Why are you laughing? Decoding the mystery of humor

Why are you laughing? It’s a question I’ve asked myself and that’s what Peter McGraw and Joel Warner set out to answer in their book, The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny.

Over the last few years I’ve become increasingly interested in how humor works. After all, if I’m going to write humorous books I should have an understanding of how humor works beyond only being able to give an explanation that’s no better than saying it’s voodoo magic. The quest has led me through se...