Humour

Fascinating anonymous confessions that amuse, amaze or alarm. The instructions were simple, but the results were extraordinary. 'You are invited to anonymously contribute a secret to a group art project. Your secret can be a regret, fear, betrayal, desire, confession or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before. Be brief. Be legible. Be creative.' It all began with an idea Frank Warren had for a community art project. He handed out postcards, asking people to ... read more

Having made the U.S. financial crisis comprehensible for us all in "The Big Short", Michael Lewis realised that he hadn't begun to get grips with the full story. How exactly had it come to hit the rest of the world in the face too? Just how broke are we really? "Boomerang" is a tragi-comic romp across Europe, in which Lewis gives full vent to his storytelling genius. The cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chan... read more

Lewis is the finest storyteller of our generation. - Malcolm Gladwell

He is so good everyone else may as well pack up Evening Standard

It is a great and glorious tradition the world over - to vehemently state one thing and then do the exact opposite. Royals are doing it, reformed smokers are doing it, and politicians are virtually synonymous with it. Welcome to the heyday of hypocrisy. From the Everyday Hypocrites (cyclists, white hip-hop fans, reality television-haters) to the truly pungent Stinking Hypocrites (chav-haters, green campaigners and anti-Americans), Julie Burchill and Chas Newkey-Burden pull no punches in their witty harangue of those who shamelessly... read more

Based on the #1 "New York Times" bestsellers Why Do Men Have Nipples? and Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?, this calendar answers hundreds of fascinating medical questions that are just too awkward or embarrassing to ask your doctor. Like: "Can you breast-feed with a pierced nipple?" In most cases, yes - though it's a good idea to remove the jewelry first. And: "Do some people really have tails?" Not really - it's usually just an outgrowth of skin at the base of the spine. Plus pop quizzes, On This Day, DIY medicine and Grea... read more

Music depresses me. Dancing distresses me. Everything turns out wrong. That's why, the whole day long, I feel so gloomy. Inspired by Ludwig Bechstein's nineteenth-century poem, Axel Scheffler has created a set of delightfully dark depictions of misanthropic misery. Julia Donaldson, Axel's collaborator on "The Gruffalo", has penned a wry, witty new translation of the original German. The result is a triumph of negativity, in the macabre yet merry spirit of the late, great Edward Gorey. Superbly miserable, brilliantly curmudgeonly an... read more

Mike Moreu is a full-time editorial cartoonist with a passion for using funny pictures to make serious points. His work appears daily in The Press and The Nelson Mail and on Stuff.

11,002 Things to Be Miserable About is a list of all the reasons not to wake up in the morning. Ironically enough, when you put all of them under one cover, it's actually very funny. This decidedly absurd stream of consciousness is perfect for sardonic and disaffected youth, for people seeking gifts for Traumatic Event Birthdays (like 21, 25, 30, 40, and, well, anything after 40) and for anyone else with an offbeat sense of humour. Enjoy.

Linguistic mistakes. We all make them. And if your name is George W Bush or Jade Goody, you might make them more often than others. In "The Ants are My Friends" (delightfully misheard from Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind") Martin Toseland has collected the very best (and very worst) linguistic gifts of the gaffe.

Razor-witted, wise and just a touch scandalous, Beat till Stiff covers topics that Peta considers important, entertaining, naughty or personal. With chapters on why redheads have more fun, how egg whites provide a metaphor for living and how Peta stopped strangling her mother, the eagerly awaited follow-up to Can We Help it if We're Fabulous? and Just in Time to be too Late, is a book about the universal themes that affect all women.

Book of humourous rhymes. 136 pages The author of I Think the Clouds are Cotton Wool also believes the Moon to be a giant lamp, low tides to be evidence of thirsty whales, rugby to reducible to a series of mathematical formulae and the word pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis to be an acceptable basis for a rhyming couplet. Full of loony versal truths.

Wellington’s Capital Times said it “draws on the English tradition of comic and humorous verse, typified by authors such as Ogden Nash, Alexander Pope and Spike Milligan."

To complete the remarkable Murray Ball celebratory trilogy comes a final volume to accompany the stunningly successful Footrot Flats: The Dog Strips and Footrot Flats: The Long Weekender. In this equally lavish book will be featured the best of the rest of Murray's work. If you loved Footrot and you love Murray Ball, you must own this book. FEATURES: Stanley Caveman - intellectual and classic no-hoper. It is due to having ancestors like this that we are in the mess we are today. The Prophet I have always believed that I would have ... read more

From the author of the cult bestsellers THE BOOK OF BUNNY SUICIDES and RETURN OF THE BUNNY SUICIDES comes another unmissable collection of rabbit-related self destruction...The bunnies are back - and there's only one thing on their minds. In this new collection, follow the continuing adventures of the fluffy little rabbits who just don't want to live any more...

'It shouldn't be funny. It just shouldn't. But it really is.' -- Miranda Hart 'Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick - and hilarious. There's still so many ways for a rabbit to go.' -- Charlie Higson for Bunnies: -- ... 'Watership Down for the deeply sick. Very imaginative, very funny, very worrying if you're the author's mother' -- Richard Curtis on RETURN OF THE BUNNY SUICIDES 'If you are a bunny contemplating suicide, then this is the book for you' -- Paul Whitehouse on RETURN OF THE BUNNY SUICIDES

Humourous poems about golf illustrated by the author.

'Woman, 36. WLTM man who doesn't try to high-five her after sex'
Personal ads - men and women of all ages, backgrounds and aspirations, laying their souls bare and their hearts on the line - are the modern world's equivalent of the Japanese haiku ...or something like that, anyway. Painstakingly crafted, finely honed and, above all, short, they offer an endearing, intriguing and often amusing glimpse into the lives of those looking for love. Amid the witty one-liners and laugh-out-punchlines, there is pathos and passion aplent... read more

Why do we laugh? Where do jokes come from? And have we always laughed at the same things? In this unique, witty and fascinating little book of history and philosophy, Jim Holt reveals all - and throws in the best jokes from the past 2,000 years.A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into bar. 'What is this', the barman says, 'some kind of joke?'As he laughs his way though the history of jokes, Jim Holt discovers that most of those we trade are actually hundreds of years old: Palamedes, a Greek hero of the Trojan War, is credited wit... read more

A brilliant collection of Leunig cartoons. A hilarious treasure of original thinking.
A New Penguin Leunig comprises pieces that have previously appeared in the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

'Their names are Karl, Lottie and Nev, and they work in a coffee shop. That's all you need to know. Actually, you don't even need to know their names that much; you just need to recognise the sort of people they are - the care-worn balding thirty-year-old, keenly aware he's on the final lap of his youth, the girl who frets about everything (but food in particular), and the chirpy big-eyed twat with one of those unfortunate faces that you just want to hit ...'. For five years, "Bunny Suicides" author Andy Riley has delighted "Observ... read more

This is a non-fiction Christmas bestseller. "Just My Type" is not just a font book, but a book of stories. It is: about how Helvetica and Comic Sans took over the world; about why Barack Obama opted for Gotham, while Amy Winehouse found her soul in 30s Art Deco; about the great originators of type, from Baskerville to Zapf, or people like Neville Brody who threw out the rulebook, or Margaret Calvert, who invented the motorway signs that are used from Watford Gap to Abu Dhabi; about the pivotal moment when fonts left the world of Le... read more

"'A quirky introduction to fonts... Simon Garfield is careful to tickle as much as he teaches' (Peter Robins, Daily Telegraph) 'Enthralling... fascinating... strikes a great balance between fact and humour. Reading this book may just change your life' (Time Out) 'His book comprises dozens of lovely vignettes, anecdotes that make a potentially dusty subject utterly compelling' (Independent on Sunday)"

The world's most beloved funnyman is back with I DIDN'T ASK TO BE BORN, his first humor book since the best selling Cosbyology. Sample chapters include: * Missing Pages: Bill Cosby owns eight Bibles, all written in English. They were published at different times. One of them was printed in 1709. Another came over on the Santa Maria. They're all very old but none are autographed. One thing these Bibles have in common is the fact that he's convinced there are missing pages. * The Morphamization of Peanut Armhouse: When Peanut's mothe... read more

By rights, Ozzy Osbourne should not be alive. He spent forty years on a hell-raising, bat-biting, ant-snorting*, drink and drug-fuelled bender. He broke his neck going two miles an hour on a quad bike and died twice in a chemically induced coma. And yet - at 62 years old - he is healthier and happier than ever. He is a walking medical miracle. So who better to offer the public medical advice and support? In May 2010 the Sunday Times invited 'Dr' Ozzy to be their new Agony Uncle. Since then he has answered questions ranging from do... read more