One of the aphorisms we hear most frequently is that humor is subjective. All comedians know this. A comic can kill an audience with laughter on a Thursday night and put another audience into a coma with the exact same jokes on a Friday night. Who can say why? Great humor allows us to recognize and laugh at ourselves…at our foibles, our prejudices, our unsustainable beliefs, even at our goals and aspirations. But it is difficult to find truly funny works of fiction that can resonate with universal audiences. I often think of Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, one of my all-time favorite books. Most authors can only dream of achieving the success Amis had with his first novel, which won the 1955 Somerset Maugham Award for Fiction. I read it in high school, 12 years or so after its 1954 publication. I still have that first U. S. edition and keep it where I can see it just by lifting my head from my keyboard. That simple act makes me smile, because seeing Lucky Jim on the book’s tatter...

Have you thought about compiling columns, or blog pieces, which are really columns if you think about it, into a book? I've done two so far, and learned a lot about the process. It isn't a matter of simply plopping the columns into a book. A great deal of thought and work are involved. The first book that I read that was a compilation of weekly columns was Home Country , by Slim Randles. He has been a frequent guest here at BRP with some of his humorous essays that apply to writing, and he is also a regular guest on my blog, It's Not All Gravy. I first met Slim when I was Managing Editor for WinnsboroToday.com, an online community magazine that ran for close to ten years. Slim contacted me to see if I would be interested in his columns for my publication, and I said sure. They were free. We had no budget for paying freelancers. The columns were, and continue to be, quite good. And my readership boosted his overall readership. It was a good arrangement for both of us...