Britain's hottest young comedian presents a seriously funny, up-close look at joking matters — from the social origins of laughter, to the art and craft of humor, to why we can never remember the punch line — featuring over 300 jokesAs the host of the hit game show Distraction (now in its third season on Comedy Central) and one of the premier stand-up acts working today, award-winning comedian Jimmy Carr has won over millions of fans around the world with his trademark rapier wit, laced with "exquisitely economical and perfectly timed one-liners" (The Guardian). For this book he teams up with friend and fellow comedy writer Lucy Greeves to take an in-depth look at where humor comes from and how it works, through exploring its purest form: the joke.Only Joking begins with the mechanism of laughter — how it happens and why even infants do it — then delves into the power of the punch line, exploring the basics of all jokes, from the use of shock and...