Writing Wit

Chairs. Neat people. Ugliness. War. Over six decades of intrepid reporting and elegant essays, Andy Rooney has proven a shrewd cultural analyst. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit brings together the best of more than a half-century of work (including long-out-of-print pieces from his early years) in an unforgettable celebration of one of America’s funniest men. Like Mark Twain, Finley Peter Dunne (Mister Dooley) and Will Rogers, Andy Rooney is a classic chronicler of America, a writer for the ages.

Ready to build a poem? First, you’ll need the right tools. Open this title in the Writer’s Toolbox series and discover plenty of tips and tools to get you started. Soon you’ll be writing rhythms and rhymes like a pro!

My Life on the Run chronicles the heatstroke and frostbite, heartache and triumphs he's experienced while competing in more than 1,000 competitive races on all seven continents. With the wit and wisdom of a seasoned insider, Yasso tells runners what they need to know to navigate the logistics of running in an unfamiliar country. He also offers practical guidance, such as 5-K, 10-K, half-marathon, and marathon training schedules, including his innovative technique known as the Yasso 800s for beginner, intermediate, and advanced runners.

Multi award-winning writer/narrator Alison Larkin brings the teenage writings of Jane Austen together in this delightful collection. Listeners will enjoy identifying where Jane Austen’s later comic creations came from as they listen to young Jane Austen gleefully lampooning the popular literature and culture of her time.

"Why does A. J. Liebling remain a vibrant role model for writers while the superb, prolific St. Clair McKelway has been sorely forgotten?" James Wolcott asked this question in a recent review of The Complete New Yorker on DVD. Anyone who has read a single paragraph of McKelway's work would struggle to provide an answer. His articles for The New Yorker were defined by their clean language and incomporable wit, by his love of New York's rough edges and his affection for the working man (whether that work was come by honestly or not).

The Amigos go West. Because apparently, they haven’t been chased by enough wild animals yet. Think Top Gear on a cultural crusade, or Three Men in a Boat if the boat was an overheating Royal Enfield navigating salt marshes and 4,500-year-old ruins. Having survived the mountains, the south, and the cliffside, the three 'generously-proportioned' Amigos head to India’s western edge. Their mission? To find the only place on Earth where you can find Asiatic lions, ancient ghosts, and enough salt to high-blood-pressure an entire continent. Armed with their trademark blind optimism and a level...

At nearly sixty, Tina Gabler is done living for everyone else. After decades spent supporting the ambitions of family and colleagues, the would-be artist decides it’s finally time to take her own creative life seriously. When she accepts a position as research assistant to legendary television news anchor Peter Bright at his remote home in the Thousand Islands, it seems like the perfect opportunity for reinvention. Peter is racing to finish a controversial book exposing the hidden truth behind some of history’s most famous photographs—images that shaped public perception but may have ...

By analyzing the elements of wit employed by such eminent humorists as Evelyn Waugh, Mark Twain, and P.G. Wodehouse, The Ways to Wit nourishes one’s comedic sense, deepens one’s sense of irony, and ultimately teaches one what it takes to write excellent, humorous wit.

**2000 Insulting Sentences In the Style of Shakespeare** It is a 117-page book that delivers exactly what its title promises — a meticulously crafted arsenal of 2,000 numbered Elizabethan-style barbs, jests, and scurrilous invective, each one a standalone weapon of verbal warfare rooted in the grand tradition of the Bard's most cutting wit. The main text spans pages 12 through 88, presenting 2,000 individually numbered insulting sentences built from authentic Shakespearean vocabulary — *artless, beslubbering, gorbellied, pribbling, mewling, spleeny, loggerheaded, frothy, wayward, ...