"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward." So said Kurt Vonnegut, author of some of the most painfully funny literature of the last century. As a small book is published, featuring the first and last stories he ever wrote, we ask his daughter, Nanette, why she decided to publish them. She tells us about rediscovering the funny side of the father who was spirited away from her as a child by his sudden literary celebrity.
Then we talk to Mark Evans, creator of the Radio 4 series Bleak Expectations, which has just started its fifth series. He explains why he felt compelled to write the novel of the series and how parody is the sincerest form of flattery.
Alex Hamilton, whose interviews with writers spanning fifty years have just been published, enumerates the six types of humour, and John Crace, author of the Guardian's own Digested Read, looks at the difference between parody and satire, and the enduring fun of sending up Charles Dickens.
