FRAMINGHAM, Mass. Molly Yardnal is a stocking clerk at the Barnes & Noble book store in this suburb of Boston who’s finding it hard to do her job now that students have returned to local colleges and the aisles are jammed. “I guess people are buying books because big-ticket itemsare too extravagantin this economy,” she says as customers squeeze by her. “Either that or they’re way cheap.”

Today, Molly is working the humor aisle as she rips open cardboard shipping boxes filled with copies of “The Big Book of Presbyterian Humor,” the latest in a series of similar titles by Minoz Press. “Next to the Big Book of Jewish Humor and the Big Book of Catholic Humor, it looks kind of small,” she notes dubiously.

“If I told you you had a nice body, would you hold it against—never mind.”

“It should sell well as aChristmas stocking stuffer,” says editor…