READERSVOICE.COM: What are some of your favorite humor books?

LEIGH ANNE JASHEWAY: Funny books… I love Christopher Moore’s creative use of humor so much that I can just say Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (one of his titles) and giggle. Carl Hiaasen writes crime novels, which I don’t usually read, but his humorous characters are iconic. I love everything Merrill Markoe has written. I take David Sedaris to my mammograms (I actually wrote a song called, “I Never Have a Mammogram without David Sedaris.”) Quinn Cummings, Laurie Notaro, The Sand in My Bra travel series [Sand in My Bra and other Misadventures: Funny Women Write from the Road edited by Jennifer L. Leo], … so many choices. Dave Barry and Erma Bombeck go without saying. They’re the classics.

RV: What are some other books you’ve really liked, whether novels or non-fiction or anything else?

LAJ: When I was a child, I read all the old Russian writers and Sylvia Plath. I joke that I wasn’t voted class clown in high school, but had there been such a category, I would have been voted Most Likely to Depress People. Dorothy Parker was my first exploration of comedic writing and she will always be important to me for that reason. As a crazy dog lady, many of the books I’ve loved a dog-related (A Dog’s Purpose by Bruce Cameron, for example). Love everything Kurt Vonnegut wrote. There’s a little management book called Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon McKenzie that’s filled with doodles and unbelievably creative ideas. Nine Kinds of Naked had me laughing so hard on an airplane that I almost got thrown out. At the same time, it’s filled with thought-provoking stuff. Tom Robbins is amazing. I have his quotes everywhere. The thesaurus because everything is in there!

RV: Which writing books and magazines have you liked?

LAJ: I’m an avid Writers Digest reader (and not just because they regularly publish me). I love Jay Sankey’s Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, Von Vorhaus’s The Comic Toolbox, The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.

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– copyright Simon Sandall