Fierce pajamas

de David Remnick, Henry Finder

When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he described it as a "comic weekly." And although it has become much more than that, it has remained true in its irreverent heart to the description, publishing the most illustrious literary humorists of the modern era, from Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker to Woody Allen and Steve Martin. This anthology gathers together the funniest work of more than seventy contributors. Parodists take on not only writers like Hemingway and Kerouac, but TV documentaries, Italian cinema, and etiquette books. Other pieces offer perspectives on the heights of fame, the depths of social embarrassment, and the ups and downs of love and sex. A rich selection of humorous verse includes caustic gems by Dorothy Parker, the effortless whimsy of Phyllis McGinley, and Ogden Nash's unforgettable slapstick prosody, as well as forays by luminaries who ought to have known better.--From publisher description.