags: humor

Excellent Jeeves story. Bertie Wooster goes to Totleigh Towers to steal a cow creamer for his Aunt Dahlia. He becomes involved in more complications such as the on-again, off-again engagement of his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle and the lunatic ideas of Stiffy Byng. The book is full of unexpected twists, especially at the end of each chapter. I also love the way that Gussie is unaware of the problems he has created by his actions, until they are pointed out to him.

Tags: humor

A great Blandings Castle episode, this book is stunning for the way it weaves the multiple love threads together. The running gag about the drunkard forced into being a teetotaler after seeing faces is as side-splitting as you would get in any Wodehouse novel. Time after time, you think that the author has checked in a poor turn of the plot only to find an ingenious run of events.

Tags: humor

Set at Blandings Castle, the plot revolves around the competition for the pig contest in the local show. Lord Emsworth has learnt that his neighbor Sir Parsloe has brought a new pig to compete with his Empress of Blandings. Combined with a series of love entanglements, the book is a laugh riot.

Tags: humor

I am writing this note just after writing a review for "The Last Lecture". The two books are diametrically opposite, Randy Pausch writing about childhood dreams while knowing he is about to die, and this book about deaths caused by stupid acts by people. As anyone familiar with the Darwin Awards knows, the book treats such deaths as a good thing because it takes idiotic people out of the reproductive process, thus contributing to a more intelligent human gene pool.

How can anyone with a conscience enjoy such a book? I think the fascination with the Darwin Awards comes from the fact that it treats its work very seriously. It does not accept any form of death that can be construed as tragic or accidental. It appeals to our sense of justice by considering people who attempt to do extraordinarily dangerous tasks in unusually stupid ways that defy common sense. It is a tragedy if someone gets killed in a car accident, but not if they were driving 100 miles an hour while drunk on a mountain road.

As Roger Ebert would say if he were reviewing books, this book is proof that there is life in any genre, however revolting the concept seems to be at first glance. And "The Last Lecture" shows how a good concept can be uninspiring if not done right.

Tags: humor

Business management through humor. Almost everything that Scott Adams writes can be found in real life - the clueless managers, the cliched mission statements, the unrealistic deadlines. There is a judicious selection of Dilbert cartoons sprinkled throughout the book. Many aspects of the operations of a company (marketing, sales, management) are viewed through the eyes of sarcasm. It is unfortunate that Adams is so close to the truth, but that is the reality.

Tags: humor comics

I laughed and laughed and loudly too. A great book if you have time to kill or you are depressed. The writing is superb and the anecdotes splendid. There is Toby trying his hand at screenwriting, playing the role of husband and father, becoming a critic while producing his own play and getting caught up in the most embarrassing and funny situations. The writing does seem to turn a bit corny towards the end, but to people who have gone through similar emotions, it is probably right on the money.

Tags: biography humor

A good collection of Wodehouse stories, including those of Jeeves and Lord Emsworth. Most of the plots are very good, while a few seem to be on auto-pilot.

Tags: humor

Phil Rosenthal is the creator and writer of the famous sitcom, "Everybody Loves Raymond". This book is his biography from his childhood to his years on the show. I heard the audio version of the book and it was really funny. Filled with anecdotes and delivered with his Bronx accent, Phil talks about the various aspects of producing the show from writing to managing the crew. It does help if you have seen the show because he talks about how some of the more famous episodes were created from real-life incidents.

Tags: humor biography

A funny, outrageous look at politics and democracy in the United States of America. I heard the audio tape, which offers the voices of the Jon Stewart crew, but apparently the book has some good illustrations. So you may want to take a look at that. Obviously, the content is politically incorrect and risque, so if you are easily offended, you may want to stay away.

Tags: politics humor

A fun book with rather pointless, but interesting facts about nothing in particular. As for the answer to the question in title, read the book or Google it.

Tags: humor trivia

The horrors of stupid management! Scott Adams goes into the brains of incompetent managers and their evil schemes to exploit workers. Fun, even though the book never reaches the audience (managers) it should.

Tags: humor comics

Toby's narrative of his "adventures" in the fashion magazine industry is a good read. Being a stranger to this world, it struck me as less funny and more like an exposé of the egos, the insecurities and the extravagance in the industry. While I agreed with some of Toby's observations of misconceptions regarding meritocracy in the United States, his conclusions of the superiority of the British system do not become true from those arguments. The book would have been better if he had stopped just short of expounding theories using logical fallacies.

Tags: biography humor

This book is the last of the Totleigh Towers stories and does a good job of wrapping up the various story threads. This is not a great Wodehouse book, though. The plot line in the story seems very skewed. The story starts slow and there is very little tension that is characteristic of most Wodehouse novels. Towards the end, many crises come to a head, but they quickly get resolved, albeit in a satisfactory manner. This is one book where I would have wanted things to be dragged on a bit more.

Other titles of the book: [UK] Much Obliged, Jeeves

Tags: humor

A book of cartoons on aging, retirement and death by different artists. Reasonable good set, considering the sombre subject. The compiler of the cartoons also added several pages of Q&A from the cartoonists, some of which were interesting, but perhaps could have been avoided to have more cartoons instead. Anyway, it is a quick fun read. So no harm done.

Tags: comics humor

A fun book comprising of short pieces of writing from the author about his comics, ideas, opinions, various incidents and everything in general. Some thought-provoking ideas here and there, but mostly it is nothing more than a pleasant way to spend some time.

Tags: humor comics

A wonderful short book that details the world of comics in countries around the world. It is packed with several illustrations of comics from places all over like Japan, Belgium, India, Australia, etc. There are biographies of prominent cartoonists and the history of the cartooning tradition in different nations and regions.

Tags: humor comics

The Far Side comic strips offer alternate views of events and situations. Most commonly, Larson uses animals to present his thoughts and views. The humor is rather uneven: there are some hilarious ROTFL-type cartoons, while others leave you scratching your head. I suppose the range of situations that Larson uses for his comics is one factor causing the inconsistent feel.

Tags: humor comics

Oh, well! Once you read one book by Scott Adams, you have read them all! I don't mean it in a bad way. It is an enjoyable way to pass your time and if you are reading a Dilbert book for the first time, you might just be mistaken that it is a classic! But after reading several Dilbert books, I cannot find anything new to say about this particular book.

Tags: comics humor

A rather tired effort from Wodehouse about a gang trying to rob a bank that is deep in the red. Some of the characters are sketched out in depth, especially the butler of the title. But the storyline becomes a little unbelievable towards the end, even for a Wodehouse novel, and the book barely salvages it.

Tags: humor

This comic strip book is about the Nixon-Agnew years. Some of the jokes are funny, I guess. But definitely outdated, especially with Nixon's resignation. Oliphant also seems to be verge ever-so-near into racial caricatures. I suppose I should try some of his more recent books.

Tags: humor comics

The opening parts of the book (where we are introduced to the maddening red tape of the French police) are pure Wodehouse genius. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is a plot on auto-pilot. You can almost predict the twists and turns of the storyline and Wodehouse misses many tricks to keep the reader surprised. The ending is also perhaps a little rushed.

Having compared a few books of Wodehouse written at different times, it seems evident that his later books (as is this book published in 1964) are tired. They are plot-driven rather than character-driven. For example, in "Biffen's Millions", Edmond Biffen knows that he will lose a fortune if he is arrested, yet he decides to risk that by drinking. That is not logical, only the plot forces the character to think like that. A better setup might be that Biffen is tricked into imbibing something that makes him drunk. That would have been more believable and been a better use of the plot as well as a proper understanding of the character.

Other titles of the book: [UK] Biffen's Millions

Tags: humor

An early work of Wodehouse, this should be an amusing item for Wodehouse fans as he plays with two characters, a Bertie Wooster and one Reggie Pepper. As we all know, Wooster made the cut and Pepper slumped into obscurity. The stories are forgettable enough, but this may be worth reading for its place in the Jeeves saga.

[Read the public-domain copy of "My Man Jeeves" free at the Gutenberg site.]

Tags: humor

This is Wodehouse's last fully completed novel, "Sunset at Blandings" unfinished at his death. Wodehouse's age shows up in this Bertie Wooster tale, as incidents that would have been funny in an earlier age seem tired cliches. Perhaps Wodehouse could not reconcile the present with the lifestyles inhabited by his beloved characters.

In a strange way, this reminds me of Agatha Christie's "Curtain", the last Hercule Poirot novel. That was, at a superficial level, a murder mystery, but it plays out as a tragedy. In "The Cat-nappers", Wodehouse reaches out to reference the cunning plot of one of his masterpieces, "The Full Moon", a 1947 novel written almost 27 years ago before his last book. But the writing is weary and, deep down, Wodehouse probably knew it.

The difference with "Curtain" is that Christie ingeniously wrote it in the early 40's at the height of her powers and had it published after her death. So the characters seem fresh and the plot follows the mood. The story of "The Cat-nappers" differs from the tone set by the writing and that is fatal.

Other titles of the book: [UK] Aunts Aren't Gentlemen

Tags: humor

The title refers to a miniature painting that is the center of focus of activities of the chief protagonists. The action quickly moves from New York to London to country houses. Although it has the customary Wodehouse mix-up plots, there are a few disappointments. Primarily, it does not contain any of the regular Wodehouse characters. Plot points with tension are resolved rather quickly, instead of prolonging them to create more suspense. There are very few twists in the tale, or at least which cannot be predicted easily. The start of one of the story lines (where a donation is made to the church) is rather unbelievable and spoils that part of the book until its unsatisfactory explanation. I did like the final comeuppance of the bad character, though the rushed-through ending of the book prevented me from enjoying the moment to the full.

Tags: humor

This is the first appearance of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. However, it is not all about them. The book is a set of early short stories published by Wodehouse and we can probably guess this by the quality of writing. The young Wodehouse has got the plots nailed down, but his writing lacks the excellence and mischeviousness that he would achieve in later years.

We can see P G Wodehouse experimenting with different ideas, the most striking being the two stories narrated by a dog. Because of that, the book is a hodge-podge, interesting for its historical significance, but not offering the loyal Wodehouse reader the regular fare they are used to.

[Read the public-domain copy of "The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories" free at the Gutenberg site.]

Tags: humor