It's nice when someone knows their limitations, and calls things as they see them. Thus I like that when Garrison Keillor pulled together a book of pretty good jokes, he called it Pretty Good Joke Book. I'm glad he didn't call it "Terrific Jokes" or "Awesome Jokes" or "Outrageously Funny Jokes" because those would have been misnomers for sure. As it turns out, this book really does contain jokes which for the most part I would consider "pretty good". They're also, for the most part, clean. I wouldn't necessarily say that they're "non-offensive", though. After all, most of the jokes have a definite "population segment" as their target, thus most jokes might be considered offensive, at least to one segment of the population.

This is a small hard-cover book containing an introduction and 9 sections. Each section relates to one specific type of joke. Within each section, there might be 3 or 4 subsections where the jokes are further segmented.

For instance, there's the section called "Old Standbys". These consist of one-liners, puns, lightbulb jokes, and knock knock jokes.

What's another word for "thesaurus"?

I would like to go to Holland someday. Wooden Shoe? (I know my very punny friend Spuds will enjoy this one)

How many telemarketers does it take to change a lightbulb? ... Only one but she has to do it while you're eating dinner.

Knock knock... who's there... Ida... Ida Who?... Ida called first, but the phone's not working.

Then there's a section called "Power to the People" where they make fun of several kinds of people.

A man is celebrating his ninetieth birthday at the nursing home, and his friends decide to surprise him. They wheel in a big birthday cake and out pops a beautiful young woman who says "Hi, I can give you some super sex!" The old man says, "Well I guess I'll take the soup".

Here's a good one for women:

How many men does it take to change a toilet-paper roll? Who knows, it's never happened.

But I give equal time for the men:

Husband: I haven't spoken to my wife for eighteen months - I don't like to interrupt her.

There's a section for jokes about sporting activities.

Two backpackers see a bear about to charge them. One backpacker takes off his hiking boots and puts on running shoes. His companion says, "You'll never outrun the bear - why are you putting those on?" The guy with the running shoes responds, "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you."

Some of the other sections: lawyer jokes, doctor jokes, religious jokes, "insults" and political jokes. At the risk of making enemies, I'll not give examples of those.


Overall

This is a cute book to have on hand. It's 176 pages of good, (mostly) clean humor that can make you laugh out loud. Yes, some will be considered offensive to various population segments, but that's the way jokes are. I laugh at most of the jokes, and groan at a few. Very few make me feel embarrassed. If you like "pretty good" jokes, this is a good book for you.


Recommended: Yes