David Remnick and Henry Finder have edited a second collection of New Yorker humor writing (the first being Fierce Pajamas). Disquiet Please! (Random House, 2008) includes pieces, as the editors explain on p. xiii-xiv "not found in the previous anthology, that made us laugh, or beam, or both. Then, when those proved too numerous to fit into a book, we arranged the pieces in a circle and spun a bottle. Afterward, we recycled the bottle." They note that they skewed toward authors who are "still living, or very nearly; some are even young ... We have erred on the side of newness."

Like all anthologies, this one is best dipped into at random, rather than read straight through. And, like all anthologies, not all of the selections are rib-crackingly funny. Some aren't very funny at all. Others are hysterical. Each piece, however, is very New Yorker. So if you like that sort of thing, this book's for you.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2009/... ( )

David Eicke:
Well! It’s good to be back! I’ve been in Peru for 11 days. As they say in my industry, it was “by turns” amazing and horrifying. One of the more “horrifying” parts was our “6 hour” bus journey from Puno to Cusco that actually ended up being 32.5 hours.

Luckily, I had my galley with me. I debated bringing it, since it’s a little hefty, but I’m glad I did, because it kept me laughing even when the situation seemed pretty bleak (and when I didn’t have my nose buried in Fodor’s Peru 3rd Ed.). I loved the first collection, Fierce Pajamas, in which I discovered humorist S.J. Perelman (whose pieces I obsessed over and photocopied and forced on people in college), and in this collection I discovered the brilliance of Simon Rich, Jack Handey, and Paul Rudnick while enjoying my old favorites Perelman, Woody Allen, George Saunders and David Sedaris. Don’t miss this one, just for laughs.