Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar

...no really, that's the title. Or, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, to be exact. And the book's as delightfully off-kilter as it sounds.

If there's one thing this book told me, it's that life is too important to take too seriously. Life, death, worldviews...all so essential to who we are, and yet we weigh down these fundamental questions with so much drama that they seem like burdens. And to escape these burdens we turn to humor and to cheesy jokes, only adding the burden of life that we can only laugh about it if we call that "irreverent" and tsk-tsk it into a tidy corner after our little fun.

In this book, however, our escapist jokes are taken and fondly deconstructed, leaving a study of philosophy both serious and with a touch of self-deprecation. The authors plainly know that it's easy to get bogged down by such things and so they make it light, keeping the realization that these are the most important questions to ask in overtones masquerading as undertones. It's a delightful read; informative if you take it seriously, freeing if you take it as permission for a breath of fresh air.