Humor Books

First, let me say that I am NOT an individual who reads for entertainment. My reading is centered around one primary purpose...to gather tidbits of information on a particular subject from various reference books and periodicals.

A friend, who was unaware that I basically only read informational text, kept telling me to read "An Improbable Find". After putting it off for some time, I finally purchased the book and began to read. I quickly became addicted and was totally absorbed in this captivating tale of the quest to find "Mr. Right". Julia, the main character, faces turmoil (well blended with humor) in matters of the heart. There were plenty of "Mr. Wrong's" throughout the book and I found myself wondering "Will she ever find happiness?"

The author has a wonderful feel for both the male and female characters. They come to life and in turn, allow the theater of our imagination to act out emotions and feelings that our daily routine does not allow us to experience so vividly. The material is well presented and the easy to read style will certainly reach out readers of all walks of life.

An Improbable Find is probably the best non-educational book I have read in the past 5 years!! It is an easy adult reader that entertains and allows one to live vicariously through the character Julia. Once I began reading, I was hooked until the last page of the story!! Living in a small town, I can easily understand the troubles of dating after divorce!!! I encourage the author to write a prequel to her "find" and give background of growing up with her family! They seem extremely adventurous and entertaining also!

This book was great! Makes you feel like you really know the characters personally!! I highly recommend this book for good and easy read. You won't want to stop reading till the last page. Then you will want more. Looking forward to the sequal.....

I loved this book! I read it in two days! I feel like I know these characters. Fun, easy read. I recommend this to everyone!

This is a great story of the disasters and dangers during the roller coaster of dating. Julia, the main character, takes you through the ups and downs of her quest for love. The book is reminiscent of Sex in the City episodes. I laughed through the whole book!

Sack's book had me both thinking and laughing. A great book that provides readers with a roadmap for thinking about their own lives and what they may want to pass down to their children.

I'm a huge fan of Brian Sack's Banterist website so I pre-ordered this book. What a treat it is! Lots of laugh-out-loud moments, but also some very insightful obervations about today's society and our culture. This book would make a fabulous Baby Shower gift for new moms and dads. Better give it BEFORE the baby arrives while they have time to read it!

... so hard on the subway that people are looking at you. 'Tis true. The even better part of this book, is that it is very very touching. It's so good that I've been reading it aloud to friend who have already bought it.
Bravo!

For the past few nights, I've annoyed my husband by busting out laughing while reading this book. Brian is a funny writer with a clever book that's more memoir than advice book, though I will save mine for my boys for when they're old enough to read about Irish pubs and French stalkers.

"In the Event of My Untimely Demise: Twenty Things My Son Needs to Know" is a laugh a minute (or second, depending on whether or not you're speed-reading). For anyone who's ever read Mr. Sack's blog, banterist dot com, or seen any of his commentaries on The Glenn Beck Program, you won't be disappointed by his first book. It seems that whatever Brian Sack touches is comedy gold (he even co-produced, of all things, a comedy-documentary, "Johnny Berlin"). I highly recommend this book. It may yet become my third favorite piece of comedic writing behind Steve Martin's shamefully out-of-print "Cruel Shoes, and Woody Allen's "Without Feathers."

Some of the most creative rabbit-monsters I have ever seen. Im even thinking about getting a couple tattoos of them.

I LOVE portrayals of monster rabbits because I have one myself--I took him in when I found him hopping down the street one week after Easter--yup, he was one of those poor abandoned Easter rabbits. He repays me by acting the savage beast. It is hilarious to be attacked by such an adorable creature, and his is SO WELL represented in this book!

GET THIS BOOK! This is fun to look at! What an imagination! Fluid and Beautiful designs make these drawings irresistable to stare at for hours. The artist is as imaginative as he is a talented.artist.

What delightful book. Gagne in color is even twice the power of his other popular offerings. I think he has really matured into a fine author and every new book is a joy. All I can say to Twisted Rabbits is bravo. What great designer.

Anyone who loves Monty Python, or who is a fan of Anya understands that rabbits are really voracious, man-eating creatures that hunt the night (or Knight) looking for the unsuspecting. And yet we continue to expose out children to them, believing that appearances could never be that deceiving. Finally, Michel Gagne has decides to take the lid of this secret scandal and reveal to the world the real horror that lurks between those sad brown eyes and cutesy tails.

Gagne was an illustrator in the well-known Don Bluth Studios until they closed in 1992. during that period he and another artist, Dave Kupczyk had a one-on-one competition about who could draw the evilest rabbit. While we won't know the real winner until Kupczyk publishes his own book, Gagne's rabbits are a delightfully evil and twisted as they come. The stuff of fluffy nightmares.

This is one of those books that is reserved for gag gifts for rabbit enthusiasts and excesses of cute, but it is fun for anyone that discovers it. Even as we speak, my cats are checking it out and whispering tales about that famous serial killer, Jack the Rabbit. You can't help but like this thin volume. Recommended for the light of heart.

The Book was received in excellent condition. The author knows what children love. My gransons enjoyed it soooo much. I am sending another one to another grandson who lives far away. I know he will enjoy it as well. It will be for his 10th birthday.

We live in Paris (France) and Jack Prelutsky has spent a few days speaking to the children at my daughter's school. He has made such a positive impression on her that I am going to order his books. He truly knows how to write for children.

One of the funniest poems we read was "I'm Stuck Inside a Seashell"! ...And one of the poems is "It's Raining Pigs and Noodles", just like the title (and they don't even just talk about pigs and noodles - they talk about all sorts of other things!)

All the poems are so funny and I was able to read some of them myself! ...And I learned never to take a bath all day and all night (Ha! Ha!)! I can't wait to read his other books!

Mom's note: "This collection of poems was simply adorable. I enjoyed reading them with my child as much as she enjoyed hearing them. ...And the simplicity of the poems allowed her to read some of them to me as well. A highly recommended bit of silliness!"

I just read this to a fourth grade class and they boo'd when I said poems. They wouldn't let me leave once I got started! They chanted for me to read more.

One of the funniest poems we read was "I'm Stuck Inside a Seashell"! ...And one of the poems is "It's Raining Pigs and Noodles", just like the title (and they don't even just talk about pigs and noodles - they talk about all sorts of other things!)

All the poems are so funny and I was able to read some of them myself! ...And I learned never to take a bath all day and all night (Ha! Ha!)! I can't wait to read his other books!

Mom's note: "This collection of poems was simply adorable. I enjoyed reading them with my child as much as she enjoyed hearing them. ...And the simplicity of the poems allowed her to read some of them to me as well. A highly recommended bit of silliness!"

The writing is good, the drawing is good, and the visual humor is excellent, but what really got to me about these strips us how happy everybody was. The characters bubble over with joy and energy. It made me smile. Then, because I was in such a good mood, I enjoyed the strips even more and got into an even better mood; a vicious cycle. Looking past how happy the strip is, the other striking thing is the really outstanding use of visual humor.

I have not read the strip in the newspapers, so I base my opinions just on this collection. The strip is about a generic young couple--Joe and Marcy--and their baby, Sunny. Strips focus on typical parent situations--the baby won't sleep, baby is heavy when carried, parents and grandparents brag about baby. Other things that happen are that Sunny hangs out with other babies in day care, Joe and Marcy buy a house, and Joe yearns for a Range Rover.

It's a reasonable setting for a strip. Could be boring (boy, that happens a lot), wry, angry, appealing, charming---it all depends on the cartoonist. Armstrong is really good so it is not boring at all. As I mentioned above, the tone is joyful, appealing, charming (as opposed to ironic or angry). I really got to like Joe, Marcy, and Sunny. I wanted to read more about their lives.

The drawing is really good. There are lots of details in the backgrounds and lots of detail in the main characters. The drawings are also pleasant to look at. I've seen other strips where the drawing is well-done but the characters are deliberately made ugly so that I don't like looking a the strip; that is not the case here.

Armstrong makes good use of camera angles. A big problem with cartoons is what to do when your strip is basically 3 or 4 panels of the same guy talking. Armstrong shifts the camera angles around a bit so these strips are not visually deadening. Sometimes the characters engage in a little busywork while they talk--picking up a box, shifting the baby from one shoulder to the other, writing on a clipboard.

Armstrong uses visual humor. There is one strip where Joe is carrying the baby through the mall and the baby gets drawn bigger and bigger in each strip, until Joe is practically crushed under the weight of the baby, a nonverbal joke that the baby seemed heavier the longer that Joe has to carry her. In another strip, the parents are in a bed looking completely frazzled and wornout and the bed is covered with 6 baby Sunnies in all sorts of sprawled out positions, a joke that babies are such restless sleppers that they seem to take up the whole bed when they sleep in it.

Sometimes word panels have pictures in then instead of words. When people are bragging about their kids then the panels tend to have a picture of the kid's head instead of words. One funny comic strip just has two grandmothers talking about their grandkids, and Sunny's granmother's word panel sort of pushes out the other woman's word panel so, victory!, Sunny's grandmother wins the impicit bragging contest.

People's thoughts are sometimes drawn as if they were real. When Joe complains that he feels old, for one panel he gets drawn as an old man. When the harried parents feel that Sunny is the real boss of the household, a panel is drawn in which the parents are kids and Sunny is a domineering adult.

This sort of visual humor is used sparingly, not something that happens in every strip, but it is great to see it. You could overdo that sort of thing so it is probably good that it only happens occasionally.

There is a low level of exageration that happens all the time. When the parents are frazzled they look REALLY frazzled, Sunny's hair is impossibly bushy, reactions of alarm or happiness are out of proportion. It helps here that Armstrong can draw so well. In Armstrong's drawings I can tell the difference between exagerated reactions and subdued reactions.

Man, reading this collection really brought home to me how bad contemporary cartoonists are these days. They are all talk. They don't use the visual part of the cartoon at all. The few that are well-drawn are just realistic and don't really play around with the drawings. That's fine, and I respect that those well-written and realistically drawn strips (there are only a few of them anyway) don't want to break the reader's belief by engaging in fantasy. Also, I have read that cartoonists can't have interesting pictures any more because the newspapers have shrunk down the size of comics so much that they can't fit anything in but word balloons and heads. Fine again. Nonetheless, it sure was nice to read sucn an enjoyable cartoon collection as this one.

Judging from the number of daily strips compared to the number of Sunday strips, I think this collection is edited and is not a complete set of strips over some fixed period. That might be why they seem perticularly good--the less successful strips have been weeded out.I wish there was another collection that I could buy.

Robb Armstrong manages the difficult feat of creating characters who are funny, real, and deep. And for what it's worth, I am a white male in my mid thirties. His characters speak to everybody, because of the deep truths they portray. In fact, I wish they were real, and lived next door to me. Failing that, I look forward to reading his strips for years to come. I'd put them up there with Doonesbury and a few others as classics of the genre.

I have been a fan of Jump Start since it was introduced to my local newspaper. It is a breath of fresh air seeing African Americans depicted in such a positive and realistic light. I can't wait until Mr. Armstong compiles another book with the addition of Jojo Cobb! An excellent read. perfect for the Coffee Table.

I say hats off to Robb Armstrong for creating and hitting it big with his very popular comic strip all about a whimsical African-American family! It all begun with the high-school courtship between Joe and Marcy. Then they got married, launched their very busy careers as a policeman and a nurse, and along came their two very precocious kids, Sunny and Jojo (what curious names!) Then the whole family goes tumbling into the wildest adventures with a bragging Pop and a doting Mom, household chores, police car chases, shootin' up with the bad guys, the hectic emergency room, the crazy day-care scene where small kids all act like grown-ups, and of course, Sunny's very bushy, untamed hair! And it's all told in a true-to-life vein shot through with intoxicating flights of fantasy and very saucy, well-crafted satire, especially where Joe turns into a very muscular superhero every time his ego gets stroked and the whole family being chased around the house by rabid IRS agents! Rather like "Rose Is Rose", only with a very endearing cast of black folks!

Robb Armstrong is a genius. No two ways about it.

"Jump Start" is a delightful strip and I'm lucky my local paper carries it. Considering the paucity of good strips featuring black families, this one has set new standards in many ways.

Joe and Marcy, the Jump Start couple are professionals. He is a police officer and she a nurse. They have intelligent conversations and are delightful and believable.

I like the fact that race is simply a part of the story and not the focus of the story. One of my all time favorite strips in creation was a Jump Start strip. Joe and Marcy's friends, Clarence Sr. and his wife complain about how people "act stupid around them" because they are an interracial couple. Joe tells them, "friend, they aren't ACTING." Translation: If folks can't accept interracial families, then the stupidity is NOT an act. I LOVE THAT STRIP!

The Jump Start kids, Sunny and baby Jojo are adorable. I love the way Sunny remains bilingual -- fluent in English and baby talk. Baby Jojo acts like a crib sized executive with his day care pal Benny his faithful partner/employee/man Friday. It is so hilarious to see the way the kids interact!

I love all the strips when Sunny runs from the comb. One can almost feel her pain during these feared comb out sessions. Is there a child in the world who likes to have their hair done? I sometimes doubt that. I love the one where Sunny thinks dreadlocks will save her from the comb. I also like the fact that Sunny and Jojo have playmates of all races because that is how the world really is -- made up of all races.

Robb Armstrong is a genius!

I think children of all ages will love it!!

Kids are so cute and this book lets you know it. It's the cuttest book I've read in a long time. I'll be waiting for the next one to come out.

This is a truly funny book that never gets old and tired. nicely compiled and truley a great gift for anyone age 0-1,000. I couldn,t stop laughing. This book shows that Kids Are Really Punny

I have this book in my classroom and every student has read every joke. Your kids will love it! Tara Winslow

All profits from the sale of this book go to the ForAllKids Foundation dedicated to children's charities. If that isn't reason enough to purchase this wonderful book, just know that you and your children will have countless laughs because of it.

I have three girls myself, and they absolutely love this book. The whole family enjoys the countless hours of entertainment that it provides.

Over the years, Rosie O'Donnell has received an amazing amount of jokes that children all over the world sent to "The Rosie O'Donnell Show." In this hysterically cute book, O'Donnell compiles a bunch of her favorites that she guarantees to bring smiles and laughter to your day. Each page of this book is loaded with humorous jokes that children took the time to send in. The jokes are often complimented with funny drawings, that give the book a much needed personal touch.

This book is a real winner, and a must for any family with children. It will not dissappoint.

Hmmm... this is one of the most coolest oracle books on the market. Several of the responses were neat and I suspect the equivalent to counting cards in poker games is behind it. Nevertheless, this Victorian-style fortune telling device is lots of fun!

I got the a copy of The Ladie's Oracle in college - almost 16 years ago. My girlfriends and I swear by it - the Oracle has great knowledge, but we have found, she can be pretty rude too if destiny is not with you. In the end, she is always right,especially on matters of love. Trust in her, and don't use her on off days, and remember, you can always ask her again tomorrow and your fate may change.

Don't hesitate to buy this - I've been looking for copies in print every year since the mid 90's, and this is the first I've seen. You will love her, and keep this book with you forever!

What a brilliant book, being interested in fortune telling, tarot etc,I was fortunate enough to come across this book "THE LADIES ORACLE". A group of friends and I sat all night asking the book questions, the hours of fun just rolled by. i would recommend this book to all the ladies out there, but "BEWARE", THIS BOOK IS ADDICTIVE.... happy reading.

being very curious about fortune telling, tarot etc, my friends and i came upon this book and "WOW", what a great night we all had asking the book questions,the hours went so quickly,a great book, be warned you.ll be addicted too.

This is a very misterious book, it will give you honest answers to your questions, you will be surprise how a book that was probably writing about 460 years ago and reprint in our time, can still can be use as a fortune telling tool in the year 2002. I love it, and it took me 26 years to find one so buy one if you can, be one of the lucky ones to own it and leave it as a family treasure to the young ladies in your family, they will be facinated by this book.

I bought this book for my mom for Christmas this year. She's 40 and obsessed with watching Court TV so I thought it would appeal to her. She read it by the end of the next day, and said it was very enjoyable, humorous, and a breeze to read. Don't be put off by the risqué cover.

This book is not only informational, but insightful, hilarious, and perfect for those interested in law or lawyers. Even for those not interested in law, this can be a good book to go along with your morning coffee or commute. Before I read this book, I had been debating whether I wanted to go into nursing or law but now it is definitely clear. I will be applying to MATC in the fall to take courses to become a legal secretary. Thanks Vince!

Although I had to take the cover off to read the book on the train, it was a quick, fun read and a great way to start and end the 3 days it took me to read it. I found myself laughing several times at what the author had to say about the double standards of our society and that a lawyer was able to pick
on his own profession and point out what's wrong with this world while making you laugh. I thought this was the "South Park" of law books. No one is spared.

This book is more than funny. It is a wakeup call to lawyers, cops, tax evaders, Catholic priests and hypocrites. It will make you think twice the next time you try to get out of jury duty or find yourself slipping a dollar bill down an exotic dancer's g-string. The chapters "Sex with a Client" and "Lap Dancers Don't Take Checks" are absolute hoots. The seven page story of Ernest Miranda is a fascinating read. We've all heard the "Miranda Warning" hundreds of times, but you won't believe what happened to this guy. All in all, Lap Dancers... will entertain and educate, and possibly change your point of view. Highly recommended!

I loved the Random Legal Thoughts and Famous Bankrupts. For 17 bucks I learned how avoid jury duty and save thousand in lost wages. Plus I can get enough credit cards to live like a rock star, for the next seven years. Finally someone who gets it and explains the double standards that exist in our society. Vince exposes the hypocrisy of the American legal system and many other groups in a funny and educational way. Required reading for anyone frustrated with lawyers and stupid people, especially lawyers.

I am certainly pleased with my order. It arrived in timely fashion and in good shape

The strips where Dewey introduces his grandmother to the young woman who keeps trying to date Dewey are really funny. Although the strips with Dewey and his gambling-addicted grandmother are my personal favorites, I also like the color section on "Empire County Strikes Back" about the competition from the bookmobile. The whole book is entertaining. I have all four Unshelved books and keep at least two on the coffee table.

The crazy antics at the Mallville Public Library continue apace in the 3rd year of "Unshelved." The characters really continue to grow in this collection, so that the dramatic tension (such as it is in three panels) is interesting, while the workplace humor is so hauntingly familiar. I've heard librarians rave about the humor, but just like you don't need to be an engineer to like Dilbert, the weird patrons and stressed out employees are the same people you meet and interact with every day, regardless of where you work.

"Empire County Strikes Back" is a great bonus feature, a full-color mini-comic. In ways that are more reminiscent of 1984 and Dick Cheney than Star Wars, it tells the story of a super-automated bookmobile that threatens to steal all the patrons from Mallville's library. I won't give away the ending, but I will say it would fit well in another sci-fi classic--Star Trek.

Buy this book. Heck, buy all four books while these guys remain relatively undiscovered. You can impress all your friends at cocktail parties in 2010 when you say you read "Unshelved" back before they sold out.

I shared my copies of all the Unshelved collection with my 22 year old son and he enjoyed the humor as much as I do. He really liked the references to RPG and movies he likes. Please give these books a try, they are all great!

If you like books, you should make Bill Barnes & Gene Ambaum's daily comic strip Unshelved, available at [..], a must-read. When I was perusing their books at Book Expo, I asked, "But why would I need it in book format if I can read it online?" Well, I have to say, having sped through all four volumes, that while I'm now a subscriber, their books are so much fun. My favorite is Library Mascot Cage Match, mainly for the absurdity of a library even having a mascot, let alone two duking it out.

It's hard to pick who my favorite character is. They each have their often wry charm, and I might just have to say Merv, the precocious student always hanging around the very kid-like librarian Dewey. The authors manage to cover everything from reading habits to technology to relationships with spot-on, laugh-out-loud humor, and it's often just a short phrase that provides the zinger. The constant struggle between the Mallville Library staff's desire to help their customers (even the one wearing a "Say `No' To Libraries" t-shirt) and outwit them is perpetually amusing. With the addition of the full-color Empire County Strikes Back mini section, where the staff have to try to defeat a bookmobile, Barnes & Ambaum really outdo themselves. My only complaint is that this book is so fun it was over way too quickly.

Is is a truly well written book about common business acitivities. I think it is particularly helpful for young people just getting started in the corporate world. It should be a must read for college students. I can't wait for her next one!

I couldn't put this book down! Life Lessons In The Jungle is a "must" read for anyone trying to climb the corporate ladder and also for anyone self-employed. The lessons learnt in this book apply to situations and decisions all of us face on a daily basis! A terrific book, one that I would highly recommend to all my friends and business associates!

This book is so true! I liked the characters, and even though they argued a lot, I have to admit I recognized them in the people I work with. A great story, with lots of good lessons and not just how to solve problems, either. And as promised a fast read. I saw somewhere (her website?) that there's more coming. I hope so, I can't wait!

I'm looking to move up into management within my company and have used the book on a project I'm working on right now. My boss loved my work. It got me recognized. I owe it to the lessons I learned from this book, and can't wait for the next one she promised in the series.

While there are many books dealing with the art of decision making, "Elephant" is so graphically written that most anyone can relate to the animal types used to tell the story and provide the lessons. The steps are well illustrated and logical, and the story line keeps you engaged. Clear gnd direct. All seminars should be this much fun!