More Mirth of a Nation: The Best Contemporary Humor

Regular readers of the New Yorker's Shouts & Murmurs page and the Modern Humorist will likely have already digested some of the fare in this biennial collection of humor pieces, nearly all of which have been published elsewhere. Though big names like Steve Martin and Bruce McCall are trumpeted on the cover, the real treats can be found in the work of less famous contributors. Francis Heaney's ""Holy Tango of Poetry,"" which imagines the results of poets writing poems whose titles are anagrams of their names-e.g. ""I'm Leery Jocks"" by Joyce Kilmer, or ""Toilets"" by T.S. Eliot (""Let us go then, to the john,/ Where the toilet seats wait to be sat upon"")-is irresistibly goofy. Tim Carvell's account of his solo attempt at being a Neilsen family (he manufactured a couple of kids and wife named Gladys and made them all Eskimos) should be required reading for anyone who has ever longed to lie on annoying questionnaires. And Jeremy Simon's parody of an existential Zagat's guide is a witty send-up of a city staple (the entry for the opposable thumb reads: ""While this 'innovative' evolution-a 'pick-up joint' for the klutzy-is valued by locals for 'synergy' with its surroundings, dissenters dis it as 'overrated' 'finger food'""). Silly lists, ""unnatural histories,"" fake correspondences and countless other oddball selections round out this amusing volume.