Funny Bones: the structure of comedy

Recommended reading:

CRAFT

• Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, & Matt Walsh – Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual

• Greg Dean – Step by Step to Standup Comedy

• Dan Decker – Anatomy of a Screenplay

• Larry Gelbart – Laughing Matters

• Keith Giglio – Writing the Comedy Blockbuster

• Charna Halpern, Del Close, Kim Johnson – Truth in Comedy: the manual for improvisation

• Steve Kaplan – The Hidden Tools of Comedy: the Serious Business of Being Funny

• David Nihill – Do You Talk Funny?: 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better (and Funnier) Public Speaker

• Mike Sacks – And Here's The Kicker

• Sol Saks – Funny Business: the craft of comedy writing, 2nd edition

• Scott Sedita – The Eight Characters of Comedy: a guide to sitcom acting and writing

• Athene Seyler – The Craft of Comedy

•  John Vorhaus – The Comic Toolbox: how to be funny even if you're not
  

THEORY

• Maurice Charney – Comedy High and Low: an introduction to the experience of comedy

• Albert Cook – The Dark Voyage and the Golden Mean: a philosophy of comedy

• Robert Corrigan – Comedy, Meaning and Form

• Jessica Milner Davis – Farce

• Wes D. Gehring – Romantic vs. Screwball Comedy: charting the difference

• Richard Janko – Aristotle on Comedy: towards a reconstruction of Poetics II

• Sister Miriam Joseph – The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric

• Walter Kerr – Tragedy & Comedy

• Roger Kreuz – Irony and Sarcasm

• Harry Levin – Playboys and Killjoys: an essay on the theory and practice of comedy

• Garry Marshall – Wake Me When It’s Funny

• John Martineau (ed.) – Trivium: The Classical Liberal Arts of Grammar, Logic, & Rhetoric

• Wylie Sypher (ed.) – Comedy: essays by George Meredith & Henri Bergson

• Giles Taylor & Philip Wilson – Dramatic Adventures In Rhetoric: A Guide for Actors, Directors and Playwrights

• Walter Watson – The Lost Second Book of Aristotle's Poetics

HISTORY

• Maria Aitken – Style: acting in high comedy

• Stuart E Baker – Georges Feydeau and the Aesthetics of Farce

• Albert Bermel – Farce

• J. Douglas Canfield – Tricksters & Estates: On the Ideology of Restoration Comedy

• Anthony Caputi – Buffo: The Genius of Vulgar Comedy

• Penelope Gilliatt – To Wit: Skin and Bones of Comedy

• David G. Grote – The End of Comedy: the sitcom and the comedic tradition

• David L. Hirst – Comedy of Manners

•  R.L. Hunter – The New Comedy of Greece and Rome

• Harold C. Knutson – The Triumph of Wit: Moliere and Restoration Comedy

• Charles Ludlam – Ridiculous Theatre: Scourge of Human Folly

• Doris Milberg – The Art of the Screwball Comedy: madcap entertainment from 1930s to today

• Lance Olsen – Circus of the Mind in Motion: Postmodernism and the Comic Vision

• Bari Rolfe – Commedia dell'arte: a scene study book

• Mark Rubinfeld – Bound to Bond: gender, genre, and the Hollywood romantic comedy

• John Rudlin – Commedia Dell'Arte: an actor's handbook

• Lewis Salingar – Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy

• Leslie Smith – Modern British Farce: A Selective Study of the British Farce from Pinero to the Present Day

• Charles W. Stein – American Vaudeville As Seen by Its Contemporaries

• J.L. Styan – Restoration Comedy in Performance

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