Boy what a dilemma! It is something you have read in bits. Not because it’s too much or too boring but because, obviously, you need to take a couple of days off now and then just to laugh.
The humour sprouts suddenly and is mostly not empty. It is accompanied by a bit of unique insight and by the end of the book you will need to re-examine your brains to make sure, they have not been affected forever, twisted as it would be after a roller coaster ride that just does not seem to end!
Whether he is More...

Back when Woody Allen was funny, no one could touch him. This book gathers together the stories he wrote for Playboy and The New Yorker. It is a riot to read. For the teachers out there, I recommend it between classes when you need a little pick me up before third period.

This is worth it if just for "The Whores of Mensa" . . .

UPDATE: Okay, I just had to edit this review and add some amazing quotes. So yeah. Here are some of the best lines, although nearly every page was laugh-out-loud funny so it's hard to choose which are the "best" quotes.

This is from the Whore of Mensa. It is about "intellectual" prostitutes - men pay to discuss great works of literature with women:
"It wasn't just intellectual experiences - they were peddling emotional ones, too. For fifty bucks, I learned, you could 'relate without getting close. More...

Woody Allen schreef deze verhalen vrijwel allemaal voor het blad The New Yorker en daar zullen ze ook beter tot hun recht zijn gekomen dan in een boek. The Complete Prose is een bundeling van de drie boeken (Getting Even, Without Feathers en Side Effects) waarin al zijn verhalen al eerder waren gepubliceerd. Nadat ik in eerst instantie elk verhaal ging lezen maar sporadisch werd beloond met een goeie grap heb ik helaas door meerdere verhalen heen moeten bladeren. Slechts een paar verhalen zijn m More...

I've finished this book and believe me when I say, I'm really sad that it has gotten over. However, I console my heart with the fact that this book is a keeper. I know that I can pick it up anytime and it will make me laugh. Not the loud howling kind, but a subtle philosophical kind of laugh that I will shake my head over.
Woody Allen needs no introduction, and if he needs one for the uninitiated, well I recommend them to get familiar with his movies first and then go for the book. Because the wa More...

Without Feathers is the funniest of this trilogy, with Getting Even a close second. The other selection was great too, and I maybe should have read this in shorter bursts rather than all at once. My sides are currently damaged beyond repair.

Allen writes stories with deeper philosophical meaning. He asks searching questions that scratch through the absurdity of life, with way more laughs than Nietzsche or Sartre.

I'm catching up with his movies too. Zelig is currently sitting in my disc drive. More...

Allen is also a prolific writer that has wit, style, and an abundance of intelligence. He expresses this in his first three collections of short stories: Without Feathers, Getting Even, and Side Effects. And in the early 1990’s this was compiled to The Complete Prose of Woody Allen.

Read more: http://bookstove.com/comedy/through-t...

This book is a collection of short stories Woody Allen wrote for several magazines (mostly The New Yorker and Playboy). Some are hilarious, others are more on the nonsense side, but in all of them you see the kind of humor that made Allen famous.

If you like his movies, you will love this book. You will come out of it wondering about the meaninglessness of life and absurdity of everything, but it will be worth it.

Short pieces of absurd pseudo-intellectualism in a typical Woody Allen style! He affirms a notion I once came across about the human condition: "loose your sense of humor, and you're in trouble"

On the book cover of Picador edition, Will Self praises the book as "an ideal bedside companion". I can't disagree.

His short stories in this collection are brilliant. I absolutely loved the short story The Whore of Mensa, I've gone back to this chapter three times so far.
So far it's a very good book, perfect if you like to pick up a book if you want a quick fix.

Brilliant - witty and hilarious and simply begging for plagiarism. Perhaps a bit much to read all in one go; better for dipping into, methinks. Almost makes up for the eyeball-stabbing horror of 'Melinda and Melinda'. Almost.

Probably my single favorite comedy prose writer, these three collected books have kept me laughing for years (the over-intellectualized restaurant review is my single favorite piece).

A Must have on your bed side table.. The Wittiest I know.. Hats off! Him.. Not to be read in a go, to be savored slowly.. a prose now and then, to be felt. I salute.

...like an exquisite box of expensive chocolates, I would say eat one at a time and very slowly... because you will not want to get down to the last one.

In my opinion, Mr. Allen is about as humorous as they come. This collection is essential for any reader of satire, comedy, or of Mr. Allen's other works.

Love this book. I laughed at loud reading this book so many times that I had to stop reading it and take a breathe. So funny.

Hilarious! Three fun books in one. A perfect bedtime read. A few pages before you sleep and you'll wake up smiling.

hilarious but you start seeing a mad-lib style pattern emerging in the way the jokes are constructed after awhile...:)

I like the things Woody Allen writes, generally. I really like "If the Impressionists Had Been Dentists."

Hilarious read. The man's mind seems to function in MadLibs. He has such crazy associations.

Without Feathers, Getting Even and Side Effects all in the same book! It's my favorite plane read.

I read it in parts. The ideas are brilliant. Just don't find him funny, sorry, I tried.

A treat for fans of humorous prose, and a template for those aspiring to it.

A dreamland of thoughts you may or may not completely empathize with.

This book is ridiculously fantastic. It's a bunch of short story-like things that mostly have no point but because Woody Allen has written them with rather hilarious poignancy, you can't help but go "Oh my god, your brain is full of magic!" after each story. I had to resort to writing random quotations from it all over my arms so that it's magic stayed with me while I did things that did not involve reading...and then subsequently rolled up my sleeves at every opportunity and go "LOOK! I have wi More...

Simply some of the funniest short pieces I've ever read.

The Complete Prose by Woody Allen (1998)

Still reading. It's good till now!

just for ending the day..;))...