I always feel like I’m reading the same book, but it’s a good book, so I don’t mind too much. Volume One of The Onion’s Finest News Reporting, The Harvard Lampoon Big Book of College Life. Humor writing demands practice, and it is critical to take the time to complete these writing assignments. All rights reserved. Laughing Matters — Gene Shalit put together a very efficient roundup from Twain to Woody Allen. Check out stray issues when you can, and Spy: The Funny Years is a reasonable hardbound substitute. Excellent writing, excellent illustration; and it’s probably the last magazine I know where the editors (Kurt Andersen and Graydon Carter) are in the league of the great magazine people of the twentieth century. 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, Monstrous Regiment (Discworld, #31; Industrial Revolution, #3), The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank, Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, #1), The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1), Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (War Memoirs, #1), 'Rommel?' If you like Matt Taibbi, go to the source and see what you think. But any serious fan of humorous print should be familiar, if only to understand late-period Woody Allen. Check him out. Good. If youâre willing to take chances, go for it! Also worth a look: Pryor Convictions and American Scream, more for the seminal nature of their subjects than the brilliance of the prose. Several months ago there was a lovely post on this site touting The Ultimate Comedy Library. Writer's Market. I’m going to emphasize pre-1980 work; for the purposes of this article, contemporary humor is less interesting because, well, we’re soaking in it. Benchley, Parker (several times), Thurber (ditto), Perelman — all of these should be available at your local library, if not the free rack of your used bookstore. Whether any of my personal work comes up to an “Ultimate” standard, I’d the last to know. But if you like it, it can be quite satisfying, and this collection of the best work from 1925-2000 is the motherlode. Benchley’s best can be found in The Benchley Roundup; true fans can dig into his several collections of columns. A comedy fan uses books to laugh, but a comedy writer uses them to steal. By their very nature, books about time travel span many genres: historical fiction, romance, science fiction, and more, meaning thereâs a time travel book for everyone. Others: Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim is a perennial on lists like this one, so try it. Finally, perhaps the most satisfying book of them all is The Harvard Lampoon Big Book of College Life, written in 1978 at one of that institution’s high-water marks. I personally find Hunter S. Thompson a hoot, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a must-read. The following is a core library of print humor by people who specialized in that medium. Finally, any good comedy library needs to have work by the following cartoonists: Charles Addams; Arnold Roth; Harvey Kurtzman; Will Elder; Gahan Wilson; B. Kliban; Sam Gross; Jack Ziegler. Not enough time has passed for us to put Pryor or Hicks into true historical perspective, but I’m hopeful that they will receive appropriate treatment when the time comes. Eggers is a fairly important individual in humor and letters, what with founding McSweeneyâs and becoming a successful novelist. The Best Grammar and Punctuation Books recommended by Mark Nichol. 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