Best of
Humor

1957

The Doubtful Guest


Edward Gorey - 1957
    The staid, pale, Victorian inhabitants of the mansion alternately stare and glare at the doubtful guest as it tears out whole chapters from books, peels the soles of its white canvas shoes, and broods while lying on the floor ("inconveniently close to the drawing-room door"). Strangely, or rather, typically, as this is a Gorey book, the stymied occupants never ask the guest to leave--and in 17 years it has still "shown no intention of going away."

The Dog Who Wouldn't Be


Farley Mowat - 1957
    Mutt's pedigree was uncertain, but his madness was indisputable. He climbed trees and ladders, rode passenger in an open car wearing goggles and displaying hunting skills that bordered on sheer genius. He was a marvelous dog, worthy of an unusual boy growing up in a raw, untamed wilderness.

Don Camillo And The Devil


Giovannino Guareschi - 1957
    

You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger


Roger Hall - 1957
    First published in 1957 to critical and popular acclaim, his memoir has become a cult favorite in intelligence circles. He chronicles his experiences from his time as a junior officer fleeing a tedious training assignment in Louisiana to his rigorous OSS training rituals in the United States, England, and Scotland for its Special Operations unit. Quick to pick up on the skills necessary for behind-the-lines intelligence work, Hall became an expert instructor, but was only reluctantly given operational duties because of his reputation as an iconoclast. In his droll storytelling style, Hall describes his first parachute jump in support of the French resistance as a comedy of errors that terminated prematurely. His last assignment in the war zone came when then Capt. William Colby, the future head of the CIA, handpicked him to lead the second section of a Norwegian special operations group into Norway via Sweden.

Good Ol' Charlie Brown


Charles M. Schulz - 1957
    Schulz that ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward.

Povero Charlie Brown!


Charles M. Schulz - 1957
    Schulz are arguably the world's most famous newspaper comic strip and cartoonist in history. The Peanuts cartoon strip holds the distinction of being the world's longest continuing story, running for a staggering 17,897 strips from October 1950 to February 2000. Peanuts tells the story of meek, nervous Charlie Brown (a boy incapable of flying a kite, hitting a baseball or kicking a football), his dog - Snoopy and his group of childhood friends as they tackle the complexities of modern life: friendships, crushes, first loves, siblings and kicking a touchdown. This collection of 248 daily Peanuts newspaper strips that appeared between 1957 -1959, includes the strips where Charlie Brown revealed that his father was a barber and his mother was a housewife. The strip's bitter-sweet humour and child-like innocence helped to cement the Peanuts comic strip's popularity and secure its reputation as a true, one-of-a-kind, timeless classic.

Twisted Tales from Shakespeare


Richard Armour - 1957
    Twistfully illustrated by Campbell Grant"

Cats in the Belfry


Doreen Tovey - 1957
    It was just that she was a Siamese. Animal lovers Doreen Tovey and her husband Charles acquire their first Siamese kitten to rid themselves of an invasion of mice, although they worry about the cat attacking the birds. But Sugieh is not just any cat. She's an iron hand in a delicate, blue-pointed glove; an actress, a prima donna, an empress of cats, and she quickly establishes herself as queen of the house. Finding themselves thus enslaved, Doreen and Charles try to minimise the chaos she causes daily: screaming like a banshee, chewing up telegrams, and tearing holes in anything made of wool. But there is worse to come, as soon Sugieh decides she is ready to become the Perfect Mother. She and her adorable kittens devote themselves to tightening their grip on the Tovey household.

Nightcrawlers


Charles Addams - 1957
    

Something Fishy


P.G. Wodehouse - 1957
    When Keggs was a butler he eavesdropped on a meeting between his employer, J.J. Bunyan, and a covey of tycoons--J.J. and his associates each agreed to put up fifty-thousand dollars, the total to go to whichever of their sons was the last to marry. Thirty years later, Keggs wants to cash in on what he knows.

Angels on Horseback


Norman Thelwell - 1957
    This edition contains Thelwell's invaluable advice to aspiring equestrians on how to get into the saddle and stay there; each item illustrated with inimitable and deadly clarity

Alarms and Diversions


James Thurber - 1957
    Thurber," "Get Thee to a Monastery" and "The Moribundant Life, or Grow Old Along with Whom?""His writings will be a document of the age they belong to." --T.S. Eliot

Jeeves Comes to America


P.G. Wodehouse - 1957
    Unabridged

Ghost V


Robert Sheckley - 1957
    "Ghost V" is a clever parody of the problem-solving story of the 1940s, as well as a highly entertaining psychological tale, all done with a very light touch.

Clementine Cherie


Jean Bellus - 1957
    (This doesn't mean what you probably think it does.)He bears an extraordinary resemblance to Clementine's father, except that the latter's face is constantly harried. And no wonder! His daughter's amoral behaviour is enough to furrow the brow of any parent!Clementine is representative of laughter and l'amour ... and as far as we are concerned, l'amour the merrier!

Graded German Readers Books One to Five


Peter Hagboldt - 1957
    

She Died Because ...


Kenneth Hopkins - 1957
    Solihull, lying on her bedroom rug with her mouth open. For propriety's sake Blow calls in his seventy-nine-year-old friend, Professor Gideon Manciple, who astutely observes that she has a knife in her back. This unlikely pair shuffle off into an investigation that leaves a sinister collection of rogues and a Scotland Yard detective thoroughly baffled.