Reviewed by Carole McDonnell
Homespun Humor: Original puns, Word plays & Quips: A compendium of guffaws, giggles, & mirth
by David R Yale
A Healthy Relationship Press
116 pages, September 27, 2013, ISBN: 978-0979176678
Some puns one “get” immediately; others take a while to understand, and still others make the hearer groan or laugh out loud. Humor is individualistic and a book dedicated to listing puns (arguably, the most contentious kind of humor) risks not hitting its mark because for many people a good pun is spontaneous and often desperate. Oftentimes engaging in punning is an invitation to a battle of wits and shamelessness, and in longer stories the anticipated punch-line is the “pay-off.” Nothing is off-limits. That’s the fun of punning. So a collection of punny one-liners is a challenge.
“Homespun Humor” contains seventeen chapters and an introduction. The chapters have such topics as health, animals, finance, family, transportation, farms, etc. Each chapter, with the exception of the seventeenth, is divided into Daffynitions, one-liners, and pun story/narratives. The seventeenth chapter is the guest punster showcase where Punderdome winners share their best.
A book on humor in this digital age is always welcome and the healing power of humor, play, and mental work shines in this book. The puns are clever, silly and desperate. They obviously are the efforts of a playful intelligent quirky minds. The collection of definitions and one-liners will be trove for those who are often engaged in social media. The narratives, however, are the book’s tour de force. In these stories, there is a slow buildup to the punch-line which repays the reader’s attention by giving hearty laugh or a cringing groan. Other narrative stories are equally fun in the way they excruciatingly mine every application of a word or concept.
For lovers of humor and word-play, this book is highly recommended. Those who don’t like puns will not be happy with this book but word-lovers of all ages, especially children, will find this book a good gift.
About the reviewer: Carole McDonnell is a writer of ethnic fiction, speculative fiction, Christian non-fiction, and Christian fiction. Her works have appeared in many anthologies and at various online sites. Her fantasy fiction novels, Wind Follower and The Constant Tower are published by Wildside Press. Her short story collection is Spirit Fruit: Collected Speculative Fiction by Carole McDonnell. Her self-published books are My Life as an Onion, A Fool’s Journey Through the Book of Proverbs, Oreo Blues, and Seeds of Bible Study: How NOT to study the Bible. She can be found at http://carolemcdonnell.blogspot.com/