-
How to Tell a Joke
- An Ancient Guide to the Art of Humor (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers Series)
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 2 hrs and 30 mins
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Publisher's summary
Can jokes win a hostile room, a hopeless argument, or even an election? You bet they can, according to Cicero, and he knew what he was talking about. One of Rome's greatest politicians, speakers, and lawyers, Cicero was also reputedly one of antiquity's funniest people. After he was elected commander-in-chief and head of state, his enemies even started calling him "the stand-up Consul". How to Tell a Joke provides a lively new translation of Cicero's essential writing on humor alongside that of the later Roman orator and educator Quintilian. The result is a timeless practical guide to how a well-timed joke can win over any audience.
As powerful as jokes can be, they are also hugely risky. The line between a witty joke and an offensive one isn't always clear. Cross it and you'll look like a clown, or worse. Here, Cicero and Quintilian explore every aspect of telling jokes - while avoiding costly mistakes. Presenting the sections on humor in Cicero's On the Ideal Orator and Quintilian's On the Orator's Education, How to Tell a Joke examines the risks and rewards of humor and analyzes basic types that listeners can use to write their own jokes.
Filled with insight, wit, and examples, including more than a few lawyer jokes, How to Tell a Joke will appeal to anyone interested in humor or the art of public speaking.
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Michael Krasny has been telling Jewish jokes since his bar mitzvah, and it's been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He certainly states his case in this wise, enlightening, and hilarious book that not only collects the best of Jewish humor passed down from generation to generation but explains the cultural expressions and anxieties behind the laughs.
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It's great and I don't like joke books Highly recommend for you. Just hilarious
- By michael gort on 06-15-17
By: Michael Krasny
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Notes from the Underground (AmazonClassics Edition)
- By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett - translator
- Narrated by: Pete Simonelli
- Length: 4 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Isolated from society in a tenement basement in St. Petersburg, a malicious former civil servant vents his resentments. In the rambling notes that follow, we are exposed to the inner turmoil of the Underground Man, who represents the voice of his generation. An emotional, paranoid knot of contradictions, the spiteful narrator is also desperate to join a society he loathes, if only to prove his superiority to it.
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Amazing
- By Bryan on 02-19-19
By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and others
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Socrates
- A Man for Our Times
- By: Paul Johnson
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Paul Johnson’s books have been translated into dozens of languages. In Socrates: A Man for Our Times, Johnson draws from little-known resources to construct a fascinating account of one of history’s greatest thinkers. Socrates transcended class limitations in Athens during the fifth century B.C. to develop ideas that still shape the way we think about the human body and soul, including the workings of the human mind.
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Plat-Soc-Paul
- By Megasaurus on 11-17-12
By: Paul Johnson
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Oh, the Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or, Failing That, Happiness
- By: Al Franken
- Narrated by: Al Franken
- Length: 2 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What does a megasuccess like Al Franken - best selling author, Emmy-award winning television star, and honorary Ph.D. - have to say to ordinary people like you? Well, as Dr. Al himself says, "There's no point in getting advice from hopeless failures." Filled with wisdom, observations, and practical tips you can put to work right away, this is a cradle-to-grave guide to living, an easy-to-follow user's manual for human existence.
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Oh The Things I Know
- By Mmday on 04-27-03
By: Al Franken
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Gumption
- Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America's Gutsiest Troublemakers
- By: Nick Offerman
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The star of Parks and Recreation and author of the New York Times best seller Paddle Your Own Canoe returns with a second book that humorously highlights 21 figures from our nation’s history, from her inception to present day - Nick’s personal pantheon of “great Americans". After the great success of his autobiography, Paddle Your Own Canoe, Offerman now focuses on the lives of those who inspired him. From George Washington to Willie Nelson, he describes 21 heroic figures and why they inspire in him such great meaning.
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Swagger and mirth
- By Tamara Shope on 09-14-15
By: Nick Offerman
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Rules for Radical Conservatives
- Beating the Left at Its Own Game to Take Back America
- By: David Kahane
- Narrated by: John Allen Nelson
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The vast right wing conspiracy has found its General Patton, and his name is David Kahane. Kahane's pseudonymous, satiric column for National Review Online, lampooning the Left via his Hollywood-radical persona - Stephen Colbert's liberal doppelganger - is must-listening for political aficionados of all stripes. Now, from the inside, Kahane proudly exposes the secret and not-so-secret winning strategies (and vulnerabilities) of the Left.
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Disappointed
- By Henry W. Baker on 05-30-16
By: David Kahane
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You Say Potato: A Book About Accents
- By: Ben Crystal, David Crystal
- Narrated by: David Crystal, Ben Crystal, Jane Savage, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Some people say 'sconn' while others say 'schown'. He says 'bath' while she says 'bahth'. You say 'potayto'. I say 'potahto'. And - wait a second, no one says 'potahto'. No one's ever said 'potahto'. Have they? From reconstructing Shakespeare's accent to the rise and fall of received pronunciation, actor Ben Crystal and his linguist father, David, travel the world in search of the stories of spoken English.
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Wish there were more native recordings.
- By Matt Dobler on 07-01-16
By: Ben Crystal, and others
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The Speechwriter
- A Brief Education in Politics
- By: Barton Swaim
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows this kind of politician: a charismatic maverick who goes up against the system and its ways, but thinks he doesn't have to live by the rules. Using his experience as a speechwriter, Barton Swaim tells the story of a band of believers who attach themselves to this sort of ambitious narcissist.
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A well-written complainers guide
- By Kindle Customer on 08-03-15
By: Barton Swaim
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Created Equal
- Clarence Thomas in His Own Words
- By: Michael Pack, Mark Paoletta
- Narrated by: Charles Constant, Shamaan Casey, Pamela Klein
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Born into dire poverty in the segregated South and abandoned by his father as a child, Justice Clarence Thomas triumphed over seemingly insurmountable odds to become one of the most influential justices on the Supreme Court. Yet after three decades of honorable service, few know him beyond his contentious confirmation and the surrounding media firestorm. Who is Justice Clarence Thomas, in his own words? Created Equal builds on dozens of hours of groundbreaking one-on-one interviews with Thomas to share a new, expanded account of his powerful story for the first time.
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Justice Thomas, the epitome of a “Real American Man”!
- By the walton's on 06-23-22
By: Michael Pack, and others
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Fifth Business
- The Deptford Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Robertson Davies
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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This first novel in The Deptford Trilogy introduces Ramsay, a man who returns from World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross but who is destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As we hear Ramsey tell his story, we begin to realize that, from childhood, he has influenced those around him in a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious way.
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Been waiting for this
- By Vinity on 12-10-11
By: Robertson Davies
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Distraction isn't a new problem. We're also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons of distraction at bay. But rather than surrender to the meandering of their minds, they developed powerful strategies to improve their attention and engagement. How to Focus is an inviting collection of their strikingly relatable insights and advice—frank, funny, sympathetic, and psychologically sophisticated.
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What listeners say about How to Tell a Joke
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Larry W. Patrick
- 08-27-24
Good stuff!
Fine book! this stoic had a sincere sense of humor. So surprising to have a 2000 year old joke book
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- Anony 2112
- 12-05-23
Funny, modern translation
The performance is great and funny. Many of the jokes don’t land as we lack the cultural knowledge or language to properly place it, but the translator brings as much of Cicero’s humor to us as I’ve ever seen in a translation.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-17-21
Very entertaining and enlightening
Some of the quips did go over my head but I have the physical copy so I can revisit them. Very subtle humor but still holds true to today when it comes to humor. Gives you an insight on the philosophical nature of comedy.
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