Humor Books - Page 5

Notes from a Small Island

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 279 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain--which is to say, all of it.  Every last bit of it, good and bad--old churches, country lanes, people saying 'Mustn't grumble' and 'I'm terribly sorry but,' people apologizing to me when I conk them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, seaside piers, Ordinance Survey maps, tea and crumpets, summer showers and foggy winter evenings--every bit of it."

After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson, the acclaimed author of such bestsellers as The Mother Tongue and Made in America, decided it was time to move back to the United States for a while.  This was partly to let his wife and kids experience life in Bryson's homeland--and partly because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another.  It was thus clear to him that his people needed him.

But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home.  His aim was to take stock of modern-day Britain, and to analyze what he loved so much about a country that had produced Marmite, zebra crossings, and place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey, and Shellow Bowells.

With characteristic wit and irreverence, Bill Bryson presents the ludicrous and the endearing in equal measure.  The result is a hilarious social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain.

The Ultimate David Sedaris

David Sedaris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

So-So Package, but Superb Purchase 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I purchased this for my parents, as they do a good bit of driving and like to have something besides music to listen to in the car. I agree that the packaging, as other reviewers have noted, could be better, but we played several of the tracks over a series of short car trips and we all agreed that this is a fantastic box set. Sedaris' material is so spot-on, never too "in-jokey," and just plain funny. I am glad I made the purchase for my parents and I plan to purchase one for myself soon, so that I can keep on laughing.

Funny! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Dave Sedaris is hilarious, and this set has a lot to laugh at. Don't mind what the other reviews say about the lack of track listings. Each CD now comes with track listings printed right on them. The packaging is weak, but I don't care; It's not like it's going to be on display. I'm going to rip the content to my Zune and be on my way.

As Good As It Gets 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This compilation of David's work shows how he has evolved as both a writer and performer. Amy's good too.

Attn: no table of contents! 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great CD's...no one can perform them like David Sedaris! Be aware that there is no table of contents on the CD envelopes, in fact they are blank, black envelopes.

P. J. O'Rourke on the Wealth of Nations (Books That Changed the World)

P J O'Rourke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

this one is hard to read 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

not orourkes fault cause this is a dry subject, but this one is hard to read. I have been working through for over a year and swear I will finish one day. it is a good insight into Smiths wealth of nations and it is great to see that many economic factors do not change only the time period in which they occur.

As all Economic books, this is a little dull . . . 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is supposed to explain "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith. It is dull and a little hard to follow. If you are trying to learn more about today's Economy, there are better books. This is really for anyone trying to understand a book written over 200 years ago about Economics.

Not for the good nature of the baker do we get our bread 4 out of 5 stars.
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Smith was a Rhetorician in the days where philosophy and logic were grouped under Rhetoric (since Aristotle) and the label did not have negative connotations as today. There was little in the way of economic theory in those days. Today Smith's reputation rests on his explanation of how rational self-interest in a free-market economy leads to economic well-being.

It may surprise those who would discount Smith as an advocate of ruthless individualism that his first major work concentrated on ethics and charity. In fact, while chair at the University of Glasgow, Smith's lecture subjects, in order of preference, were natural theology, ethics, jurisprudence, and economics, according to John Millar, Smith's pupil at the time. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith wrote: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others and render their happiness necessary to him though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it."

At the same time, Smith had a benign view of self-interest. He denied the view that self-love "was a principle which could never be virtuous in any degree." Smith argued that life would be tough if our "affections, which, by the very nature of our being, ought frequently to influence our conduct, could upon no occasion appear virtuous, or deserve esteem and commendation from anybody."

To Smith sympathy and self-interest were not antithetical; they were complementary. "Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only," he explained in The Wealth of Nations.

Charity, while a virtuous act, could not alone provide the essentials for living. Self-interest was the mechanism that could remedy this shortcoming. Said Smith: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Someone earning money by his own labor benefits himself. Unknowingly, he also benefits society, because to earn income on his labor in a competitive market, he must produce something others value. In Adam Smith's lasting imagery, "By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."

The five-book series of The Wealth of Nations sought to reveal the nature and cause of a nation's prosperity. The main cause of prosperity, argued Smith, was increasing division of labor. Smith gave the famous example of pins. He asserted that ten workers could produce 48,000 pins per day if each of eighteen specialized tasks was assigned to particular workers. Average productivity: 4,800 pins per worker per day. But absent the division of labor, a worker would be lucky to produce even one pin per day.

Just how individuals can best apply their own labor or any other resource is a central subject in the first book of the series. Smith claimed that an individual would invest a resource, for example, land or labor, so as to earn the highest possible return on it. Consequently, all uses of the resource must yield an equal rate of return (adjusted for the relative riskiness of each enterprise). Otherwise reallocation would result. This idea, wrote George Stigler, is the central proposition of economic theory. Not surprisingly, and consistent with another Stigler claim that the originator of an idea in economics almost never gets the credit, Smith's idea was not original. French economist Turgot had made the same point in 1766.

Smith used this insight on equality of returns to explain why wage rates differed. Wage rates would be higher, he argued, for trades that were more difficult to learn, because people would not be willing to learn them if they were not compensated by a higher wage. His thought gave rise to the modern notion of human capital (see Human Capital). Similarly, wage rates would also be higher for those who engaged in dirty or unsafe occupations (see Job Safety), such as coal mining and butchering, and for those, like the hangman, who performed odious jobs. In short, differences in work were compensated by differences in pay. Modern economists call Smith's insight the theory of compensating wage differentials.

Smith used numerate economics not just to explain production of pins or differences in pay between butchers and hangmen, but to address some of the most pressing political issues of the day. In the fourth book of The Wealth of Nations--published, remember, in 1776--Smith tells Great Britain that her American colonies are not worth the cost of keeping. His reasoning about the excessively high cost of British imperialism is worth repeating, both to show Smith at his numerate best, and to show that simple clear economics can lead to radical conclusions:

A great empire has been established for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers who should be obliged to buy from the shops of our different producers all the goods with which these could supply them. For the sake of that little enhancement of price which this monopoly might afford our producers, the home-consumers have been burdened with the whole expense of maintaining and defending that empire. For this purpose, and for this purpose only, in the two last wars, more than a hundred and seventy millions has been contracted over and above all that had been expended for the same purpose in former wars. The interest of this debt alone is not only greater than the whole extraordinary profit, which, it ever could be pretended, was made by the monopoly of the colony trade, but than the whole value of that trade, or than the whole value of the goods, which at an average have been annually exported to the colonies.

Smith vehemently opposed mercantilism--the practice of artificially maintaining a trade surplus on the erroneous belief that doing so increased wealth. The primary advantage of trade, he argued, was that it opened up new markets for surplus goods and also provided some commodities at less cost from abroad than at home. With that, Smith launched a succession of free trade economists and paved the way for David Ricardo's and John Stuart Mill's theories of comparative advantage a generation later.

Adam Smith has sometimes been caricatured as someone who saw no role for government in economic life. In fact, he believed that government had an important role to play. Like most modern believers in free markets, Smith believed that the government should enforce contracts and grant patents and copyrights to encourage inventions and new ideas. He also thought that the government should provide public works, such as roads and bridges, that, he assumed, would not be worthwhile for individuals to provide. Interestingly, though, he wanted the users of such public works to pay in proportion to their use. One definite difference between Smith and most modern believers in free markets is that Smith favored retaliatory tariffs.

Retaliation to bring down high tariff rates in other countries, he thought, would work. "The recovery of a great foreign market," he wrote "will generally more than compensate the transitory inconvenience of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods."

Some of Smith's ideas are testimony to his breadth of imagination. Today, vouchers and school choice programs are touted as the latest reform in public education. But it was Adam Smith who addressed the issue more than two hundred years ago:

Were the students upon such charitable foundations left free to choose what college they liked best, such liberty might contribute to excite some emulation among different colleges. A regulation, on the contrary, which prohibited even the independent members of every particular college from leaving it, and going to any other, without leave first asked and obtained of that which they meant to abandon, would tend very much to extinguish that emulation.

Smith's own student days at Oxford (1740-46), whose professors, he complained, had "given up altogether even the pretense of teaching," left Smith with lasting disdain for the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

Smith's writings were both an inquiry into the science of economics and a policy guide for realizing the wealth of nations. Smith believed that economic development was best fostered in an environment of free competition that operated in accordance with universal "natural laws." Because Smith's was the most systematic and comprehensive study of economics up until that time, his economic thinking became the basis for classical economics. And because more of his ideas have lasted than those of any other economist, Adam Smith truly is the alpha and the omega of economic science.

Editorial Review:

In one of the first titles in the Atlantic Monthly Press's Books That Changed the World series, America's most provocative satirist, P. J. O'Rourke, reads Adam Smith's revolutionary Wealth of Nations so you don't have to.

New Rules: Polite Musings of a Timid Observer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 178 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Bill Maher first came to national attention as the host of the hit Comedy Central and ABC-TV program "Politically Incorrect," where he offered a combustible mixture of irreverence and acerbic humor that helped him to garner a loyal following, as well as a reputation for being a hilarious provocateur.

Now, his popular new HBO television show, "Real Time with Bill Maher," has put him more front and center than ever. In particular, one of the show's segments entitled "New Rules" has struck a chord with viewers. It's within his rules that Maher takes serious aim, bringing all his incisiveness, wit, and his signature exasperation to bear on topics ranging from cell phones ("I don't need my cell phone to take pictures or access the Internet. I just need to make a phone call. From everywhere! Not just the places it likes!") to fast food ("New Rule: No more McDonald's in hospitals. I'm not kidding!") to the conservative agenda ("Stop claiming it's an agenda. It's not an agenda. It's a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass."), Maher brings these brilliantly conceived riffs to audio for the first time, along with some singularly Maher-ian "editorials" - editorials nothing like the standard fare found on the pages of the local newspaper!

Carpe Diem: Put a Little Latin in Your Life

Harry Mount

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Deemed crappy 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Back in the day, when I was a tender young sprout, I (an altar boy) had begun training to respond to the priest in Latin during Mass. Alas, the Church just then decided that Mass would be said in the vernacular (the Latin-derived French of my immigrant neighborhood) and by the time my training had ended, so had the Latin Mass. This experience set up a lifelong longing for the glories of Latin. When I heard of "Carpe Diem," I believed that at long last, I would be able to pick up this lost language and set my soul at ease.

Alas, "Carpe Diem" (seize the day) should have been titled "Caveat Emptor" (buyer beware). The book purports to make it easy for would-be student of Latin to pick up enough of the dead tongue to be able to read the odd tombstone or epitaph. Instead, the book is a cleverly-packaged snarky memento of a childhood spent learning Latin in England's school system. Following every few pages of ironic memories is a list of declensions of Latin nouns, which pop in like so many errant birds through the window of the narrative, leaving behind only a memory of their pleasant yet unintelligible twittering. To think that one could learn Latin from this approach is akin to thinking that slipping a series times tables into a kid's comic book would teach him math.

When memories run out, the author inserts long discussion of classical architecture, glossaries of common (and commonplace) Latin expressions, and even a short, "clever" summary of the history of Roman emperors. Incredibly, the centurion scene from Monty Python's "Life of Brian" is rendered in full, as are long snippets of Latin poetry, which remain unintelligible to all but the author and his circle of friends.

To say that "Carpe Diem " is a disappointment is understating the case significantly. The book is a fraud, a distraction, a broken promise, an unforgivable tease and a lost opportunity. There remain those (like myself) for whom a rudimentary knowledge of Latin is a life's desire. There is a need (in this, as in all subjects) for the guidance of an old master to provide a trail map through the thicket of Latin conjugations, declensions, syntax and vocabulary. This book is not that guide.

Wish that it were.

Editorial Review:

In this lighthearted guided tour of Latin, journalist and former Latin tutor Harry Mount breathes life back into the greatest language of all, drawing on everything from a Monty Python grammar lesson to Angelina Jolie's tattoos.

Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, Book 1)

Lian Hearn

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 173 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A tour-de-force novel set in ancient Japan filled with passion, fantasy, and feuding warlords. The first volume in the highly anticipated "Tales of the Otori" trilogy.

Sixteen-year-old Takeo's village has been massacred by an evil warlord, and he is about to be slain by the men who murdered his parents and neighbors. At the last moment, his life is saved by a nobleman, who claims the boy as his kin and begins his education.

But nothing is as it seems. Takeo discovers that he has rare powers that are useful to those around him. As he grows into manhood, he must decide where his loyalties lie: with his noble master and adoptive father; with the Hidden, a secret, spiritual sect whose beliefs are forbidden; or with the Tribe, the assassins and spies who consider him one of their own.

A story of treachery, political intrigue, and the intensity of first love, set in a world ruled by formal ritual and codes of honor, Across the Nightingale Floor crosses genres, generations, and genders to captivate fans of all ages.

When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

George Carlin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 233 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

George has done it again! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Funniest to date, George uses everyday topics and brings humor to each. A great read, funny and insightful.

WONDERFUL 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The book was received well before it was scheduled to arrive. It was packaged nicely and in terrific condition. I am most satisfied with this purchase

Just a shade off the mark in print 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I'm not going to get into the argument over whether George Carlin's humor was offensive; if you're buying his book then you probably know what brand of humor you're going to get.

"When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?" is clearly up Carlin's alley, but it definitely loses something in the print edition. This isn't the case for most of his other work (e.g. "Napalm and Silly Putty"), but this time around you get the feeling that he more or less dictated some of his stage routines into a tape recorder, which someone later transcribed.

I imagine that if you purchase the audio version of this one or, if you have a vivid enough imagination to "hear" the book in your mind's ear, you'll enjoy it much more.

Editorial Review:

George Carlins legendary irreverence and iconoclasm are on full display in When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? as he vainly scours the American landscape for signs of intelligence in his third national bestseller. Ranging from his absurdist side (Message from a Cockroach; TV News: The Death of Humpty Dumpty; Tips for Serial Killers) to his unerring ear for American speech (Politician Talk; Societal Clichs; Euphemisms: 13 sections) to his unsparing views on America and its values (War, God, Stuff Like That; Zero Tolerance; Tired of the Handi-crap), Carlin delivers everything that his fans expect, and then adds a few surprises.

Ask a Mexican

Gustavo Arellano

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 35 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Mexican as myth debunker and provider of historical context 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Gustavo Arellano's "Ask a Mexican" is a brilliant book. What's obvious when reading a book's length worth of his answers is how well-researched they are. It's a nice balance of referenced scholarship, combined with the observations of a street-savvy guy. First-time readers beware though: Arellano's work is culled from columns that appear in alternative weeklies, and it's got the language to prove it. It can be jarring and off-putting at times. However, most times it works, because the questions match in tone.

Arellano's main role here is as myth debunker and as one who tries to put Mexican immigration in a historical context for his readers. I've selected this passage from p. 40 as emblematic of his approach. A reader writes "Why don't Mexicans want to assimilate and accept our way of life?" The Mexican answers (in part) that "(i)n the case of reverence for one's roots, it boils down thusly: gabachos long-removed from Ellis Island can love their ancestors without shame because they're the descendants of immigrants, and immigrants made this nation great; Mexicans can't because they _are_ immigrants, and immigrants are turning America into the Third World."

Like that opinion or not, you have to give Arellano credit for superbly crafted sentences like that. The book is rife with them. It makes for a great read.

Editorial Review:

An irreverent, hilarious, and informative look at Mexican American culture is taken by rising star Gustavo Arellano, who uses the best questions from readers of his Ask a Mexican! column in California's OC Weekly to explore the many clichA(c)s applied to Mexican Americans.

Mike's Election Guide

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Total reviews: 91 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

READ BY THE AUTHOR

In his first audiobook in five years, Michael Moore brings us the definitive guide to the 2008 election.

After a diastrous war, the failure to catch bin Laden, millions of families who have lost their homes, the Katrina debacle, soaring gas prices feeding record oil company profits, and the largest national debt caused by the biggest spending and borrowing administration in American history, the country has had it with conservatives, right-wingers and Republicans. A thrilling election season is now upon us. Obama vs. McCain. One candidate has promised a presidency different from any other, one that will take us forward to embrace the hope of the 21st century. The other candidate says he has no idea how to use a computer.

Welcome to MIKE'S ELECTION GUIDE -- Michael Moore's effort to make sense of this fall's race for the White House and Congress. In it, Moore answers the nation's most pressing questions: "Why is John McCain so angry?,""Do the Democrats Still Drink from a Sippy Cup and Sleep with the Light On?," Can I get into the Electoral College with only a 2.0 gpa?" and "How many Democrats does it take to lose the most winnable election in American history?"

It's a great year to be an American and a voter. Don't miss out on all the fun! And don't miss out on MIKE'S ELECTION GUIDE -- it's the indispensable voice that belongs in every American's ear this season.

(2008)

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Thank You 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

When I buy a new cookbook, if I find three or four killer recipes, I count my purchase a success. The same might be said for short story compilations. I thank Mr. Sedaris for introducing me to Richard Yates, Charles Baxter and Jhumpa Lahiri. Mr. Yates' story is one of the finest works of short fiction I have ever read, up there with Delmore Schwartz's "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities." The final lines of Jean Thompson's story are absolutely beautiful -- I can't get them out of my head.

Editorial Review:

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories-some classic, others impending-selected and introduced by David Sedaris.

With this audiobook a careful listener can discover the truth about loneliness, betrayal, love and hope.

Where the Door is Always Open and the Welcome Mat is Out

by Patricia Highsmith, read by Cherry Jones

Bullet In the Brain by Tobias Wolff

read by Toby Wherry

Gryphon by Charles Baxter

read by David Sedaris

In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried by Amy Hempel

read by Mary-Louise Parker

Cosmopolitan by Akhil Sharma

read by the Author