Comedy Survival

This is a collection of short stories written over my Christmas vacation. Go ahead, take a free look inside and see for yourself! If this book can't make you smile; nothing else will.

Star reporter for the New York Times, the world's most powerful newspaper; foreign correspondent in some of the most dangerous fields; Pulitzer winner; and longest-jailed correspondent for protecting her sources, Judith Miller is highly respected and controversial. In this memoir she turns her reporting skills on herself with the intensity of her professional vocation.

Nathan Lochmueller studies birds for just enough money to live and learn on. He drives a glitter-festooned truck, the Gypsy Moth, and he is in love with Lola, a woman so free-spirited and mysterious she can break a man's heart with a sigh or a shrug. Around them swirls a remarkable cast of characters: the proprietor of Fast Eddie's Burgers, the genius behind "Thong Thursdays"; Uncle Dart, a Texan who brings his swagger to Indiana with profound and nearly devastating results; a snapping turtle with a taste for thumbs; a German Shepherd who howls backup vocals; and the very charismatic state of Indiana itself.

A tale as old as the horror genre itself. Five college students are on their way to old abandoned cabin the woods. What could possibly go wrong?

Through humor, the Jewish people were able to preserve their dignity and feel that they were still human beings, despite all the Nazi attempts to destroy in them every vestige of humanity. Jewish humor is a way of processing pain and suffering. In that magical moment in which the flash of a joke appears, hunger disappears, the soup kitchens, forced labor, typhus, the dead on the sidewalks, the black market, meal cards, deportations to the East, and the endless sufferings experienced for one reason only: to be a Jew. 

It's no one’s fault that Hallie Jacob is alone. That her grandpa got sick half a world away and so her parents yanked her to Colorado the last semester of her senior year. That career-wise, she’s specialized in fighting fire, and now she’s surrounded by ice, snow, and a thousand cousins she’s half-banned from hanging around with. But that’s what's happened. That's what her December looks like.

Did you know bears never die? There are many unknown facts about these fur-adorned mammals. Because the hard truths about bears can be difficult to process, society often shields itself from the realities of the true threat bears pose to mankind. Every book written on bears has been a lie. People live under the false impression that bears can be avoided, that bear attacks are survivable, and even that bears are not immortal. Suffice it to say, people have a lot to learn about bears, bear safety, bear attacks, and the impending war between man and bear.