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Little did we know when we sent this book to the printer earlier this year that the world would soon be turned upside down. Our new normal is anything but normal.

Yet here we are trying to make the best out of a very tough situation. We hope this new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter Is the Best Medicine: 101 Feel Good Stories, our first-ever collection of laugh out loud stories, will lighten the burden and inspire hope.

Here are previews of two of my favorite really funny stories from the book that are sure to put a smile on your face:

Technology can be truly scary.
In her story "Home Alone" Jennifer Clark Vihel was in her bathroom, with her very noisy fan going. But even so, she heard the intruder pounding on her bathroom door and could even see its shadow through the crack at the bottom of the door. Her dogs were outside and she was home alone. Jennifer armed herself with the only “weapon� she could find in the bathroom, a hair clip with a sharp metal point. She was afraid to turn off the fan because that would alert the intruder to her presence, but when she hadn’t heard the intruder pounding on the bathroom door for five minutes, Jennifer mustered her courage. She opened the bathroom door, armed with her hair-clip “dagger.� She was going to make a dash for her cell phone and call for help. And that’s when she found the intruder—her robot vacuum, silent now and stuck under the low crossbar of a chair.

Laughing at yourself is just as good as chocolate.
In Elynne Chaplik-Aleskow's story "Round Trip" she was on one of her many diets and for once she was doing great, having gone a whole month without chocolate. She even made her sister her accountability partner so she’d have to admit it if she cheated. But then one day Elynne was running an errand from work and as she walked down a main street in Chicago she stopped at a light right next to a Fannie May candy store. Elynne cracked; she pushed that revolving door, already tasting the delicious chocolate in her mind. But, as she tried to enter the store, the revolving door wouldn’t stop and she found herself right back on the sidewalk where she had started. Why? Because her sister had coincidentally been passing by at the exact moment that Elynne lost her resolve and had rushed into the door behind her and kept it turning. Elynne says, “We laughed so hard that my need for a chocolate fix passed� for the moment.�


Amy Newmark

June is truly wedding season! Everywhere I look, I see wedding photos on social media... so much love and laughter. It always puts a smile on my face.

Weddings also remind me of one of my favorite stories from our new humor book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Well THAT Was Funny. It's a fun story about how our writer and her husband accidently walked into the wrong reception at a wedding. Here is a sneak peek:

In Alice Muschany's story, "The Envelope, Please!" Alice and her husband were invited to a wedding—the son of one of their co-workers. They had never met the son but they had been hearing about him for years from his dad.

They arrived at the banquet center and walked into a gorgeously decorated ballroom. Alice found the gift table and a miniature antique white trunk for wedding cards. She stuffed their envelope into the slot in the trunk. Then she and her husband enjoyed the open bar and lots of delicious appetizers.

The wedding party waltzed in, and the beaming couple greeted guests as they made their way to the head table. The groom shook hands with them and Alice’s husband told him how much he looked like his father.

Then Alice and her husband found two seats at an empty table and joined the long buffet line that stretched past an open doorway. And that’s when it happened. They were standing by that open doorway and Alice looked out in the hallway and saw a woman from her office walk right by and keep going.

That’s when Alice realized they were at the wrong wedding reception. They were supposed to have gone down the hall to a different ballroom.

And that’s when it got embarrassing. Alice tried to lift the metal clasp on the vintage trunk into which she had stuffed their wedding gift, but it wouldn’t budge. Then she knocked one of the gifts off the table. A man appeared and asked if could help. It was the father of the groom and at first he was not amused, but then Alice showed him the invitation to the OTHER wedding. He unlatched the lid on the box, chuckling, while Alice pawed through the envelopes to find the one addressed to the couple in the ballroom down the hall. And off they rushed to the other wedding, hoping they were in time for the meal.



Amy Newmark