Modern Joke

In early 1970, artist Ralph Steadman went to America in search of work and found more than he bargained for. At the Kentucky Derby, he met a former Hell's Angel, one Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson wrote later that "The rest of that day blurs into madness. The rest of that night, too. Steadman was lucky to get out of Louisville without serious injuries, and I was lucky to get out at all." Thus began a 30-year friendship and a working relationship that gave birth to what became known as Gonzo Journalism.

All too often, this brilliant novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried has been read for its political implications. Now, a quarter century after The Joke was first published and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence.

Booth Pena definitely didn’t make the smartest of decisions when he was a teenager. At eighteen, he knocked a girl up and signed up for the military all in the same day. There weren’t a lot of things that the baby’s mother and he saw eye to eye on after that. He honestly wasn’t sure why he even slept with her in the first place. Okay, that last part is a lie. He knows exactly why he slept with her. Because the real woman he’s in love with, her twin sister, Dillan, won’t give him the time of day. Five years later, and he still wants her.

For the first time, Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling opens up about his life as a cast member and head writer for the comedy powerhouse The Howard Stern Show. In The Joke Man: Bow to Stern, Jackie tells of his beginnings as a working comedian and writer and his climb to the top on The Howard Stern Show. Jackie saw it all, and in The Joke Man: Bow to Stern he shares personal stories as well a look from behind the scenes at one of the highest-rated radio shows of all time.

Daughter of Major Derek Hargreaves (spy?) and June Hargreaves (spy's wife?) sister of Sara (born to be Head Girl) and Ben (the usurper), Jenny's comedy career took off via drama school, cider, sausage rolls, sleeping with men who looked like they lived under a carpet, punk poetry, anorexia, bedsit misery, waitressing and not really having a clue about anything. This was a world before microphones, mobile phones, before everyone gave up smoking or started taking coke. Jenny Eclair was on the comedy circuit before there really was a comedy circuit.

Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome's greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one of antiquity's funniest people. After he was elected commander-in-chief and head of state, his enemies even started calling him "the stand-up Consul". How to Tell a Joke provides a lively new translation of Cicero's essential writing on humor alongside that of the later Roman orator and educator Quintilian.

True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore. What can you do when the world is pushing you over the edge? More than you think. For some of us, it's the automated voice that answers the phone when we'd rather talk to a real person. For others, it's the fact that Starbucks insists on...