Customer Reviews

Get Thee to a Punnery: An Anthology of Intentional Assaults Upon the English Language

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The only thing more fun than reading Richard Lederer's book about puns and wordplay is going to one of Richard's lecturers and watching the words fly fast and furious. Sometimes, Richard appears on NPR, but until you can hear him live, "Get Thee to a Punnery" will be the best way to sample his intellectual brand of zany humor. This is one of those books that is just great for reading and laughing outloud, grabbing the arm of the nearest person and pointing to some really funny stuff. If you like word play and puns, this is the Mother Lode.

I read this guy's other book, Anguished English, and had a lot of fun with it. It was a collection of situations where bad English was used in hilarious ways.

I thought that Get Thee To A Punnery would be more of the same, except with puns.

Instead I got a book full of blank spots where you guess the best word to make the sentence a pun.

It might be fun for some people, but I really just kind of wanted a joke book of sorts for myself. There are some good puns in there actually listed, and it appears to be a good way to make yourself more aware of how to have pun with the language.

But if you're already good at making people groan, then you probably won't need it for this purpose.

I've had this book for 10 years and everytime I'm with a new crowd of people I bring it out, and soon after people are rolling on the floor. The funniest sections are "Prinderella and The Cince" and "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut". If you practice enough to read these aloud everyone will be amazed and entertained. The only down side is that there are alot of "un-funny" sections, but there are jewels sprinkled within, and for the price I would definitely recommend this.

I like reading Richard Lederer, and generally enjoy his books. But it seemed to me that most of the writing in this volume was a rehash of content I've read in his other works. There is also quite a bit of obvious, old puns that were not new to me. The delight of a good pun is timeless, but repetition isn't funny. Glad to have read this book, but it is not a keeper.

Sorry, but I couldn't resist that title. Richard Lederer's Get Thee to a Punnery: An Anthology of Intentional Assaults Upon the English Language is neither a footnote-heavy treatise on literary puns through the ages (although he quotes a few from Shakespeare). Neither is it a collection of groan-inducing puns (although it has a few of those as well).

Instead, Lederer takes a middle ground of sorts and breaks puns down into a number of categories. Strange, but I had never thought of puns as being anything but a low form of humor before. It's like finding out your crazy old uncle who was forever trying to get you to "pull my finger" had once been the Royal Court Jester.

I could have probably done without some of the exercises in the book which seemed like unnecessary padding. But that's just my preference. The rest of the book made for an enjoyable and fairly quick read.

This book is padded with tests and quizes. It took less than 1 hour to go through without doing the tests.

When I 'looked inside' all I saw was a presentation of the topic and none of the tests. If you want to be tested $0.99 isn't a bad price but I was expecting a more detailed book on puns.

Virtually a brand new copy that arrived in a timely fashion. A pleasure to do business with.