Erma Bombeck was an American humorist who was best known for syndicated newspaper humor column describing suburban home life from 1965 to 1996. She took the success from her column and published fifteen books in her career.

During her career, Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns as she chronicled the life of a suburban housewife. Her first published book was At Wit’s End which was a compilation of many of her newspaper columns. She got involved in politics in the nineteen seventies as was involved in the Presidential Advisory Committee for Women for the final implementation of the Equal Rights Amendment that tried to end the legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. Erma passed away in 1996 from complications after a kidney operation.

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Forever, Erma (1996)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Erma Bombeck Collection (2013)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Erma Bombeck, Her Funniest Moments From "At Wit's End" (1977)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1979)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Aunt Erma's Cope Book - How to Get From Monday to Friday in 12 Days (1979)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own! (1979)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank (1981)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Motherhood The Second Oldest Profession (1983)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression (1984)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Seven (1985)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Four of a Kind: A Suburban Field Guide (1985)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
At Wit's End (1986)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Laugh along with Bombeck (1986)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Ties That Bind and Gag (1990)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise (1990)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Best of Bombeck (1993)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
A Marriage Made in Heaven or Too Tired for an Affair (1993)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
All I Know About Animal Behavior I Learned In Loehmann's Dressing Room (1996)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It's Time to Go Home (1997)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Eat Less Cottage Cheese and More Ice Cream (2003)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
When God Created Mothers (2005)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Cookbooks

Mud Pies and Silver Spoons (1985)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

If You Like Erma Bombeck Books, You’ll Love…

The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank is one of Erma’s most popular works. The book tells of when she and her family made the decision to move to the suburbs with all the great hope of a perfect life. Things don’t quite go as she planned and the perfect life is anything but. That doesn’t stop her and her family from trying to make the best of it as suburbanites are the last true pioneers.

Another classic from Bombeck is If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? This book is another humorous take on marriage and family life. This book is stories about her as an expert worrier and how marriage only strengthened that skill. She has many things to worry about in her married life, whether real or imagined, everything from snakes in the pipes to finding something to talk about on New Year’s Eve. Married life is an unpredictable saga and that’s just how Erma prefers it.

Order of Books » Authors » Order of Erma Bombeck Books

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