Load of Hooey

Bob Odenkirk is a legend in the comedy-writing world, winning Emmys and acclaim for his work on Saturday Night Live, Mr. Show with Bob and David, and many other seminal television shows.

This book, his first, is a spleen-bruisingly funny omnibus that ranges from absurdist monologues ("Martin Luther King Jr.''s Worst Speech Ever") to intentionally bad theater ("Hitler Dinner Party: A Play"), from avant-garde fiction ("Obit for the Creator of Madlibs") to free-verse poetry that''s funnier and more powerful than the work of Calvin Trillin, Jewel, and Robert Louis Stevenson combined.

Odenkirk''s debut resembles nothing so much as a hilarious new sketch comedy show that''s exclusively available as a streaming video for your mind. As Odenkirk himself writes in "The Second Meeting of Jesus and Lazarus," it is a book "to be read aloud to yourself in the voice of Bob Newhart."