I Think There's a Terrorist in My Soup: How to Survive Personal and World Problems with Laughter - Seriously »

David Brenner is a comedy institution. He is a frequent guest on the shows of David Letterman, Larry King, Howard Stern, and Bill O'Reilly, and he holds a record for most guest appearances on The Tonight Show. Before beginning his career in comedy, he wrote, produced, and directed television documentaries.

"I know why I'm here. I have a contract. I have no idea why you're here, but it has been said that laughter is the best medicine, and Americans have never needed that medicine more than they do tonight. So let me be your doctor." --David Brenner's opening line, performing in Las Vegas on the evening of September 11, 2001

On September 11, 2001, veteran comedian David Brenner was in the midst of a "cushy" 44-week stand-up gig in Las Vegas. The next day, he instructed his agent to book him on an eighteen-month nationwide tour. He called it the "Laughter to the People" tour, and on it he shared his humor with a grieving nation. Audience response was overwhelming. In I Think There's a Terrorist in My Soup: How to Survive Personal and World Problems with Laughter -- Seriously, Brenner draws partially on highlights from his tour's stand-up material to show how humor can give us the power to transcend personal and world problems from the unavoidable, like aging, to the uncontrollable, like war.

The essays in the book cover a wide range of issues, including fear of flying, going bald, marriage and divorce, pets, politics, terrorism, losing and gaining weight, money problems, and religion. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction and then goes right to the heart of the material, much of which has been well tested on Brenner's nightclub and television audiences. With a sharp humor and healthy doses of humanity, I Think There's a Terrorist in My Soup: How to Survive Personal and World Problems with Laughter -- Seriously can't help but heal its readers.

Publishers Weekly

Veteran comedian Brenner (Soft Pretzels with Mustard) serves up a voluminous collection of shtick and anecdote. An inhaler of current events and contemporary life, Brenner can wring humor-sometimes inspired, sometimes hokey-out of a wide range of topics, from sex and marriage to sports and dentists. He declares that Californians supported the Green Party's Ralph Nader because they thought they'd get green cards. Now a parent, Brenner will get laughs for his account of how parents unconsciously let baby talk slip into their professional life. The material relating to the post-September 11 United States is hit-and-miss and can verge on the non sequitur. But his anecdotes about airline security snafus hit home because they're based on personal experience, such as when his six-year-old son's baseball cap lining was ripped open. Brenner can be amusingly hardheaded-the best time of your life isn't "right now," it "never gets better than twenty-one." The book can be didactic; Brenner regularly provides "here's why this is funny" commentary, or lectures on finding the humor in small traumas. But he often can do that, such as when he comforted a child distraught by an emergency plane landing by gently needling her, "I heard this is entirely your fault." It should be a good value for Brenner's many fans. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.