The Funny Thing Is ...
By Ellen Degeneres
S&S
We read Degeneres' first chapter and were about to put on our Scrooge persona and harangue you with our conviction that stand-up comedians write lousy books, that some people, David Sedaris for example, are funny on paper but most people aren't, and too many stand-up comedians are too arrogant to see it. But then we stuck a toe tentatively into the second chapter, and now we will eat crow. This book isn't hilarious but it's consistently funny and engaging. After we survived the opening, we chuckled to the end.
Degeneres' voice is very much like the one she uses on late-night talk shows (and now on her own), but she has put some effort into adjusting it to a reading audience rather than a room full of listeners -- she might want to make money with this book, but she hasn't just phoned it in. Among other things, she tells us why she thinks going to prison wouldn't be so bad, offers advice on dealing with embarrassing social gaffes, discusses dieting and its relationship to guilt, coffee ice cream, Meredith Baxter, a personal trainer named Rico and parallel parking.
RSS