I'll Mature When I'm Dead: Dave Barry's Amazing Tales of Adulthood

One of the back cover blurbs on my copy of I'll Mature When I'm Dead states that Dave Barry is "The funniest man in America." Now, I am not quite sure I agree with that, although Barry is quite hilarious. There is no overarching plot to his new book, and I don't think each piece is considered a short story. I guess one could call this book episodic.

The Baby Formula

"Why shouldn't we have the chance to make our own babies, have our own children?” That's one of the first lines spoken in The Baby Formula, a delightful award-winning Canadian mockumentary that took two honors in 2009: the Audience Award at the Toronto Inside Out Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival and Best LGBT Film at the Nashville Film Festival.

September Fair: A Murder-by-Month Mystery

Librarian and small-town reporter Mira James discovers the dead body of the latest Milkfed Mary, Queen of the Dairy, while covering the Minnesota State Fair for the local newspaper. Milkfed Mary is teenaged Ashley Pederson. Mira is covering a carving of Ashley’s head in butter as part of the Queen of the Dairy ceremony when the lights go out in the Dairy building. A few moments later Mira finds Ashley on the floor of a refrigerated booth, her skin a strange shade of red. Ashley’s body is the fifth Mira has discovered in the last few months.

Foolish Words: The Most Stupid Words Ever Spoken

We have all heard them. We have all read them. We have all uttered them. They are foolish words. In her recent book, Foolish Words, Laura Ward has compiled approximately 800 quotes ranging from the humorous to utterly stupid. This is an entertaining collection of verbal blunders, as well as misquotes and misprints. The first chapter, "Brain in Neutral - Mouth in Drive," will make the reader chuckle.

Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You: Kids, Carbs, and the Coming Hormonal Apocalypse

Sassy southern belle Anita Renfroe’s sharp and charming wit weaves together a series of essays on everything from body image, motherhood, and the holiday season in Don't Say I Didn't Warn You. The book is the kind of happy, light read you just cannot put down. Without bombarding you with a barrage of jokes like so many other books by comedians, Renfroe shares the lighter side of her world, and you laugh alongside her.

Miss Conduct’s Mind Over Manners: Master the Slippery Rules of Modern Ethics and Etiquette

Miss Conduct is an exemplary advice columnist: quirky, direct, and practical. Her quirkiness throws her biases into the forefront, preventing any false pretense of neutrality, and allows her to emphasize a pleasant sense of humor.

Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today

I've long been a fan of Paul Krassner's more illustrious friends like Lenny Bruce and Abbie Hoffman, but until now I'd never gotten around to reading Krassner's own work. Who's to Say What's Obscene? appears to be a collection of random essays. I say "appears to be" because for most of the book, I had no idea what was going on. The stories were interesting, but would just go from one to the next with seemingly no connection.

She Likes Girls 4

She Likes Girls 4 is a hilarious compilation of eight short films on various ways in which girls like girls. Topics center around gender, childhood innocence, homophobia, and presumptions. _Babysitting Andy _directed by Pat Mills is a humorous short about a nine-year-old brat who tortures her wheelchair-bound uncle and his partner into schooling her on the definition of fellatio.

Thirst

Some say the mark of a great film is that it defies our expectations. If that's the case, then Oldboy director Park Chan-wook's latest should be considered one of the best. Thirst is the story of a Catholic priest who becomes a vampire, and has thus earned the label of a horror flick, but the film itself is virtually genre-proof.

Life Goes On

Linq is a little bit like the love baby of Barney and Melissa Etheridge, and I really don’t mean that in a derogatory way. If Linq played an outdoor festival and if my partner and I had kids, we would be out having a picnic dancing on the grass with our cute gaybies singing along. Yes, I said gaybies. How can you not love a song called “Diversity Dance?” Hooray for gays! Hooray for bisexuals! It doubles the dating pool! After all, a little dose of cheesiness isn’t always bad, is it?

Just Like Family: Inside the Lives of Nannies, the Parents They Work for, and the Children They Love

Like Tasha Blaine, I once took a job working as a nanny. Also like the author, I thought it would be a relatively easy gig that would allow me the freedom to write while working in a nice, supportive environment.

I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing

Kyria Abrahams’ searing, if flawed, memoir about growing up in a deeply-observant family of Jehovah’s Witnesses calls to mind Karl Marx’s quip that “religion is the opiate of the masses.” Her original voice is by turns funny, whiny, clear-eyed, and churlish as she chronicles the Witness’ blind obedience to religious dogma. Abrahams’ writing is deft, even evocative, as she vividly describes the purple haze in which her community languishes.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

A summer blockbuster with a feminist edge? Yes, that is indeed what we find with the Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. The film opens with Ben Stiller’s character, Larry Daly, finding himself longing to return to the New York Museum of Natural History in spite of his entrepreneurial successes. He returns just in time to save his museum pals from deep storage in Washington, DC.

Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me

I have a love/hate relationship with liberal publications, like the New York Times, that discuss progressive issues and at the same time print articles that seem to use stone age mentality to “prove” the differences between women and men.