Rating: 
Summary: Monty Python in New Yorkish and with a point
Review: Even for people who do not like Woody Allen's movies, his satiric books must give a great laugh!This man is so intelligent that he allows himself to un-taboo'ize just about everything. He makes fun of religion without being blasphemic, about stereotypes without being prejudicial, and so on. This is the most sophisticated fun any American has ever come up with!
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Compares
Review: For someone with no exposure to Woody's prose, this was a revelation. What a smart writer he is! He manages to find a unique voice, and with this voice he beats his own obsessions to a pulp, until they stand up and say 'Uncle'. Woody gets even with literary biographies, crime, philosophy (and philosophy and more philosophy), death, religion, intellectualism, political revolutions, psychology, and of course, mimes. My favourite piece is the last one: 'Mr. Big'. It's a brilliant Raymond Chandler parody, where the blonde bombshell who comes into the private eye's life is not looking for a missing husband, but proof of the existence of God! Ingenious! There's one passage where the detective deduces that since Socrates killed himself, Jesus was murdered, and Neitzche went crazy, then there is someone out there and He doesn't want to be found. Woody tends to fall back on absurdity for his humour a tad too often (at one point, someone's forehead falls off), and if the collection was any longer it would have gotten tedious. But it's just long enough. Bite sized and tasty.
Rating: 
Summary: Sharp and tight writing
Review: For someone with no exposure to Woody's prose, this was a revelation. What a smart writer he is! He manages to find a unique voice, and with this voice he beats his own obsessions to a pulp, until they stand up and say 'Uncle'. Woody gets even with literary biographies, crime, philosophy (and philosophy and more philosophy), death, religion, intellectualism, political revolutions, psychology, and of course, mimes. My favourite piece is the last one: 'Mr. Big'. It's a brilliant Raymond Chandler parody, where the blonde bombshell who comes into the private eye's life is not looking for a missing husband, but proof of the existence of God! Ingenious! There's one passage where the detective deduces that since Socrates killed himself, Jesus was murdered, and Neitzche went crazy, then there is someone out there and He doesn't want to be found. Woody tends to fall back on absurdity for his humour a tad too often (at one point, someone's forehead falls off), and if the collection was any longer it would have gotten tedious. But it's just long enough. Bite sized and tasty.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious
Review: Getting Even is a remarkable collection of Woody Allen's creative works of short sketches. The book is extremely humorous. It is a reminiscence of scenes from Allen's earlier films. Page to page I read, and page to page I laughed. That is how funny the book is.
I liked "Mr. Big" the most. Woody Allen's humor from absurdity is a unique twist in writing.
Also recommended: THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES, A TWIST IN THE TALE
Rating:
Summary: A Classic with HILARIOUS Woody Allen Essays
Review: Getting Even is brilliant. It is a short book collection of 17 of the funniest essays that Woody Allen has ever written. I found myself laughing out loud all over the place, and actually finished this book in two brief settings. I generally like to read 1-2 essays a day, but with each one, I wanted more. Death Knocks is one of the essays in this book that really got me going. It was so damn funny. It felt like a funny version of Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal... where the person meant to die will not allow Death to take him. I loved it. A Look at Organized Crime was another absolutely hilarious essay written as you can imagine. Finally The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers has got to be one of the funniest essays ever penned. It is the exchange of letters between two chess players as they try to make sense of a game that they are having through the mail. I'm telling you, my gut was bursting. This is a great place to get started when reading Woody Allen novels. There are no plays contained within as are in his book Without Feathers, but the essays are of a much higher caliber. I know you are going to love this one. Happy reading!
Rating:
Summary: A Classic with HILARIOUS Woody Allen Essays
Review: Getting Even is brilliant. It is a short book collection of 17 of the funniest essays that Woody Allen has ever written. I found myself laughing out loud all over the place, and actually finished this book in two brief settings. I generally like to read 1-2 essays a day, but with each one, I wanted more. Death Knocks is one of the essays in this book that really got me going. It was so damn funny. It felt like a funny version of Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal... where the person meant to die will not allow Death to take him. I loved it. A Look at Organized Crime was another absolutely hilarious essay written as you can imagine. Finally The Gossage-Vardebedian Papers has got to be one of the funniest essays ever penned. It is the exchange of letters between two chess players as they try to make sense of a game that they are having through the mail. I'm telling you, my gut was bursting. This is a great place to get started when reading Woody Allen novels. There are no plays contained within as are in his book Without Feathers, but the essays are of a much higher caliber. I know you are going to love this one. Happy reading!
Rating:
Summary: Exceptionally Funny
Review: My english teacher,who used to stalk Mr.Allen, assigned this book to us this year im m a sophomore in HS and take honors english . I loved the book and it is super funny. We have a deli by school and one day one of the kids i nour class took getting even to the deli and started reading it aloud, everyone who was there for lunch laughed endlessly. I would reccomend this book to anyone, its a great read.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptionally Funny
Review: My english teacher,who used to stalk Mr.Allen, assigned this book to us this year im m a sophomore in HS and take honors english . I loved the book and it is super funny. We have a deli by school and one day one of the kids i nour class took getting even to the deli and started reading it aloud, everyone who was there for lunch laughed endlessly. I would reccomend this book to anyone, its a great read.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Compares
Review: Nothing can compare to this book and also Side Effects and Without Feathers, by Allen. Dave Barry is funny (although not as funny in recent years). Douglas Adams is hilarious, but he writes novels. These "nonfiction" pieces and short stories by Woody Allen are the funniest things ever written. And if you're concerned because you don't like Woody's whining style in his stand-up and movies, be assured you can't do that in prose. They are two distinct styles and you probably wouldn't even know it was Woody if not for his name on the cover. Read at least one of Woody's three books -- or at least one story from one of these books. Make that one page. If you don't love it, you can put it back on the shelf and at least know you didn't let something fantastic slip by unread.
Rating:
Summary: Allen's Raw material
Review: Reading this is like participating in Allen's creative process since many of the short sketches here are reminiscent of scenes from Allen's earlier films. Very funny stuff that had me laughing out loud. However it's best to read this and imagine Woody Allen's voice is telling the stories, it makes them even funnier. Not all of the sketches work as well as others but when he's on the sketches are hysterical. A very short collection of Woody Allen shorts.
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