The Playboy Book of Humor and Satire

This generous selection of Playboy humor is easily the most consistently funny book you can find anywhere today. Between these covers you'll find the hilarious work of the most gifted contemporary comedic talents: Dan Greenburg, Woody Allen, Art Buchwald, Richard Armour, Allan Sherman, Jean Shepherd, Roger Price, Shepherd Mead, P. G. Wodehouse, Ray Russell, Harvey Kurtzman and many more.The subject matter ranges from Chinese Communists to British fox hunting, from French guidebooks to American sex manuals, from boys' books to campy film musicals to Lady Chatterly's Lover. In this bracing book, the comic spirit takes the shape of astringent stories, pungent playlets, acerbic articles; and the form of lampoon, parody, pasquinade, burlesque--all the forms, in fact, of humor and satire, and all at their most risible best.Playboy prizes its humorists so highly that it annually bestows a $1,000 Best Humor Award upon the author of the year's most outstanding drollery in this field. To date, three such awards have been presented, and all three winning contributions are in this book, including How to Be a Jewish Mother by Dan Greenburg, which was presented by Playboy prior to its becoming a sensational best seller.Although "the goal of Satire is reform," as W. H. Auden says, and the writers in this book have not shirked their responsibility as social satirists, they have wisely and artfully camouflaged their underlying reformist goals with the best protective coloration of all--sheer entertainment, an essential too often ignored by the crusader brand of satirist.Laughter has always been a vital ingredient of Playboy magazine, in cartoons, jokes and special pictorial satires, but possibly the most pertinent Playboy humor and ultimately the most satisfying laughter is that provoked by the written word--words of wise and wicked wit, such as those in the brimming, bubbling volume you now hold in your hands.So what are you waiting for? Open it up and join the fun!