On Jokes (or, why everything you know about comedy is wrong): The Hidden Mechanics of Funny

The Big Bang
Natural Selection
E = mc2

All pretty decent theories, that beg one question: why has no-one discovered a fully unified theory for what makes jokes funny?

Well, comedy director Amanda Baker, comedy writer Abi Grant and stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr have done just that. In this book, in case that's not obvious. From how to identify the families of jokes, to decoding the building blocks of comedy, to the real - and brand new - secret to comic timing, On Jokes does for comedy what decoding the genome did for designer babies.

The essential manual for any aspiring comedian, this book can make anyone funny. Even you.