STEFANIE ROBERTS, Avenue Writer
Coming from anyone else, the line "This one's for the ladies" would likely elicit an exasperated eye-roll from its intended recipients.
But when Emmy Award-winning "Daily Show" producer and "Colbert Report" co-creator Ben Karlin employs it as the dedication in his relationship anthology "Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me," the ladies can't help but laugh.
"Things I've Learned," edited by Karlin, is a collection of love lessons from an impressive list of renowned celebrities and authors.
The contributors put a smart spin on romantic rejection and revel in their awkwardness, endearing them to both male and female readers who know what it's like to be on the receiving end of heartbreak.
Surprisingly, a few of the better-known comic actors' anecdotes fall flat.
Andy Richter's "Girls Don't Make Passes at Boys with Fat Asses" focuses so much on Richter's career it borders on self-indulgent. And Stephen Colbert's "The Heart is a Choking Hazard," whose humor hinges on the premise that the author's wife edited it for content, reads like a choppy censored wartime letter.
Aside from these few mildly disappointing exceptions, the rest of the stories are guffaw-out-loud funny, like David Wain's mini-screenplay "Persistence is for Suckers."
Female readers may even find themselves inexplicably crushing on each story's bumbling, sympathetic antihero.
Fortunately for these dumped dudes, the nerdy funnyman's growing appeal will soon render books like Karlin's obsolete.
