Yes, a story written to entertain a child would be shorter and contain illustrations, like the Beatrix Potter books, but the publishers were obviously more interested in something for parents at bedtime.

Any number of books started as extended short stories with more written to fill in the spaces.

The problem with collecting valuable books is that you have to be so careful when reading them. You can’t just put them down anywhere, and you certainly can’t eat while reading them for fear of staining them.

I would love to have all of books in electronic form, and a printer capable of running off a paperback when I felt like reading one.

Tha link just above has a categorical listing of his published works. Seems he has over a half a dozen books on humor to his credit. 🙂

I found the two I had in a second-hand book store quite cheaply some years ago when I was into finding rare tomes and manuscripts (Amazing what you can find in second-hand bookstores that they don’t even know they have!)

I had for some years an official copy (Only 100 were created just after WW2, and many have been lost or destroyed,) of the original handwritten manuscript for the Rev. C. Dodgson’s (Lewis Carroll) tale of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ he wrote to entertain Alice Liddell. It was much better than the published, printed book. The original was about 100 pages handwritten and full of images (he was also quite good at drawing). It was greatly expanded during publishing as it would have been a very small book otherwise. 😉

If I get the time, I will have to hunt them down.

A sampling of Asimov’s favorite jokes

BTW, Asimov did publish two (or at least two, I think he also did a joke book for kid’s) hardcover books of jokes and limericks. He was famous in some circles for his limericks. I have a copy of the two volumes I know of. “Asimov Laughs Again: More Than 700 Favorite Jokes, Limericks, and Anecdotes” (pub: 1965)

He was a funny guy. 😉

I really enjoyed and learned from his non-fiction works. I think The first I read were “The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science”, a 2-vol set, a long time ago. 🙂

Sad to think he died 17 years ago! So many good authors are gone.

One of my favorite quotes of Asimov:
“I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don’t have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.”

One you could relate too Bryan:
“Night was a wonderful time in Brooklyn in the 1930s. Air conditioning was unknown except in movie houses, and so was television. There was nothing to keep one in the house. Furthermore, few people owned automobiles, so there was nothing to carry one away. That left the streets and the stoops. The very fullness served as an inhibition to crime.”

And this is so relevant, and prophetically true (I don’t know when he said it, but considering he died in ’92, it was long before anyone knew what is here now, though some suspected it might happen):
“No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it. No amount of experience since the depression can convince someone who has lived through it that the world is safe economically.”

And one more:
“When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.”

Some saw this all coming, sadly, few listened or understood.

Karl Rove and Dick “Dick” Cheney think that Rush Limbaugh is the answer, but they don’t seem to understand that the question was “How does the Republican Party become even more irrelevant?”

I think he believed taht if enough people ask a question, maybe they will find an answer… and just maybe, maybe… it might even be a right answer! LOL

I’ve been in serious situations, and all of them included humor as a release for the tension, even from people who are definitely not ready for a life as a stand-up comic in normal times. It’s human.

Azimov wrote to make a point, to inform more than entertain.

yeah, i think asimov’s earnestness might have been what got to me. i’m a fan of absurdity, preferably with only passing amounts of reality thrown in.

hipparchia´s last blog post..[for reference]

I read a new book by a new author quickly, and if I liked it, I re-read it slowly to find out what I missed, because there’s always something. In the case of Douglas Adams it is the absurd thing that we call life, and he needs to be read slowly so you don’t miss things.

Isaac was too earnest in his writing. He was on the verge of breaking out in a couple of places, but reined in himself and went back to serious things at the core of his book. He actually was occasionally whimsical in person, but it never entered into his writing.

I sort of met him at a couple of events, in the sense that we were in the same room and I talked to him along with a dozen other people, but the topic wasn’t him or his books. Maybe he saved his lighter side for the oddity of organizations and their rule making processes.