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‘The Simpsons’ writer discusses humor writing at Brookline Booksmith

Novelist, television writer and producer Larry Doyle talks about his new book, “Deliriously Happy and Other Bad Thoughts,” at the Brookline Booksmith on Wednesday. GRACE DONNELLY/DFP STAFF

Former “The Simpsons” writer Larry Doyle read selections from his new collection of short stories “Deliriously Happy and Other Bad Thoughts” on Wednesday at the Brookline Booksmith.

About 20 people attended the reading in the Used Book Cellar of the local independent bookstore, which has been hosting author events since its inception.

Authors come to read, answer questions and sign their books, said host Jamie Tan .

Doyle read selections from his short story novel, including “Please Read Before Suing,” “Fun Times” and “Bad Dog,” which he complied over a 22-year period most of which were from his time writing for The New Yorker.

He said that there are two types of humor writing— one is taking an ordinary thing and making it seem strange and odd, such as in his novel “I Love You, Beth Cooper.” The other, he said, is taking something very strange and treating it mundanely, such as in his novel “Go, Mutants!”

He said that unlike the wide age-range of fans for “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” literary adult readers and college students would mainly be interested in “Deliriously Happy and Other Bad Thoughts.”

Doyle said that he first became interested in this condensed form of writing when he was a freshman in college and started writing for a humor column.

“When I first started reading this kind of thing was when I picked up a book by Woody Allen,” he said.

However, Doyle said he had a long route to get to where he is now. He said that he did not single-mindedly want to land a job on “The Simpsons,” but a friend from his first job in New York ended up being the show’s producer and offered him a position.

Doyle said that the reading was fairly successful based on attendance.

“I always measure the success of the readings by how many people in the audience [there are] that I don’t know,” he said.

A book signing followed, where Doyle wrote personalized messages for fans and gave out stickers.

His next reading will be in New York, where he said he is not worried about attendance.

“As great of a mix we have of authors, we also have a great mix in our audience,” Tan said.

Tan said the author series represents “a place where the community can come, get books, learn new things and have really great experiences.”

As an author-reading host, Tan said she is able to choose which authors to coordinate. She said the reason for choose to host Doyle because she had read “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” and thought it was hilarious.

“I really liked [the reading],” Tan said. “I thought he was hilarious. I really like his humor. It cracked me up.”

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