Parody vs. Satire

Don Quijote statua and Torre del Oro in background. Sevilla. Spain. Photo. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/164_3215895/1/164_3215895/cite. Accessed 2 Jun 2017.

It seems to be a rule of thumb that for every popular book/television show/film, there will exist a parody: The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up begat The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck; Game of Thrones begat Game of Groans; Fifty Shades of Grey begat Fifty Shames of Earl Grey, etc. Some you might have heard of, some not so much - parody is an ephemeral medium. Now that Downton Abbey is off the air, is there really going to be a lot of demand for Agent Gates and the Secret Adventures of Devonton Abbey? Probably not. But it just shows the impact these items had on pop culture that someone got paid to create a parody of them.  

There's also a market for children's books reworked for adult eyes, like Go the F*ck to Sleep and Goodnight iPad (sometimes challenging for our shelvers, as they appear to be actual children's books at first glance). Some publishers, like Quirk Books and Harvard Lampoon, regularly skewer classics and bestsellers - The Meowmorphosis and Android Karenina in the first case, The Hunger Pains and Bored of the Rings in the second. Some filmmakers, like Mel Brooks and Monty Python, have made a career of parody.

Satire is related to parody, with a slight but important difference. Cliffs Notes has this to say about satire: "...[it] is intended to do more than just entertain; it tries to improve humanity and its institutions. A satire is a literary work that tries to arouse the reader's disapproval of an object — a vice, an abuse, a faulty belief — by holding it up to ridicule." Or, to quote Publishers Weekly, "You can aim it at governments, you can aim it at institutions. You can aim it at bureaucracies, businesses, special interests, religions and of course at individuals. Any place where hypocrisy and vice lurk – and where don’t they lurk?" A very famous and biting early satire is Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal.

Satire or parody - which would you rather read? Have you read any you'd particularly recommend? Let us know in the comments! Or, check out some parodies and satires from the library catalog:

Parodies

Confessions of a Teen Sleuth: A Parody by Chelsea Cain

The Autobiography of James T. Kirk: The Story of Starfleet's Greatest Captain by James T. Kirk

You & Me by Padgett Powell

Redshirts by John Scalzi 

Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones (J) [eBook]

An Apology For the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews by Henry Fielding

Want more? Try a subject search of  "Parodies, imitations."

Satires
 

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Master and the Margarita by  Mikhail Bulgakov

Look Who's Back by Timur Vernes

Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison [eBook; basis for Soylent Green]

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway 

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

The Trial by Franz Kafka 

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

 

 For more, try a subject search of "Satire."

New & Novel: Humorous Fiction

Let’s face it: Sometimes you really need to get away... That’s where these novels come in...they’re all pretty much guaranteed to give you a good laugh and help you ignore your troubles for a while, whether you’re a college student or beleaguered member of the rat race. So sit back, put your feet up, and pull one of these off the shelf. You won’t regret it.
~ Best Online Colleges staff writers, "50 Novels to Read When You Need a Good Laugh"

They say "laughter is the best medicine," and who are we to argue? Whether you like your humor more irreverent and engaging, or skewing darkly humorous and compelling, or a little on the mean side - sardonic and witty, we think there's a book on this list that should make you guffaw or at least chuckle.

Do you have a favorite new humorous book, or a book you reread to bring you out of the doldrums? Let us know in the comments!

Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

Sophie & the Sibyl: A Victorian Romance by Patricia Duncker

The Everything Box by Richard Kadrey

The Dogs of Littlefield by Suzanne Berne

Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley

Not Working by Lisa Owens

The Miracle on Monhegan Island by Elizabeth Kelly

A Bed of Scorpions by Judith Flanders

Shaker by Scott Frank

Sleep Garden by Jim Krusoe

Styx by Bavo Dhooge

A Night In With Audrey Hepburn by Lucy Holliday

Love, Sex and Other Foreign Policy Goals by Jesse Armstrong

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

Invoice by Jonas Karlsson

Inherited Disorders: Stories by Adam E. Sachs


Links

Popular Humorous Fiction [Goodreads] 

Top 10 Humorous Fiction: 2016 [Booklist]

The 15 best comedy books of all time [Telegraph]



Photo:A middle aged woman shares a laugh while dining at an outdoor patio eatery in Nanaimo's old city quarter. Photo. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 28 Jun 2016.

http://quest.eb.com/search/167_4022133/1/167_4022133/cite

 

Funny Books: What's Your Humor Style?

Laughter is the best medicine, they say. We all love to laugh - but we certainly don't all find the same things funny! Psychology Today once featured an article about humor styles - according to them, there are four. In the spirit of reader's advisory (that's what librarians call book suggestions), we thought we we would try to suggest new humorous stories based on your humor style. So, if your style is:

Put-Down Humor

"This aggressive type of humor is used to criticize and manipulate others through teasing, sarcasm and ridicule."

Try: Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War On You by Greg Gutfeld

Bonding Humor

"People who use bonding humor are fun to have around; they say amusing things, tell jokes, engage in witty banter and generally lighten the mood."

Try: The Amazing Thing About the Way It Goes by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Hate-Me Humor

"In this style of humor, you are the butt of the joke for the amusement of others."

Try: You Can Date Boys When You're Forty: Dave Barry on Parenting and Other Topics He Knows Very Little About by Dave Barry

Laughing at Life

"When we admire someone who 'doesn't take himself too seriously,' this is the temperament we're talking about. More than just a way of relating to other people, it's a prism that colors the world in rosier shades. Someone with this outlook deploys humor to cope with challenges, taking a step back and laughing at the absurdities of everyday life."

Try: Yes Please by Amy Poehler

How did we do? If none of the suggestions suit, you can also try:

• When we at abcreads think funny, we think P. G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Sue Townsend, Alan Bennett,  Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - the English have a great humorous tradition.  Stateside, we lean towards David Sedaris, Nora Ephron, George Carlin, Erma Bombeck.  We've also chuckled and chortled with Christopher Moore, Jill Conner Browne, Helen Fielding, Jasper Fforde, Laurie Notaro, Tina Fey, Carl Hiaasen, Tom Robbins, Sarah Vowell, and Chuck Klosterman, among others. Do you have a favorite humorist?  Let us know in the comments!

•  A search of "Humorous stories" in the catalog. This will include funny kids' books.

• A search of "Humorous stories" in the library catalog, using the Advanced Search to filter out "juvenile" and "easy". Should be primarily YA and above.

• A search "Wit and humor" in the catalog for jokes, quotes, and miscellaneous.

For books about  humor, try:

American Cornball: A Laffopedic Guide to the Formerly Funny by Christopher Miller

The Humor Code: A Global Search For What Makes Things Funny by Peter McGraw, PhD, and Joel Warner
 

Links

25 Books Guaranteed to Make You Laugh [Flavorwire]

32 Books Guaranteed to Make You Laugh Out Loud [Buzzfeed]

Ten Funny Books You Might Not Have Read [Electric Lit]

Laughing Matters: Five Funny Books With Substance [NPR]

15 funniest travel books every written (in English) [CNN]

The 15 best comedy books of all time [Telegraph]

Featured Author: Caitlin Moran

'What art should be about,' they will say, 'is revealing exquisite and resonant truths about the human condition.' Well, to be honest - no, it shouldn’t. I mean, it can occasionally, if it wants to; but really, how many penetrating insights to human nature do you need in one lifetime? Two? Three? Once you’ve realised that no one else has a clue what they’re doing, either, and that love can be totally pointless, any further insights into human nature just start getting depressing really.
~Caitlin Moran

Caitlin Moran is an English journalist, TV presenter, and author.  The oldest of eight home-educated children, she wrote her first novel, The Chronicles of Narmo, at age fifteen. Caitlin (once you read her books, you'll feel like you can be on a first name basis with her as well) has had a checkered career after that - working for Melody Maker, presenting a TV show, Naked City - before joining the staff of The Times, a British daily newspaper. Caitlin writes regular columns for The Times, one about television and the other is "the most-read part of the paper, the satirical celebrity column ‘Celebrity Watch’". A comedy series written by Caitlin and her sister Caroline and loosely based on their youth, Raised by Wolves, is currently running on British TV.

Her first adult book, How To Be a Woman, brought her international attention in 2012. Vanity Fair called it "the U.K. version of Tina Fey’s Bossypants" - it's a fresh and funny take on feminism today, interspersed with memoir. Caitlin followed that up with Moranthology, a collection of her columns which gives us her uncensored views on pop culture. Her latest, How To Build a Girl, which Helen Fielding (author Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy) described as "[b]rilliantly observed, thrillingly rude and laugh-out-loud funny", is the coming-of-age story of a 14-year old girl in 1990 who reinvents herself.

Looking for a smart, saucy, hilarious read?  Look no further.  Caitlin is beloved by Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess), Peggy Orenstein, Ayelet Waldman, Zoe Heller, Alexandra Heminsley, and Lena Dunham.  If you like to read Laurie Notaro, Sloane Crosley, Mindy Kaling, and Nora Ephron, do give Caitlin a try!

Links

Not a Feminist?  Caitlin Moran Asks, Why Not? [NPR]

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran review - a Portnoy's Complaint for girls [Guardian]

Raised By Wolves - TV review [Guardian] 

Atrocious mess, precocious mind: Meet Caitlin Moran, newspaper columnist, TV presenter, pop music pundit...and typical teenage slob [Independent, 1994] 

Caitlin Moran: my letter to the future - video [Guardian]