Jokes

2⁷ Nerd Disses: A Significant Quantity of Disrespect Year: 2013 Author: Zach Weinersmith and Philip Plait Length: 31 pages Have you ever been in an argument and had a stinging zinger of a remark that would have left the other party completely devastated? I’m sure plenty of socially-awkward nerds have been in this situation, which is probably why this book exists in the first place. 27 Nerd Disses is a small collection of witty comebacks that cover a variety of brainy topics. From economics to mathematics, all 128 of these insults require some amount of knowledge of their source material to get the joke they’re trying to make. Unfortunately, this book contains some knowledge at levels higher than a basic college education. While I understood a good majority of the nerdy references in this book, the parts of these disses that I had trouble with were the references that the uncultured masses were likely comparing these heady subjects to. This ends up being the problematic...

A Horse Walks into a Bar Year: 2014 Author: David Grossman Length: 350 minutes / 5.83 hours Somewhere along the line, I saw that this book won the Man Booker International Prize this year and put it on my “to read” list on Overdrive. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, other than perhaps a little bit of comedy, considering the title is a basic setup for a joke’s punchline. In that sense, the book delivered on that premise by being about a stand-up comedian in a nightclub giving his routine to the audience. I did not expect, however, the deeper subtext about the character and his relation to the narrator. It’s in this subtext where we find the meat of this story. It has often been said that “Sometimes all you can do is laugh to keep yourself from crying.” A Horse Walks into a Bar epitomizes this statement by blending serious subjects like cancer, death, and the Holocaust with a smattering of jokes, physical comedy,...

Tag: Jokes

BOOK: 2^7 Nerd Disses (2013)

BOOK: A Horse Walks into a Bar (2014)