Satire Books

This book is full of the funniest illustrations that will make anyone laugh and real wine appreciators fall out of their chairs!

Is this the book that Clos Du Bois winery commissioned some 10-15 yrs ago? It had such cartoon depictions as "This wine is immature" and " This wine is passed its prime" I enjoyed it so much, while having wine tasting parties, then someone "borrowed" it.

a must read for anyone who enjoys wine and espically those who like to talk about it. Great gift for the wine snob you know.

Is this the book that Searle illustrated some 10-15 years ago? I enjoyed sharing it with many winetasting friends. It contained such depictions as "this wine is passed its prime" or "This wine is very immature" I loaned to someone and never got it back. If this is the book, I want it!!!

A great book that is a must for "winelovers" with illustrations that only a crazy Englishman could think about in the wicked world of winetasting!

Today I'm back--rebuying this book in hopes of reliving some of the experience it produced 20+ years ago when I read it on a transatlantic flight. Everyone around me was solemnly absorbed in tearjerker movie while I was convulsed to tears of laughter in their midst.

When I realized Indecent Exposure was a sequel to Riotous Assembly I raced from the airport to the bookstore and ordered that one too. It was no disappointment. That came when I voraciously bought nearly every other novel Tom Sharpe wrote and found none of his other works even came close to his 2 South Africa novels.

Small wonder that oppressive regime expelled him. I ought to mention that however slapstick funny this has been described to you (and it is!) it is not an appropriate gift for your 12-year-old niece. The uproarious misanthropy is midnight black and as politically incorrect for many Americans as it was subversive for South African censors.

Hilarious, extremely funny. This is one of the fiction works that have made me laugh more in my life, including films, comics, or whatever.
I read this book after discovering Sharpe trough Wilt' s saga. One tip: read the african novels first! I have read almost all the books from Sharpe, and I think the two south-african satiras are the best, specially Indecent Exposure.

Tom Sharpe's novels, always popular in Britain, are known for being rude spoofs on the political establishment and of the upper echelons of British society. However his earliest works, as in 'Indecent Exposure', the setting is apartheid-era South Africa. His humour is still very baudy, perhaps repetitively so, and his target are the hypocritical, racist white establishment. Some of the language is a bit vulgar, and I imagine some folks might be offended. But Sharpe hits the bulls-eye on his target: the squabbling, pretentious and myoptic white (English/Afrikaan) establishment.

As for the story? Well, it somewhat doesn't matter. Some nonsense about a rural town's police force trying to fight (imagined) communist insurgents using some rather ridiculous means. It's all very slapstick, farcical. Enjoy the book for its now dated (historical) view of South Africa, not for its paper thin story.

Bottom line: a very curious and funny piece of Sharpe's earlier works. Certainly not his best, but he delivers the laughs.

This book must be one of the funniest I've ever read. My girlfrind threw me out of bed at four in the morning because I'd apparently been laughing in my sleep after having read the book. The best thing about any of Tom Sharpe's books is that you can read them again and again and still laugh all over again! Superb!

What more can I say? Go read it! I read it about 12 years ago or more. It was fantastic. I read it at least once every 2-3 yrs after that and it has never failed to make me laugh again and again. Though Apartheid is dead, the humor is still valid worldwide. Read it as satire or just for its humour. Either way, you'll love it. By the way, dont be put off that its British and thus a bit heavy in the reading department. Its not. Its a great read and you could easily finish reading it in one day unless, of course, you fall off your chair or bed and injure yourself laughing. Believe me, I'm not exaggerating.

I read this book when it was first published and always wanted to get a copy. I've read it again and it still makes me laugh. The homespun characters make me want to live in Centralia (at least for a while). The stories concerning the Indians get a little preachy but are only slightly annoying. For someone that wants to relax with a little light reading, this is well worth your time.

A classic, especially if you grew up in a little town in the Midwest. I keep re-ordering this book because I have to keep replacing it because I keep giving it away to everyone I meet that I know will love it. Unless you grew up in the big city, you know the people Roger Welsch writes about in this book, only you never realized how funny - or how endearing - they were. Or maybe you did, but you just didn't know how to tell other people about it. Roger does.

This is life and this is fun! Beautiful pictures of Great Plain - Small Village life written -so well!- by an expert.

Writing from a narrative center somewhere between Mark Twain and Garrison Keillor, author Roger Welsch memorializes the town and inhabitants of Centralia (aka Dannebrog, pop. 356), Nebraska, in what he calls "Bleaker County." Centralia itself is either the center of this windswept prairie state or the center of the universe, depending on who you ask in this small town. It's located not far north of the Platte River and its farmlands, and not far south of the Sandhills, with its population of cattle and cowboys. Life in Centralia gravitates toward the Town Tavern, where many of these story-essays take place, and we meet Welsch's fictionalized friends and neighbors: Lunchbox, Goose, Slick, Woodrow, and Cece -- the regulars. There are also his wife Lily, daughter Jenny, an Indian friend Cal, a kind-hearted bachelor uncle named Grover Bass, a film crew from public television in Lincoln, a mean cuss named Royal Cupp, a rip-tearing adventurer, Luke Bigelow, and many others.

Welsch has an appreciation for the quirky, cock-eyed, and audacious. Like an endlessly curious anthropologist, he's equally fascinated by the everyday and the out-of-the-ordinary. He's a humanist, romanticizing his characters even while he's treating them with tongue-in-cheek irony. He's also willing to show that they can stoop to the unforgivable, or that they do not share his appreciation for people from other ethnic backgrounds. There is a range of tones and sentiments in the book, from comic farce to tenderness and awe. My favorite essay, "Racing Horses at the Centralia Fourth of July," ranges across all three, as his young teenage daughter teams up with a burly cowboy to take second place in a relay race. I laughed and had tears in my eyes by the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and happily recommend it to anyone with an interest in small town life on the Plains. As a companion volume, I'd suggest the short stories of life in a rural Minnesota community in Kent Meyers' "Light in the Crossing."

In "It's Not the End of the Earth,..", Roger Welsch does an excellent job bringing out the humor of small town life by simply telling stories about his friends in Centralia, NE. He has a witty way of giving value to each of the members of this rural community bringing to light the peculiar habits and expressions that make them all unique, interesting, and memorable. I applaud Prof. Welsch's folkloric expose' of the kinds of everyday things that I used to laugh about with my dad - some of my favorite things.

Joe Bob goes to the Drive-in Is with out a doubt a great read reads. He makes anyone who passes his time seeing B movies and hanging out with his friends feel like they are not alone
and I love the times when he bashes a movie as a critic and then tells how he enjoys it as a fan, And if that is not enough Joe Bobs stories of His friends and Non Friends will definetly keep you entertained.
The drive in will never die

...and we're talking an anthology of uniquely American satire - by a man who truly believes that a sacred cow is worth but one thing (namely: steak!) - with that classic American institution of sideward mobility (the drive-in theater) serving merely as the setup man for the most classic lancing of America's boils since H.L. Mencken roasted the booboisie and Artemus Ward proclaimed that if we can't find a live man who's worth a thing, by all means let us find a first class corpse.

Beaucoup garbanzas, mountains of mashed internal organs, kung fooey out the yin-yang, slashings, smashings, chainsawings, bonechoppings, drillings, you name it. And it isn't just the cheeseball drive-in celluloid (yes, children, once upon a time there was celluloid) that gets dismembered, disemboweled, and dehydrated by the classic Briggs scythe: it's the absolute and utter pretentiousness of the smugger-than-thou film critic colony (there are exceptions; you will know them by their lack of implied slash in a typical Joe Bob joust) and the politically correct pissants who tried, and in the long run failed, to bring him down, that get the real roasting in here.

(Come on - you don't REALLY think "We Are The World" was either sacred or a cow, so much as it was a lot of bull, as any of those starving African children - who gorged themselves on all the food the monies didn't provide them, because it was lining the hips of the Communist french fry heads who ran the show in Ethiopia, gave one gander to the white man formerly known as the black man named Michael Jackson and friends, with their precious pietous paen to giving until it hurt, and decided they'd had their biggest laugh since the invention of the axle - can tell you. Do you? And these days, Joe Bob's slash-and-burn against Wacko and the gang would be considered downright lightweight, compared to some of the chazerei getting spouted off by cable TV comics and the lunatics fringe left and right.)

Rated OK for gratuitous satire. DukeBob says check it out. Five stars. (Actually, there's only one star of this show.)

by Delacourt, this is a cult classic just as much as any of the movies Joe Bob reviews. John Bloom's beer-guzzling, womanizing, politically incorrect alter ego unleashes subtle social commentary while reviewing some of the worst travesties ever committed to film based on the number of people who die, how they die, and how many women take their tops off. Bloom went so far as to get Joe Bob banned from Texas newspapers, for a racial satire on "We Are The World". Stephen King writes the intro. If you are a fan of all that is bad in cinema (lo-budget horror, women in jail films, kung fu), you cannot go thru life not reading this. ....

Five stars. I say check it out.

Joe Bob Briggs goes the distance to bring to you the ultimate list of the best Drive In movies. This collection of newspaper articles that Joe Bob wrote is funny and entertaining. Also, you get a peek into Joe Bob's life as well as his early career. From his very first article to him being run out of Texas on a rail, it's a great story!

Excellent reading for the b-movie (and otherwise) fan. Not only do we get movie reviews with blood, breast and decapitation counts, we get a bit of history watching Joe Bob's (John Bloom) Dallas newspaper column pro-gress. Part of the fun is knowing that this stuff was printed in the newspaper, in Dallas, in the 80s. He gets in spats with various entities (the mayor of Irving, TX) and creates endearing (or disgusting, depending on your perspective) fictional characters. I particularly enjoyed the letters-to-the-editor he would respond to. Only 4 stars because he basically says to check out every movie he reviews (even if it sucks).

I enjoyed the artwork in this book. And the creativite that went into the letters.

My daughter and I love reading about fairies and this book was delightful. It is creative and beautiful to look at.

I am a big fan of Lady Cottington's work, and this is another great installment in the series.

The artistry is amazing - the amount of work required to not only paint (or "squash") the fairies is immense, but then to paint a "mirror" on the opposite page, and have it look like a fairy really was pressed between the pages - I can't even begin to imagine how much work it took!

The authors clearly had fun putting this together. Although there is no "plot", you get a sense of a story - Lady Angelica is plaqued by fairies, and is also missing her mother, so she writes letters to famous people and collects the responses, with further tauntings by fairies.

The books is extremely amusing! There were moments when I laughed out loud - for instance, on the inside back cover, there is a list of the letters and their authors, as well as a short bio on the author. W. S. Gilbert is described as being "...the very model of an English playwright/lyricist."

First off, I'm very biasedly a huge fan of Brian Froud and ADORE the Lady Cottington books. This book is so far my absolute favorite. I love how it's set up, the different letters are so greatly written. My favorite letters/notes are those from J.M. Barrie and Wendy Darling. I think that reading the other Cottington books s pretty much a must before starting this one, but it's really quite lovely. This album tells a story without using a regular narrative. Imaginative, beautiful, everything I expect from Froud and the Cottington albums.

This book is so nice I bought one for my mom for her birthday! Of course it was part of a huge stack we took to have Brian Froud sign - which makes it even more sweet! Very funny reading and the drawings are just fabulous!

If you're already a fan of the Pickles, this book is a must have. If you haven't as yet met the family, you're in for a real treat! Brian Crane's characters are as endearing as they come. Has it been a long time since you've really enjoyed a cartoon? Give this collection a read. You won't be disappointed.

When the newspaper took Pickles out of it's papers comic section it was a sad day. Now that it's in paperback you can read it over and over and still laugh. I highly recommend it and also the other two books in print.

I can see myself in every cartoon. I have collected them all. How does Crane originate such humorous presentations. I'm glad I bought the book.
DJ Swett

My problem is that everyone has been told about this book after I loaned it to a choir member and they all want to read it.

This is another funny book for those people who are retired and living with the ups and downs of age. The author certainly has a handle on funny things we can relate to especially now that we are in our 70's too. A great gift for those who have everything but chuckles as they deal with getting older.

With equal parts Loony Toons, light romance and Pin-Up poster, Frank Cho has created a brilliantly original notion here. "Creature Comforts" is a grand addition to a series that will certainly keep its following happy for years to come.

In "Liberty Meadows", two vets (one: a short, bespeckled, star wars geek. the other: a broad-beamed, voluptuous beauty) take on the dubious honor of caring for and looking over a host of quirky, maniacal anthropomorphic creatures. This includes a midget circus bear who fancies himself an inventor, a lunatic frog, and a sweet, naive duckling. Along the way, there are laughs, blunt trauma humor, and a little romance.

Cho's artistic talent for the toony style of, say, Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck is impressive, but nowhere near as incredible as his style of creating Brandy and other female characters. His ability brings to mind the glorious age of the pin-up girl: artists like Alberto Vargas come to mind. Cho's females are buxom, and beautiful, but also fairly reubenesque- nothing at all like the waifish glamour girls we see in magazines today. This is part of his appeal.

Artists and writers could learn a thing or two from Cho, who has created "Liberty Meadows", a hysterical and beautiful comic so flawless that he makes it look easy.

I have discoved Liberty Meadows by accidentally. Since then I have become a big fan of Brandy and all the animals. Just enjoy the spririt and the drawings of Frank Cho!

Get Volume one and then get this one. Well written, well drawn, great story arcs... the Liberty Meadows series is simply the best.

This hardcover trade paperback is an excellent bargain instead of buying the back issues. Again, one of the few comics I would lend to friends, even girls. ;-)

Being a great fan of Frank's strips, just from seeing an ad for his old strip collection 'University squared,' I am now a big fan of this current incarnation and even have his entire comic book series. So why should I even buy these books? For the extra scenes, redrawn strips and colored versions of Brandy!

With Frank's drawing mastery of beautiful women and hilarious images, plus a great sense of humor and timing, this book is a good place to start if you're looking for a good thing to read if you're having Calvin and Hobbes withdrawals.

Frank Cho's "Liberty Meadows" was one of the most original comic strips in years, with its hard-partying, gun-wielding animals and often insane storylines. And things get even stranger with the second collection of strips, "Creature Comforts."

The animals (and people) of Liberty Meadows are still up to their strange hijinks, including Leslie getting A flea (big one), Frank being set up on a blind date, and Ralpha having some problems with a hair growth formula that includes female hormones ("Gimme a kiss, sweetie." "I'm a man, Dean").

But all those disasters pale when a spark ignites the forest around Liberty Meadows, and the inhabitants have to flee a raging fire. The animals escape in a boat, while Brandy ventures back into the fire to find Frank. And Death himself comes to claim Frank... while a hapless copilot accidently looses the experimental H20 bomb on the sanctuary.

Okay, enough seriousness. In the wake of the fire, Frank and Brandy have to room with the animals, and deal with their craziness. Which means coping with Truman's hatred of Thanksgiving, spiked punch, offended supermodels, poison ivy, Oscar getting "fixed," savage beavers, Dean's pig porn ("Miss Piggy's dungeon of delight? Hold it!"), and a techologically advanced toilet that sucks Ralph in. Literally. And of course, a highly competitive wiener dog race that Oscar is training for.

No, it's not your ordinary comic strip. Not only did "Liberty Meadows" stretch the boundaries of what syndicates would allow, but it also was a lot more self-mocking and intelligent. Even in the most absurd situations, Cho can throw in an artistic namedrop ("We're outta anesthetic, Frank. All we have left is this can of Bud and a copy of "Ulysses" by James Joyce!")

Not that most of the humor isn't pop culture related, like driving out the beavers with Barry Manilow, or physical, like Dean getting thrashed by the attractive women he hits on. Artistically, it's sort of the love child of sophisticated graphic art and Looney Tunes.

And the characters are as lovable as ever -- hypochondriac frogs, midget bears, chauvinist pigs, and timid ducks. Frank and Brandy continue their sweet romantic angst, with the dorky Frank feeling that he has no chance with his gorgeous coworker, especially when her sharp-tongued mother and hunky ex turn up.

"Liberty Meadows" only got funnier with the addition of "Creature Comforts," more hilarious hijinks from the animals (and humans) of Maryland's best animal sanctuary.

very fascinating to read how the writer has captured situations forty years ago that are still so accurate today.

"A Man of the People" is another excellent and moving book by the world renowned Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe. His other classic books include: "Things Fall Apart" and "No Longer at Ease".

Chinua Achebe is a gifted story teller. From his writings, one can picture life in his native country and particularly of his Ibo clan. In "A Man of the People", Achebe depicts the life of a post-colonial African politician, who is part of the new elite that has replaced the former colonial masters. Just like the pigs in "Animal Farm by George Orwell", these political elite create a good life for themselves at the expense of the masses, the ordinary folk.

Achebe points out some of the cancer that has infected post colonial Africa of corruption, violence and unbridled greed, which created untold suffering and despair following the initial euphoria, high expectations and optimism that greeted independence. Achebe develops the story in a powerful, humorous, witty and masterful way that clearly shows why he is one of the greatest novelists to have graced the African continent. He is one of my favourite writers.

I recommend his collection of books to anyone who wishes to understand developments on the African continent as well as the high quality of African literature. The books ought to be mandatory reading for the English literature curriculum for schools and colleges in Africa.

Achebe is a master in portraying Nigerian society in transition, amid corruption, violence and the excitement of development. In this novel, Achebe portrays a schoolteachers that is first welcomed into a politician's home, then gets angered by him when the politician "steals" his girlfriend. The novel unfolds as the schoolteacher (Odili) enters politics as a way to avenge his poor fate with his girlfriend.

As with any Achebe novel, we are introduced in a developing society, still in the excitement of self rule after the British, but struggling to get set on a path towards development. Achebe is very ironic at time, and I think this novel especially shows his wry sense of humor. For example, the Minister of Culture is a rather cultureless man, put in that position through connections and bribery.

Overall, I recommend this book if you enjoyed Achebe's previous work (Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease are my favorites). At only 150 pages, it is the shortest by him that I have read, which makes it even more worth it. Would not recommend as your first Achebe.

This novel tells the story of a hapless schoolteacher who enters politics seeking personal revenge after his girlfriend is seduced by a sleazy politician. The book has wry humor, deftly-drawn characters, and a knowing, nuanced view of "ground reality" politics in Africa. It isn't Dostoevesky but it makes the reader laugh and think -- and it's only 149 pages!

I loved "Things Fall Apart", and it was what got me to fall in love with African literature in the first place-and download a list of Africa's 100 greatest works of literature in order to try to feed my passion! (I'm not sure how far into it I am now!) It is a masterpiece and so moving.

However, I have to admit there is something so perfect about "A Man of the People", so witty, so well-written, so perfect, so flawless, that it might be better than "Things Fall Apart". Since this book takes place during the post-colonial period, it has a completely different tone than Things Fall Apart. For one thing, it uses a smattering of pidgin (a Nigerian combination of indigenous words, English and slang), which is hard to understand for outsiders to the culture but fascinating-only a little is used and doesn't at all detract from understanding the novel if you're not a native speaker, and it adds a lot of flavor.

Achebe's masterful writing and talent at crafting stories-saying more with subtlety than many have said with bombast- is what makes this book worth reading if you're not interested in Africa in particular. If you are interested in Africa, this is an important exploration of the post-colonial situation. The narrator, part of the educated elite, becomes enamored of the so-called "Man of the People", a man who embodies a Nigerian postcolonial political leader of a certain kind-always ready to take a bribe, charming, populist, and utterly corrupt.

At first the narrator is intrigued by the Man of the People, and admires his style. The realization of what men like this are doing to his country forces the narrator to realize what is at stake when the nation allows itself to accept thievery as a cultural value. Although he is initially immature and moved to vengeance because the "Man of the People" beds his girl, he rapidly matures and comes to identify with his idealist friends, a couple who have not abandoned their optimism and compassion for the people.

A Must-Read, and one of my favorite books of all time.

If you like snoopy you NEED this book. It provides some excellent sketches from 5 of snoopys best loved personalities. It dosen't deal with all his alter egos but is still a great read. The book is well presented and superb value at under 12 dollars. This book is not just for kids. I myself am a 32 year year old school teacher and I found this book highly entertaining. If you are a snoopy fan order it today....

I bought this book for my husband for Christmas. He is Snoopy fan, but not a Peanuts fan. That makes this so great because it is all about Snoopy. The others in the gang are there but they are second fiddle to him. My husband loved the book. It is all cartoons about Snoopy. I especially liked the fancy "Snoopy Paper" that was thrown in here and their. Since the cartoons are black and white, the paper adds a touch of color to the book. I would recomend this book to any Snoopy fan!

Nice, thick volume with tons of Snoopy cartoons. Although the book is called the "Many" faces of Snoopy, it's actually divided into just five sections: Joe Cool, the Attorney, the World War I Flying Ace (the biggest section, of course), Beagle Scout and Writing Ace. Still, even only looking at those five facets of Snoopy's multi-layered personality packs this book with over 300 pages of cartoons from throughout the 50-year run of Peanuts. Definitely worth getting for the Snoopy fan.

My sister and I are big Snoopy fans. I ordered this book for her Christmas gift and almost kept it for myself!
It is great and good fun reading.

Good book especially if you are doing You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Gives some fun insight on the character of Snoopy is his many guises.

"silent generation", between the "greatest" & the "boomers".
They can relive raising kids, borrowing from your in-laws, sex 50's style, dealing with the 60's etc., all with the wit & wisdom of Erma Bombeck.
This is more like a memoir, probably the last in a series, that rings true sometimes, of course, with exaggeration to humorous effect.
Not much to complain about here. She is a good writer who started small had an understanding, supportive husband & achieved national celebrity.
If you are of a certain age, you will laugh.

I miss Erma. I really do. I miss her style of writing, her humor and her wit. She is probably the only writer from my childhood that I have read faithfully of. Her columns were the highlight of our day when it appeared in our newspapers. Reading this book is like going down memory lane. I remember some of her stuff, but not all of them. This one is a honest and true look at marriage.

Marriage isn't happily ever after. We spend our lives changing our partners, resisting the changes that life throws our way, staying married through thin and fat, through children, through illness and career changes ~~ through death, death of a father and friend. It's a wonderful little book full of wisdom and insights. I love her chapter titles: A House Morally Divided Cannot Stand Each Other or Living on Love.

She offers insights to her own life and marriage oftentimes, poking fun at herself and her family. She is never mean but instead she is inspiring. She makes you think even while laughing at some of the silly things we all do in our own lives. I have not been married as long as she has but already, I see some of the things she has pointed out such as trying to change your husband.

If you're looking for a wonderful book to read ~~ don't miss this one. It's beautifully written and so poignant in some places. Erma writes about life because she has lived it. Her stories are still true today as they were fourteen years ago.

5-11-06

The chronicle of Erma Bombeck's married life, this is a sweet, funny, and realistic view of timeless marriage.

Ms. Bombeck starts on the wedding day, when she and husband Bill were married by a priest who spoke Latin with a Polish accent. She moves on to their children, their multiple homes, a saddening chapter about her tragic miscarriage, the chronicles of her morality arguments with her kids, and finally, her career.

She spent years as a housewife. But Ms. Bombeck's now famous writing started in a local paper, and she warmly describes how emotionally supportive her husband was when her columns became well-known. Touring can't have helped their marriage much, but apparently they both didn't let it hurt it.

She satirizes her own under-par household skills, the weird little quirks that come in with age, nd the glories of growing old together. She doesn't say anything about that last one, but it glows throughout the book.

Bravo, Erma.

This book is full of wit and one liners from a woman who knows family. I myself only have a husband and no kids but her writing is still hilarious to me. It reminds me of things my own mother used to say in her own funny and sacastic way. When she talk about her husband and his "ways" of packing a suitcase or talking about the kids I laughed out loud while reading in bed and scared my husband. I sure do miss her and only wish she could have spent a little more time on earth to make us laugh. I bet God is having a ball with her in heaven.

I have always enjoyed Erma Bombeck when she had a column, but the children were small and I never had much time to read. Had I gotten a book like this one, I could of breezed through raising children and marriage with much less guilt. It is one of the funniest (because it's so true) books I've ever read. I am now a collector of Erma Bombecks books. Chapters titled,; "How Much Happiness Can We Finance?" The book for me was filled with memories from the 50's and 60's, and how it used to be. I found myself laughing outloud and shaking my head at the humor, yet truthfulness, that Erma shares with her readers. I'm getting two more of her books for Christmas, and am getting several others on auction. If you need a laugh, kick out some of those endorphins that need to come out and lighten you up, don't miss Erma Bombeck's, "Marriage Made in Heaven or too Tired for an Affair." It's fantastic!