Somehow, I ended up with an advanced review copy of this book, which won't be published until next month. I've wracked my brain in an attempt to figure out where I got it, and the best I can do is that I bought it from one of the booksellers who operate on the streets in Greenwich Village around New York University. One of the benefits (or curses, depending on one's view of these things) of living in a publishing capital is that one occasionally gets an early look at interesting books.

And an interesting book this is: because it is an uncorrected proof, it contains a number of spelling and grammatical errors which I'm sure a wary copyeditor has long since corrected; likewise, I'm confident a judicious fact checker caught the fact that Anthony Weiner, one of our more, uh, colorful politicians here in New York City, was never a United States Senator, but rather a Congressman. Before he disgraced himself, that is.

In any case, as its title suggests, this book reports on the world of pun competition, a lively subculture of whose existence I was entirely ignorant. I take exception to the use of the modifier "irreverent" in the title, as I think Mr. Berkowitz actually approaches this world with the reverence it is due, which is to say some, but maybe not too much. While this is a book, I suspect, written for a younger audience (there is a lot of exposition on the social relationships between the real-life characters, and some of it is a bit too chatty for my tastes), and I am an older person, I still found this book compelling in parts, and sufficiently interesting that I read all but the final twenty pages in one compulsive gulp. Incidentally, if you are young and interested in breaking into the world of comedy writing and performing, this book passively supplies an interesting look into the way that milieu operates

Using the conventions of sportswriting, Mr. Berkowitz manages to make the actual pun competitions he attends, and in which he participates, genuinely exciting. He moves his narrative at a brisk pace, making what would potentially induce torpor into a something that reads like, well, like the best descriptive writing about closely fought sporting events, which I suppose is what the pun competitions are.

I like the idea that books like this still have an audience, and therefore still get published. Despite observing several times that puns are generally regarded as the lowest form of comedy, Mr. Berkowitz shows, and doesn't tell--another of this book's strengths--the high but quirky intelligence engaged in participating in a pun competition. The contestants in this world are clearly both intelligent and interesting people, and they're well worth reading about.

If you're going to read about obsessive word play competitions, I'd recommend Word Freak on Scrabble competitions instead. That's an experience. This book is reasonably well written, but once you know what competitive punning is about, there's not much more to learn. I did enjoy the discussion of the TV shows @Midnight and Bob's Burgers, where the puns were/are actually funny. But what this mainly demonstrates, over and over, is that generating puns in high quantity in short time does not lead to anything all that interesting. ( )

Some people like puns. Some people hate puns. And some people absolutely LOVE them. AWAY WITH WORDS is about the third group.
Last fall, my daughter and daughter-in-law gave my husband a game called Punderdome. Two words are drawn from a deck and the players have a short time to think of puns utilizing those words. The winners are those who come up with the best ones. Our pun party was very lively and a lot of fun.
Punderdome is also the name for a Brooklyn-based pun competition, one of several such gatherings in the US. Jay Berkowitz is an active participant. AWAY WITH WORDS tells how the competitions are formed, how they operate, and how people prepare to compete in them. It’s a lot more intense than most people would expect.
The participants get to know each other because of their frequent interaction. Many of the punsters work as writers for tv shows, movies, or newspapers or comedians. Some newspapers thrive on utilizing puns in their headlines and stories. At the competitions, a category is announced and the contestants have ninety seconds to come up with as many puns as they can. They then present them to live audiences and are judged by the audience’s response.
The latter half of the book has many examples of winning (and some not so funny) entries.
Since there is so much overlap among the competition and the competitors, the book does become repetitious ( )

Bill Watterson, in his Calvin and Hobbes strip, gave Calvin magazines on gum chewing to mock the niche magazine industry (An exchange...Hobbes: "I can't believe there's a magazine for gum chewers." Calvin: "Heck, there must be at least a dozen such magazines. ... Each appeals to a different faction. 'Chewing is high gloss, literate and sophisticated. 'Gum Action' goes for the gonzo chewers. 'Chewers Illustrated' aims at the vintage gum collectors, and so on. ... Each one encourages you to think you belong to an elite clique, so advertisers and appeal to your ego and get you to cultivate an image that sets you apart from the crowd. It's the divide and conquer trick." {excited face}. H: "I wonder what happened to the melting pot." C: "There's no money in it.") Obscure? I read Joshua Foer's book Moonwalking with Einstein, in part about extreme memory competitions. Talk about obscure...

And then there's this...about pun competitions.

I am an inveterate punster (yes, I could have said in vertebrate...), so when I saw this, I had to read it. It was painful. I love a well-crafted story leading up to a beautiful groaner of a pun. These competitions are about rapid fire punning to random categories. The champs groan them out and the audience response clap-o-meter determines who wins them. Berkowitz litters his narrative with examples.

Painful.

I'll stick to my Feghoots. ( )

I really love this kind of microhistory (I think that might be the correct genre?). Basically I love learning about tiny niche hobby communities and the people who inhabit them. And this is the nichest of the niche -- who even knew pun competitions existed? I certainly didn't, despite having lived for several years apparently just a short distance from one of the main sites of such competitions in Brooklyn, NY. And there's another site in Milwaukee? I repeat, who knew?

When I get a chance, I will sit down and rewrite this review to contain a suitable number of puns. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at being punny on the fly. ( )