CANADIANS could certainly use a few good laughs these days, and humorists have answered the challenge with some new books aimed at our funny bones. Humour hall of famers such as Leacock and Thurber are safe, but there are some hearty chuckles to be had by turning these pages. Perhaps, though, we live in a world that`s increasingly harder to satirize or parody, since I found a relatively meagre laughs-to-pages-read ratio from this group of fairly well-known writers. Of the five books that arrived in the pre-holiday mail, the least likely proved the most successful. The University of Calgary professor and award-winning author David C. Jones has produced A Funny Bone That Was (Detselig, 156 pages, $15.95 paper), a compilation of excerpts from a humour column that appeared in the Medicine Hat News between 1921 and 1951. In spite of its unfortunately awkward title, and the seeming dryness of the subject matter, the book emerges as a history lesson with a veritable sense of humour. More interesting than the inherent amusement in these one-liners, bits of doggerel, and apocryphal epitaphs and anecdotes are the frequent parallels between the past events chronicled and current headline incidents. Consider, for instance, this entry on the scandalous behaviour of a certain female personality: "In 1926, her Broadway play `Sex` offended even American sensibilities and was prohibited - but only after much thought and 375 performances." The subject, of course, was Mae West, but the uncanny context immediately brings a more modem sex siren to mind, does it not? As well, many of the more cynical witticisms from the depths of the Depression also strike a chord in our troubled economic times: "Colleges now prepare youngsters for everything except the obscurity and poverty that most of them will get" and "Most of the people who keep on expecting the worst fail utterly to grasp the significance of the present." Jones has arranged this book as part history reader, part oral history, and part joke book. It will give a lot of pleasure to anyone who likes humour and Canadian history; and it will pleasantly surprise those who think those two subjects aren`t compatible. What is a pile of Canadian burnout books without one by Charlie Farquharson - Histry of Canda (Macmillan, 174 pages, $16.95 cloth) - tumbling out from somewhere? Old Charlie (a.k.a. Don Harron) has been milking this rube shtick for many moons now and, well, by now you either like it a lot or you wince at the mention of the author`s name. Part one, titled "Yet First Sittyzens," starts like this: "Now there ain`t no sitch thing as yet averidge Injun. As far as acommin langridge is consern, them differnt tribes woodna known what each uther was talkin` about. Yer West Coaster, Hyeedas, and Squeamish is a diffrunt kettle of fish frum them Marrytimer McMacs hoose lifestile was mostly dulse." The rest of Histry of Canda is just more of the same. If you find it hilarious, run right out and grab this "ree-vised and more expansive" version of an earlier book. For fans of the dying art of true doggerel, there`s Bill Richardson`s Queen of All the Dustballs (Polestar, 95 pages, $14.95 paper). Doggerel is doggerel, of course, and many of these "epics" are forced and overextended. But there are some genuine masterpieces here. True to his title, Richardson tackles the everyday topics, such as the involvement of an entire office staff in the pregnancy of a colleague ("The Office Project"). "The Gift Eternal" details the timeless art of giftgiving, department-store style. This "selfstyled Poet Laureate of Canada" has a wry, clever sense of humour that keeps most of these offerings afloat, and every "mature" person will find Richardson`s "The Middle Years" frighteningly funny. Eric Nicol is another writer who has been at this burnout business for a long time, and with generally commendable results considering his prolific output. But in Back Talk (McClelland & Stewart, 143 pages, $14.99 paper), Nicol may have finally stretched too far for a subject. Perhaps, with the right touch, back pain could be made funny enough to justify writing a whole book about it. Perhaps. But too much of Back Talk is obvious filler for what should have been a much shorter work. Another problem is that people who have never suffered back pain won`t get much of the banter here, while those who have (or are) may find it hard to laugh about something that isn`t very funny. Even Nicol`s attempts at humour not specifically aimed at back-pain sufferers often seem stale and forced. His postoperation quips about how soon the patient can have sex sound like an old Bob Hope monologue. I`m glad his operation was successful, but the post-op humour still needs some therapy. Last on my list is a book with the tantalizing title The Sensuous Canadian (Jesperson, 144 pages, $11.95 paper). Despite the promising nature of the topic, this just doesn`t pan out to full-lengthbook treatment, either. There are some genuinely funny passages here, but the overall quality is watered down by snickering references to "our national liquid" (maple syrup), combined with puns ("I`m tapping a few trees this weekend") that are more crude than lewd, and more lewd than humorous.