This book is really just one book. It’s got a flip cover, where you look at the front and it’s the Polish side and you look at the back and it’s the Italian side. The pages with the corresponding ethnic jokes align with the cover, so halfway through the book, you get to flip it and start the other side. For the record, I only counted this as one book in my annual list.
Ah, me. Ethnic jokes. I remember when I was a child, during the era when this book was in print and, apparently, selling, hearing them. So I bought this collection this year, and it awaited the middle of the football season.
But the humor? Not really funny. I mean, it’s not that I’m offended (you can get the same joke without the offense by swapping out Italian and Polack with dunce or Goofus or whatever). It’s that the jokes just don’t move me. Of course, most joke books leave me cold (see also here, here, here, here, here. Why not add here? That just doesn’t make any sense.).
Which isn’t to say I won’t keep getting them and flipping through them. Because there might be a talking dog joke somewhere that I have not yet heard.
Books mentioned in this review:
