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The Penguin Book of
Women's Humor
Regina Barreca, Editor
Penguin Books
May 1996
Paperback
ISBN#: 0140172947
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Purchase this text online at Amazon.com
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The Penguin Book of Women's Humor
is a landmark anthology that proves there is
a distinctly female way of being funny. Regina Barreca's extravagantly wide-ranging
selections--by turns shocking, invigorating, infuriating and inspiring--span three
centuries and include not only the likes of Jane Austen, Dorothy Parker, Muriel Spark,
"Moms" Mabley, Mae West, Erma Bombeck, and Roseanne, but also some unexpected voices:
Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Margaret Drabble, Emily Dickinson, and others. In stories,
letters, verse, excerpts, essays, cartoons, and one-liners that address relationships,
politics, fate, and the fierce struggle to survive and triumph, these women speak powerfully
about the world and its absurdities--and laugh out loud.
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~For many years, it was true that women tended
to make jokes of their own in rooms of their own, or in the hidden corners of rooms
they were actually permitted to inhabit, such as the kitchen. Jokes about the kitchen
did not always involve adorable remarks about the quantity of flour needed for muffins,
however. Phyllis Diller, for one, maintained: 'If your husband wants to lick the beaters
on the mixer, shut them off before you give them to him.' Diller's reflections on her
housekeeping also resemble the less-than-Martha-Stewart-would-suggest attitude prevalent
among women humorists. 'Our house has gone past the "lived in" look,' explains Diller.
'It has more a "no survivors" look.' Poet Marge Piercy suggests in her brilliant work
What's That Smell in the Kitchen? that burning dinner is not incompetence but war.
Not particularly regarded as a domestic humorist, even Fran Lebowitz wryly notes, 'Cheese
that is required by law to append the word food to its title does not go well
with red wine or fruit,' thereby adding her remarks to the coven in the kitchen. |
| --Regina Barreca, Introduction
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~Not just humor, of course, but all the wit and
wisdom of the female universe.... |
| --Fay Weldon, author of Life and Loves of a She-Devil
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~Comprehensive and delightful! |
| --Cynthia Heimel, author of When the Phone Doesn't Ring, It'll Be Me
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~Deeply intelligent....Extends our understanding of
who and what is funny. |
| --Blanch McCrary Boyd, author of The Revolution of Little Girls
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~700 or so delicious pages...chockfull of treasures
wicked, witty, and wonderful. |
| --Library Journal |
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