Humor: September 2007 Archives

Anyone ever ask you that question, "If you could have a conversation with anyone in history, who would it be?" Author Michael A. Stusser asked himself that question and went one step further, conducting "interviews" with the likes of Abraham Lincoln, J. Edgar Hoover, Vincent van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Cleopatra and Confucious, to name a few.

Stusser is a Seattle-based writer and game inventor (The Doonesbury Game, Hear Me Out) whose work frequently appears in Mental Floss magazine — so you know the guy's got a pretty good albeit odd sense of humor. Now his Dead Guy Interviews are collected in paperback, The Dead Guy Interviews: Conversations With 45 of the Most Accomplished, Notorious, and Deceased Personalities in History (Penguin, 291 pages, $14).

Here's some excerpts from a few "interviews" that cracked me up ...

Any woman who's married or been married, or has/had a boyfriend — or a father, brother or male roommate for that matter — will read Stephen Fried's Husbandry: Sex, Love & Dirty Laundry — Inside the Minds of Married Men (Bantam, 177 pages, $18) and be reminded of every annoyance that goes along with such living arrangements.

It's a good thing Fried has a self-deprecating tone and a sense of humor because that's what makes this book accessible to both genders. Men will read, laugh and nod in agreement at Fried's observations culled from his own life...