David Brenner (1) (1936–2014)

After September 11, 2001, comedy legend David Brenner went on a nationwide tour. He called it the 'Laughter to the People' tour, confirming his conviction that 'laughter is the best medicine, and if one can laugh, one can live. In this collection, Brenner offers brilliant comic riffs on a wide range of issues, from the personal to the political. His topics include marriage and divorce, terrorism, political correctness, sex, aging, war, losing weight, and religion.

This book was part memoir, show more part stand-up and part serious comments on various topics. Brenner was a bold and cheeky person throughout his life and I was surprised by some of his personal anecdotes. Although written in 2002, most of his views and comedy were still applicable to today. I listened to the audio. Sometimes I laughed out loud, other times not so much but overall I was entertained.

Note: this review is for "I Think There's a Terrorist in My Soup". LibraryThing seems to be grouping this book and "I Think There's Another Terrorist in My Soup" together as if they are the same but they're not. show less

Abridged version, this covered various topics like marriage, sports and aging with the theme that you can make it through anything if you find something about the situation to laugh about. The language was rough at times but not consistently throughout. Some of his views made him seem like a jerk to me. Still, there were enough laugh out loud moments that overall I enjoyed it.

Note: this abridged version is for "I Think There's Another Terrorist in my Soup". I have also read "I Think There's show more a Terrorist in my Soup", which came first. LibraryThing seems to be grouping these 2 books together as if they are the same, but they're not. show less

Back in high school, I thought David Brenner was a pretty cool comic when he appeared on the Johnny Carson show. He's older now, and a bit less hip, and sometimes his jokes are pretty formulaic. But this is a pretty decent effort at illustrating the power of humor to make a post-9/11 world a bit less hard to bear.