NEW YORK — Melissa Rivers wanted to laugh – and she wants her readers to do the same.

Mission accomplished on both counts, thanks to her best-selling memoir, “The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief and Manipulation” (Crown Archetype). It’s a touching, revealing and above all funny paean to her mother, Joan Rivers, who died last September at 81 after complications from minor throat surgery.

Joan Rivers’ legacy seems to include the sense of humor so apparent in daughter Melissa, left.

The book is free of a daughter’s grief, or her undeniable anger. (Rivers has filed a malpractice lawsuit.) Instead, the approach is light-hearted, affectionate – and funny.

“We wanted to call the book ‘Cheaper Than Therapy,’ but we were afraid it would get mixed up in the Self-Help Therapy section of the bookstore,” the younger Rivers said.

In the first pages, Rivers attempts to summarize this pint-sized, outspoken force of nature: “My mother was a comedian, actress, writer, producer, jewelry monger, tchotchke maker, spokesperson, hand model, ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ winner and a self-appointed somewhat-goodwill-ambassador to 27 Third World countries that were unaware they had a goodwill ambassador.”

Yes, there was a method to Joan’s madness, but it formed the logical roots of someone who didn’t cater to logic.

Joan on marriage: “Your father didn’t care if I went to bed mad. He cared if I went to Bergdorf mad.”

Joan on cosmetic surgery: “Better to have a new you coming out of an old car than an old you coming out of a new car.”

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