《50位最有趣的美国作家》是美国作家安迪·博洛维茨编撰的一部新书。其中收录了自马克·吐温以来的一些有趣的作家的经典段落。新书推出后，博洛维茨接受采访，谈到了他的选择，并就一些问题做了解释。

Andy Borowitz（安迪·博洛维茨） is a writer and a comedian whose work appears in The New Yorker and at his satirical website, BorowitzReport.com, which has millions of readers around the world. The author of six books, he is the first-ever winner of the National Press Club’s humor award and a two-time finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He has been called a “Swiftian satirist” (The Wall Street Journal), and “America’s satire king” (The Daily Beast).

【以下是博洛维茨的解释：】

•On the predominance of writers from The New Yorker, where Borowitz is a contributor:
“No favoritism there. The New Yorker is the only American magazine that’s continuously published humor since the 1920s. When you publish everyone from Woody Allen to Dorothy Parker to David Sedaris, you’re going to make the list a bunch of times.”

•On the 51st funniest American writer:
“Actually, a New Yorker writer: Robert Benchley. He’s as deserving as anyone on the list, but we couldn’t fit everybody.”

•On complaints about writers he left out:
“Three names come up a lot: Joseph Heller, David Foster Wallace and John Kennedy Toole. They’re all hilarious. But it was hard to take excerpts from their novels that lived up to the complete works. The same goes for Donald Westlake and Carl Hiaasen.”

•On omitting Kurt Vonnegut:
“Same problem. But the good news is that Library of America is publishing two entire volumes of Vonnegut. That should hose down the Vonnegut fans a bit.”

【以下是该书的目录。从中我们可以了解到博洛维茨选择的50位最有趣的美国作家到底是谁——】

The 50 Funniest American Writers:
An Anthology of Humor from Mark Twain to The Onion

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction, Andy Borowitz

Mark Twain
A Presidential Candidate
George Ade
The Lecture Tickets That Were Bought but Never Used
O. Henry
The Ransom of Red Chief
Sinclair Lewis
from Babbitt
Anita Loos
from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Ring Lardner
On Conversation
H. L. Mencken
Imperial Purple
James Thurber
More Alarms at Night
Dorothy Parker
The Waltz
S. J. Perelman
Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer
Langston Hughes
Simple Prays a Prayer
Frank Sullivan
The Night the Old Nostalgia Burned Down
E. B. White
Across the Street and into the Grill
Peter De Vries
The House of Mirth
Terry Southern
from The Magic Christian
Lenny Bruce
from How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
Tom Wolfe
The Secret Vice
Jean Shepherd
The Counterfeit Secret Circle Member Gets the Message, or The Asp Strikes Again
Hunter S. Thompson
The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved
Woody Allen
A Look at Organized Crime
Bruce Jay Friedman
The Tax Man
Philip Roth
Letters to Einstein
Nora Ephron
A Few Words about Breasts
Henry Beard, Michael O’Donoghue, George W. S. Trow
Our White Heritage
Fran Lebowitz
Better Read Than Dead: A Revised Opinion
Charles Portis
Your Action Line
Donald Barthelme
In the Morning Post
Veronica Geng
Curb Carter Policy Discord Effort Threat
John Hughes
Vacation ’58
Mark O’Donnell
The Laws of Cartoon Motion
Garrison Keillor
The Tip-Top Club
Bruce McCall
Rolled in Rare Bohemian Onyx, Then Vulcanized by Hand
Molly Ivins
Tough as Bob War and Other Stuff
Calvin Trillin
Corrections
Dave Barry
Tips for Women: How to Have a Relationship with a Guy
The Onion
Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia
Susan Orlean
Shiftless Little Loafers
Roy Blount Jr.
Gothic Baseball
George Carlin
If I Were in Charge of the Networks
Ian Frazier
Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father
David Rakoff
The Writer’s Life
Bernie Mac
from I Ain’t Scared of You
David Sedaris
Buddy, Can You Spare a Tie?
Wanda Sykes
It’s So Hard
Jack Handey
What I’d Say to the Martians
David Owen
Your Three Wishes: F.A.Q.
George Saunders
Ask the Optimist!
Jenny Allen
Awake
Sloane Crosley
The Pony Problem
Larry Wilmore
If Not an Apology, at Least a “My Bad”