I've been a huge fan of Lederer's humorous compilations for some 15 years now. His books like Anguished English and Bride of Anguished English are keepers for my shelf. He's most famous for his collected World According to Student Bloopers, which is probably one of the most mass-emailed pieces of humor to grace the internet.

This book does include a slightly updated version of "World," but I found the cover blurb to be somewhat misleading. Humor isn't the focus of this book. Instead, the majority of the essays are on language and word play. There is some funny stuff intermixed, and some of the essays were downright fascinating ("How I Write" and "Literature Lives!"). Others dragged on for me. I enjoy a good pun or word play, but page after page? It gets tedious.

While this book wasn't quite what I was expecting--a sort of "Best Of" of his humor--it was an okay read, and one that language-lovers, writers, and English teachers will likely enjoy. ( )