Overview

When E. B. White said “analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog; few people are interested and the frog dies,” he hadn’t seen Al Gini’s hilarious, incisive, and informative take on jokes, joke-telling, and the jokers who tell jokes. For Gini, humor is more than just foolish fun: it serves as a safety valve for dealing with reality that gives us the courage to endure that which we cannot understand or avoid. Not everyone tells jokes. Not everyone gets a joke, even a good one. But, Gini argues, joke-telling can act as both a sword and a shield to defend us from reality. As the late, great stand-up comic Joan Rivers put it: ‘If you can laugh at it, you can live with it!’ This book is for anyone who enjoys a good laugh, but also wants to know why.

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9781442281769

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Reviews

This book is a comprehensive, coherent distillation of the best thinking on humor and jokes, both the philosophical and ethical issues, as well as the place of humor in our lives... it is stunning in its breadth, accessibility, and brevity. It truly is a distillation of the best the field has to offer and written in an accessible and fun style. -- Jacob M. Held

This book is a comprehensive, coherent distillation of the best thinking on humor and jokes, both the philosophical and ethical issues, as well as the place of humor in our lives... it is stunning in its breadth, accessibility, and brevity. It truly is a distillation of the best the field has to offer and written in an accessible and fun style. -- Jacob M. Held I've known Al Gini since I was five years old. I always thought of him as the hilarious kook who lived down the street. Until I read this excellent book I had no idea that he was in fact, a gainfully employed, productive member of our society. This book is so insightful, I highly recommend it. We need more Al Gini's in our life. -- Thomas Lennon, of Comedy Central's Reno 911, CBS' The Odd Couple, co-author of the Night at the Museum series I have been the victim of some of Al Gini's early research for this book, being one of his unsuspecting students many years ago. I had intended on attending and listening to boring lectures about dry philosophy subjects. But he'd interject humor and. therefore, make it nearly impossible to forget the lessons. (Shaking fist at sky...) Damn you, Gini! -- David Pasquasi, Chicago's Second City, HBO's Veep, Improviser of the Year by Chicago Improv Festival Gini gives us a careful examination of comedy and its central importance in our lives from the classroom to the boardroom to the bedroom, managing to extricate precisely where, why, and how something can be funny without ever spoiling the good time with pedantic antics. I learned and LOLed simultaneously. -- Zach Freeman, Chicago Tribune Comedy Critic

Author Information

Al Gini is a well-known Chicago radio personality, professor, and the author of a number of books that examine contemporary topics in American culture and other themes including: My Job My Self: Work and the Creation of the Modern Individual (Routledge, 2000); The Importance of Being Lazy: In Praise of Play, Leisure, and Vacations (Routledge, 2003) Why It’s Hard to Be Good (Routledge, 2006); and Seeking The Truth of Things (ACTA, 2010). Gini has been interviewed on several national and international media outlets including: “The Bob Edwards Show”, NPR’s “Morning Edition”, NBC’s “Nightly News”, CBS News, ABC News, CBC Canada, WTTW Chicago, WGN Chicago, Stanford University’s “Philosophy Talk”, South African National Radio, Wisconsin Public Radio, Massachusetts Public Radio, CBS Radio, and San Francisco Public Radio. For over twenty-eight years he has been the “Resident Philosopher” on National Public Radio’s Chicago affiliate, WBEZ-FM, and he regularly lectures to community and professional organizations on issues in popular culture, business and ethics.

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