Joke Book

Simon & Schuster ($3).

Irrepressible Bennett Cerf, president of Random House, has pasted together six anthologies in eight years (including The Bedside Book of Famous Stories, The Pocket Book of War Humor). Now he has made a 378-page collection of his favorite jokes and anecdotes. Samples :

P: An R.A.F. pilot was shot down in Occupied France, taken in by a friendly abbess and dressed as a nun. After eight weeks playing the part of a model sister, he suddenly swept a beautiful young nun into his arms. " 'Old yer 'orses, carn't yer?" barked the nun. "I been 'ere since Dunkerque."

P: A couple of frogs were dining at the Ritz. Complained one: "You haven't spoken to me all evening. You're angry at me." "It isn't that at all," explained the other, "I just can't talk tonight. I've got a man in my throat."

P: Scribner Editor Maxwell Perkins once discovered a four-letter word in a Hemingway manuscript, showed it to the late Publisher Charles Scribner. "Remember," he said, "that we're forbidden by contract to change a word [of Hemingway]." "Dear, dear." said Mr. Scribner, "we will have to discuss this fully when I return from lunch." Then he vaguely jotted down the word on a pad headed: "What To Do Today."

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