Book excerpt: In this humorous collection of celebrity wit, acclaimed broadcaster and humorist Charles Osgood offers witticisms penned by luminaries ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Andy Rooney. Known for his clever commentary and witty radio-show rhymes, Charles Osgood here selects and introduces a collection of hilarious correspondence from some of our best-loved politicians, authors, and stars of the stage and screen. Funny Letters from Famous People delivers rib-tickling communications from the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Flannery O’Connor, S. J. Perelman, Groucho Marx, Bob Hope, John Cheever and dozens more. Providing an entertaining look at celebrated lives, Osgood lets us glimpse Mark Twain squabbling with the gas company, Dwight D. Eisenhower kvetching to Mamie about Patton, and radio personality Fred Allen desperately seeking logic from his insurance carrier in one of comedy’s most amusing epistles. Sprinkled throughout with Osgood’s own humorous quips, Funny Letters from Famous People is a delightful compendium of clever letter writing at its side-splitting best.