The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes by John Hodgman

The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes Reviews

• 
  Laura

  Another volume of humor from the fabulous McSweeney's folks, this one filled with essays, lists, epistolary stories, and the like relating to books and authors. Like a lot of the McSweeney's humor stuff, the pieces in here tend to be hit or miss; either you're laughing uproariously in inappropriate locations like the subway, or sort of arching one eyebrow going, "Hm." But when a piece in here hits, boy does it ever hit.
  
  Among the hits: Re: Hardy Boys Manuscript Submission, by Jay Dyckman (editor, noting that while it was admirable for the author of the latest Hardy Boys story to try and bring a contemporary feel to the series, "we don't think Frank pacing outside the bathroom door while his girlfriend, Callie, uses a First Response pregnancy test is consistent with the Hardy Boys formula"); Goofus, Gallant, Rashomon, by Jim Stallard, wherein various friends and acquaintances of the two boys are interviewed about how they finally came to a bad end; Postcards from James Joyce to His Brother Stan, by Martin Bihl ("Stan -- Greetings from Paris. Yesterday, my son said, 'Let's go see Napoleon's tomb.' Yes, let's, I thought. And don't let the fact that I'm blind stop us. Christ. And even if I could see, why would I want to look at the remain of a dead Corsican when there are hookers flashing their hoo-hahs in Pigalle? Idiots. J."); and the one that had me falling off the bed, Words and Expressions Commonly Misused by Insipid Brothers-in-Law by Dennis DiClaudio, which doesn't quite fit into the theme but is hilarious anyway.
  
  I won't list the misses, but fortunately, there are far fewer of them. (Although I confess that some of these little pieces are sophisticated enough that the humor simply went over my head -- for example, Pound-Eliot Sestina by Alfred Corn.)
• 
  Jessica

  Mcsweeneys.net that you can read in the tub.
• 
  Greg

  A few misses, but most of the pieces in this collection hit their mark. Good literary humor for people who like reading literary fiction.
• 
  Em

  Probably would've been funnier if I'd read more classic literature. I prefer the website TBH
• 
  Erin

  I had high hopes for this book because a co-worker had recommended it to me and had me read one little section from it which was quite funny. However, the rest of the book was largely a disappointment. So much so that I must confess I quit reading it about two-thirds of the way through. I usually felt like I really should have paid more attention in my high-falutin' literature classes in college because I was definitely missing something. Ironically, one of the spoofs on why Shakespeare wanted to kill all lawyers based one section of the spoof on a misinterpretation of a key word in the quote--something even a ninth grader could have told the writer of that section. Argh! "Wherefore" means "WHY," not "where." If you're going to be a literary snob, you should at least get your facts straight!
  
  Sorry. Yoga breathing now.....
  
  Anyhow, this book did have a few funny parts. And if you have read and analyzed all the literary works or authors in question, you might enjoy the book quite a lot. If not, well, the "quiz" on which names were from Lord of the Rings and which were from IKEA was amusing...as was the bit about recruiting Harry Potter, apparently to a college with a Quidditch team...and the part about denying social security benefits to the giant cockroach.... You know, really, I'd give most of the first 100 or so pages about 3 stars. After that...one star. So I'll compromise with 2.
• 
  Tina

  I gotta bump this back up to a 4. Rereading "RE: Hardy Boys Manuscript Submission," by by Jay Dyckman out of the book this morning. And giggled profusely and with complete immaturity at:
  
  "Page 50: Colorful banter between the brothers is, of course, is expected. Please reconsider, however, whether Joe would tell Frank to 'grow a pair.' Further, Joe would not dismiss Frank's suggestion to call for help with, 'Step off, bitch. I know what I'm doing.'"
• 
  Vincent Saint-Simon

  Dear Sirs and Madams,
  
  If self-reflective sap stories with an overwhelming dose of awkwardness are what pass for jokes in this so-called "post-ironic" era, we all need to reflect on the unreadable results our philosophic shift has caused and tremble.
  
  S,
  
  V
• 
  Martin Bihl

  uneven, but forgivable because of some really brilliant work. in other words, what you would expect from the folks at mcsweeney's.
• 
  Brent Woo

  I didn't know that
  Ellie Kemper wrote for McSweeney's! Her contributions were great. For most essays the titles carry the punchline and are funny on their own, a lot like John Barth's tables of contents:
  
  -Perhaps I should stop naming the protagonists in my semi-autobiographical fiction after myself
  -Following my creative-writing teacher's advice to write "like my parents are dead", (by Ellie Kemper!)
  -I am Michiko Kakutani
  -Cormac McCarthy writes to the editor of the Sante Fe New Mexican
  -Possible titles for future Sue Grafton novels after she runs out of letters
  -American Canon of the Choose-your-own-adventure
  -Submission guidelines for our refrigerator door
  
  The first handful were pretty hilarious; "Dick and Jane reader for advanced students" almost drove me to tears, I don't really know why but this line just destroyed me: "Jane wished Dick did not have an accent. After living in Los Angeles for five years, she was a racist." But it unfortunately gets tiresome quickly, since most of the gags are just "[literary character] in [contemporary role or setting]", like: Odysseus as a college roommate, Sartre as 911 operator, Samsa is denied social security, Emily Dickinson as rap master. Those are funny and memorable ideas on their own, but in a collection of dozens of them they start getting samey.
• 
  Ostap Bender

  Pulled from past McSweeney’s Internet Tendency publications, this collection is irreverent and literary in its references, which made it a fun read for me. Sometimes the humor gets a little juvenile, but on the whole it’s quite intelligent, and as each article is quite short, averaging just a couple of pages, one is never bogged down. My favorites, with titles that are either self-explanatory or at least give the flavor of the book:
  
  - Social Security Denies Gregor Samsa’s Disability Claim, by Alex St. Andrews
  - I Am Michiko Kakutani, by Colin McEnroe
  - Klingon Fairy Tales, by Mike Richardson-Bryan
  - Lady Macbeth on Ambien, by Laurence Hughes
  - Johnson’s Life of Boswell, by Teddy Wayne
  - Ikea Product or Lord of the Rings Character, by Caley Feldman
  - Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged TOEFL Teacher, by Rob Curran
  - Corman McCarthy Writes to the Editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican, by John Kennan
  - Tales of Erotica: Chuck Norris and Me, by Brian Bieber
  - Submission Guidelines for Our Refrigerator Door, by Christopher Monks
  - Whale of Mass Destruction – Richard B. Cheney, Adjunct Professor in the Humanities, Presents: The Annual Symbolism in Melville Lecture, by Blair Becker
  - Holden Caulfield Gives the Commencement Speech to His High School, by Andrew Tan
• 
  Rachel

  A bit tiresome if you try to read completely and straight-through, but delivered several literal LOLs. Just skip the parts related to books you haven't read or authors you don't care about. My favorite bits were "Winnie-the-Pooh is My Coworker" and the "A Christmas Carol" portion of "The Five Most Dangerous Children's Books Ever Written, According to Sean Hannity." The latter currently falls into "sad/funny/too-close-to-reality" territory: "He further advances the liberal agenda by advocating free health care for Tiny Tim and suggesting that poverty is the result of something other than laziness and stupidity."
• 
  Danielle

  I liked this slightly more than
  Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists, probably because satirizing specific works takes more knowledge of what you're parodying than listicles, but most of it is still awfully dated.
• 
  Richard

  As always, these are hit or miss, but the hits are delicious, and the misses have their moments and are constructive for those of us who occasionally try to write funny things.
• 
  Kel

  I was really looking forward to this book. It was only so-so. Too much James Joyce and potty humor for me.
• 
  Alex Telander

  The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes by McSweeney's: When
  Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists hit book shelves with the cover of a triumphant, ethereal, blue, rearing unicorn, readers curiously started reading and then found themselves bursting with laughter, buying the book, and entertaining friends with it. The editors of McSweeney's return with The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes; and if the title doesn't capture your interest, maybe the cover of a plucked headless chicken - with a smoking cigarette in one flabby wing, while smoke effuses from its cylindrical hole of a neck - will.
  
  With an introduction from John Hodgman about the cash cow industry of satire, McSweeney's aims its new book at the intellectual crowd as jokes and humor are procured at the expense of classic works and authors revered in collegiate halls. The first piece, The Recruitment of Harry Potter, is from the viewpoint of a quidditch coach looking to recruit Harry Potter to the team. It warns to stay away from talk about He Who Must Not Be Named and anything involving family. From this we go to George Samsa, currently dealing with his life as a cockroach, having his disability claim denied by Social Security for very specific reasons.
  
  McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes runs the gamut of literature, leaving no book unopened or unmocked. There are short pieces, such as Possible Titles For Future Sue Grafton Novels After She Runs Out of Letters, including: "/" Is for Slash and "Ctrl+X" Is for Cut; and there are longer pieces like Submission Guidelines For Our Refrigerator Door. Then there are plain weird and unusual pieces like Thirteen Writing Prompts, including 'Write a story that ends with the following sentence: Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon,' and 'Your main character finds a box of scorched human hair. Whose is it? How did it get there?'
  
  Whether it's Jane Eyre Runs for President or Jean-Paul Sartre, 911 Operator, or Klingon Fairy Tales, readers will be laughing out loud and rolling on the floor - or if you prefer LOLing and ROFLing - for hours. And for all those people forced to read long and boring classics, or listen to their teachers verbally worshiping dead writers, McSweeney's Joke of Book Jokes is a restorative tonic, the book you've been waiting for that will make those hours and hours of late night reading of lengthy, overwritten prose worth it, because you'll get all the jokes!
  
  For more book reviews and exclusive author interviews, go to
  BookBanter.
• 
  Maggie

  As John Hodgman writes in the book's introduction, "(T)hese are all original pieces of humorous writing that are joined together merely by their appreciation of the intrinsic and unique hilariousness of books...We all know that books are funny. First, they are made of paste and cloth, which is funny, as is the fact that people still read and buy them. Also, books connote a sort of intellectual stuffiness, which is always easy and appealing to make fun of. It's humanizing."
  
  He's being silly, but it's also the truth. Making fun of Jean-Paul Sartre's morose intellect, Ernest Hemingway's bloated male ego and Emily Dickinson's poetic melancholy is fun - especially if you're someone like me whose education has forced her to read No Exit more times than she cares to recall.
  
  Fortunately, not all the jokes revolve around James Joyce (although several do), so an English major is not necessarily a prerequisite. In fact, my favorite pieces are ones like "Thirteen Writing Prompts" and "A Serial Killer Explains the Distinctions Between Literary Terms," where the joke comes more from literary devices rather than specific books or authors.
  
  Of course, the actual book jokes are fun too, with "Jean-Paul Sartre, 911 Operator;" "Rough Drafts Of Jenna Bush's Young-Adult Novel;" "Bedtime Stories By Thom Yorke;" and "Phrases On The Marquee At The Local Strip Club To Cater To A More Literate Crowd" being among my favorites.
  
  In short, if you're a fan of McSweeney's and at all literary-minded, it's very much worth your time.
• 
  Michael

  A fun collection of writings especially appealing to the book lover (obviously) and the book snob most of all. There is some variety in the quality of the pieces, and some are much more obvious than others. (Having Klingon fairy tale titles like "Old Mother Hubbard, Lacking the Means to Support Herself with Honor, Sets Her Disruptor on Self-Destruct and Waits for the Inevitable" or " The Hare Foolishly Lowers His Guard and Is Devastated by the Tortoise, Whose Prowess in Battle Attracts Many Desirable Mates" is, to paraphrase John Cleese, "Like setting fire to Julie Andrews: Funny, but obvious." And those are the funniest of the bunch.) Some, though, are brilliant, like "Social Security Denies Gregor Samsa's Disability Claim" ("You listed the following impairment(s) on your SSI application: I AM A GIGANTIC COCKROACH. DEPRESSION. BACK PAIN.")or the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure parody using famous American writers. (From Hemingway's A Very Short Death: "You felt broken and drunk in the cool night and remembered the white boat on the river. DID YOU? (a.) Grit teeth and think about the war; (b)Order a brandy that overflowed and ran down the stem of the glass and think about the war; (c) Notice the electric light hanging over the empty terrace and think about the war.") A fun and quick read
• 
  Jon Hewelt

  ReRead 8 February 2023
  ---
  What's not to love about McSweeney's? Goofy wit. Absurd premises. And above all, I love their commitment to telling a good story.
  
  We've all seen, read or heard comedy that starts with, "Hey, I wonder what it'd be like if . . . " and does very little to elaborate on that initial premise. That's what turned me off to MadTV for a while. Unlike the magazine, sketches felt very one-joke, catch-phrase heavy.
  
  McSweeney's, by contrast, nine times out of ten takes a premise and runs with it, mining every potential for comedy out of it. Gear all those premises to the foibles of classic and contemporary literature, and you've got yourself a very funny book, my friend. And best of all, you don't need to know the source material in order to appreciate: a good story, after all, is a good story.
  
  My favorite bits were those that mimicked an author's voice in service of an absurd premise. I've never read John Updike, but I would gladly watch any show he wrote for prime-time TV. And bedtime stories by Thom Yorke? I would fall sound asleep every night, listening to those.
  
  Give it a skim, even if you just like "literature" in general. I can't guarantee your favorite author is lovingly mocked herein, but with the plethora of contributors and subjects, there's bound to be something you'll enjoy.
• 
  Pointsandwheels

  This should not be read in one go. I did so, and it was an overdose of humor. I probably would have enjoyed it more had I read it a chapter a day or something similar. But as I did read it, I found it to contain an awful lot of angry and violent humor; many of the pieces seemed to be enraged about something. The one with Romeo and the high school cheerleader was just depressing; I have never been very fond of either Romeo or Juliet, but the portrayal of Romeo has him as a socially-clueless stalker nerd -- none of which I can see in the original. And many of the others seem to have that same "How can I humiliate these characters that I so clearly love?" vein to them. Really, I found the most successful pieces to be the titles -- the Klingon Fairy Tales and Sue Grafton after Z pieces especially.
  
  But then, a lot of McSweeny humor is wasted on me, so maybe I shouldn't have expected much more than that.
• 
  Ashley

  Jake and I saw this at the bookstore, and I was inclined toward a favorable opinion of it simply because I loved
  Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists. This one was funny, and I particularly liked many of the pieces near the beginning of the book.
  
  I consider myself reasonably well-read for a person of my age (and I chalk that up mostly to majoring in English), but I was pretty lost with quite a few of the bits. If you're going to like this book, I recommend having read at least a little Joyce, Kafka, Nabokov, and all those other books your teachers told you read but never read themselves.
  
  The ones about books I had read were generally hilarious. The ones I hadn't weren't accessible.
• 
  Steve

  There are certain types of people who will enjoy the hell out of this book. Those people are clearly better than everyone else. This collection of hilarious writings takes a variety of styles. Some take the form of fictional-character-out-of-context, like Holden Caulfield's commencement address or Grendel's Mother arguing with the checkout clerk at the grocery store. Some are more about the writing business, like the the notes on a submission of a "modernized" Hardy Boys manuscript or free dramatic chapter endings. Others are satirical analyses of famous works through the eyes of those who aren't exactly literary critics, like Sean Hannity's look at the 5 most dangerous children's books. It's hard to come away from this without finding something to like.
• 
  Steven Pattison

  A collection of humor writings from McSweeney's.
  
  Extremely funny stuff - humor pieces from a variety of writers about classic books, famous authors and the literary world (i.e., "Holden Caulfield Gives the Commencement Speech to a High School")
  
  My favorites in this book:
  
  "Winnie-the-Pooh is My Coworker"
  "Ikea Product or Lord of the Rings Character?"
  "The Very Unauthorized Biography of Steven Seagal"
  "John Updike as Television Writer"
  "Cormac McCarthy Writes to the Editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican"
  "Celebrity Biographies Written By a Guy Who Cannot Distinguish Fiction From Reality"
  "Alternate Endings to Famous Literary Works as Written by a 15-year Old With a Grudge"
• 
  Julia

  Ah, nerdy bookish humor. Is there anything better? The good people at McSweeney’s clearly don’t think so, which is why they’ve put together this collection of literary jokes, parodies, lists, and skits. Offerings include:
  
  • Holden Caulfield Gives the Commencement Speech to His High School
  • IKEA Product or Lord of the Rings Character?
  • Social Security Denies Gregor Samsa’s Disability Claim
  • Our Town Apologizes
  • I See No Other Option Than to Resign as Emily Dickinson’s Rap-Battle Coach
  
  Obviously super nerdy, but you know what? Super fun, too.
  
• 
  Marsha

  Winnie the Pooh’s lazy behavior is written up by an exasperated co-worker. A desperate coach demands everybody hustle to get Harry Potter on the team. Gregor Samsa’s disability claim is denied and much more! These stories zing with humor and satirical bite as the humorists take their cues from famous books and their characters to give us these unique and wildly funny vignettes. Literature comes alive as never before as the writers throw pointed and poisoned darts at their targets, puncturing them and raising chuckles along the way.
• 
  Kristin

  Selections of literary humour from McSweeney's quarterly. Ranging from the very geeky to the über snobby, its the sort of book that is best paged through, not read cover to cover. I give it three stars for a few pieces that had me laughing out loud in the staff room- "Ikea product or Lord of the Rings Character" and an emotionally disturbing history of the Berenstain Bears series. If you like the idea of Kafka's giant cockroach receiving a letter from social security, or Grendel's mother ripping the throat out of a ShopRite cashier, you may enjoy this collection.
• 
  Amy Adams

  Wow...I bought this book when it was new, put it on my shelf, and just recently picked it back up. But, I just now realized how old it is! I guess it's been sitting on my shelf for six years. It was pretty good. Most of the stories are funny, and they're not too lofty or hard to get. Most people who've been through high school will be at least acquainted with the subjects of the stories. I like that even the way the book is put together and printed is kind of a joke, too. Jokes, jokes, jokes. Also, it makes a great bathroom book because the stories are super short.
• 
  Kori

  A joke book of book jokes, taken from McSweeney's Internet Tendency. This book practically screamed THIS IS RELEVANT TO YOUR INTERESTS. And an introduction by John Hodgman, no less! My favorite jokes include "The Recruitment of Harry Potter", in which a Quidditch coach sends out a memo to the entire team to bribe Harry into playing for their team, "Jane Eyre Runs For President", which is rather self-explanatory, and "Lady Macbeth On Ambien" (also self-explanatory).
• 
  Heather

  I found this one slightly easier to tear through than Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, for some reason. There were occasional pieces concerning literary works I've never read. Interestingly, some of them were still funny, though I had no basis for the parody. The others, though. WHEW. Sometimes I'd wonder if I really NEEDED to read all of the words on the page to still claim I'd read the book. I did, though, and there's enough solid book humor in here to please most readers.
• 
  Kristine

  I think most of it is hilarious, but it's definitely not for everyone. Short pieces which range from potty humor which made my 8- and 11-year-old sons crack up, to foul-mouthed rants (still funny), to literate jokes for well-read dorks. Chapters include "John Paul Sartre, 911 Operator"; "The Five Most Dangerous Children's Books Ever Written According to Sean Hannity"; "Winnie-the-Pooh is My Coworker"; and "Popular Children's Fairy Tales Reimagined Using Members of My Family."