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Title: Leo Rosten's Carnival of Wit: And Wisdom: Plus Wisecracks, Ad-Libs, Malaprops, Puns, One-Liners, Quips, Epigrams, Boo-Boos, Dazzling Ironies, and Wizardries of Wording, Plus by Leo Calvin Rosten ISBN: 0-452-27099-5 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: November, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (6 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: When you come to a fork in the road;take it.
Comment: As far as a book on wit goes,this is as good as they get.What I liked best was that this book was by someone who spent his life as a fan,observer,practitioner and most of all a student of humor.This book consists almost entirely of very short pieces of wit;often referred to as one-liners.Rosten has done a good job of explaining all the various forms of 'short' wit;such as,malapropisms,neologisms,epigrams,images,observations,gags,sparkling descriptions ,soleolecisms,wisecracks,typos,transpositions,and so forth.A lot of the comments he makes are as good as the jokes he has included.Make no mistake about it,Rosten was Jewish and he weighs the book heavily with Jewish humor.I was surprised that he did not include anything by Myron Cohen as he was one of my favorites;although I'm not positive and could have missed any.This book is almost an encyclopedia of wit and extremely well arranged in about 300 categories.However,the book would have benefited with an index by 'author'.He addressed the problem of attributions,but I still felt that it would improve the book and is usually done in most books of this type.Maybe he had more fun hanging out with Dorothy Parker than preparing indexes,and for that who could blame him?
We have all heard of the line "He was a legend in his own mind" I think Rosten was a bit of "A wit in his own mind" .I think he quoted himself more than anyone else and that includes the likes of Twain,Wilde,Fields,etc. While a lot of his quotes seemed lacking when sandwiched between the masters ;he had a really good one with "If a picture is worth a thousand words,please paint me the Gettysburg Address" -one of the best!

Rating: 5
Summary: It's A Great Book
Comment: I have been very happy with this purchase. It serves my needs nicely. I always have a reference handy for birthdays,anniversaries and any other type of special occassion cards.

Rating: 3
Summary: A Quotable Carnival Indeed
Comment: A fun grab-bag of quotes, not especially rigorously sourced or verified. Rosten quotes himself more than is seemly, but "He that tooteth not his own horn, the same shall go untootethed." A fine souvenir of the mensch who popularized Yiddish culture in America. Hours of fun & sharing guaranteed.