Understanding Conversational Joking by Nadine Thielemann offers a comprehensive overview of major theories and approaches to conversational humour and attempts at leveraging a variety of approaches, some of which have often been overlooked in humour studies. The extent of the review of the literature, as well as the examination of discourse examples from a variety of angles, provides a valuable source for humour scholars, particularly graduate students of humour studies. The eclectic approach of the book may not be entirely novel, but there are new, perceptive points of view offered in the book (e.g., adding interpretive sociolinguistics to conversation analysis) or some previous concepts are improved in definition, such as the very insightful discussion about norms, normalcy, frames, cognitive contrast, etc. -- Reza Arab, Griffith University, Australia, in The European Journal of Humor Research 11 (4), 2023.
