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Without Feathers is one of Woody Allen’s most popular literary works, and is an eclectic collection of essays, stories, plays and personal musings. Summary Of The Book Without Feathers is a wide ranging collection of Woody Allen’s writings, containing plays, stories and short essays. The filmmaker and humorist shows off his flair for comedy and the absurd in this collection of 16 short stories. The first of these is Selections From The Allen Notebooks. These observations are from his personal diary, which he says should be published posthumously or after his death, whichever comes first. He muses on death, on God, and on the Origin of Slang Words. He does this by adding a dose of his unique brand of humor. He combines the profound with the absurd in his quirky observations. In the play Death, a character called Kleinman is persuaded by a mob to join them in looking for a killer. They tell him that everyone has an important part to play in their plan, but Kleinman himself is never told what his part is. He writes about the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which he says, were discovered by a shepherd, who in his ignorance sold them for $750,000 each to the museum. He also gives new twists to old saws and proverbs, like “the lion and the calf shall certainly lie down together, but the calf won’t get much sleep.” The story, If Impressionists Were Dentists, is a scenario where Allen presents Vincent Van Gogh as a dentist instead of a painter. It consists of a collection of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo. In one of them, he says he is being sued by one of his patients because he designed a bridge according to how he felt it should be, and now it won’t fit in her mouth. This book is a delightful collection of humorous writing. The title, Without Feathers, is a take on Emily Dickinson's observation that “hope is the thing with feathers.” About Woody Allen Woody Allen is an American filmmaker, comedian, actor and playwright. Some of his other books are Don't Drink the Water: A Comedy in Two Acts, Writer's Block: Two One-Act Plays, Getting Even, and Side Effects. Allen Stewart Konigsberg AKA Woody Allen, was born in 1935. He began his career writing jokes and scripts for television. Later, he became a stand-up comedian. In the 1960s, he began writing and directing movies. Some of his best known films are Midnight In Paris, Annie Hall, and Manhattan. Woody Allen has won four Academy Awards and has been nominated 23 times. Comedy Central, in 2004, ranked Allen fourth in its list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians, and a British survey ranked him as the third greatest comic.