Humor Books - Page 9

The Jerk

Martin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 143 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I'm not jerking your chain; this movie is really, really funny... 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

`The Jerk' is one of those comedies that is talked about by just about everyone; one of those comedies you feel almost incomplete if you haven't seen since everyone else around you has seen it and is always talking about it. Well, that's at least how it was with me until like a week ago when I finally got around to watching it.

The film tells the story of Navin Johnson, a white man who was raised by blacks. After finding his rhythm he decides to leave home and spread his wings. He picks up a slew of odd jobs here and there before joining the circus and meeting the girl of his dreams and then accidentally making millions when he creates an odd invention that proves to be a hit. After making his money and squandering most of it he finds himself destitute and alone, yet again.

Like the tagline suggests; this is a rags to riches, to rags kind of story.

The script is actually really well written because it manages to be funny almost all of the time. There are a few scenes that don't quite work too well, but the films short running time also helps with keeping the pace brisk and so the film really doesn't have time to meander on the weak jokes; they just move right along to the ones that work. Steve Martin (in his film starring debut) is a comedian whom we all have come to know and love and respect, and this may very well be his finest hour. He is utterly hysterical, and he actually manages to bring a shade of humane naivety to his characters senseless acts. We actually really like this guy regardless of how stupid he is.

Martin is helped out by a large and impressive cast, everyone from Bernadette Peters to Catlin Adams to M. Emmet Walsh showing up to raise the roof. Walsh has a hilarious role here as the madman who randomly picks Navin's name from a phonebook and plans to murder him. The scene alone may be the best scene in the film and is well worth the cost of the DVD.

Truth be told, this is not everyone's cup of tea or type of humor. This is far more slapstick than intelligent, but I think you would know that already. If you are more into the mature comedies then this may not be for you, but if you can appreciate a good `over-the-top' laugh riot then this is a film you're going to want to see. You're bound to find a laugh somewhere, whether it's from the name of Navin's dog or from the discovery of Navin's `special purpose'; this movie is designed to tickle that funny bone.

Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads

Gary Greenberg, Jeannie Hayden

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 71 new & used starting at $4.13

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 88 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Coneheads... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a great book. Easy to read, informative and worth purchasing. (If you are a "to-be" or a current dad, you will understand what I mean by "coneheads")

Editorial Review:

An indispensable survival manual for guys entering the trenches of fatherhood, Be Prepared is loaded with one-of-a-kind insights, MacGyver-esque tips and tricks, and no-nonsense advice for mastering the first year as a dad.

Finally, a book that teaches men all the things they really need to know about fatherhood...including how to:

• change a baby at a packed sports stadium

• create a decoy drawer full of old wallets, remote controls, and cell phones to throw baby off the scent of your real gear

• stay awake (or at least upright) at work

• babyproof a hotel room in four minutes flat

• construct an emergency diaper out of a towel, a sock, and duct tape

Packed with helpful diagrams and detailed instructions, and delivered with a wry sense of humor, Be Prepared is the ultimate guide for sleep-deprived, applesauce-covered fathers everywhere.

Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut

Amazon Price: $11.20 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Dell Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 142 new & used starting at $4.30

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 375 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The master of Cat's Cradle 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The cat's cradle is an extraordinary tale about the extent of human limitations when incompatibilities exist between the goals of science and humanity. Vonnegut created another masterpiece that describes the dangers of human science when mixed with their desires and lewdness.

John, the narrator, is writing a book about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and in the process of his research discovers the life of Felix Hoenikker, the Nobel prize-winning physicist and one of the creators of the atomic bomb.

Similar to walking through a hilarious human maze, we are taken to San Lorenzo; a town were Hoenikker's two sons and daughter live and ignorantly use their father's last invention causing another world wide human disaster.
Vonnegut brilliantly shows human limitations and foolishness with his description of an imaginary religion called Bokononism, which originated and blossomed in San Lorenzo.

Vonnegut, who survived the cruelty of war and faced life's emptiness, is one of the few writers who can laugh at the human inability to reconcile the inherent conflict of science's power and capabilities with the needs and limitations of humanity.

Editorial Review:

One of Vonnegut's major works, this is an apocalyptic tale of the planet's ultimate fate, featuring a cast of unlikely heroes.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

Oliver W. Sacks

List Price: $16.95 By: Summit Books Amazon Marketplace: 58 new & used starting at $0.05

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 112 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

What the maladaptive can teach us 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

As a graduate student in the field of biology and psychology, I found this to be the perfect blend of both. Although a collection of different case studies in the field of neuropsychology, anyone with even a slight interest in the understanding of the human brain will enjoy this book. Despite a large amount of clinical and science jargon, the book is easy to comprehend. This is a simple book with a straightforward approach of showing normal people what it could be like if they ever had a brain disorder. Dr. Sacks has a great ability in transforming his clinical experiences into something that can be appreciated by the non-clinical individual. He opens up a world that the majority of society would hope to never have to witness in their lives; he is a gatekeeper into a parallel universe. All of these patients physically live in our world but with each different disorder there is another world that can barely be imagined. He is able to capture the "human essence" in every patient even though if we were to see the same patients in a ward or on the street we would never think of them as being similar to you or me. This book is a monument to clinical literature; it is able to emotionally move us and question the happiness we have in our lives. The beauty of Dr. Sacks literature, is that he makes us value and appreciate the small and everyday things in our life.
The book is split up into four sections; each is a different realm of disorders: losses, excesses, transports, and the world of the simple. In the first section of the book, `Losses', Sacks explores deficits, the subject that most think of when told that someone they know has a disorder. In deficits, individuals lose the ability of certain cognitive tasks that we take for granted. Sacks investigates several types of losses; the most prominent of which are agnosias, aphasias, apraxias, and of course amnesia. Each loss affects the individual differently; sometimes they are able to cope and other times the experience is pure horror. The second section of the book addresses excesses. The patients in this section are the "hypers" and generally are in some sort of excited stage. Although alert and on point closer observation finds that it is not a state in which they wish to be . It takes a lot out of a patient to always be "on the go." The third section deals with transports, dreamy states that can occur. These individuals are always reminiscing or remembering a moment in their lives; sometimes it is an unwanted image, sometimes a pleasant memory. For some it has become a blessing but for others a curse. The fourth section identifies the world of the simple, an appropriate title because the patients found in this section all have IQs below sixty. By contemporary standards of society, that would make these individuals mentally retarded. However, Sacks actually learns from each of these patients to look beyond the struggles and obstacles they face. They teach him that the small pleasures of life make one happy such as music, numbers, drawing; and other forms of expression. Sacks learns that not everyone needs to communicate through words.
The structure of this book is quite straightforward; Sacks tells his stories of interesting clinical tales in the field of neuropsychology and writes them in a book that can be read by the non-clinical individuals. I enjoy the set up of each section because he introduces each section explaining the general problem. Each chapter is the story of a patient and how he overcame his disability or what happened to the patient after his meeting with Dr.Sacks.
This book is a great example of the medical community trying to reach out to the everyday reader. Although each actual diagnosis may be complicated for a non-medical reader to understand, each underlying problem is quite easy to comprehend when broken down. That is why Sacks is such a great writer; he gives both sides of the story and he gives the actual medical problem. Then he goes back and explains what the disorder actually disrupts in the patient's brain. He is able to show what everyday functions are lost and why the problem is a nuisance to the individual. I am impressed that Sacks was able to group the disorders in the way that he did. Not only does this book explain the biology behind the problem, but he even goes into the methodology that he uses to diagnosis his patients. Although, he may have the best technology and pharmaceuticals at his beck and call, by simply listening to his patients and understanding their problem he is actually better suited in helping them.
The only thing that I did not like was that he would reference another patient from one of his other books that has a similar disorder. This was a bit confusing because sometimes I would not realize which patient he was talking about. I liked the proportion of the stories to each section. It showed which disorders are more prominent and common within neurological disorders.
I preferred the stories in which Sacks got to really know and understand his patient. There were some stories that were quite short where it mostly just gave a diagnosis and then the patient was never heard of again. I understand that Sacks wanted to give the reader a broad spectrum of different neurological disorders. However, the more personal stories were more heartfelt and showed the pain and frustration of the patient living with the problem.
Also, it would have been more interesting for the reader if Sacks had follow-up appointments with the patients that we knew so well. As a neurologist he had no obligation to do so after the primary diagnosis. But it would be fascinating to see how these individuals are able to live their lives, especially in the case of patients whose lives were greatly affected. I wish that Sacks would have added more stories to the book overall, but that would have been too many stories to compile. In the greater scheme of things there is almost nothing for me to change. This book has fueled my passion for neuropsychology even more. I am grateful for a physician from my projected field of study to write such a wonderful book.
In the following quote Sacks is able to show is joy and pride of being a physician. It clearly shows the love and passion that he has for his patients. As a neurologist he does not always want to be the one giving the answer straightforward. Some times it is nice to see if the patient is given all of the puzzle pieces can they figure out the final picture.

"I love to see: a patient in the actual moment of discovery- half appalled, half amused- seeing for the first time exactly what is wrong and, in the same moment, exactly what there is to be done. This is the therapeutic moment."
Losses section On the Level

From this quote Sacks is trying to show the reader what each patient must endure with their sickness. Even though each disorder causes the patients to deal with life in a way they probably never imagined, it causes them to be a stronger individual.

"Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit."
Excess section Witty Ticcy Ray


Lastly is a quote that captures what Sacks is trying to explain to his reader about the neurologically impaired. We must not look at each patient's problem but who they are as an individual.

"She had come apart, horribly, in formal testing, but now she was mysteriously `together' and composed."
The World of the Simple section Rebecca

Overall this has been one of the best non-fiction case study books that I have ever read. It is not a complicated read. On the other hand, Sacks purposely tries to write it in such a way that the majority of individuals can just pick it up and read it. Sacks is able to teach his readers the value of everyday cognitive processes. Things that we take for granted such as remembering our family or being able to do things independently are lost for some of these patients. He is able to show us the life struggle that all of his patients must suffer. Sometimes they want to give up but for some reason they keep treading. The book illustrates the emotion and hardship of living in a world that one cannot escape. Many of the patients feel trapped and taken over by their disorders. But with faith and the help of modern medicine many of these patients are able to overcome the disorder and lead a fairly normal life. This is a book of the trials of the human spirit and the amazing power of the brain.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the brain and how the mind works or for individuals who are studying in the field of neuroscience or psychology. This is a great find. Although some of the reading may be a bit too clinical or scientific, but the main concept is still easy to obtain; or if you just want an emotional rollercoaster, you should definitely pick up this book.

Editorial Review:

A major bestseller and already acclaimed as a science classic, this collection of 20 true tales of individuals stricken with astonishing neurological disorders has sold over 70,000 copies. (Pscyhology)

The Devious Book for Cats: A Parody

Joe Garden, Janet Ginsburg, Chris Pauls, Anita Serwacki, Scott Sherman

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Villard Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $9.30

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Laugh-out-loud funny 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Over the years I've read many supposed-to-be-funny-and-clever little books about cats. This is because I live with a lot of cats and a lot of books, and people tend to think that if you like books and cats, then you certainly must find any book with "cat" in the title to be of significant interest. As a result, birthdays and holidays around here often end up looking like a collection site for a charity book sale drive.

And a lot of those little cat books DO end up going to charity, because frankly, quite a few are neither all that clever nor all that funny, in my opinion. There have been exceptions, but they are just that -- exceptions.

The Devious Book for Cats is one such exception. I received it the other day, and just flipping through and reading random sections left me laughing out loud. Really loud. Quite a few times. Given the current state of the economy and soaring prices for cat food and litter, I must tell you that I have not been in much of a laughing mood lately. The catnip budget around here has suffered quite a bit in recent months, just trying to put kibble on the table, you know. So this book is a welcome mood-brightener.

I like this book so much in fact, that I am ordering several more copies to send as holiday gifts. Anyone familiar with the feline lifestyle should find this book entertaining. The authors, Fluffy and Bonkers, have written an unusually creative, original and inventive guidebook.

And even though I am extremely busy these days watching birds out the window and napping, I am going to sit down on that book and absorb it more fully at my first opportunity.

Editorial Review:

Cats have nine lives. Shouldn’t they be lived to the fullest?

“Domesticated” does not mean “docile.” The ho-hum routine of sleep, eat, eat, and sleep is no way for any creature who ruled Egypt for a millennium to spend her day. It’s high time felines everywhere woke up from their cat naps and grabbed life’s strings with both paws.

The Devious Book for Cats offers today’s discerning kitties words of wisdom and advice on everything they need to know, from in-depth guides on cardboard boxes and catnip to a brief history of the Felinism movement. It provides fail-safe tips on waking a human when you want to get fed, choosing the purr-fect gift, staring like a pro, and making the most of superstitions. It also explains the undeniable allure of the Window, the terrifying specter of the Vacuum, and how you can groom properly in just the scant twenty-four hours allotted each day.

Cats: Discover the devious fun you can have when you’re the one in charge!

The Twelve Terrors of Christmas

John Updike

Amazon Price: $9.95 List Price: $9.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pomegranate Communications Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $9.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Hilarious Humbug 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Bah to those who found this book slight and unfunny. This is the anti-Christmas cold pricklies for those who don't enjoy the warm fuzzies of the season (and even for those who do). This is a sarcastic, cynical look at some Christmas traditions, and I found it funny and even a little insightful. I thought the illustrations were gloomy and in keeping with the tone of the book. Ebenezer Scrooge would have kept this book on his coffee table, but he was probably too cheap to buy it. A nice gift for someone who prefers hemlock to holly and avoids mistletoe.

Really like Edward Gorey's style of writing 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 7 people found this review helpful.

I really like Edward Gorey's style of writing-kind of dark and quirky-not really for children. Very tongue in cheek and funny.I buy all his book I can get andf also like his drawings.

Editorial Review:

Edward Gorey's off-kilter depictions of Yuletide mayhem and John Updike's wryly jaundiced text examine a dozen Christmas traditions with a decidedly wheezy ho-ho-ho. This long out-of-print classic is the perfect stocking-stuffer for any bah humbug. 32 pages, smyth-sewn casebound book, with jacket.

Does Anything Eat Wasps?: And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You Wanted to Ask

New Scientist

Amazon Price: $9.60 List Price: $12.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Free Press Amazon Marketplace: 92 new & used starting at $0.01

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

• How fat do you have to be to become bulletproof?

• Why do people have eyebrows?

• Why do pineapples have spines?

• How much does a head weigh?

• What affects the color of earwax?

• How quickly could I turn into a fossil?

Have you ever thought up a question so completely off-the-wall, so seemingly ridiculous, that you couldn't even find the courage to ask it? Maybe at the sports bar you were transported by the beauty of your beer to wonder, "How long could I live on beer alone?" Or, cycling through the park, you mused, "Did nature invent any wheels?" Or looking up at the night sky, you had a moment of angst, "What would happen if the moon suddenly disappeared -- if it were vaporized or stolen by aliens?"

Full of fun factlets, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is a runaway bestseller around the world. It celebrates the weird and wacky questions -- some trivial, some baffling, all unique -- and their multiple answers culled from "The Last Word," a long-running column in the internationally popular science magazine, New Scientist. Tackling the imponderables of everyday life, sparkling with humor, and bursting with delightful erudition, Does Anything Eat Wasps? is irresistibly entertaining and utterly engrossing.

So, go on. Put away your lab coat and your pencil -- science is fun again.

Training People: How to Bring Out the Best in Your Human

Tess of Helena

Amazon Price: $13.45 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 9 to 12 days By: Chronicle Books Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $8.82

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perfect Dog - Human Book 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Very funny book, and unique perspective on the dog-human relationship. Had me laughing out loud in several sections, especially as my own dog has trained me on some of Tess's same lessons. Also insightful to many human quirks, and how our habits are viewed from the dogs' perspective. Great gift for dog lovers, and keep one for yourself.

Too True 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

This book is a tell all. Tess, a lab owned by Brian Kahn exposes the way she shamefully manipulates him. She shares all the well know secrets and some not so well known about how dogs, under the guise of being pleasers in fact run the homes they live in.

I must concede she does so with wit and charm. This is a fun book.

Editorial Review:

For centuries, dogs have known that they, not humans, run the show. But not all dogs know how to get the best from their people. Finally, from the leading expert in the field comes a straightforward, easy-to-use manual that's written for dogs by a dog. This indispensable reference provides foolproof advice on obtaining everything a dog deserves, from the best food and exercise to grooming and chauffeur services. Here are all the tools a dog needs for selecting, training, and living with a well-behaved human.

Passive Aggressive Notes: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Writings

Kerry Miller

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Collins Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $7.94

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Book Description
Part voyeuristic entertainment, part group therapy, Passive Aggressive Notes offers a fascinating look at the all-too-familiar frustrations of embattled office drones, apartment dwellers, parents, and pet owners everywhere.

This curated collection combines dozens of outrageous, never-before-seen notes as well as favorites from Passiveaggressivenotes.com a 2008 Webby Award Winner and the official "Best Blog" of the South by Southwest Interactive festival.

A Note from the Author

It all began with a first date...and not a particularly good date, either. Apparently, things between this guy and his roommate had gotten so bad that they now communicated almost exclusively via Post-it note. Ah, yes, I said, I know those notes well--my current apartment (where I lived with three other roommates) had seen its share, most of them about the presence of unwashed dishes in the sink. They were usually signed with love; they were never addressed directly. I should start collecting them, I joked--put them on the Internet or something. Now that would be passive-aggressive.

Later that night--after it became clear that our relationship wasn't going to progress beyond standard small talk--I decided to do just that. And unlike my roommates' approach to dish-washing, the response to passiveaggressivenotes.com was enthusiastic, immediate, and overwhelming. Within weeks of the site's launch, thousands of notes poured in from shared bathrooms, kitchens, cubicles, and parking lots. (Wrote one reader: "Instead of a single note, can I submit an entire person? Like my mother?") This book represents the funniest and most outrageous of those submissions.

Despite the book's title, some of these notes are really more aggressive in tone, and some of them are more passive--polite, even. What they all share a common sense of frustration that's been channeled into written form rather than a direct confrontation. It's barbed criticism disguised as something else--helpful advice, friendly concern, light-hearted humor. But as Dr. Scott Wetzler, a clinical psychologist and author of Living with the Passive-Aggressive Man, observed: "A joke can be the most skillful passive-aggressive act there is."

--Kerry Miller

A Look Inside Passive Aggressive Notes
(Click on Images to Enlarge)

Dear Stalker	Get a Life
You Fail	Conscious Sense of Things

A Clockwork Orange

Anthony Burgess

List Price: $14.95 By: W W Norton & Co Inc Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $27.15

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 619 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good but have to work to get into 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is very good. It hass undertones as to the situations that are presented in society now even though it was written so long ago. The disregard of youth for the laws that are put in place to protect them and ourselves leads to their inability to function in society and their eventual decomposition to vagrants that put weight on the already weighted prison system. Upon finding a seemingly just punishment and solution the spin doctors find a way not only to persecute the "afflicted" youth but also use it to defeat their own enemies. Very good book however the slang that he was praised for using and developing was very difficult to get into. It actually made me not want to read it at first but getting into it and eventually learning it allowed me to really enjoy the read.

Editorial Review:

In this nightmare vision of a not-too-distant future, fifteen-year-old Alex and his three friends rob, rape, torture and murder - for fun. Alex is jailed for his vicious crimes and the State undertakes to reform him - but how and at what cost?