This is a very silly book. If that's not your thing, then at least buy it for a wayward niece. Inside, you'll find thousands of ideas: dozens of stories, poems, diagrams, lists and cartoons, along with hundreds of jokes and approximations thereof. Is this the funniest book ever published? Well, that's very nice of you to suggest, but at least read it first.

James Thomas, what wrote the book, is the elected President of Twitter. But don't let that put you off. He works hard at this nonsense, and has several other irons (books) in the fire (not literally). Why The Long Joke? is the consequence of several years of throwing away Brilliant Material in favor of Ultimate Stupidity. A difficult process, but as you'll see, the results speak for themselves.

Inside you'll find countless nuggets of comedy bronze, including "How to Write a Sentence"; "Edgar Allan Poe Goes to a Music Festival"; and "The Three Letters from Saint Paul to the Venusians." Do not, also, miss the author's original illustrations, such as "Dinosaurs of the Future" and "How to Tell If You're Dead"--they're exactly as useful as they sound.