101 Kinds of Irony by Kevin Griffith is a fun little book. And I’m not just saying it because two of my friends, including my fiance, were involved in the production of it. Overall, I found the ironic examples discovered amid its 101 electronic pages to be humorous, lighthearted, and, most importantly, brief, making the book a perfect “snack” between meals of heavier reading.
101 Kinds of Irony starts simple, building on the most basic foundational blocks of irony, like “tragic” and “dramatic”, before venturing off into heavier territory, such as “Figurative Irony”, and even “Ye Olde Medieval Irony”. Most of the examples presented by Griffith are funny, and many of them remind me of the type of James Joyce-esque puns that are amusing to fellow writers, like “Supreme Court Irony”, an entry which is written out as if it were a Supreme Court opinion (as if you needed me to tell you that).
Entries are concise, and well written. Some draw more giggles than others, but all are thought-out and well crafted. Overall, reading 101 Kinds of Irony is kind of like sitting around a University cafeteria table with a group of other English majors, and having a blast because you’re all so pleased that you get each other’s jokes. And I don’t mean that in any pretentious way, but wouldn’t that be ironic if I did?
For $2.99, you can’t really go wrong with this book, which is bound to please writers and lovers of literature alike. And, you can get it here.
The Tingle Review 