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A Grossery of Limericks
"A second volume of 288 unspeakable (in polite society) poems by the authors of the classic Limericks: Too Gross."
101 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1981
45 people want to read
About the author
Isaac Asimov
4,340 books27.8k followersWorks of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles,
The Foundation Trilogy
(1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.
Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).
People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.
Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.
Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 5, 2019
Oh dear. I'd initially planned to read this as part of Book Riot's Read Harder challenge for 2019, as a way to tick of the "book of humour" task, but thank goodness I went for A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole instead because that was hilarious and this was just stupid. In fairness, the introductions (one by each author) were actually funny, but, unsurprisingly, limericks soon get old. Especially when a) they're just not very good - lots of them didn't scan well and if you've got to change words or spellings to force a rhyme don't bother, and b) they're all on the same quickly well-worn topic. Perhaps there are some genius comedians out there who can produce 200+ limericks on sex without degenerating into dullness but these men are not them. Really enormously repetitive.
September 24, 2017
This book is built on the same exact model as its predecessor, Too Gross. You can read my review of that earlier volume, posted a few weeks ago, for more details.
I only laughed out loud a couple of times. Apparently, there are only so many dirty limericks a person can read before getting bored. Or maybe these just aren't that good.
* shrug *
Either way, you read this at your own risk.
I only laughed out loud a couple of times. Apparently, there are only so many dirty limericks a person can read before getting bored. Or maybe these just aren't that good.
* shrug *
Either way, you read this at your own risk.
January 4, 2019
288 limericks, more chaff than wheat.
March 15, 2020
I like limericks (especially bawdy ones), and this book delivered very well. I liked Asimov's limericks much better than Ciardi's.
February 1, 2025
#240
The good thing to say about this book is that it was the final collaboration between the two men. Again they had the audacity to publish a collection of limericks of, to put it mildly, not excellent quality. In fact most of them are so bad that they should be ashamed to recite them to close drunken friends after midnight.
The ones by Asimov at least have some sparks of humour and intelligence in them the ones by Ciardi are really horrible. Bad rhyming. And bad taste. Now, times are changing, and one has to remind oneself of the fact that they probably thought of their efforts as some innocent fun. But I would draw the line when Ciardi praises the virtue of rape against “red tape”.
To give you an idea. This is the one I found best.
There once was an eager young nurse
Who felt that she had to rehearse
Every sexual joy,
Ever hot little ploy,
To succeed in becoming perverse.
3/10
The good thing to say about this book is that it was the final collaboration between the two men. Again they had the audacity to publish a collection of limericks of, to put it mildly, not excellent quality. In fact most of them are so bad that they should be ashamed to recite them to close drunken friends after midnight.
The ones by Asimov at least have some sparks of humour and intelligence in them the ones by Ciardi are really horrible. Bad rhyming. And bad taste. Now, times are changing, and one has to remind oneself of the fact that they probably thought of their efforts as some innocent fun. But I would draw the line when Ciardi praises the virtue of rape against “red tape”.
To give you an idea. This is the one I found best.
There once was an eager young nurse
Who felt that she had to rehearse
Every sexual joy,
Ever hot little ploy,
To succeed in becoming perverse.
3/10
November 16, 2010
A Grossery of Limericks is the sequel to Asimov and Ciardi's opus of dubious repute, Limericks: Too Gross. As before, each author contributes a round gross (144) of (mostly) bawdy poems, and in the foreword trade barbs that highlight the differences in their personalities.
Alas, the prefatory swapping of insults wasn't nearly enjoyable this time around. Asimov seems too preoccupied with self-congratulation to deliver many put-downs, and those that he does come across as crude and heavy-handed. Ciardi does somewhat better, but he, too, lacks some of the eloquence and devastating effect that made his half of the foreword one of the most delightful bits of Too Gross.
The overall cleverness and humor content of this second volume are about the same as in the first volume, but disappointingly, this new set seem somewhat less vulgar. Several limericks in each set aren't even, technically, dirty. Still, there are a few gems to reward the patient reader, like Asimov's #24:
Our delicate verses, limerickal,
So frequently seem anticlerical.
Each saintly old minister
Is made to seem sinister
And is filled with a lust quite hysterical.
This limerick approaches perfection: it expresses a very impolite, almost blasphemous, idea without resorting to crudeness (not that there's anything wrong with that). Not only that, but it's a meta-limerick: a limerick about limericks. Also, I find the triple-syllable rhymes the most impressive, poetically, and here both sets of rhymes are triple.
Alas, the prefatory swapping of insults wasn't nearly enjoyable this time around. Asimov seems too preoccupied with self-congratulation to deliver many put-downs, and those that he does come across as crude and heavy-handed. Ciardi does somewhat better, but he, too, lacks some of the eloquence and devastating effect that made his half of the foreword one of the most delightful bits of Too Gross.
The overall cleverness and humor content of this second volume are about the same as in the first volume, but disappointingly, this new set seem somewhat less vulgar. Several limericks in each set aren't even, technically, dirty. Still, there are a few gems to reward the patient reader, like Asimov's #24:
Our delicate verses, limerickal,
So frequently seem anticlerical.
Each saintly old minister
Is made to seem sinister
And is filled with a lust quite hysterical.
This limerick approaches perfection: it expresses a very impolite, almost blasphemous, idea without resorting to crudeness (not that there's anything wrong with that). Not only that, but it's a meta-limerick: a limerick about limericks. Also, I find the triple-syllable rhymes the most impressive, poetically, and here both sets of rhymes are triple.
October 17, 2013
Most of them are actually quite bad.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews