One of the legends of show biz delves into his personal treasury of jokes ("The most comprehensive storehouse of 20th-century humor in the world"--Los Angeles Magazine) to present the most astounding array of one-liners, anecdotes, quips, and gags ever published. Line drawings.

Gathers jokes about accountants, actors, amnesia, banks, nightlife, politicians, procrastination, relatives, robots, tact, vacations, psychiatrists, and salesmen.

Why Did Steve Allen Cross the Road? Steve Allen is a legend among comedians and entertainers. He's been playing to audiences on stage, radio, film, and television for more than fifty years, gaining acclaim for his unique wit and energy. Now for the first time, he shares more than a thousand of his favorite one-liners, anecdotes, limericks, quotes, and other generally funny things. The entries are divided into nearly two hundred categories to make it easy for anyone to find the right laugh for any occasion. If you're faced with the prospect of having to "say a few words," Steve Allen's Private Joke File is the perfect place to look for ideas and inspiration on such topics as awards, drinking, baseball, lawyers, dentists, insurance, marriage, the stock market, and dozens of other subjects. A sampling: * My wife and I had words, but I never got to use mine! * If ignorance is bliss, he should die of joy. * "How are the acoustics here?" "Great, I can hardly hear you!" * I learned to rumba very early in life ... I had a tricycle with a loose seat. * Room for rent, by young lady, freshly plastered. Steve Allen has also included a number of his favorite essays and monologues. Steve Allen's Private Joke File is great to flip through for fun or for function, and for those of us looking for a good laugh -- to give one or to have one -- it's indispensable.

For the first time in paperback, this is Mr. Television's laugh-a-minute autobiography of his sixty years in the legendary Friar's Club--that ribald, rollicking collection of zanies. With 32 pages of rare pictures from Mr. Berle's private collection.

The New York Times bestselling writer Tracy Daugherty illuminates his most vital subject yet in this first biography of the Catch-22 author Joseph Heller Joseph Heller was a Coney Island kid, the son of Russian immigrants, who went on to great fame and fortune. His most memorable novel took its inspiration from a mission he flew over France in WWII (his plane was filled with so much shrapnel it was a wonder it stayed in the air). Heller wrote seven novels, all of which remain in print. Something Happened and Good as Gold, to name two, are still considered the epitome of satire. His life was filled with women and romantic indiscretions, but he was perhaps more famous for his friendships—he counted Mel Brooks, Zero Mostel, Carl Reiner, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Mario Puzo, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, and many others among his confidantes. In 1981 Heller was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a debilitating syndrome that could have cost him his life. Miraculously, he recovered. When he passed away in 1999 from natural causes, he left behind a body of work that continues to sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year. Just One Catch is the first biography of Yossarian's creator.

Ross, one of the meanest men in comedy, offers anecdotes and deconstructs themakings of a great roast.

At the height of his career as a journalist, Tony Schwartz hit an unexpected wall. Why did success suddenly feel so empty? How could he add richer meaning to his everyday life? What guides could he trust on the road to wisdom? During the next five years his search for answers took him from a meditation retreat in the mountains of Utah to a biofeedback laboratory in Kansas, from a peak-performance workshop at a tennis academy in Florida to a right-brain drawing course in Boston. Blending the hunger of a seeker with a journalist's hard-headed inquiry, he discovered the best teachers and techniques for inner development--and identified the potential pitfalls and false gurus he met along the way. What he found dramatically changed his life. It may change yours as well.