Description
Condition: BRAND NEW
ISBN: 9780393357592
Year: 2019
Publisher: W W Norton & Company
Pages: 240
Description:
Entertaining, illuminating, and entirely unique, Wit’s End “convey[s] the power of wit to refresh the mind” (Wall Street Journal).
In this engaging book, James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns are the highest form of wit. Adopting a different style for each chapter?from dramatic dialogue to sermon, heroic couplets to a barroom monologue?Geary embodies wit in all its forms. Wit’s End agilely balances psychology, folktales, visual art, and literary history with lighthearted humor and acute insight, demonstrating that wit and wisdom are really the same thing.
“Wit’s End juggles scholarship, humorous anecdote and critical insight with a diabolical, almost sinister dexterity. No shrinking violet, Geary fully intends to strut his stuff, to glitter and beguile, and he does so with remarkable ingenuity and chutzpah.”?Washington Post
“Geary is a keen storyteller, promiscuous with quotes and figures. One could do worse at a cocktail party than simply opening his book at random and reading aloud.”?The New Yorker
12 illustrations
ISBN: 9780393357592
Year: 2019
Publisher: W W Norton & Company
Pages: 240
Description:
Entertaining, illuminating, and entirely unique, Wit’s End “convey[s] the power of wit to refresh the mind” (Wall Street Journal).
In this engaging book, James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns are the highest form of wit. Adopting a different style for each chapter?from dramatic dialogue to sermon, heroic couplets to a barroom monologue?Geary embodies wit in all its forms. Wit’s End agilely balances psychology, folktales, visual art, and literary history with lighthearted humor and acute insight, demonstrating that wit and wisdom are really the same thing.
“Wit’s End juggles scholarship, humorous anecdote and critical insight with a diabolical, almost sinister dexterity. No shrinking violet, Geary fully intends to strut his stuff, to glitter and beguile, and he does so with remarkable ingenuity and chutzpah.”?Washington Post
“Geary is a keen storyteller, promiscuous with quotes and figures. One could do worse at a cocktail party than simply opening his book at random and reading aloud.”?The New Yorker
12 illustrations