Great book- lighthearted way for young people to think about what to do in a social situation. My kids would read it aloud in the carpool and never tired of it.

The fact that this book is no longer in print is just ridiculous. I own this book, and my friend and I used to spend hours with D.I.H.T.S.H.?, gagging with laughter! He kept asking where I got it, but I had to say it was out of print. Everyone should read this book. It's too good to pass up!

Have you always hated it when you did something and your relatives reprimanded you for it, even though you have no idea why, even when they say that it's bad manners? Well, now you will with this book! It's sort of a parody of those quizzes you find in those magazines like "Vogue" or "Seventeen" and those old, old etiquitte books. The right answers are obvious, but the wrong choices are ten times funnier! Edward Koren's pen-and-ink illustrations makes the book all the more funnier (or more disgusting--check out that kid who talked with his mouth full of corn), and Delia Ephron, who wrote an equally funny book about love, does magic to what could have been a really boring topic. By the looks of things today, nobody really pays attention to their manners anymore, do they? Do they?

Caution: Although this book might at first seem like it is made for children as one of the audiences, be aware that How to Eat Like a Child contains two instances of a vulgar four letter word beginning with "f."

How to Eat Like a Child would be a great gift to new parents . . . especially from their own parents!

This book has two appeals. First, to those who wish to remember their own youth. Second, for those who wish to remember what their children were like. In either case, you will find yourself feeling the situations in your body, in your mind, and in your emotions.

Ms. Ephron is a very good observer, and has a good memory for the way things work.

The title is actually just referring to one five-hundred word essay, that leads the book off. Ms. Ephron wrote this for The New York Times Magazine in 1977 and got a tremendous response, including an invitation to write more material. The result is this book which is filled with wit, wisdom, and love. I've captured a few brief excerpts to give you a flavor of how you will eat up the contents of this book:

Eating: "Cooked carrots: On way to mouth, drop in lap. Smuggle to garbage in napkin."

Watching television: "Your mother is calling you. Do not hear her . . . ."

Hanging up the telephone: "Are you still there?"

Playing: "After using your bed as a trampoline, transform your room into a giant spider web . . . ."

How to laugh: "Call a pizza parlor and send your teacher seven pizzas."

Caring for a pet dog: "Each day, procrastinate and complain until your mother finds it easier to feet it and walk it herself."

Birthday party guest: "If reminded, say thank you.
Go home.
Throw up."

School: "Tell your teacher for the second time this week, that you do not have your homework because the dog ate it."

Arranging to be excused from the dinner table: "Lean back until your chair rests precariously on its two back legs. Fall over."

Being sent to room: "Slam door."

How to torture sister: "Pretend to eat shaving cream . . . . Wanna try some?"

Ride in car: "Ask if you are almost there yet."

How to sleep: "Fall out of bed and don't wake up."

This book really deserves a sequel that focuses on how to be the parent of the child who is behaving like a child. I suspect that subject would be a lot funnier!

Think back. How would you behave if you were not constrained by so much socialization, guilt, and desire to please? Where would it be appropriate to adopt some of that wonderful freedom of childhood?

My mom had this book when I was a kid, and I thought it was funny then as it portrayed my brother and I when we were kids. Now I have three kids of my own, and they think it's pretty funny too. Anybody who has, or works with children would really enjoy the humor in this book.

Dear Bruno is an incredibly candid and honest compilation of letters that only one cancer survivor can convey to another. Despite all the medical staff in the world who may pretend to know about tests, procedures, and illness...no one can really understand without walking in their shoes. This book is for all of us who need to remember to appreciate and look forward to the wonderfully trivial things in life, while we have been given this gift called the present.

Pet Peeves goes beyond the paradigms of standard humor, cartoon, and mystery books to create one with all three elements. I like new experiences, and really enjoyed this one! I think you will, too.

In the foreword, you learn that Dr. Edmund G. Rawff (a veterinarian who wrote a biweekly syndicated advice column on pet problems) disappeared two years ago after writing his last column. He left a note saying, 'I'm moving on.' There was a legal document in the house giving the home and furnishings in Meriden, Connecticut to the ASPCA. There was no evidence of foul play, but the basement office was littered with letters asking for advice, seemingly sent by the same person. Did these letters drive him away (was that the author's purpose?)? Or did he write the letters himself for amusement to confuse investigators? You as the reader are encouraged to decide what really happened to Dr. Rawff.

So, as you can see, we have a mystery.

What are the subjects of those letters?

Well, you'll have to read them for yourself. But you'll be rewarded because they are truly hilarious. They fall into four categories (wonderfully illustrated by Edward Koren):

(1) Mistaken identity (a fish that turns into a shark, a race horse turns out to be two actors in a horse costume, falcons are really Rhode Island Red hens, and there's some confusion over whose chickens crossed the road)

(2) Plays on old animal jokes (an 800 pound gorilla gets depressed because no one tells him he can sit wherever he wants, and 25 chimpanzees are unable to replicate any of Shakespeare's plays -- but do prove effective at completing unfinished works by other authors)

(3) Offbeat situations (a man takes a sheepdog and some sheep to be on the Letterman show and loses them in a taxi cab, and a 45 pound cat sleeps on its owner's chest every night)

(4) Sequenced stories (the chimpanzee story evolves over several episodes from creating nonsense to working on Schubert, a woman has a boa constrictor that keeps swalling a pet pig, and the evolution of the fish into the shark plays out).

In the end, you are given some hypotheses to consider about what could have happened to the good Doctor, just in case you cannot think of any.

Edward Koren deserves special mention because he has drawn over 800 cartoons for The New Yorker, and his visual humor certainly adds a lot to the writing by George Plimpton. The cartoons give the book a familiar feel, as well as evoking The New Yorker's wonderful style. The design of the book is imaginative also with each note being in a different format.

This book is not only fun, but it would make a good gift. You could also use it as a parlor game, asking people to come up with their own questions for the Doctor, and acting them out. Then you could vote on who had the funniest question.

After you have finished with this wonderful book, think about ways that you can combine communication methods in novel directions that would make your message stronger and fresher. Then practice using some of those new methods the next time you have a chance to do so. We can all make the world a lot more interesting place if we untie ourselves from the stalled thinking of complacency about following the standard approaches.

This is one of the truest, funniest books I've read on the subject of travelling with one's spouse or significant other.
Weisman writes with insight and humour about the quirks of travelling with someone else. The illustrations are also superb.

I highly recommend this book as a gift for any couple about to embark on a vacation.

A gem of a book that should accompany every couple on vacation. He takes her on a white water rafting trip. ("Larry likes camping. One of the ways I got him to marry me was to pretend I liked it too.") She takes him to a spa, where he tries yoga, which she suggests will make him feel stretchy and catlike. ("If I want to feel catlike, I'll get a litter box," he answered.) And so it goes. From traveling poor as a young couple to a house in Tuscany to Elderhostel. There is practical advice, too, on packing, for example. ("Packing is the original sin of travel. In the beginning there was no packing. There weren't even any clothes.") But really, the dedication says it all: "I, Mary-Lou, take thee, Larry, to be my constant traveling companion, to Hong and to Kong, in Cyclades and in Delft, for deck class and deluxe, so long as we both shall move."

I started reading the essays in this book and found myself interrupting my wife every couple of minutes to read a line out loud. Like this one: "Paris is our all-time favorite place in which to pretend to live....We don't care if the French aren't friendly. When we are French, we won't be friendly either."

This collection of essays is insightful about its subject, but mostly just funny, self-effacing, and full of honest observations about the ways people (especially married couples) tend to act when traveling. It's not a book of tips on travel; it's a book to read out loud on the plane over, or the plane home, or just at home.

If you like to travel and have the ability to laugh at yourself a little--as Weisman can and does--you will love "Traveling While Married" and will probably end up sharing it with people you love and love to travel with.

This quaint story by Peter Mayle, about a stray dog he adopted into his family will make every canine lover smile. The dog he names "Boy" takes on the human characteristics that all dog owners know their pets have. Boy speaks, he feels, he loves, he charms and he will make you laugh until you cry. This book is engagingly written and wonderfully illustrated. Peter Mayle, who has succeeded with his previous books, particulary A Year in Provence, soars with A Dog's Life. This book will thrill canine lovers all over the world

This book is a joy from beginning to end. I never read a book that elicited so much laughter. Peter Mayle has a way with words that makes writing seem easy. I especially liked the dog/child comparison (despite the fact that I am a parent and don't have a dog)

I really can't recall ever having read something that elicited as much laughter as "A Dog's Life"! Peter Mayle is a truely gifted story-teller with a wickedly well-honed wit and sense of humour. The way he writes it, you would have thought a real dog was behind the book! Another reminder to all and sundry once again of the joys that dogs (and puppies) can bring to our otherwise (despondent) lives....or is it, as Boy puts it, all a conspiracy anyhow, seeing as to how we humans excellently serve as "convenient support systems"? Highly recommended for everyone, dog-lovers or otherwise!

This book is all about what life is like for a teenager. It gives you those embarassing moments plus what to do about them. I wouldn't take any of the advice seriously, but it's a great thing to read! It also proves that you can overcome anything you wish as a teenager. However, it also helps teenagers to see how obsessed they are with image. If you are a teenager, I highly recommend this book. If not, you'll still get a good laugh.

This book was assigned reading in a technical writing course I took in college. It is quite simply the worst thing I have ever seen in print. The book is supposed to be about giving and receiving information efficiently, yet it is filled with dozens of misspelled words and grammatical errors. It looked like it was written by an 8 year-old.

It's filled with silly cartoons and information that alternates between obvious and useless. My dim-witted professor and the author of this book are living proof that just about anyone can get a college degree. I'm still mad that I had to shell out cash for this garbage.