The rich man’s children ate their good food and grew thinner and more peaked. The Bulosans, next door, went on eating their poor and meagre food, laughed, and grew fat. So the rich man sued Father Bulosan for stealing the spirit of his food. And Father paid him in his own coin, while the laughter of the Bulosans and the judge drove the rich man’s family out of the courtroom. The Bulosans lived in Binalonan, in the Philippine province of Pangasinan. But the episodes of Father’s history that his son Carlos retells belong to universal and timeless comedy. No one can remain unmoved by Father’s excursions into politics, cock-fighting, violin-playing, or the concoction of love-potions. Twenty-four such stories make up the rich and funny collection called The Laughter of My Father. “In the winter of 1939, when I was out of work, I went to San Pedro, California, and stood in the rain for hours with hundreds of men and women hoping to get a place at the fish canneries. To forget the monotony of waiting, I started to write the title story. It was finished when I reached the gate, but the cold hours that followed made me forget many things. “In November, 1942, when there was too much pain and tragedy in the world, I found the story in my hat. I sent it to The New Yorker, a magazine I had not read before, and in three weeks a letter came. ‘Tell us some more about the Filipinos,’ it said. I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ “I wrote about everything that I could remember about my town Binalonan, in the province of Pangasinan. I received letters from my countrymen telling me that I wrote about them and their towns. It came to me that in writing the story of my town, I was actually depicting the life of the peasantry in the Philippines. “These stories and 18 others are now gathered in this volume. For the first time the Filipino people are depicted as human beings. I hope you will enjoy reading about them.”—Carlos Bulosan

Prior to the modern age laughter raised passions and activated the body to sweat and shake. Derision was not distinguished from joy. Deceiving the senses by tricks or funny stories made all people laugh loudly, regardless of class. Johan Verberckmoes describes, in this innovating book, the hotchpotch of comic images and stories in 'Flandes' during the rule of the Spanish Habsburgs, from 1500 to 1700. It challenges the Bakhtinian idea of a caesura in the history of laughter around 1600.

Interested in preserving her family folklore, Jeannie B. Thomas recorded detailed oral histories from her mother and two grandmothers. While analyzing the tapes of these sessions, she notices the inappropriate laughter often accompanied the retelling of painful stories. In this book, Thomas combines these personal narratives with original scholarship drawing on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Julia Kristeva to uncover meaning behind the startling presence of unconventional laughter in women's histories.

Do you believe that joy is a choice? Dawn Barton does. She's an upbeat Southerner with good hair and a successful business background, but she's had more heartache than most of us can imagine. Laughing Through the Ugly Cry is a collection of honest and sometimes raw stories. Dawn throws an arm around readers as she brings them along on her journey through the loss of a child, divorce, cancer, rape, the death of her only sibling, her husband's substance abuse, and finding her way back to Jesus in the middle of it all. Dawn shares her personal story to show readers how to find happiness and purpose even in the darkest of days. By laughing through the ugly cry, you will discover how to: Shut down negative feelings causing you to feel inadequate Identify the pros despite how challenging the cons may seem Embrace joy wherever you can find it Learn how to be honest with yourself and process grief in a healthy way Dawn writes, "If more women were open about just how difficult our lives feel and how hard we are on ourselves, I think we'd learn to relax a little and give ourselves the grace God gives us every day." Laughing Through the Ugly Cry is great for: Women of any age seeking comfort, encouragement, and inspiration Book clubs and girls' nights--Dawn poses thoughtful group questions to support meaningful conversations about growth and joy

This book is about a poor boy who makes it through sport to the highest levels of academia.