Six-time Emmy Award-winning funny man Tim Conway—best known for his roles on The Carol Burnett Show—offers a straight-shooting and hilarious memoir about his life on stage and off as an actor and comedian. In television history, few entertainers have captured as many hearts and made as many people laugh as Tim Conway. What’s So Funny? follows Tim’s journey from life as an only child raised by loving but outrageous parents, to his tour of duty in the army, to his ascent as a national star. Conway’s often-improvised humor, razor-sharp timing, and hilarious characters have made him one of the funniest and most authentic performers to grace the stage and studio. As Carol Burnett, who also provides an intimate foreword to the book, has said, “there’s no one funnier” than Tim Conway. What’s So Funny? shares hilarious accounts and never-before-shared stories of behind-the-scenes antics on McHale’s Navy and The Carol Burnett Show as well as his famous partnerships with entertainment greats like Harvey Korman, Don Knotts, and Dick Van Dyke; and his friendships with stars like Betty White and Bob Newhart. Filled with warmth, humor, and heart, What’s So Funny will delight and inspire fans everywhere.

From a longtime New Yorker staff cartoonist, an evocative family memoir, a love letter to New York City, and a delightful exploration of the origins of creativity—richly interleaved with the author’s witty, beloved cartoons A wry and brilliantly observed portrait of the budding young cartoonist and his Upper West Side Jewish family in the age of JFK and Sputnik. Sipress, a dreamer and obsessive drawer, goes hazy when it comes to the ceaselessly imparted lessons-on-life from his father, the meticulous, upwardly mobile proprietor of Revere Jewelers, and in the face of the angsty expectations of his migraine-prone mother. With self-deprecation, wit, and artistry, Sipress paints his hapless place in his indelibly dysfunctional family, from the time he was tricked by his unreliable older sister into rocketing his pet turtle out his twelfth-floor bedroom window, to the moment he walks away from a Harvard PhD program in Russian history to begin his journey as a professional cartoonist. In What’s So Funny?—reminiscent of the masterly, humane recall of Roger Angell and the brainy humor of Roz Chast—Sipress's cartoons appear with spot-on precision, inducing delightful Aha moments in answer to the perennial question aimed at cartoonists: Where do you get your ideas?

Britain’s hottest young comedian presents a seriously funny, up-close look at joking matters—from the social origins of laughter, to the art and craft of humor, to why we can never remember the punch line—featuring over 300 jokes. As the host of the hit game show Distraction (now in its third season on Comedy Central) and one of the premier stand-up acts working today, award-winning comedian Jimmy Carr has won over millions of fans around the world with his trademark rapier wit, laced with "exquisitely economical and perfectly timed one-liners" (The Guardian). For this book he teams up with friend and fellow comedy writer Lucy Greeves to take an in-depth look at where humor comes from and how it works, through exploring its purest form: the joke. Only Joking begins with the mechanism of laughter—how it happens and why even infants do it—then delves into the power of the punch line, exploring the basics of all jokes, from the use of shock and surprise to advanced stand-up techniques such as the "pull-back/reveal." Carr and Greeves go on to explore taboo humor, jokes that bomb, and the psychology of finding something funny. They look into the long-standing connection between politics and humor, and discuss the survival prospects for contentious jokes in the current political climate. Throughout the book they conjure up a supporting cast of colorful joke enthusiasts, from Sigmund Freud to Lenny Bruce, and discuss their influence on the jokes we tell today. Surveying across national, ethnic, and gender divides, this rollicking analysis of why joking will always be close to the human heart is an irresistible exploration of humor that makes clear why we need a good laugh now more than ever.

Explains why our brains think something is funny, what happens to us physically when we laugh, why you can tickle your friend but not yourself, and much more.

One bonus of getting older is that it gives us a great perspective on life . . . and that includes plenty of humor! This collection of cartoons, quips, quotes, and insights introduces a new comedy genre: elderhumor. It captures the wry hilarity of our real-life sitcoms. Generational vocabulary gaps, miscommunications, preoccupation with health and comforts, foibles, disguises (for aging), even physical limitations -- all can have their funny sides when we're laughing at ourselves. One bonus of getting older is that it gives us a great perspective on life . . . and that includes plenty of humor! This collection of cartoons, quips, quotes, and insights introduces a new comedy genre: elderhumor. It captures the wry hilarity of our real-life sitcoms. Generational vocabulary gaps, miscommunications, preoccupation with health and comforts, foibles, disguises (for aging), even physical limitations -- all can have their funny sides when we're laughing at ourselves. This book, a light-hearted gift for anyone who's 50-plus, is a memoryjogger too. Remember the Katzenjammer Kids? Jack Armstrong? Apple Mary? Check out your friends' ages by their responses to a "Vanishing Words" test (examples: "spider," "broomstick skirt," "running board," "the shag"). If you're still calling the refrigerator an "icebox," it's a giveaway -- you're probably over 60. What's So Funny about Getting Old? is brought to you by a comedy team of two. Ed Fischer is an award-winning cartoonist. Jane Thomas Noland, author of Laugh It Off (what's so funny about trying to lose weight?) is a books editor and a former Minneapolis Star Tribune feature writer. Both have delicious ways of looking at life. Both, like all the rest of us, are getting older. Laughter heals. Laughter helps. Laughter keeps us in shape emotionally and physically. Read this book and try it. You'll be convinced, as these authors are, that there's only one way to grow older -- with a healthy sense of humor!

In what may be the "best Dortmunder yarn yet," Westlake's seasoned but often scoreless crook must take on an impossible crime, one he doesn't want and doesn't believe in -- but a little blackmail goes a long way (Associated Press). All it takes is a few underhanded moves by a tough ex-cop named Eppick to pull Dortmunder into a game he never wanted to play. With no choice, he musters his always-game gang and they set out on a perilous treasure hunt for a long-lost gold and jewel-studded chess set once intended as a birthday gift for the last Romanov czar, which unfortunately reached Russia after that party was over. From the moment Dortmunder reaches for his first pawn, he faces insurmountable odds. The purloined past of this precious set is destined to confound any strategy he finds on the board. Success is not inevitable with John Dortmunder leading the attack, but he's nothing if not persistent, and some gambit or other might just stumble into a winning move.

An hilarious hand-puppet book! Giggle, giggle, what's so funny? Is it two barmy ballet dancers jumping and jiggling? An exercising octopus all puffed out? Or perhaps there is a totally tickle-tastic answer? Put your fingers into this glove puppet and wiggle them to animate the pictures, be it the legs on one page or a head of crazy hair on the next. Great fun for sharing and making little ones laugh, you can easily bring this madcap book alive!