Not every book that I read gets reviewed in The Stranger. There’s only a limited amount of space in the print edition, and so I have to try to hit the widest possible audience of readers possible. It’s for this reason that I didn’t review the new paperback from McSweeney’s, The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes.

I’m a little gun-shy when it comes to reviewing books about books, because books about books only appeal to a very small portion of the population: People who work in publishing, librarians, booksellers, and other serious book fetishists. I feel that books about books get excessive review attention because, well, they’re written for the people who publish book review publications.

That said, I really enjoyed The McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes. It’s basically just a compilation of book-related stories from the McSweeney’s website. There are some great pieces here, including “Winnie-The-Pooh is my Coworker” by John Moe:

“He showed up three hours late today and gave this long story about being chased by bees. Then he brought out another honey pot (his cubicle is covered with empty ones), ate the honey with his hands for a while, and passed out on his desk…The little bitch Tami from marketing came by to rub his tummy. Unbelievable.”

and “Thirteen Writing Prompts,” by Dan Wiencek:

“7. Write a story that begins with a man throwing handfuls of $100 bills from a speeding car, and ends with a young girl urinating into a tin bucket.”

True, there are a few too many James Joyce jokes, and true, you can find most of these pieces for free on McSweeney’s website, but if you do that, you don’t get to see the book’s amazing cover: