HUNTINGTON, N.Y., Dec. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Pianist, recording artist, and music producer Jeffrey Reid Baker has published a new book 'The Punchline Is Too Long: Over 450 Classic Jokes and Stories'.
While known professionally for his musical endeavors, Jeffrey Reid Baker's life-long love for jokes and story-telling began at a young age. Baker's father, also a musician, and his friends were notorious storytellers and raconteurs, and, as he says, "It rubbed off." Over forty years, Baker casually collected, for his own amusement, a large collection of jokes and stories, and often thought about pulling out his favorites and categorizing them into a collection of the best of the best. With 'The Punchline Is Too Long,' he's finally done exactly that.
"The object was not to make the biggest joke collection ever, but the best joke collection ever," says Baker. In reviewing his collection of more than two thousand "really-good" entries, Baker's main selection criteria consisted of identifying "the ones that get the most laughs again and again."
Within the span of slightly over two-hundred pages, the book features over fifty different categories of jokes, including such widely varied themes as Aliens, Death, Philosophy, Taxes, and Star Trek. As to be expected, Sex and Religion also get their due. The book also features entries grouped under "Advice," "Insults," and "Golf," and includes a collection of classic, naughty "Little Johnny" stories.
As a musician, Baker puts special attention on the "comic timing", and thus, he edited each down to the way he learned to tell them most effectively over the years. "Improving the narrative and rhythmic effectiveness would be my unique contribution to the ultimate telling of these stories," says the author.
Without any constraints of political correctness, even the very title of the book, 'The Punchline Is Too Long' is an irreverent and off-color punchline to a joke cited at the start of the Preface. The straight line of the joke being, "Why are there no jokes about the Jonestown tragedy?" Baker says, "I always wanted to use that punchline as the title to a joke book because so many jokes, with merit, are told so badly." To be sure, the majority of the material is not nearly so dark and heavy.
The author assembled the collection both for those who like to laugh, and to empower those who like to make others laugh with field-tested classic and sure-to-please material.
'The Punchline Is Too Long' is published by Baker's own "cozy, fun and eccentric little independent book company," Jerbil Books. It is the company's fifth published book, and the third title authored by Baker, who also published a short, illustrated book entitled 'A Man Is An Island: The Pithiest Story Ever Told', and a lateral puzzle collection called 'What Part of London Is Found in France?'
'The Punchline Is Too Long' is distributed by eBookIt.com, and is available in ebook format at all major online ebook retailers.
About Jeffrey Reid Baker
Jeffrey Reid Baker, composer-pianist-teacher, was born on Long Island New York and has lived there his whole life. His father was a professional musician and composer who played with Danny Kay and Bob Crosby among others. His grandmother was an amateur pianist. His grandfather was the radio editor of the New York Sun and instilled in Baker an appreciation of new technologies. These various influences lead Baker to being one of the pioneers of computer and electronic music production.
Jeffrey Reid Baker gained national media attention in the late 1980s for several albums he did for several labels including his own, JRB Records. Baker has also taught piano/musical composition for over 50 years to students of all ages. He is the founder of JRB Records, JRB Media and Jerbil Books.
About eBookIt.com
Since 2010, eBookIt.com (based in Sudbury, Massachusetts) has helped thousands of authors and publishers get their books converted to ebook format, and distributed to all the major ebook retailers, including Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, Apple iBookstore, Kobo, Scribd, Ingram Digital, and Google eBookstore.
SOURCE eBookIt
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