Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It

by James Geary

“A witty book about wit that steers an elegant path between waggishness and wisdom.”—Stephen Fry

In this whimsical book, James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns demonstrate the essence of creativity. Geary reasons that wit is both visual and verbal, physical and intellectual: there’s the serendipitous wit of scientists, the crafty wit of inventors, the optical wit of artists, and the metaphysical wit of philosophers.

In Wit’s End, Geary embraces wit in every form by adopting a different style for each chapter; he writes the section on verbal repartee as a dramatic dialogue, the neuroscience of wit as a scientific paper, the spirituality of wit as a sermon, and other chapters in jive, rap, and the heroic couplets of Alexander Pope. Demonstrating that brevity really is the soul of wit, Geary crafts each chapter from concise sections of 200, 400, or 800 words. Entertaining, illuminating, and entirely unique, Wit’s End shows how wit is much more than a sense of humor.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Psychology, Writing, Philosophy, Self Help, Book Club

128 pages, Hardcover

First published November 13, 2018

About the author

James Geary is the author of the New York Times bestseller The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism (second edition), Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It, I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World, Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists, and The Body Electric: An Anatomy of The New Bionic Senses. He is an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, the former deputy curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, where he edited Nieman Reports, and the former editor of the European edition of Time magazine.

Reviews

[K.J. Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

Embarrassingly, excruciatingly bad. I'd ask how anyone let this twee nonsense get to publication but a cursory Google tells me it's a bloke who went to Harvard and worked at a bunch of media outlets, so he obviously has important friends. Sadly, they were not good enough friends to tell him not to do this.

The book starts with a prologue written in the style of Alexander Pope, only the heroic couplets *do not scan*. Not even slightly. Geary has no grasp at all of scansion or meter and it's physically painful to read. Why would someone with no grasp of scansion try to write in the style of one of the greatest masters of the art? It's embarrassing, although not as embarrassing as his efforts to write in jive (reminded me of nothing so much as the scene from Airplane!) or, even worse, the sequence that's meant to be a Lin Manuel Miranda style hip hop thing, only, unlike Miranda, not clever. Because though Geary is fascinated with other people's wit, what he can actually *do* is arch structures and feeble puns. He ruins a fair few of the genuinely clever remarks he quotes by framing them so badly the impact is lost. And of course there's no thesis or meaningful critical analysis in this. It reads as a smug man trying to show off, but only showing himself up.

This is literally, no exaggeration, one of the worst things I have ever read. I bought it off the back of glowing reviews by, I have to assume, his media pals, and I'm frankly furious at myself for not reading the preview, which would have included that Pope abomination and sent me running for the hills. I almost never star rate but given the gross impudence of an old boys' network foisting this on the public, it seems a duty.

Utter crap, in case I needed to clarify that.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was led to this book by listening to an episode of the "Art of Manliness" podcast that featured an interview with author James Geary. In all honesty, the interview was much more enjoyable for me than this book. I do acknowledge the brilliance demonstrated in the playful delivery of this well-researched thoughtful content, it was just too verbose for me to adequately absorb at this time. At times the word play seems to go far beyond an informative exploration and comes across as simple self-indulgence. Again, brilliant assembly of history and sample on the subject. Didn't resonate with me.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's call it 2.5 stars because there were some good jokes and an occasional "witticism" worth the time. But overall, not a bit memorable, especially since he NEVER came through on the promise of the subtitle -- if I had to write one sentence about what the author thinks wit is, it would be "I know it when I see it." And what he sees most clearly of all is the pun. However, to be totally fair (why, I don't know), he does repetitively say that wit is the often the clash of two or more ideas, or perhaps the cultivation of ambiguity. Many Marx Brothers examples of those . . . but a lot of it boils down to double entendre.

I'll give the author credit . . . he seemed to work hard to affect many diverse writing styles. Not that it matters in the end.

NOT a keeper.

[Chloe Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting "anecdotal" read. Is it pretentious of me to even read a book like this? Possibly. Do I care? Not necessarily.

[Daryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was ok, but a bit disappointing. I'm all for futzing with form and convention and writing in modes that suit the matter, but some of Geary's playing with genre here was just poorly executed, and I think I would have preferred a straight history of wit. There was a lot more flash here than substance. I did enjoy bits of it, but some sections were tiresome and the flash pretty dim.

[Kathryn Bashaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Geary analyzes the topic of wit: what it is, how it is related to creativity and to the ability to let one's mind wander, how to develop it, how to appreciate it, the roles of banter and ambiguity. He mostly deals with verbal wit, but also coves visual and inventive wit.

Each chapter is written in a different style, illustrating some aspect of wit: poems, sermons, dialogs, recounting of classic witty tales.

A rollicking and delightful read, but I don't know if I think it will make me any wittier. It sort of made me feel like wit is something you either have or you don't, which made me sad.

Like my reviews? Check out my blog at http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/blog/
Author of The Saint's Mistress: https://www.bing.com/search?q=amazon....

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

When writing a book on humor, you had better be funny. With both whimsical wordplay and a droll demeanor, James Geary gets us to the heart of humor without a minute of monotony.

Geary begins with a defense of puns, suggesting it is not the lowest form of humor but its essence. Puns reveal inner connections we simply haven’t noticed before. As do riddles and all manner of inventiveness.

His fun extends to the makeup of the book. Each chapter offers a tongue-in-cheek imitation of a different literary style—such as of an ode, a dramatic dialogue, a scientific paper, jive, the trickster tale, classic jokes, and more. The typographical design happily shifts as well to match the genre of each.

Hidden in all the amusement is a lot of wisdom on wit.

[Mrs C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each chapter offers the delight of what wit can do. It’s a brilliant way of showing how wit works rather than merely describe it.

Thanks to the publisher for access to the advance reading copy.

[Russell Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author muses at the beginning that an analysis of wit or any form of humor may kill the pleasure of it. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he has done in this book. I had hoped it would contain many amusing examples of wittiness, but there are very few. Instead there are lots of quotes and opinions about what wit is or should be. That and a series of bizarre typographic choices like new typefaces and font size for every chapter, changing from one to two columns and back again, italics, colored background, etc. made this book somewhat irritating to read. It was a disappointment to me although there were a few interesting moments. I can barely squeeze out a 3 for this one.

[Michael G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Geary puts wit on the spit. Well done.

[Jared · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty forgettable. The author had more fun writing it then you will have reading it. I got to the end caring less about wit then when I went in.

[Brent Pickett · Rating 5 out of 5]

While a few sections of this book flagged, for the most part it was a spirited, zesty investigation and defense of a life of wit. Irreverent, while recognizing its own deep reverence of a sort, the book was often a joy.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievably clever:
A winner, it’s true.
This book can’t but recommend
Itself to you.

The wit with which Geary
Breaks through in his prose
Makes one stop and wonder,
Pondering thus: “I suppose.”

Quotable quips
And not one or two,
But a host of delectable
Words in a stew.

The mind will boggle,
The brain might combust.
But if you’ve read this review,
It’s what you’re after, I trust.

So read this book now.
Do not wait one tick more.
Its pages are full
Of not one single bore.

[Alissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at wit and humor. I really liked how each chapter was written in a different style (one was a dialogue between two people, another was written like a medical report, etc.) I also appreciated the jokes and humor sprinkled throughout.

2021 Popsugar Reading Challenge: #36 A book that has fewer than 1,000 reviews on Amazon or Goodreads (57)

[Two Readers in Love · Rating 3 out of 5]

The conceit of the book is that each chapter explores a different topic related to wit (puns, visual jokes, etc.) in a pastiche of some exemplar of wit (the poetry of Alexander Pope, an essay from "The Spectator," jokes, zen koans and Talmudic debate, a art tour, a sermon). The aim is noble but the results are uneven; some chapters were much more sucessful than others.

It's impossible to rate a book that swings about so wildly on a 1 to 5 scale. For me, the bright and funny spots make up for some of the more muddled experiments, but your results may vary. This book also gets some reflected glory for introducing me to artists, like Markus Raetz, who is well known but new to me.

"But, I also say to you, the dark is a sign, even as the light. And the want of all help is sometimes all the help we need."

[Trudy Nye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Geary's Wit's End is not strictly a humor book, though there is plenty of humor within it. In portions of the book he explores how we think and what wit is (and is not) on a historical and even a neurological level. Extensive notes, bibliography, and index are included for those who wish to delve into this subject more deeply.

[Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, not an easy read but an entertaining and informative one.
Quotes:

This book aims to “to show, not tell, the story of Wit”
She who is most amused is most alive
.
Paronomasia = the use of a word in different senses or the use of words similar in sound to achieve a specific effect, as humor or a dual meaning; a pun; joc de cuvinte; calambur

In the year 382 Pope Damasus I asked Saint Jerome to translate the Old Latin Bible into the simpler Latin Vulgate, which became the definitive edition of the text for the next thousand years. In the Vulgate, the adjectival form of “evil,” malus, is malum, which also happens to be the word for “apple.” The similarity between malum (evil) and malum (apple) prompted Saint Jerome to pick that word to describe what Eve and Adam ate

To make and understand a pun, you must grasp two things at once: the primary, apparently intended import of a word or phrase, and the secondary, usually subversive one.

Frankfurter = “haute dog,” a form of wordplay known as macaronic (from the Latin macaronicus, meaning “jumble” or “medley”)

Puns point to the essence of all true wit—the ability to hold in the mind two different ideas about the same thing at the same time.

The best puns have more to do with philosophy than with being funny.

In poems, words rhyme; in puns, ideas rhyme.

"just as if I were his equal, quite famillionaire."

we can also reach our wit’s end.

Koestler regarded the pun, which he described as “two strings of thought tied together by an acoustic knot,”. For Koestler, the ability to simultaneously view a situation through multiple frames of reference is the source of all creative breakthroughs—in the sciences, the arts, and the humanities.

“bisociation,”

A pun, or indeed any instance of wit, “compels us to perceive the situation in two self-consistent but incompatible frames of reference at the same

First, detach yourself from any emotion that might induce you to lash out.

sprezzatura = a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.

while many languages have double negatives that make a positive how can two positives make a negative? Yeah, yeah.

RAT, the measure of creativity developed by psychologist Sarnoff Mednick in the 1960s?

Stick with the RAT and watch how increasingly distant associations germinate.

A witticism only works if the listener becomes an accomplice of the speaker.

DE STAËL: Which branch of the army do babies join?
DIDEROT: I beg your pardon?
DE STAËL: The infantry.

DE STAËL: Would you like to join me?
DIDEROT: Why, are you coming apart?
DE STAËL: Touché.

In the case of a creative mind, however, the intelligence has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, the ideas rush in pell-mell, and it is only then that the great heap is looked over and critically examined.”

In divergent thinking, multiple ideas are rapidly generated in a nonlinear manner, while in “convergent” thinking fewer ideas are generated in a much more structured manner. Divergent thinking is associated with the default network, while convergent thinking is associated with the executive network. The Ando team concluded that the manic aspects of bipolar disorder

Joke and Story Completion Test (JSCT)

Carlin’s observation: Atheism is a non-prophet institution

And all your graces no more use shall have,
Than a sun-dial in a grave.

Mr. Tesauro identifies three instrumental qualities of metaphor as they pertain to the composition of witty expressions—brevity, novelty, and clarity—and these I shall proceed to deal with, each in turn, using for illustrative purposes that most perfect of Mr.

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

Despite its manifest complexity, this story effortlessly unfolds not so much on the page itself, but in the mind of the reader.

metaphor increases understanding rather than diminishes it, by revealing intricacies of emotion and argument inaccessible to the broader, blunter instrument of reason.

barrelhouse, a combination of blues and ragtime.

According to psychologist William James, two things are required to maintain the brain in plastic shape: attention and effort,

change blindness, in which significant alterations in a subject’s field of vision go completely unnoticed.

“Habituation devours objects, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war. If all the complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they have never been.”

Art removes objects from the automatism of perception,” Shklovsky argued. “Art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony.”

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken,

“fruit language.” Words like “apple” and “banana” are specific and precise, but the word “fruit” is generic and imprecise, open to a range of possible meanings.

At the subatomic level, reality itself is ambiguous. Things both are and are not what they seem. The universe is witty, made up of quantum puns—particles with the ability to hold themselves in two different states at the same time.

It was the ambiguity itself that viewers found aesthetically pleasing, the researchers concluded.

“Transport for London Whodunnit.”

[Michael Billig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book had a strong start but started analyzing the same thing just in different ways. Some of it was interesting, some of it didn’t capture me. The examples were funny and I thought this was a good read but nothing particularly exceptional. You’ll learn some baseline things about wit but this isn’t much of an in depth analysis; I feel if you go in with an open mind you’ll enjoy it and get a few laughs. I’d give it a 3.5 if I could, not quite a four bc of the repetitive nature.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard imagine both a more fascinating and more worthwhile subject than wit. As C.S. Lewis writes (and Geary approvingly quotes), if one had to choose one word to study throughout history, there can be no better word than "wit." Geary provides many insights into the nature of wit, and does a decent job dispelling the ideas that wit is solely tied to humor and that all puns should be banished to an island of dad-jokes. There are also useful ideas about how to develop your wit and become quicker with it.

Geary takes a novel approach to writing on this topic in an attempt to avoid killing wit by explicating it. Each chapter is either completely written or partially composed in a way that represents its subject: so one chapter is a dialogue from a play, another is a sermon, there are poems, a scientific article, a letter, a lecture and a chapter of anecdotes and jokes. This was amusing and, at times, witty, but it had some terrible side effects unfortunately - these being the reason for my removal of two stars. This format tended to obscure the tone of many chapters and it was difficult, more often than the author would probably care to happen, to see the exact point he was making. We simply had a host of stories that put wit on display. That is fine if the intention is to give us a list of such accounts but for explaining what wit is, how it works and why we need it, I felt that the layout of the book scattered these insights and caused the reader to search for them more than they would have to otherwise. This is honestly the case in some chapters more than others. There are a good number of chapters that were excellent and provide many good points, and the stories in those were wonderfully interwoven with those points. For example, the dialogue chapter, the chapter on visual wit, the letter, and more were terrific. Others, the chapter on the philosophy of wit in a joke telling format comes to mind, simply fall flat and leave much to be desired.

A second problem with this format is that despite the author insisting that wit is not essentially tied to humor, the wit of humor dominates the book because humorous stories abound and are scattered throughout. To be fair, there are many other types of wit given, but the author even admits in the acknowledgements that someone told him to add more levity. The author seems to have followed that advice with religious fervor.

A third problem with this format is that the jokes and stories did not always land. That can hardly be helped. One of the parables in the book has a moral to the effect of "wit sometimes works, sometimes it doesn't." Well, trying to be witty with a plethora of genres does not always achieve wit in the work. It also sometimes tends to degrade those styles and, again, turn them into punch lines rather than mediums of non-humorous wit. The sermon at the end of the book is laughable, not laudable, and whether one is religious or not, the idea of speaking of wit in theistic terms and with religious devices strikes me as not simply sacrilegious but silly. It demeans both the medium and is hard to take wit seriously when it is placed in a context where it is taken FAR too seriously.

Other examples exist but I will stop here. The point is that I wished to have gotten a more systematic view of wit. The author set out with the worry that he would make a book about wit too witless. Is that so bad, though? Could he have investigated things with a bit more nuance and still drawn from many stories, situations and jokes without overdoing it? I think I would have walked away with a better idea of the nature, application, purpose and cultivation of wit if that were the case. As it is, there are many interesting stories and nuggets about wit but also many others that were needlessly obscure or, still worse, cheesy.

At the end, I do feel the book is worth reading, but some parts are better skimmed.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the circle of friends I grew up with, being called witty was about the highest praise one could receive. We never bothered to define the term precisely, but rather understood that it implied a degree of cleverness and facility with language that went well beyond just being funny. So, what exactly is wit, how does it function, and why does being considered witty matter so much to us? Those are precisely the questions that James Geary attempts to answer in Wit’s End, his exhaustingly researched and frequently engaging treatise on just about every imaginable aspect of the topic.

At the simplest level, the author explains that wit can be regarded as a kind of metaphor: two disparate concepts connected by a commonality in sight, sound, or thought are combined for an incongruously comedic effect. Take puns, for example, such as the title of the 1970s rock album ‘You Can Tune a Piano but You Can’t Tuna Fish’. (Incidentally, this is not one of the dozens of puns that Geary cites, but it has been a personal favorite for a long time now.) The book then expands on this basic theme with chapters detailing how wit can be found in everything from literary fiction to fine art to popular music to religious tracts to political discourse.

It deserves mention that the author himself is very clever in how he offers this analysis—the chapter on witty verbal banter is written as the script for a stage play, he presents the section on how wit works in the brain as a scientific research paper, visual wit is treated as an art history lecture, and so on. That structure, along with the thorough way in which the subject is documented across time and tradition, is what I found to be most compelling about Wit’s End. On the other hand, I also caught myself wondering at times in my reading whether this was really too narrow of a topic to justify a volume-length treatment. I am not sure that question was ever resolved, but I did come away from the experience both amused and enlightened.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can read my full review here:

https://thebeerthrillers.com/2021/04/...

For a quick excerpt of my review:

".....I wish there was more substance to this, and more on ‘how wit is derived’ rather than describing various forms of wit. Because I think we can all point to something witty when we hear / see / read it; and so I rather see the inner workings, the behind the scenes, rather than the obvious and what I can clearly see in front of me.

I think this is an entertaining read, but I think it just lacks a lot of substance and could use a lot more to it. Frankly wish the general idea behind it was a bit more expansive than what we got, or maybe the scope was a bit different than what the book alluded to it being.

Similar to my beer reviews, where I gave my Untappd score, followed the global average Untappd rating, I will do the similar here but with GoodReads. GoodReads and LibraryThing are my primary forms of Book Cataloguing and recording using apps; they are basically the Untappd for the book world. I started with LibraryThing many years ago (honestly can’t even remember, but I want to say 2013 or maybe 2012. Sadly, GoodReads has surpassed it and I use that much more now (despite my not caring – and actually loathing – of Amazon). GoodReads only lets you review in full stars, where LibraryThing let you review down to the 1/4th star. So I will most likely be giving my review scores to the 1/4th star (similar to Untappd letting you review to the 1/4th bottle cap), but showing my rounded score via GoodReads, and then showing the global average GoodReads score.

My GoodReads score: **3/4 (rounded – ***)
Global GoodReads Score: 3.32 (as of 4.5.20)."

Thanks for reading. Be sure to check out my blog for more book reviews, beer reviews, brewery news, etc.

[Ben Truong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It is a humorous quasi-philosophical self-help book written by James Geary. The book is a playful book that celebrates all forms of wit.

Geary discusses many of the forms wit can take. To add to the fun, he writes each chapter in a style that mimics the topic under discussion. Furthermore, Geary has great fun with the many different styles from essay, a section written in jive, a poem in the form of a rap song, an art history lecture, and even a sermon.

Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It is written moderately well. The use of different styles for each chapter is sometimes too clever for its own good, but one is likely to come away from the book convinced of many of Geary's arguments. Many of the anecdotes are hilarious. However, the different writing styles interrupted the flow and rhythm of the narrative, which was jarring in some places.

All in all, Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It is an overall mediocre book that celebrates the many forms of wit.

[John Fredrickson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book's problem is that is not direct and serious, nor is it witty itself. The presentation of the material flits between forms: verse, prose, jive, conversational, and other distracting formats. It is not clear to whether this variation is intended to be witty, or is just a playful indulgence - in either case, the inconsistent formatting and presentation of the chapters weakens the book.

What makes this book most disappointing is that one gets the sense that the author has a very large amount of material at his disposal. The stories and quips that are presented come from many divergent sources, which seems to indicate serious(!) preparedness or erudition. This could have been a much better book.

The most interesting thing about this is that while I am disappointed in this book, I will definitely consider reading other of the author's works. I believe he has a lot to convey. This book feels like an experiment that failed.

[Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of reviewers in Good Reads seem to find Geary's dance through wit to be more clumsy than whimsy. I disagree, though not strongly. While the book's central theme is around wit (and some chosen sub-families of wit, like puns) it's also a tour of different styles and written forms, jumping from poem to vignette to a first person diary like musing, and then back to poetry. It's jarring, but when read in single chapters, is a fun way to take the book piece by piece, day by day. The breadth of Geary's research shows its limits early on as he draws from the same sources (both pre-modern and modern) and re-hashes anecdotes, jokes and myth to make different points. But for a shorter book, I feel like there's plenty of global history of humor to pack the pages with unique citations. Still, it is a pleasant read, though obviously a little too cute for some. I find the movement between styles to be a little exploratory and experimental, but never offensive.

[Matthew Getter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book, about wit I’m not exactly sure. From the moment I started reading, this book challenged my expectations. Each chapter is written in a different style evocative of wit. Some succeeded while many did not. It’s not a bad gimmick but it’s also not good. Overall the book lacked cohesion; the writing is fine but the flow felt as rambling as a drunk creek. I was confused regarding the author’s overall message of the book. A lot of what he says is interesting, informed, and yes, witty but it didn’t come together to form a cohesive whole. Many points felt repetitious from previous chapters. I learned the same lessons through different lenses enough that by the end of the book, I wasn’t sure if I had read an entire book or an entire chapter worth of information.

[Mich · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Geary extols all aspects of wit. Starting with puns, then repartee in conversations, jokes, scientific evaluations of brain images associated with wit, visual wit in art (troupe d’oeil), historical, literary, folk tales, biblical and Talmudic references are dissected in a (what else?) witty way. Each chapter is presented in a different style and sometimes font so one can be in dialogue, another in verse, then spiritual sermon, neuroscience in a scientific paper, and jive and rap.
It’s quite entertaining and for those of us who love wit,it’s the affirmation of our favorite way of thinking and expressing ourselves.

[Jeff H · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting premise - write each chapter in a different form as the author explores "what wit is, how it works, and why we need it." IMHO, Wit's End was worth reading - though maybe some of the chapters could have been better executed.

The positives are:
- it gives good examples and ideas of ways to apply wit in life
- suggests methods to improve your ability to apply wit
- the book's chapters are fairly independent. So it is a book which is easy read a chapter or two and set down for later further reading

That said, some of the chapters were harder to get through. Also, the methods and styles of the chapters vary widely. So while this can be entertaining, it can also make for difficult reading at times.

[Canlit4ever · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Started out ok but turned into an odd and repetitive pastiche of discursions, anecdotes, quotes, and fictions that did little to elucidate wit beyond that it holds tension of multiple, layered meaning. It is surprising that it was actually published and does no credit to Norton. I did appreciate this quote: "Comic discovery is paradox stated -- scientific discovery is paradox resolved" - Arthur Koestler

It did make me think about education and what's increasingly missing, notwithstanding courses on critical thinking that are anything but. Metaphor, simile, and pithiness barely make syllabi though they are so key to creative discovery in all disciplines.

[Danni Green · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to this, but I can't remember why. The layout, for one thing, felt like the author was having a protracted inside joke with himself and forgot to let the reader in on it. There were a few interesting and/or clever bits, but even for a book this thin, there weren't really enough of them. The sections on AAVE (which is never referred to as AAVE) were...awkward and horrendous, and I probably wouldn't have read this (or at least been as excited to read it as I was when I picked it up) if I had known to expect that.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quick easy read. Just a few observations I enjoyed from the book.

Puns are present in the Christian faith, God fashioned Adam from Earth and Eve's ancient hebrew name means "longing" or "love" but is also related to "craving" or "mischief."

William Shakespeare was a huge fan of puns, the average number being 78 in a normal Shakespeare play.

A popular children's poem in North Korea:
Men may say the mountain's high, but all of its beneath the sky. There is no reason we may not climb, but usually we never try. We only say "the mountain's high."