This Is the Only Book of Dad Jokes You’ll Ever Need: 302 of the Best and Most Cringeworthy Dad Jokes - Thomas Nowak - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Thomas Nowak

ILLUSTRATOR: Alberto Miranda

GENRE: Humour

PUBLICATION DATE: March 3, 2026

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A collection of Dad jokes. Mix of puns, riddles, and smart one-liners. Some jokes were familiar to me, but many were new. Some were a bit too esoteric, especially for children. If you love Dad jokes, you'll find some great ones in this book. Better suited to adults.

My younger daughter is fond of dad jokes, and we have a gala time at home cracking each other up with our quips. As such, when I saw this book listed on NetGalley, I immediately asked her if she wanted me to get it and read it together. There wasn’t even a moment’s hesitation before her ‘Yes!’ rang out. We ended up having a lot of fun with this buddy read, but also wished some things were different.

The book starts with a humorous dedication – the perfect start to a joke collection. It then moves on to the jokes, with the table of contents indicating the ten topic areas the jokes are distributed across. I didn’t expect a dad joke book to come with topic-based chapters, but I appreciate this idea.

Dad jokes are an underrated art form. I know many of you will snort at this remark. 😁 But I genuinely believe that it takes a special kind of wit to crack a good dad joke. It isn't any ordinary joke; it is a play on words; a pun so annoyingly accurate that you roll your eyes and laugh at the same time; an innocent question with a deviously witty answer; a double entendre that isn't necessarily risqué but is definitely risky to crack in a world of literal-minded people; a fun poke at celebrities/organisations. This book contains all this and more.

The eclectic mix of topics and joke styles kept us both quite entertained. I liked most of the chapters, with ‘Out of this World’ being my favourite. A few of the jokes were familiar to me, but there was enough new content as well. However, some topics didn’t click with me that well due to my lack of interest in them. The sports jokes defeated me. The alcohol humour left me dry. And the carpentry wisecracks hammered the wrong nail.

The book has no outright adult content, but because of some older pop culture references, and because of a fair number of jokes being of the “my wife” kind, this isn't a book aimed at kids, though they too will find chuckle-worthy content herein. Many jokes went above my young reading companion’s head. A few of these were due to genuine comprehension issues such as a tough word or pronunciation that she didn’t know. The rest fell flat either because she was not at all interested in the subject matter (carpentry, for example) or because she didn’t get the references. (Honestly, how many children today would be aware of Forrest Gump, Beach Boys hits, Clint Eastwood’s catchphrase, Blockbuster video rentals, or Mike Tyson’s infamous ear chomp?)

While a majority of the jokes are good, some of them will work only when read. For instance, jokes that are based on spelling-based puns will not be effective if spoken. Thankfully, a major part of the content lends itself to verbal sharing.

There are a few illustrations that appear only in between chapters. The joke pages are graphic-free. The number of jokes (302; I didn’t count them but am trusting the tagline) vis-à-vis the number of pages in the book (272) clearly shows that most pages come with just one joke, some have two. I wasn’t a big fan of the all-CAPS typeface, but I guess it does work for the format. The dual-colour text helps segregate the Q&A joke lines well.

Overall though, this was a fun book to read. In an era where life is full of dystopian events, we can trust dads and their jokes to make us forget the tension for a few minutes.

Recommended. With its dimensions being roughly 13x18 cms, this tiny hardcover book is apt for gifting to any adult with a funny bone. (Not restricting it to dads alone. Some moms also crack the best dad jokes. 😉)

My thanks to Chronicle Books for providing the DRC of “This Is the Only Book of Dad Jokes You’ll Ever Need” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

Winding up with a few sample jokes from the book:

💧 R.I.P. boiled water. You will be mist.

🐔 Why did Mozart get rid of all his chickens?

All they said was "Bach, Bach, Bach."

💰 I won $3 million in the lottery this weekend, so I decided to donate a quarter to charity. Now I have $2,999,999.75.