It’s supposed to be 60 degrees (Fahrenheit) on Friday. Could it be because of the warmth-giving joy of Funbruary? Probably. Probably that’s why. You don’t need a meteorologist to know where the funny books are. They’re here. 

Today Emma Straub—author of Other People We Married—picks George & Martha, which is about hippos. She reads for us tomorrow night with Jess Row. 

I have always liked to laugh. Some people seem content to plow their faces deep into dense, humorless books, perhaps with the promise of furthering their education, and some people just want to laugh. For good or ill, I tend to fall into the latter category. My love of humor on the page began as a very small child, and it is one of those early books that came to mind most immediately when I was asked to select a funny book for the month of Funbruary. If George Saunders’ giddy surrealism and Ann Beattie’s love of the quotidian were to somehow get together and make a paper baby, that paper baby would be James Marshall’s George and Martha.

Perhaps you were never a child, and have no joy in your life, and so you are not familiar with these books.

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