| Description |
xvi, 300 pages ; 22 cm |
| Contents |
1. Joking matters : why jokes are important -- 2. Tickling the naked ape : the science of laughter -- 3. Send in the clowns : the early evolution of the stand-up comic -- 4. Only kidding : how children learn to joke -- 5. Nuts, bolts and hydraulic brains : dissecting the joke -- 6. No way to make a living : how to be a professional joker -- 7. Take my wife ... no, please : take my wife : joking across the gender divide -- 8. Beyond the pale? : offensive jokes and why we laugh at them -- 9. An Englishman, an Irishman and a Rabbi ... : the checkered history of ethnic jokes -- 10. Sometimes the joke gets elected : why we need political jokes -- 11. Knock knock : who's there? : the police : when jokes get taken to court -- 12. The last laugh |
| Summary |
"In Only Joking, star comedian (and host of TV's Distraction) Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves take an in-depth look at humor through its purest verbal form, the joke. The book begins with the physiological mechanism of laughter - how it happens and why even infants do it. Then the authors explore how the closely connected neural pathways for pain, fear, and laughter help explain why seeing someone fall on their keister has been among life's funniest spectacles since Neanderthals told knock-knock jokes. Only Joking traces the development of comedians through the ages, from the trickster deities of ancient mythologies, through the court jesters of the Middle Ages, to the stand-up of today."--BOOK JACKET |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-286) and index |
| Subject |
Wit and humor -- History and criticism.
|
| Author |
Greeves, Lucy.
|
| LC no. |
2006015495 |
| ISBN |
1592402356 hardcover |
|
9781592402359 hardcover |
|
9781592402359 |
|
