LAUGHING MATTERS: A Celebration of American Humor <i> selected and edited by Gene Shalit (Ballantine: $14.95, illustrated)</i>

The reader invariably wants to re-edit a humor anthology, and “Laughing Matters� is no exception. Gene Shalit has assembled some hilarious material for this collection: Mark Twain’s “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences,� Dorothy Parker’s “From the Diary of a New York Lady,� Woody Allen’s “The Scrolls.� But he also made some very odd choices: He included three of Garrison Keillor’s comic essays, but no “Lake Wobegon� stories; Will Rogers is represented only by a fragment of a monologue, rather than his newspaper columns. Burns and Allen’s “Say Goodnight, Gracie� and Costello’s “Who’s on First� are classics, but they should be heard, rather than read. “Laughing Matters� is certainly entertaining, but the reader can’t help thinking that omitting some pieces and including others would make it funnier.