Tickle Your Funnybone
From a year in "wedding land" comes this humorous yet poignant memoir--from choosing the perfect gown to balancing advice, from well-intentioned loved ones to avoiding the dreaded label "bridezilla."
"For the first 20 years of her life, all Nancy French knew of the world was Paris--Paris, Tennessee, that is. When the former homecoming queen trades in cow-tipping, big hair, and the Catfish Capital of the World for a new life in the Big Apple, she is in for a real education. With a keen sense of humor, French discusses everything from the South's obsession with church attendance to the blue-state notion that red staters think as slowly as they speak."
"American-style democracy is the world's most beloved form of government, which explains why so many other nations are eager for us to impose it on them. But what is American democracy? In AMERICA (THE BOOK), Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff offer their insights into our unique system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and exploring the reasons why concepts like one man, one vote, government by the people, and every vote counts have become such popular urban myths. Topics include: Ancient Rome: The First Republicans; The Founding Fathers: Young, Gifted, and White; The Media: Can it Be Stopped?; and more!"
"The title essay imagines the opening statement of an attorney for cartoon character Wile E. Coyote in a product liability suit against the Acme Company, supplier of unpredictable rocket sleds and faulty spring-powered shoes. Other essays are about the golfing career of comedian Bob Hope, a commencement address given by a Satanist college president, a suburban short story attacked by Germans, the problem of issues versus non-issues, and the theories of revolutionary stand-up comedy from Comrade Stalin."
"The fine people of "McSweeney's" have put together a preposterously funny collection that offers a wealth of useful information--a consistently hilarious selection of brainy, wild humor from one of America's most popular literary magazines."
Sample contents: - A Brief Parody of a Talk Show That Falls Apart about Halfway through - The Spirit of Christmas - The Briefing: A Play in One Act - On the Implausibility of the Death Star's Trash Compactor - Preview of Summer Camps Comments Written on Evaluations of My Speech on Needle-Exchange Programs
This is a selective gathering of humorous letters written by famous denizens of show business and the arts, celebrated writers, politicians, and American Presidents.
Jerry Seinfeld created an alter ego (Ted L. Nancy) who writes letters of suggestions or strange requests to companies all over America. The letters he writes are funny and the (mostly) straight responses top off the joke!
"James Thurber reported the world as he saw it. But what a world! Only Thurber could picture a seal peering nearsightedly over a headboard or a former husband crouched atop the armoire. Titles in this selection, all vintage Thurber, hint at the range of his whimsy and include 'Courtship Through the Ages,' 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,' 'Interview with a Lemming' and 'You Know How the French Are.'"-
"Midway through writing this, her first book, ...Lindsey Stokes faced a dilemma. She realized that there's already so much pain and suffering in life--diseases, hunger, underwire brassieres, folks who flash their headlights at you when you're driving too slowly--that she didn't want to add more. She worried that the world might not be ready for the awful truth: namely, that it is full of idiots."
Selections from published and never-before-published works are collected in a work that features film excerpts, one-liners, essays, stand-up routines, Allen's classic New Yorker pieces, screenplays, film outtakes, magazine articles, and interviews.
"...brings together the last nine years of cartoons from Roz Chast. Together these drawings, which originally appeared in the New Yorker, Scientific American, Redbook, and other publications, constitute a spot-on record of our increasingly absurd existence. As the twenty-first century begins, we can only be grateful that Roz Chast is here to tackle some of the tough themes of the times: genetically altered mice, birthday parties from hell, and comfort drinks in the age of insecurity."
"Wilbur Winkle, an idiosyncratic nebbish with a peculiar focus on the odd and unlikely fact, has corresponded for years with America's major corporations. Fueling his complaints and comments is a single overriding premise: that the rights of consumers - his rights - are under siege, and he must do what he can to defend them."
