My friend Neil says I am a comedy librarian. I know what he means. Maybe because my home does not ring with the laughter of children or supervillains, I have to fill the void with yuks of other sorts.
Or maybe I just know how to put myself in a good mood. When bummers abound, my collection of mood-altering movies (The Big Lebowski, Anchorman, Office Space, Evildead 2, Borat, Tropic Thunder, Superbad, Office Space, Talladega Nights) and TV shows (Seinfeld, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Futurama) are guaranteed to dunk my brain in a tank of comedy, faster than you can say "McLovin!" or "Zoidberg!"
And of course there are books. Many of them you already have, because they are justifiably famous: the George Carlin books, either of Bill Simmons' books, Michael Ian Black's My Custom Van, The Book of the Subgenius, John Hodgman's stuff, all those 'Onion' books, The Far Side collections, Shit My Dad Says, and Earth: The Book. But others are a little less well-known, yet no less laughter-inducing. Some have never been in the humor section at all, yet put to shame 98.3% of what we call humor. You should have these books. They will make you laugh. When we laugh, we are happy. Get these books and be happy.
Mark Peters is a language columnist for Good and Visual Thesaurus. He can be found on Twitter here.
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"A Confederacy of Dunces" John Kennedy Toole, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1980.
"I dust a bit...in addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.
~Ignatius J. Reilly
"I dust a bit...in addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.
~Ignatius J. Reilly"
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
"Stop!' I cried imploringly to my god-like mind."
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
"Canned food is a perversion,' Ignatius said. 'I suspect that it is ultimately very damaging to the soul."
— John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces)
"Sky Maul: Happy Crap You Can Buy from a Plane" by comedy group Kasper Hauser.
To quote George Saunders' review: "Reading this blurb is a form of inefficiency, because to know
that this book is madly funny, full of wild invention, and definitively satirizes one of the most banal and loathsome of all American institutions, all you have to do is skip this blurb and open the book to any page. But if you've made it this far, it's too late. Sorry for wasting your time. OPEN THE BOOK."
--George Saunders, author of CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia
A few sample headlines: "Jackie Robinson Lynched for Stealing Second"; "United States Leads World in Industry ---- 'Thanks Orphans!' Grateful Americans Say"; "U.S. Enters War; Wilson Vows to 'Make World Safe for Corporate Oligarchy'"; "Harold Lloyd Killed in Fall from Clock"; "New Magazine, 'Playboy,' Offers Astute Literary Criticism, Tits"; "Sanford, Son Killed in Watts Rioting ---- Aunt Esther Missing"; "Johnson Deploys 20,000 Body Bags to Vietnam"; and "Congress Allocates $300 Billion to Nation's Rich."
I have LIAR: the Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations.
A lot of Christopher Moore, like Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, You Suck and Bite Me.
I love parodies like Bad Dog, Andy, The Dangerous Book for Dogs/Devious book for Cats and Goodnight Goon. (Do you see a recurring theme here?)
And very subtle, gentle humor such as Tiny Game Hunting.
Also blatant humor such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. And 101 uses for a dead cat.
There is also Bach, Beethoven and the Boys and any of Katherine Krull's Lives of the...books.
2. How To Tell Your Friends From the Apes, Will Cuppy.
3. Barefoot Boy With Cheek, Max Shulman
4. Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys, ditto.
5. The Wayward Press, A. J. Liebling
The man who coined the eleventh commandment: God never told anyone to be stupid.