What do you think?
Rate this book
Writings and Drawings
James Thurber was the unique, unpredictable wild card of American humorists, at once whimsical fantasist and deadpan chronicler of everyday absurdities. The comic persona he invented, a modern citydweller whose zaniest flights of free association are tinged with anxiety, is as hilarious now as when he first appeared in the pages of The New Yorker—and his troubled side is even more striking. Here, The Library of America presents the best and most extensive Thurber collection ever assembled.
Only a book of this scope can do justice to Thurber’s extraordinary career and to the many unexpected turns of his comic genius. Here are the acknowledged masterpieces: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “The Catbird Seat,” the anti-war parable The Last Flower, the brilliantly satirical Fables for Our Time, the children’s classic The 13 Clocks, and My Life and Hard Times, which Russell Baker calls “possibly the shortest and most elegant autobiography ever written.” Here too are the best pieces from The Owl in the Attic, Let Your Mind Alone!, My World—And Welcome To It, and The Beast in Me and Other Animals. From his other famous collections are included such favorites as “The Pet Department,” “The Black Magic of Barney Haller,” "Nine Needles,’ “the Macbeth Murder Mystery,” and “File and Forget,” revealing an astonishingly diverse mix of literary parodies, eccentric portraits, stories of domestic warfare and inner terror, reminiscences both tender and farcical, extravagant feats of wordplay, freewheeling burlesques of popular culture (from detective novels to self-help fads), and exasperated protests against the mechanized impersonality of the modern world.
Thurber’s wonderful drawings—spontaneous creations of which he once said, “I don’t think any drawing ever took me more than three minutes”—are here in profusion, with their population of husbands, wives, dogs, seals, and various species of Thurber’s own invention. His first great cartoon collection, The Seal in the Bedroom, is presented complete, along with such celebrated sequences like “The Masculine Approach” and “The War Between Men and Women,” and his devastatingly straightforward illustrated versions of once-canonical poems such as “Barbara Frietchie” and “Excelsior.”
Rounding out this volume is a selection from The Years with Ross, his memoir of New Yorker publisher Harold Ross, and a number of pieces, previously uncollected by Thurber, including some early work never before reprinted.
Only a book of this scope can do justice to Thurber’s extraordinary career and to the many unexpected turns of his comic genius. Here are the acknowledged masterpieces: “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “The Catbird Seat,” the anti-war parable The Last Flower, the brilliantly satirical Fables for Our Time, the children’s classic The 13 Clocks, and My Life and Hard Times, which Russell Baker calls “possibly the shortest and most elegant autobiography ever written.” Here too are the best pieces from The Owl in the Attic, Let Your Mind Alone!, My World—And Welcome To It, and The Beast in Me and Other Animals. From his other famous collections are included such favorites as “The Pet Department,” “The Black Magic of Barney Haller,” "Nine Needles,’ “the Macbeth Murder Mystery,” and “File and Forget,” revealing an astonishingly diverse mix of literary parodies, eccentric portraits, stories of domestic warfare and inner terror, reminiscences both tender and farcical, extravagant feats of wordplay, freewheeling burlesques of popular culture (from detective novels to self-help fads), and exasperated protests against the mechanized impersonality of the modern world.
Thurber’s wonderful drawings—spontaneous creations of which he once said, “I don’t think any drawing ever took me more than three minutes”—are here in profusion, with their population of husbands, wives, dogs, seals, and various species of Thurber’s own invention. His first great cartoon collection, The Seal in the Bedroom, is presented complete, along with such celebrated sequences like “The Masculine Approach” and “The War Between Men and Women,” and his devastatingly straightforward illustrated versions of once-canonical poems such as “Barbara Frietchie” and “Excelsior.”
Rounding out this volume is a selection from The Years with Ross, his memoir of New Yorker publisher Harold Ross, and a number of pieces, previously uncollected by Thurber, including some early work never before reprinted.
1004 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1996
165 people are currently reading
509 people want to read
About the author
James Thurber
357 books608 followersThurber was born in Columbus, Ohio to Charles L. Thurber and Mary Agnes (Mame) Fisher Thurber. Both of his parents greatly influenced his work. His father, a sporadically employed clerk and minor politician who dreamed of being a lawyer or an actor, is said to have been the inspiration for the small, timid protagonist typical of many of his stories. Thurber described his mother as a "born comedienne" and "one of the finest comic talents I think I have ever known." She was a practical joker, on one occasion pretending to be crippled and attending a faith healer revival, only to jump up and proclaim herself healed.
Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother William shot James in the eye with an arrow. Because of the lack of medical technology, Thurber lost his eye. This injury would later cause him to be almost entirely blind. During his childhood he was unable to participate in sports and activities because of his injury, and instead developed a creative imagination, which he shared in his writings.
From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He never graduated from the University because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a mandatory ROTC course. In 1995 he was posthumously awarded a degree.
From 1918 to 1920, at the close of World War I, Thurber worked as a code clerk for the Department of State, first in Washington, D.C. and then at the American Embassy in Paris, France. After this Thurber returned to Columbus, where he began his writing career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this time, he reviewed current books, films, and plays in a weekly column called "Credos and Curios," a title that later would be given to a posthumous collection of his work. Thurber also returned to Paris in this period, where he wrote for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.
In 1925, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, getting a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Post. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor with the help of his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor, E.B. White. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 when White found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can and submitted them for publication. Thurber would contribute both his writings and his drawings to The New Yorker until the 1950s.
Thurber was married twice. In 1922, Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in May 1935. Adams gave Thurber his only child, his daughter Rosemary. Thurber remarried in June, 1935 to Helen Wismer. His second marriage lasted until he died in 1961, at the age of 66, due to complications from pneumonia, which followed upon a stroke suffered at his home. His last words, aside from the repeated word "God," were "God bless... God damn," according to Helen Thurber.
Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother William shot James in the eye with an arrow. Because of the lack of medical technology, Thurber lost his eye. This injury would later cause him to be almost entirely blind. During his childhood he was unable to participate in sports and activities because of his injury, and instead developed a creative imagination, which he shared in his writings.
From 1913 to 1918, Thurber attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He never graduated from the University because his poor eyesight prevented him from taking a mandatory ROTC course. In 1995 he was posthumously awarded a degree.
From 1918 to 1920, at the close of World War I, Thurber worked as a code clerk for the Department of State, first in Washington, D.C. and then at the American Embassy in Paris, France. After this Thurber returned to Columbus, where he began his writing career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch from 1921 to 1924. During part of this time, he reviewed current books, films, and plays in a weekly column called "Credos and Curios," a title that later would be given to a posthumous collection of his work. Thurber also returned to Paris in this period, where he wrote for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.
In 1925, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, getting a job as a reporter for the New York Evening Post. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 as an editor with the help of his friend and fellow New Yorker contributor, E.B. White. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930 when White found some of Thurber's drawings in a trash can and submitted them for publication. Thurber would contribute both his writings and his drawings to The New Yorker until the 1950s.
Thurber was married twice. In 1922, Thurber married Althea Adams. The marriage was troubled and ended in divorce in May 1935. Adams gave Thurber his only child, his daughter Rosemary. Thurber remarried in June, 1935 to Helen Wismer. His second marriage lasted until he died in 1961, at the age of 66, due to complications from pneumonia, which followed upon a stroke suffered at his home. His last words, aside from the repeated word "God," were "God bless... God damn," according to Helen Thurber.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
March 17, 2020
I did not read all of them but I strongly recommend "A Box to Hide In" & "Interview with a Lemming."
March 30, 2013
I thought I'd never finish this damn book. I had read a few short stories by Thurber, was charmed, and figured I'd love a whole collection. I was so wrong. A little Thurber is appealing; too much is appalling.
I enthusiastically read the stories of Thurber's youth in Ohio, enjoying his wacky family and their foibles. His clear condescension for their progression of "colored" maids was grating, however, and perhaps the editor of this collection should have made wiser choices for modern readers.
Also grating, and so tiring, was the author's inability to write or (badly) draw a female character that wasn't a scowling harpy. If you've ever read "Walter Mitty," you can just go ahead and skip the rest of Thurber's fiction. You've already got the general idea.
I enthusiastically read the stories of Thurber's youth in Ohio, enjoying his wacky family and their foibles. His clear condescension for their progression of "colored" maids was grating, however, and perhaps the editor of this collection should have made wiser choices for modern readers.
Also grating, and so tiring, was the author's inability to write or (badly) draw a female character that wasn't a scowling harpy. If you've ever read "Walter Mitty," you can just go ahead and skip the rest of Thurber's fiction. You've already got the general idea.
October 23, 2018
I first encountered the works of James Thurber in 1969 while watching an award-winning — and, with the usual good judgment of the television executives of that era, immediately canceled — television show based upon his works. The show may have been canceled, but I immediately perused the Scholastic Book Club offerings and found a copy of My World — and Welcome to It. I thoroughly enjoyed the book (although it was probably a little over my head), but for some inexplicable reason I waited almost fifty years to read more. Fool!
For those of you who aren't familiar, James Thurber was an author, artist (although some would argue that point), and frequent contributor to (and employee of) The New Yorker during its early days. He is mostly known as a humorist and many of you would immediately recognize his most famous work, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, although neither the Danny Kaye nor the Ben Stiller movies do justice to the simplicity and power of the story.
Thurber's works were principally either fiction, autobiography, or autobiographical fiction. Most of his works are in the form of short stories or ridiculously drawn illustrations that probably would have never seen the light of day had it not been for the intervention of his good friend, E. B. White. In my own untutored way, I see Thurber as a successor to Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde and a forerunner and inspiration to Garrison Keillor and Monty Python.
I say the latter because Thurber's humorous moments border on the absurd: a grandfather who, when awakened in the middle of the night, is convinced that the Confederates are trying to retake Missionary Ridge; a grandmother who was afraid of doorbells and who believed that if you unscrewed an light bulb, electricity would drip invisibly all over the house; a mother who once recommended that he not try to drive the car without gasoline because she had heard it was bad if you did.
But Thurber was more than a humorist. He had a melancholy (and sometimes very dark) side and could just as easily turn out a story about a lost love or a murder/suicide. And, in fact, when you start reading a Thurber story, you don't really know whether this one will make you laugh out loud or crumple in the misery of your own lost loves (but hopefully not your murder/suicide). That is the beauty of Thurber: every story, whether humorous or tragic, contains a fragment of the human condition, deeply felt, painfully personal, often self-deprecating. As I read, I found a certainty that I knew the measure of the man and that he, in turn, knew my measure as well.
The good news is that more often than not I laughed heartily… out loud… in public… which is not something I tend to do. I rejoiced in re-making the acquaintance. I hated putting the book down and, when I reached the end, I mourned that there was not one more story, one more drawing.
In the end, that is the measure of an author. And so I say to you, find some Thurber. Dive in. You are always welcome to his world.
For those of you who aren't familiar, James Thurber was an author, artist (although some would argue that point), and frequent contributor to (and employee of) The New Yorker during its early days. He is mostly known as a humorist and many of you would immediately recognize his most famous work, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, although neither the Danny Kaye nor the Ben Stiller movies do justice to the simplicity and power of the story.
Thurber's works were principally either fiction, autobiography, or autobiographical fiction. Most of his works are in the form of short stories or ridiculously drawn illustrations that probably would have never seen the light of day had it not been for the intervention of his good friend, E. B. White. In my own untutored way, I see Thurber as a successor to Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde and a forerunner and inspiration to Garrison Keillor and Monty Python.
I say the latter because Thurber's humorous moments border on the absurd: a grandfather who, when awakened in the middle of the night, is convinced that the Confederates are trying to retake Missionary Ridge; a grandmother who was afraid of doorbells and who believed that if you unscrewed an light bulb, electricity would drip invisibly all over the house; a mother who once recommended that he not try to drive the car without gasoline because she had heard it was bad if you did.
But Thurber was more than a humorist. He had a melancholy (and sometimes very dark) side and could just as easily turn out a story about a lost love or a murder/suicide. And, in fact, when you start reading a Thurber story, you don't really know whether this one will make you laugh out loud or crumple in the misery of your own lost loves (but hopefully not your murder/suicide). That is the beauty of Thurber: every story, whether humorous or tragic, contains a fragment of the human condition, deeply felt, painfully personal, often self-deprecating. As I read, I found a certainty that I knew the measure of the man and that he, in turn, knew my measure as well.
The good news is that more often than not I laughed heartily… out loud… in public… which is not something I tend to do. I rejoiced in re-making the acquaintance. I hated putting the book down and, when I reached the end, I mourned that there was not one more story, one more drawing.
In the end, that is the measure of an author. And so I say to you, find some Thurber. Dive in. You are always welcome to his world.
August 10, 2011
I was in Portland for a week, and reading this book for an hour every morning over coffee in the lobby of Fifth Avenue Suites ranks as one of the most pleasant reading experiences I've ever had. Many of Thurber's stories take place in hotel lobbies, so the synchronicity was palpable. Thurber himself is much more acerbic and witty than I remember him from elementary school. Rediscovering him through this collection of his best pieces, assembled by Garrison Keillor, was a joy. His autobiographical pieces on growing up in Ohio are hilarious stand-outs. Comedic intelligence in American prose does exist, and this is a good place to start exploring it.
December 17, 2024
This volume is a wonderful tribute to an eminent American humorist. It contains a broad selection—chosen by Garrison Keillor—of Thurber’s short stories, reflections on his youth in Columbus, OH, fables, cartoons, and travel writing. For those interested in the history of the New Yorker magazine, there is also a collection of essays and anecdotes on Harold Ross, its founding editor (including “…the one about the…girl called Femily who, her parents told a visitor, had been named by the family doctor. The name which the doctor had put on the certificate was, as you may know, Female.”).
My favorite was the short story “The Greatest Man in the World,” an incredibly funny piece about a mythical aviator who is the first to fly around the world. He is an incredibly boorish and odious character who doesn’t fit the mold of a popular hero, something the powers-that-be figure out how to handle. The fables and the illustrations of “A New Natural History” (featuring “animals” like the White-faced Rage, the Blind Rage, and the Goad) are also brilliant. Like any comprehensive collection, there were some very occasional clunkers, but overall it is a superb anthology.
My favorite was the short story “The Greatest Man in the World,” an incredibly funny piece about a mythical aviator who is the first to fly around the world. He is an incredibly boorish and odious character who doesn’t fit the mold of a popular hero, something the powers-that-be figure out how to handle. The fables and the illustrations of “A New Natural History” (featuring “animals” like the White-faced Rage, the Blind Rage, and the Goad) are also brilliant. Like any comprehensive collection, there were some very occasional clunkers, but overall it is a superb anthology.
October 15, 2013
The pieces on Harold Ross are beautiful and brilliant, as are the early stories. Some of the longer pieces in the middle drag on interminably, especially the overlong and terribly dreary "The 13 Clocks".
January 8, 2018
Library of America Edition from county public library. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," "The Catbird Seat," The Last Flower, Fables for Our Time, The Thirteen Clocks, My Life and Hard Times, and other stories are included along with much of Thurber's cartoon collection.
January 29, 2019
The way to read this book is to take it to bed and read one short story at a time, savouring it like a fine wine. Or treat yourself to a few cartoons. Chuckle away then sleep well - dreaming of seals on the bed head.
August 10, 2015
One of those books you can't read in public because people will think you're crazy, you're laughing so hard the whole time
December 8, 2017
This Library of America volume is magnificent. It’s a selection from Thurber’s writings, handpicked by Garrison Keillor. It showcases Thurber’s wit, satire, and poignancy from numerous short stories and drawings from this early 20th century writer, who reminds me of Mark Twain.
I found a 20 minute You Tube video from an interview of Thurber by Allistair Cooke. I recommend this for it clearly shows Thurber’s dry and quirky sense of humor.
There are dozens and dozens of Thurber’s drawings, but I found myself scratching my head over most of them....perhaps it is a generational thing but he is famous for them.
“...Philosophy offers the rather cold consolation that perhaps we and our planet do not actually exist; Religion presents the contradictory and scarcely more comforting thought that we exist but that we cannot hope to get anywhere until we cease to exist. Alcohol, in attempting to resolve the contradiction, produces vivid patterns of Truth which vanish like snow in the morning sun and cannot be recalled....”
I found a 20 minute You Tube video from an interview of Thurber by Allistair Cooke. I recommend this for it clearly shows Thurber’s dry and quirky sense of humor.
There are dozens and dozens of Thurber’s drawings, but I found myself scratching my head over most of them....perhaps it is a generational thing but he is famous for them.
“...Philosophy offers the rather cold consolation that perhaps we and our planet do not actually exist; Religion presents the contradictory and scarcely more comforting thought that we exist but that we cannot hope to get anywhere until we cease to exist. Alcohol, in attempting to resolve the contradiction, produces vivid patterns of Truth which vanish like snow in the morning sun and cannot be recalled....”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 17, 2023
A friend recommended the short story The Catbird Seat, which I found in this collection of stories by James Thurber. There are also drawings mixed in, with some discussion of his various styles—I suppose this was interesting if you regularly saw his drawings (back in old copies of the New Yorker) but it didn’t hold my attention. And the stories mostly seemed so dated---such as battles between the sexes when the rules were so different. But I loved The Catbird Seat, even if it is pretty silly.
July 21, 2019
I enjoyed most of the short stories and essays. I think Thurber is a wonderful writer. His cartoons don't do much for me, however. I also didn't enjoy most of his fables and fairy tales. I was delighted to find at the end of the book the parody of the Night Before Christmas done in the style of Ernest Hemingway. I'd heard that on a podcast several years ago and loved it. Didn't realize it was Thurber.
August 25, 2021
There is the. Seal right there!
I am 90 yrs o!d & have always known about this character but never got a chance to read is books before.
I am 90 yrs o!d & have always known about this character but never got a chance to read is books before.
November 3, 2025
I realized that I didn’t enjoy Thurber as much as I thought I did. The fables and stories about his family were great. But I’d read all of these before. I skipped most of everything else.
May 20, 2022
Is about the art of write and draw
October 3, 2024
This thousand-page collection of writings and drawings by mid-century American humorist James Thurber, as compiled by Garrison Keillor, is the perfect primer for anyone interested in trying to understand and appreciate Thurber’s many talents. Granted, this isn’t for someone with just a passing interest. One thousand pages is a lot of pages, especially for someone like me who prefers sub-200-page works most of the time. But since I began volunteering at Thurber House—the official Thurber museum located in one of his old houses in Columbus, Ohio—last fall, I felt it necessary to take a stab at this giant tome (I took my time, usually reading a few short stories between other books). And it’s remarkable. I had read only a few pages of Thurber before this, but in the past six months I have absolutely fallen in love with his writing. Humor, especially when it’s 60-90 years old, sometimes doesn’t hold up, but I really enjoyed so many of Thurber’s stories. One thing he did better than anything else (though it’s not something he did often) was eulogize the dead. Thurber didn’t have too many really close relationships—or maybe he just didn’t allow himself to admit when he had genuine feelings of love (he’d probably consider that too effeminate)—but when he set his mind to writing about a deceased person whom he truly admired, his words had the power to bring them back to life. My favorite piece in this whole book, I think, was when he wrote about the old midwife who delivered him as a baby in “Daguerreotype of a Lady.” She felt so textured when he was done writing about her, like I actually knew her in person. He does the same thing writing about his former boss in “My Years with Ross.” So many of Thurber’s short stories were humorous, and some are still really funny today, but Thurber had so many strengths. This book makes that very clear.
January 15, 2017
Writings and Drawings by James Thurber, edited by Garrison Keillor (The Library of America 1996) (818). Here is a fulsome collection of Thurber's work. Short stories, poetry, and a generous helping of line drawings are on offer. Make no mistake, there is something for every reader in this thousand-page volume. Though I have enjoyed Thurber since boyhood, I sought out this volume specifically to patch a hole in my reading record: I had somehow never been introduced to “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” After receiving a copy of the Ben Stiller movie version as a gift, I thought it best to read the original story before watching the film. I was quite surprised to find that this tale is a short story, and a brief one at that – less than ten pages. Though the movie was well-imagined, it barely had anything to do with Thurber's story. I much prefer Thurber's vision.
After sampling many of the works contained in this collection, I found that my boyhood instincts held true: the best works in this collection are from Thurber's 1940 volume Fables For Our Time & Famous Poems Illustrated. Seventy-seven years after publication, his fable “The Little Girl and the Wolf” from this volume remains as searingly true as the day it was written, and it is still laugh-out-loud funny. It is by far and away my favorite selection of his work. My rating: 7/10, finished 1/14/17.
After sampling many of the works contained in this collection, I found that my boyhood instincts held true: the best works in this collection are from Thurber's 1940 volume Fables For Our Time & Famous Poems Illustrated. Seventy-seven years after publication, his fable “The Little Girl and the Wolf” from this volume remains as searingly true as the day it was written, and it is still laugh-out-loud funny. It is by far and away my favorite selection of his work. My rating: 7/10, finished 1/14/17.
August 4, 2009
I first encountered Thurber in about 6th grade, when we read a couple of his Fables for Our Times. I loved them then and I love them now. You can't resist a modern, sophisticated Little Red Riding Hood who was not fooled by the wolf in grandmothers' clothing and pulled an automatic from her basket, nor a lazy beaver who learned from the tragic life of his uber-industrious brother that "It's better to have loafed and lost than not to have loafed at all."
This is a great book to snack on, a little at a time. Many of the excerpts and cartoons included were originally short magazine pieces, usually first published in the New Yorker. I also enjoyed his autobiography -- a collection of zany family overreactions.
I actually didn't quite finish the whole book, because it was due back at the library, but I'll probably check it out or even buy it sometime to have on hand when I need a quick laugh.
This is a great book to snack on, a little at a time. Many of the excerpts and cartoons included were originally short magazine pieces, usually first published in the New Yorker. I also enjoyed his autobiography -- a collection of zany family overreactions.
I actually didn't quite finish the whole book, because it was due back at the library, but I'll probably check it out or even buy it sometime to have on hand when I need a quick laugh.
April 15, 2023
I read 350 pages and was struggling so much to stay interested, to keep reading that I actually stopped reading the book for several (at least four, if not more) years and allowed it to sit on my bookshelf, always thinking in the back of my mind, "Eventually I'll finish that bastard." This weekend, I tried it. I got 400 pages in and realized I wasn't having a good time. With 600 pages still to go, I decided to cut my losses and not waste more of my limited time alive on this earth reading a long book that wasn't doing it for me. Also, there are some sexist, misogynistic jokes which are terribly annoying. It just feels like the author assumes all of his readers are men and so he brings this sort of, "Ha ha, aren't we so much cleverer than them," energy to the writing.
February 6, 2017
So, I'll be honest... I only downloaded the sample of this collection. There were four stories in the sample and they were unmistakably Thurber.
They were entertaining but repetitive. The drawings and the agony aunt-style advice column were uninspiring. I think it was a you-had-to-be-there kind of a thing...
I also read a few reviews. The top one echoed my sentiment; repetitive. So, I decided not to invest in the whole volume.
That having been said, I love the idea of the fables and how he condenses them into bizarre little proverbs at the end.
They were entertaining but repetitive. The drawings and the agony aunt-style advice column were uninspiring. I think it was a you-had-to-be-there kind of a thing...
I also read a few reviews. The top one echoed my sentiment; repetitive. So, I decided not to invest in the whole volume.
That having been said, I love the idea of the fables and how he condenses them into bizarre little proverbs at the end.
January 2, 2014
His fiction is reminiscent of Robertson Davies. Comical but provoking. I also found his work at The New Yorker interesting. As a Canadian born in the 1970's The New Yorker was never on my radar. I am amazed at the many talented and well known people who were at some point associated or employed by The New Yorker. Craziness. Another world all together. It makes me think of the pin stripe suits of Prohibition and that era. Very interesting. Thurber is one of those jack-of-all-trades in literature and could arguably be a master of all of them.
May 3, 2014
Weston said I would find some of these stories long i.e. boring. And I kept waiting for the boring ones. There were two maybe three hidden in the 971 pages. Thurber has a great grasp on domestic life and disputes. He worked at The New Yorker for 10 years—he knows how to write. I was sad when I turned the page and realized it was the last page of stories.
November 15, 2010
Not only am I enjoying reading it but Keith Olbermann on Countdown offers a delightful reading of his own from this book (which was the one he read to his father as he was dying.) A super book, well edited... one only wants more... in his inimitable style.
Read
January 26, 2016Excellent writing and humor. Not the kind of book that you read straight through - I'd pick it up and read a story every now and then, hence 3 years to finish. I used to read Thurber all of the time in college, so this was like getting reacquainted with an old friend.
February 4, 2025
Good to read in increments. Really funny early American humor. Unfortunately, my bag got ripped off before I got to the end. A lot of us read "Walter Mitty" and "The Catbird Seat" as teens. Those are well worth revisiting, but they are also the tip of the iceberg.
November 12, 2009
I first read Thurber in my 20s, I always like his sense of humor as well as his cartoons.
March 9, 2011
Thurber is an American treasure. This is the best collection of his work I can find. Read it and laugh for hours!
October 12, 2012
Thurber wrote some interesting and funny stories in his time, this is a collection of his writings and I often compared his sense of humor to that of Larry David's lol.
September 23, 2012
Thurber is such a great master of humour, irony and bizarre experiences that it is always great to read and re-read him.
May 3, 2015
Extremely witty at times, a chronicler of his personal history at others. Always eminently readable.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews