Books That Make You Laugh . . .

is the theme of December's book display at BHPL. Some of the titles we have featured:

Nonfiction

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
"Awed by merely the camping section of his local sporting goods store, he nevertheless plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a consistently comical account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard lessons about self-reliance."
(Publisher's Weekly)

Lois on the Loose: One Woman, One Motorcycle, 20,000 Miles Across the Americas by Lois Pryce
"She bought a small dirt bike, a versatile and affordable Yamaha XT225 Serow, and decided she'd bike from Anchorage, Alaska, to the southernmost city of South America, Ushuaia, Argentina—almost 20,000 miles. . . travelers will delight in this funny, vivid account and—almost—wish they'd done it themselves."
(Publisher's Weekly)

Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide by Peter Allison
"In this fun, fearless memoir, Allison shares his experiences taking "guests" through the African wilderness, trips that often don't go quite as planned-due especially to the unpredictability of the animals around them."
(Publisher's Weekly)

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
"Sedaris also writes here about the time he spent in France and the difficulty of learning another language. After several extended stays in a little Norman village and in Paris, Sedaris had progressed, he observes, "from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. `Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window."
(Publisher's Weekly)

Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler by Wade Rouse
"Wade's irreverent look at his career at Tate is laugh-out-loud funny and full of charm, candor, and a boatload of cattiness."
(BookList)

Fiction

Amazing Disgrace by James Hamilton-Paterson
"The humorous trials and tribulations of a British ghostwriter. . . Gerald, who would rather be writing a serious biography of a notable music figure, instead ghostwrites for popular sports figures to maintain his expatriate life in the mountains of Italy." (Library Journal)

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
"The author has recently added humor to his arsenal of effects, and this thriller also stands out for its brilliant tightrope walk between the amusing and the macabre; one of the dead with whom Odd interacts frequently, for instance, is Elvis, still pining for his long-dead mother, Gladys."
(Publisher's Weekly)

The Impartial Recorder by Ian Sansom
"After 20 years in London, Davey Quinn, the seventh son of a seventh son, returns to his small Irish hometown with a sense of failure. . . Read this book with someone close at hand because you'll want to keep quoting the funny bits."
(Library Journal)

Mermaids on the Moon by Elizabeth French-Stuckey
"In this wonderfully quirky debut novel, 35-year-old France's mother, Grendy, inexplicably disappears from Mermaid City, Fla., where she has been performing with a small group of former "mermaids," leaving a note to her husband, a minister, claiming she has "to find herself."
(Publisher's Weekly)

Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich
"Stephanie Plum, Evanovich's delightfully zany New Jersey bounty hunter, is the star of this too short but hilarious holiday romp."
(Publisher's Weekly)