- Pre-order Price Guarantee! Order now and if the Amazon.com price decreases between your order time and the end of the day of the release date, you'll receive the lowest price. Here's how (restrictions apply)
American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
Flip to back
Flip to front
American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny Hardcover – September 23, 2014
See all 2 formats and editions
Hide other formats and editions
| Amazon Price | New from | Used from |
|
Hardcover
"Please retry"
|
$22.14
|
$22.14 | — |
 |
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed
Page 1 of 1 Start over
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
|
Pre-order American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny for your Kindle today.
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App. | |
From the creator of the wildly popular webcomic xkcd, find hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask. Learn more
Product Details
Would you like to give feedback on images?.
|
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Humor is notoriously subjective. Miller’s hefty abecedarian tome—from “Absentminded Professors” to “Zealots”—covers its rollicking butt (so to speak) from the start, claiming it’s a guide to the “formerly funny,” discussing “jokes that died out, peaked, or assumed a distinctive form in the early or mid-twentieth century.” Coverage runs from less than a page (for “Get-Rich-Quick Schemes”) to several pages (for “Flatulence”), and cross-referenced terms are set in boldface capital letters. The book happily sports more than 150 color and black-and-white illustrations, running from the vintage—cartoons, advertisements, novelty postcards—to the somewhat contemporary (e.g., a photo of TV’s Gomer Pyle), and the healthy smattering of quotes from true wits will make readers smile. Miller’s detailed thoroughness sometimes overwhelms, and he includes such un-PC topics as “Domestic Violence,” “Drunks and Drunkenness,” and “Rape” (bald men, black people, and fat folks also once got yuks). Even so, comedy-film buffs, cartoonists, and nostalgics may bite hard on this one. --Eloise Kinney
Review
“American Cornball is a winning testament to broad-minded playfulness and nerdy expertise, and it’s the perfect book to dip into over and over again: it’s funny and smart and endlessly informative about everything Americans thought to be funny, from Rilke to rolling pins.” (Jim Shepard, author of Like You'd Understand, Anyway)
“Christopher Miller recreates a lost world in mind-boggling detail, and explores its implications without losing his aplomb, or his sense of humor.” (Geoffrey O'Brien, author of Stolen Glimpses, Captive Shadows and The Phantom Empire)
“Christopher Miller’s spectacular compendium leaves a trail of vernacular, untrendy crumbs, all the while making inspired zigs and zags through ancient bits and gags, from Krapp’s Last Tape to Andy Capp’s shtick.” (Ben Greenman, author of The Slippage and What He's Poised to Do)
“Miller’s lovingly jaundiced exploration of the way America once laughed crackles with insight; the result is that rare book on humor that is as entertaining as its subject.” (Publishers Weekly)
“If you yuck and guffaw at the likes of old maids, absent-minded professors and red-nosed topers, then this is just the book for you.” (Kirkus Reviews)
“Christopher Miller recreates a lost world in mind-boggling detail, and explores its implications without losing his aplomb, or his sense of humor.” (Geoffrey O'Brien, author of Stolen Glimpses, Captive Shadows and The Phantom Empire)
“Christopher Miller’s spectacular compendium leaves a trail of vernacular, untrendy crumbs, all the while making inspired zigs and zags through ancient bits and gags, from Krapp’s Last Tape to Andy Capp’s shtick.” (Ben Greenman, author of The Slippage and What He's Poised to Do)
“Miller’s lovingly jaundiced exploration of the way America once laughed crackles with insight; the result is that rare book on humor that is as entertaining as its subject.” (Publishers Weekly)
“If you yuck and guffaw at the likes of old maids, absent-minded professors and red-nosed topers, then this is just the book for you.” (Kirkus Reviews)
More About the Author
Christopher Miller is the author of Sudden Noises from Inanimate Objects, a Seattle Times Best Book of the Year. He teaches at Bennington College in Vermont.
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet.
| 5 star |
|
|
| 4 star |
|
|
| 3 star |
|
|
| 2 star |
|
|
| 1 star |
|
This item has not been released yet and is not eligible to be reviewed.
