A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR Amy Poehler, Mel Brooks, Adam McKay, George Saunders, Bill Hader, Patton Oswalt, and many more take us deep inside the mysterious world of comedy in this fascinating, laugh-out-loud-funny book. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories—from a day in the writers’ room at The Onion to why a sketch does or doesn’t make it onto Saturday Night Live to how the BBC nearly erased the entire first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Poking a Dead Frog is a must-read for comedy buffs, writers and pop culture junkies alike.

How To Write Jokes for Fun & ProfitThis comprehensive joke writing masterclass has been devised for beginners and experienced joke writers alike. The techniques you will learn can be used again and again to write funny and original material for: Stand-u

"Pulpy, peppery and sinister, served up in a comic deadpan...This scorpion-tailed little thriller leaves a response, and a sting, you will remember."--NEW YORK TIMES"The wittiest and most fun murder party you've ever been invited to."--MARIE CLAIREWINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR MYSTERY/THRILLERSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 WOMEN'S PRIZEA short, darkly funny, hand grenade of a novel about a Nigerian woman whose younger sister has a very inconvenient habit of killing her boyfriends"Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer."Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row is dead.Korede's practicality is the sisters' saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her "missing" boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she's exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola's phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she's willing to go to protect her.Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite's deliciously deadly debut is as fun as it is frightening.

I do know how to behave - believe me, because I know. I have always known...'Behind the gates of Temple Alice the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires. This elegant and allusive novel established Molly Keane as the natural successor to Jean Rhys.

Learn (and love) the language of the landlocked in this bitingly funny illustrated guide to the common phrases and sentiments of the American Heartland, from the author of the McSweeney’s series “A Guide to Midwestern Conversation.”If you end an evening by slapping your thighs and saying, “Welp, I’ll go ahead and get outta your hair,” then you don’t need this guide, but you sure as heck might like it. Full of common Midwestern phrases (and what they really mean behind the friendly facade), A Guide to Midwestern Conversation is an affectionate, self-deprecating look at the language of a people long defined by their kindness and reduced to their voting patterns. Written by born-and-bred Midwesterner Taylor Kay Phillips, it’s a wink, a hug, and a firm handshake (with eye contact) to the millions of Americans who say soda and pop interchangeably and grew up doing tornado drills in school.Discover Midwestern conversational staples like:How to announce that you hate something beyond comprehension (“I didn’t really care for it”) What counts as “a short drive” (less than eight hours) Sports talk (starts early, doesn’t end till we’re six feet under) Describing the ultimate dream home (“It’s got a finished basement”) An ode to the Garage FridgeIncluding an array of guides, tips, and profiles of all the states included, A Guide to Midwestern Conversation is guaranteed to make Midwesterners (and their friends) laugh out loud, nod their heads, and ask if “anyone needs anything real quick while I’m up.”

Tracy Flick is back and, once again, the iconic protagonist of Tom Perrotta's Election--and Reese Witherspoon's character from the classic movie adaptation--is determined to take high school politics by storm. Tracy Flick is a hardworking assistant principal at a public high school in suburban New Jersey. Still ambitious but feeling a little stuck and underappreciated in midlife, Tracy gets a jolt of good news when the longtime principal, Jack Weede, abruptly announces his retirement, creating a rare opportunity for Tracy to ascend to the top job. Energized by the prospect of her long-overdue promotion, Tracy throws herself into her work with renewed zeal, determined to prove her worth to the students, faculty, and School Board, while also managing her personal life--a ten-year-old daughter, a needy doctor boyfriend, and a burgeoning meditation practice. But nothing ever comes easily to Tracy Flick, no matter how diligent or qualified she happens to be. Among her many other responsibilities, Tracy is enlisted to serve on the Selection Committee for the brand-new Green Meadow High School Hall of Fame. Her male colleagues' determination to honor Vito Falcone--a star quarterback of dubious character who had a brief, undistinguished career in the NFL--triggers bad memories for Tracy, and leads her to troubling reflections about the trajectory of her own life and the forces that have left her feeling thwarted and disappointed, unable to fulfill her true potential. As she broods on the past, Tracy becomes aware of storm clouds brewing in the present. Is she really a shoo-in for the Principal job? Is the Superintendent plotting against her? Why is the School Board President's wife trying so hard to be her friend? And why can't she ever get what she deserves? In classic Perrotta style, Tracy Flick Can't Win is a sharp, darkly comic, and pitch-perfect reflection on our current moment. Flick fans and newcomers alike will love this compelling novel chronicling the second act of one of the most memorable characters of our time.

Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year. 'Outstanding...a stunningly good read' Observer. 'Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement...Wise and bleakly funny' Ian McEwan. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

The titles in the "Textplus" series, designed to reflect the changing nature of English Literature at advanced post-GCSE level, offer the complete text with a specially commissioned introduction and compact background notes placing the work in historical and critical context. Together, these components are intended to open up the text for students, allowing them to plot their own course of study, to plan extended projects, to compare writers' perspectives on similar themes and to relate works to key social and historical phenomena.

Want to learn the improv techniques that helped Mike Myers, Chris Farley, John Belushi, and many others along the road to TV and film stardom? Then let two esteemed founders of long-form improvisational theatre, Del Close and Charna Halpern, teach you the "Harold." This groundbreaking acting exercise emphasizes pattern recognition and subversion of the audience s expectations, which are important factors for making people laugh without ever telling a joke. It involves six to seven players and many kinds of scenes: games, monologues, songs, skits and more, all of which are bound to keep both actors and audience members guessing. The Harold is non-linear entertainment that remembers everything and wastes nothing the key to successful improvising and has become a standard in comedy clubs and improv theatres around the globe.

The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books."If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.

From New York Times bestselling author, Family Guy writer, and HBO star Gary Janetti comes Start Without Me, a collection of hilarious, laugh out loud, true life stories about the small moments that add up to a big life. Gary Janetti is bothered. By a lot of things. And thank God he's here to tell us. In Start Without Me, Gary returns with his acid tongue firmly in cheek to the moments and times that defined him. He takes us by the hand as we follow him through the summers he spends in his twenties, pursuing both the perfect tan and the perfect man to no avail and much regret. At his Catholic high school, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a nun who shares Gary's love of soap operas, which becomes a salvation to them both. And don't get him started on how a bad hotel room can ruin even the best vacation. This laugh-out-loud collection of true-life stories from the man "behind his generation's greatest comedy" (The New York Times) is for anyone who has felt the joy in holding a decade-long grudge. Whether you are a new convert to Janetti or one of the million who follow him on social media for a daily laugh, Start Without Me will have you howling at Gary's frustrations and nodding along in agreement at the outrages of life's small slights. It's the literary equivalent of a night out with your funniest friend that you wish would never end.

Judy Carter, guru to aspiring comedy writers and stand-up comics, tells all about the biz of being funny and writing funny in this bright, entertaining, and totally practical guide on how to draw humor from your life and turn it into a career.Do you think you’re funny? Do you want to turn your sense of humor into a career? If the answer is yes, then Judy Carter’s The Comedy Bible is for you. The guru to aspiring stand-up comics provides the complete scoop on being—and writing—funny for money.If you’ve got a sense of humor, you can learn to make a career out of comedy, says Judy Carter. Whether it’s creating a killer stand-up act, writing a spec sitcom, or providing jokes for radio or one-liners for greeting cards, Carter provides step-by-step instructions in The Comedy Bible. She helps readers first determine which genre of comedy writing or performing suits them best and then directs them in developing, refining, and selling their work. Using the hands-on workbook format that was so effective in her bestselling first book, Stand-Up Comedy: The Book, Carter offers a series of day-by-day exercises that draw on her many years as a successful stand-up comic and the head of a nationally known comedy school. Also included are practical tips and advice from today’s top comedy professionals—from Bernie Brillstein to Christopher Titus to Richard Lewis. She presents the pros and cons of the various comedy fields—stand-up, script, speech and joke writing, one-person shows, humor essays—and shows how to tailor your material for each. She teaches how to find your “authentic” voice—the true source of comedy. And, perhaps most important, Carter explains how to take a finished product to the next level—making money—by pitching it to a buyer and negotiating a contract. Written in Carter’s unique, take-no-prisoners voice, The Comedy Bible is practical, inspirational, and funny.

Reading books is a kind of enjoyment. Reading books is a good habit. We bring you a different kinds of books. You can carry this book where ever you want. It is easy to carry. It can be an ideal gift to yourself and to your loved ones. Care instruction keep away from fire.

This comic novel won the 1990 Commonwealth Writers Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Moses Berger decides to write a history of the wealthy Gursky family in Canada, and traces it back to the mysterious Solomon's grandfather - a forger, Arctic explorer and self-styled rabbi.

Love in a Cold Climate is the sequel to Nancy Mitford's bestselling novel The Pursuit of Love. 'How lovely - green velvet and silver. I call that a dream, so soft and delicious, too.' She rubbed a fold of the skirt against her cheek. 'Mine's silver lame, it smells like a bird cage when it gets hot but I do love it. Aren't you thankful evening skirts are long again?' Ah, the dresses! But oh, the monotony of the Season, with its endless run of glittering balls. Even fabulously fashionable Polly Hampton - with her startling good looks and excellent social connections - is beginning to wilt under the glare. Groomed for the perfect marriage by her mother, fearsome Lady Montdore, Polly instead scandalises society by declaring her love for her uncle 'Boy' Dougdale, the Lecherous Lecturer, and promptly eloping to France. But the consequences of this union no one could quite expect . . . Love in a Cold Climate is the wickedly funny follow-up to The Pursuit of Love. 'Entirely original, inimitable and irresistible' Philip Hensher, Spectator

In this comprehensive approach to Jewish humor focused on the relationship between humor and American Jewish practice, Jennifer Caplan calls us to adopt a more expansive view of what it means to "do Jewish," revealing that American Jews have turned, and continue to turn, to humor as a cultural touchstone. Caplan frames the book around four generations of Jewish Americans from the Silent Generation to Millennials, highlighting a shift from the utilization of Jewish-specific markers to American-specific markers.Jewish humor operates as a system of meaning-making for many Jewish Americans. By mapping humor onto both the generational identity of those making it and the use of Judaism within it, new insights about the development of American Judaism emerge. Caplan's explication is innovative and insightful, engaging with scholarly discourse across Jewish studies and Jewish American history; it includes the work of Joseph Heller, Larry David, Woody Allen, Seinfeld, the Coen brothers films, and Broad City. This example of well-informed scholarship begins with an explanation of what makes Jewish humor Jewish and why Jewish humor is such a visible phenomenon. Offering ample evidence and examples along the way, Caplan guides readers through a series of phenomenological and ideological changes across generations, concluding with commentary regarding the potential influences on Jewish humor of later Millennials, Gen Z, and beyond.

DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT ? Every great joke has a punch line, and every great humor writer has an arsenal of experiences, anecdotes, and obsessions that were the inspiration for that humor. In fact, those who make a career out of entertaining strangers with words are a notoriously intelligent and quirky lot. And boy, do they have some stories. In this entertaining and inspirational book, you'll hear from 21 top humor writers as they discuss the comedy-writing process, their influences, their likes and dislikes, and their experiences in the industry. You?ll also learn some less useful but equally amusing things, such as: \n\nHow screenwriter Buck Henry came up with the famous "plastics" line for The Graduate. \nHow many times the cops were called on co-writers Sacha Baron Cohen and Dan Mazer during the shooting of Borat. \nWhat David Sedaris thinks of his critics. \nWhat creator Paul Feig thinks would have happened to the Freaks & Geeks crew if the show had had another season. \nWhat Jack Handey considers his favorite Deep Thoughts.? \nHow Todd Hanson and the staff of The Onion managed to face the aftermath of 9/11 with the perfect dose of humor. \nHow Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais created the original version of The Office. \nWhat it's really like in the writers? room at SNL. \n Funny and informative, And Here's the Kicker is a must-have resource - whether you're an aspiring humor writer, a fan of the genre, or someone who just likes to laugh.

Paperback in very good condition. Signed by the author on the title page. The cover is a little shelfworn, mainly on the edges and leading corners. The binding is sound with clear text. CM

From “weird, scary, ingenious” (The New York Times) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, an instant New York Times bestselling, brutally honest, and “laugh-out-loud funny” (Jennette McCurdy, #1 New York Times bestselling author) memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of rigid belief systems—from Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Richard Simmons, to 12-step programs.Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it.In Bamford’s “trademark blend of disarming intimacy and dark whimsy” (Publishers Weekly), Sure, I’ll Join Your Cultbrings us on a quest to participate in something. With sincerity and transparency, she recounts every anonymous fellowship she has joined (including but not limited to: Debtors Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, and Overeaters Anonymous), every hypomanic episode (from worrying about selling out under capitalism to enforcing union rules on her Netflix TV show set to protect her health), and every easy 1-to-3-step recipe for fudge in between.Packed with “Bamford’s brilliance, relentless humor, and insatiable instinct for survival (Library Journal), this memoir explores what it means to keep going, and to be a member of society (or any group she’s invited to) despite not being very good at it. In turn, she hopes to transform isolating experiences into comedy that will make you feel less alone (without turning into a cult following).

The Must-Have Guide to Humor Writing Bring on the funny! With Comedy Writing Secrets 3rd Edition, you can discover the secrets of humor writing that will keep your readers rolling in their seats. Learn the basics of joke construction, as well as in-depth comedy-writing techniques that you can apply to a variety of print and online markets. If your aim is to make 'em laugh--and make a career in comedy writing--then look no further. In this completely revised and refreshed edition, you'll discover: • Hundreds of updated one-liners, anecdotes, and bits from top comedians like Louis C.K., Conan O’Brien, Tina Fey, Amy Schumer, Rodney Dangerfield, Jon Stewart, Steve Martin, Ellen DeGeneres, Jimmy Fallon, George Carlin, Zach Galifianakis, Stephen Colbert, Erma Bombeck, and more. • Exclusive tips for injecting humor into articles, speeches, advertisements, greeting cards, and more. • New instruction on writing for online markets and social media. • Advice on brainstorming and editing to beat writer's block and generate new material. • Exercises and expanded instructions for exaggeration, reverses, word play and more to practice and refine your writing skills.For more than twenty years, Comedy Writing Secrets has helped humor writers of all skill levels write and sell their work. With Comedy Writing Secrets 3rd Edition, you'll be laugh-out-loud funny and leave readers wanting more.

This is an hilarious collection of email exchanges starring the anti-hero of spam, Bob Servant, now republished with previously unreleased material. Spam is the plague of the electronic age, comprising 90% of all emails sent and conning over GBP150m a year from British victims. Into this wave of corruption steps the brave figure of Bob Servant - a former window cleaner and cheeseburger magnate with a love of wine, women and song as well as a keen sense of fair play. This wickedly funny and original book features the anarchic exchanges between Bob and the hapless spam merchants. As they offer Bob lost African millions, Russian brides and get-rich-quick scams he responds by generously offering some outlandish schemes of his own. The spammers may have breached his firewall, but they have met their match as Bob Servant rises heroically to the challenge, and sows confusion in his wake.

***An Instant New York Times Bestseller***A Goodreads Choice Nominee for Best Humor BookOne of Vulture's Best Comedy Books of 2022 | One of Business Insider's Best Books About Celebrities | One of NPR's Books We Love in 2022 | One of Hudson's Best Books of 2022 | One of Audible's Best of Audiobooks of 2022From Conan O’Brien’s longtime assistant and cohost of his podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, a completely hilarious and irreverent how-to guide for becoming a terrible, yet unfireable employee, spilling her trade secrets for minimizing effort while maximizing the rewards.Sona Movsesian didn’t wake up one day and decide to become the World’s Worst Assistant. Achieving such greatness is a gradual process--one that starts with long hours and hard work before it eventually descends into sneaking low-dosage edibles into your lunch and napping on your boss’s couch.With a foreword from Conan O’Brien, The World’s Worst Assistant is populated with hysterical black-and-white illustrations, comics, and more. It’s a mixture of how-tos (like How to Nap at Work and How to Watch TV at Your Desk), tips for becoming untouchable (like memorizing social security and credit card numbers and endearing yourself to friends and family), and incredible personal stories from Sona’s twelve years spent working for Conan that put their adorable closeness and professional dysfunction on display. In these pages, Sona will explain her descent from eager, hard-working, ambitious, detail-orientated assistant to self-awarded title-holder for the worst in history.This book is irresistible fun you’ll want to give to every young professional in your life. For readers of heartfelt humor like that of Phoebe Robinson and Colin Jost, The World’s Worst Assistant is a chance for fans, viewers, and listeners of Conan’s shows and podcast to fall in love with Sona and Conan all over again.

So funny it will make you sick-Time OutFor several years, Robin Cooper has been plaguing department stores, hotels, associations, fan clubs and a certain children's book publisher with his letters.From Prince Charles to the Peanut Council, Harrods to the British Halibut Association - no one is safe.So who is Robin Cooper?Architect, thimble designer, trampoline tester and wasp expert, Robin Cooper is all of these things - it just depends on the person he's writing to...

Restraint of Beasts

“One of my favorite books of all time.” ―Amy SchumerA tour de force of comedy and reflection about the perilous journey from kindergarten to twelfth grade and beyond―from the beloved stand-up comic and creator of The Great DepreshFor years, Gary Gulman had been the comedian’s comedian, acclaimed for his delight in language and his bracing honesty. But after two stints in a psych ward, he found himself back in his mother’s house in Boston―living in his childhood bedroom at age forty-six, as he struggled to regain his mental health.That’s where Misfit begins. Then it goes way back.This is no ordinary book about growing older and growing up. Gulman has an astonishing memory and takes the reader through every year of his childhood education, with obsessively detailed stories that are in turn alarming and riotously funny. We meet Gulman’s family, neighbors, teachers, heroes, and antagonists, and get to know the young comedian-in-the-making who is his own worst―and most persistent―enemy.From failing to impress at grade school show-and-tell to literally fumbling at his first big football game―in settings that take us all the way from the local playground to the local mall, from Hebrew School to his best (and only) friend’s rec room, young Gary becomes a stand-in for everyone who grew up wondering if they would ever truly fit in. And that’s not all: the book is also chock-full of ‘80s nostalgia (Scented Markers, indifference to sunscreen, mall culture).Misfit is a book that only Gary Gulman could have written: a brilliant, witty, poignant, laugh-until-your-face-hurts memoir that speaks directly to the awkward child in us all.

Comedian and musician Reggie Watts shares his story of growing up in Montana as a biracial oddball struggling to navigate life, girls, drugs, and his own identity in America’s heartland—and having a blast doing it.Reggie Watts is weird. But you knew that. Anyone who’s seen his multifaceted, entirely improvised comedy and music shows knows that. Reggie Watts is also from the town of Great Falls, MT.These two facts are not unrelated.Watts grew up in Montana in the ‘80s, half French, half American, half white, half Black, speaking a bunch of different languages and slipping between the orchestra geeks and the football jocks until he finally found a squad of fellow misfits with an affinity for trouble. It was a wide-open time and place that invited freedom and exploration—as well as car theft and the not infrequent use of recreational cough syrup. And it helped him become the uniquely strange creative voice he is today.In Great Falls, MT, Watts takes us through his story, hitting on the culture shock he experienced after moving from Europe to the heart of America, where he was called racial slurs by neighbors but wasn’t Black enough for his father’s extended family. Where he fought with his authoritarian dad, built a new family of antiestablishment, post-punk oddballs—and ultimately knew he had to leave. But after Watts’s career exploded in Seattle and New York, ultimately scoring him a nightly place next to James Corden on The Late Late Show, he found himself drawn back to his hometown after the deaths of his parents. This is his love letter to the town that made him. But like love itself, it’s messy and complicated and dirty and beautiful—and as weird and wonderful as Watts himself.

'An uproariously funny collection of true stories from one of the comedy greats' - BILL BAILEY\\nA collection of hilarious and often absurd epiphanies in the legendary comedian's life that defined him - more in a for worse than for better kind of way - and all delivered in his unique deadpan style.\\nGrowing up, Rich Hall aspired to be a writer, and after school he trained to be a journalist. But after a stint at the Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee, he found himself trying to impress a girl by doing a one-man show in a state university campus in Kansas, armed with a bucket, a bullhorn and some dog biscuits. It wasn't exactly a triumph, and he didn't get the girl, but he had found his true calling.\\nNailing It is a collection of true stories from both Hall's professional and personal life where he really had to nail it. They're not about glitz, or fame, or how he met his seventh wife at the rehab clinic and found spiritual direction. None of that happened to him. They're about accidentally melting Kraft cheese at his first Edinburgh Fringe Festival, alienating an entire convention of RV holiday-makers in Las Vegas, singing The Who's 'You Better You Bet' at a charity gig and turning his performance into a legendary rock'n' roll disaster, and attempting to seduce Karen, which must have been successful because she is now his wife. And other such escapades. Hall doesn't always come out of them all covered in glory - far from it - but if someone propped him up at the end of the comedy bar and put a 50p coin in him, these are the tunes he would spin. And you'd be laughing all night.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is bestselling author Marina Lewycka's hilarious and award winning debut novel, now available as a Penguin Essential for the first time.'Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.'Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth.But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget . . .'It's rare to find a first novel that gets so much right . . . Lewycka is a seriously talented comic writer' Time Out'Hugely enjoyable . . . yields a golden harvest of family truths' Daily Telegraph'Delightful, funny, touching' Spectator

FIRST SCRIBNER EDITION. 2007 hardcover, Steve Martin (Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Other Plays). The riveting, mega-bestselling, beloved and highly acclaimed memoir of a man, a vocation, and an era named one of the ten best nonfiction titles of the year by Time and Entertainment Weekly. In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Emmy and Grammy Award-winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. The memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written. - Amazon

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE A.V. CLUB • Includes new interviews!From the writer and director of Knocked Up and the producer of Freaks and Geeks comes a collection of intimate, hilarious conversations with the biggest names in comedy from the past thirty years—including Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Harold Ramis, Seth Rogen, Chris Rock, and Lena Dunham. Before becoming one of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood, Judd Apatow was the original comedy nerd. At fifteen, he took a job washing dishes in a local comedy club—just so he could watch endless stand-up for free. At sixteen, he was hosting a show for his local high school radio station in Syosset, Long Island—a show that consisted of Q&As with his comedy heroes, from Garry Shandling to Jerry Seinfeld. They talked about their careers, the science of a good joke, and their dreams of future glory (turns out, Shandling was interested in having his own TV show one day and Steve Allen had already invented everything).Thirty years later, Apatow is still that same comedy nerd—and he’s still interviewing funny people about why they do what they do.Sick in the Head gathers Apatow’s most memorable and revealing conversations into one hilarious, wide-ranging, and incredibly candid collection that spans not only his career but his entire adult life. Here are the comedy legends who inspired and shaped him, from Mel Brooks to Steve Martin. Here are the contemporaries he grew up with in Hollywood, from Spike Jonze to Sarah Silverman. And here, finally, are the brightest stars in comedy today, many of whom Apatow has been fortunate to work with, from Seth Rogen to Amy Schumer. And along the way, something kind of magical happens: What started as a lifetime’s worth of conversations about comedy becomes something else entirely. It becomes an exploration of creativity, ambition, neediness, generosity, spirituality, and the joy that comes from making people laugh.Loaded with the kind of back-of-the-club stories that comics tell one another when no one else is watching, this fascinating, personal (and borderline-obsessive) book is Judd Apatow’s gift to comedy nerds everywhere.Praise for Sick in the Head“I can’t stop reading it. . . . I don’t want this book to end.”—Jimmy Fallon “An essential for any comedy geek.”—Entertainment Weekly “Fascinating . . . a collection of interviews with many of the great figures of comedy in the latter half of the twentieth century.”—The Washington Post “Open this book anywhere, and you’re bound to find some interesting nugget from someone who has had you in stitches many, many times.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An amazing read, full of insights and connections both creative and interpersonal.”—The New Yorker “Fascinating and revelatory.”—Chicago Tribune “Anyone even remotely interested in comedy or humanity should own this book.”—Will Ferrell

A few light marks to the page edges. Orders received by 3pm Sent from the UK that weekday.

David Sedaris, the “champion storyteller,” (Los Angeles Times) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso.\\nBack when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.\\nBut then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.\\nAs the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.\\nIn Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Driving, wild and hilarious” (The Washington Post), here is the incredible “memoir” of the legendary actor, gambler, raconteur, and Saturday Night Live veteran.When Norm Macdonald, one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time, was approached to write a celebrity memoir, he flatly refused, calling the genre “one step below instruction manuals.” Norm then promptly took a two-year hiatus from stand-up comedy to live on a farm in northern Canada. When he emerged he had under his arm a manuscript, a genre-smashing book about comedy, tragedy, love, loss, war, and redemption. When asked if this was the celebrity memoir, Norm replied, “Call it anything you damn like.”

Paul Murray's Skippy Dies is a tragicomic masterpiece about a Dublin boarding school Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010 Ruprecht Van Doren is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the Search of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Daniel 'Skippy' Juster is his roommate. In the grand old Dublin institution that is Seabrook College for Boys, nobody pays either of them much attention. But when Skippy falls for Lori, the frisbee-playing siren from the girls' school next door, suddenly all kinds of people take an interest - including Carl, part-time drug-dealer and official school psychopath. . . A tragic comedy of epic sweep and dimension, Skippy Dies scours the corners of the human heart and wrings every drop of pathos, humour and hopelessness out of life, love, Robert Graves, mermaids, M-theory, and everything in between. 'That rare thing, a comic epic. . . Murray is a brilliant comic writer, but also humane and touching, and he captures the misery and elation, joy and anxiety of teenage life' David Nicholls, Guardian 'Novels rarely come as funny and as moving as this utterly brilliant exploration of teenhood and the anticlimax of becoming an adult . . . one of the finest comic novels written anywhere' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times 'I loved Skippy Dies . . . three novels fused into one ignited tragicomic tour de force' Ali Smith, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year 'An unforgettably exuberant saga set in an Irish boys' school. The insulting repartee is Shakespearean, the minor characters hilarious, and Murray captures the fleeting joys and lasting sorrows of adolescence perfectly' Emma Donoghue, Daily Telegraph 'A triumph . . . brimful of wit and narrative energy' Sunday Times 'The sprawling brilliance of Paul Murray's darkly comic second novel works on many different levels . . . When you finish the last page, you may be tempted to start all over again' Metro Paul Murray is the author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2005, and Skippy Dies, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010.

Lambda Literary Award Winner for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction2024 Stonewall Book Honor Award Winner—Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Book AwardFeatured on NPR's Books We Love 2023One of Vulture's Best Comedy Books of 2023"This book is a triumph and everyone should read it."—Dan Savage, journalist and author, on the "Savage Lovecast""Hi Honey, I’m Homo is a heartbreaking historical document, but ultimately one that will leave the reader feeling proud of how something as maligned and disposable as the network sitcom used comedy to bring about such profound and important social progress."—Vulture"[A] well-curated compendium of prime time broadcasting . . . Baume is a companionable guide."—Shelf AwarenessBehind the scenes of the most popular sitcoms of the 20th century, a revolution was brewing.For decades, amidst the bright lights, studio-audience laughs, and absurdly large apartment sets, the real-life story of American LGBTQ+ liberation unfolded in plain sight in front of millions of viewers, most of whom were laughing too hard to mind.From flamboyant relatives on Bewitched to closely-guarded secrets on All in the Family, from network-censor fights over Soap to behind-the-scenes activism on the set of The Golden Girls, from Ellen’s culture clash and Will & Grace’s mixed reception to Modern Family’s primetime power-couple, Hi Honey, I’m Homo! is the story not only of how subversive queer comedy transformed the American sitcom, from its inception through today, but how our favorite sitcoms transformed, and continue to transform, America.Accessible, entertaining, and informative, Hi Honey, I’m Homo! features commentary and interviews from celebrities, behind-the-scenes creators, and more.

*Vulture's Best Comedy Book of 2023*From the author of Generation Friends, featuring brand-new interviews with Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, a surprising, incisive, and often hilarious book about the film that changed comedy, Anchorman.It’s been nearly twenty years since Ron Burgundy burst into movie fans’ lives, reminding San Diego to “stay classy” while lampooning a time gone by—although maybe not as far gone as we might think? In Kind of a Big Deal, comedy historian Saul Austerlitz tells the history of how Anchorman was developed, written, and cast, and how it launched the careers of future superstars like Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd, also setting the stage for a whole decade of comedy to come and influencing films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, and so many more.But Kind of a Big Deal isn’t only a celebration of Anchorman—it’s also a cultural analysis of the film’s significance as a sly commentary on feminism, the media, fragile masculinity, 1970s nostalgia, and more. Featuring brand-new interviews with stars such as Will Ferrell, director Adam McKay, and other key players, the book includes insider commentary alongside updated pop-culture analysis. And it also shares surprising stories and facts: from the film’s original conception as a plane crash/cannibal comedy mashup to the surprising, real-life newscaster who inspired the character of Veronica.Overall, this is a celebration of a movie that millions love—but it’s also an unsparing look back at what has and hasn’t changed, since the 1970s and since 2004. Perfect for fans of the film and anyone who cares about comedy today, Kind of a Big Deal proves that the movie was, and is, exactly that.

Spirited and whip-smart, these laugh-out-loud autobiographical essays are "a masterpiece" from the Emmy Award-winning actress and comedy writer known for 30 Rock, Mean Girls, and SNL" (Sunday Telegraph). Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV. She has seen both these dreams come true. At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon -- from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence. Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've always suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy. Includes Special, Never-Before-Solicited Opinions on Breastfeeding, Princesses, Photoshop, the Electoral Process, and Italian Rum Cake!

Fans devoted to the master of comic fiction P. G. Wodehouse are legion. He represents an antic high point in the world of farce and social satire. Best known for the creation of two fictional worlds based on Blandings Castle and the Wooster-Jeeves gentleman-valet duo, Wodehouse is appreciated the world over for his exceedingly clever and comically savvy send-ups of the idle rich in Edwardian England.\nThe series begins with two Wooster-Jeeves novels and one Blandings Castle novel. In The Code of the Woosters, it takes all the ingenuity of Jeeves, the "gentleman's gentleman" extraordinaire, to rescue his hapless and hopelessly obtuse young employer, Bertie Wooster, from the pickle of a plot to steal a silver jug from the home of an irascible magistrate. In Right Ho, Jeeves Bertie's old friend Gussie Fink-Nottle has fallen in love and, as usual, makes a hash of the affair until Jeeves comes to his rescue. Pigs Have Wings takes us to Blandings Castle, where a romantic comedy unfolds alongside the intrigue of the Fat Pig competition in Shropshire.\nWith each volume edited and reset and printed on Scottish cream-wove, acid-free paper, sewn and bound in cloth, these novels are elegant additions to any Wodehouse fan's library.

Review\\n"Provocative. . . . Progressives will want to take notice." ― Publishers Weekly\\nA 2022 Best Comedy Book, Vulture\\nA rousing call for liberals and progressives to pay attention to the emergence of right-wing comedy and the political power of humor.\\n"Why do conservatives hate comedy? Why is there no right-wing Jon Stewart?" These sorts of questions launch a million tweets, a thousand op-eds, and more than a few scholarly analyses. That's Not Funny argues that it is both an intellectual and politically strategic mistake to assume that comedy has a liberal bias. Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx take readers––particularly self-described liberals––on a tour of contemporary conservative comedy and the "right-wing comedy complex."\\nIn That's Not Funny, "complex" takes on an important double meaning. On the one hand, liberals have developed a social-psychological complex—it feels difficult, even dangerous, to acknowledge that their political opposition can produce comedy. At the same time, the right has been slowly building up a comedy-industrial complex, utilizing the humorous, irony-laden media strategies of liberals such as Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, and John Oliver to garner audiences and supporters. Right-wing comedy has been hiding in plain sight, finding its way into mainstream conservative media through figures ranging from Fox News's Greg Gutfeld to libertarian podcasters like Joe Rogan. That's Not Funny taps interviews with conservative comedians and observations of them in action to guide readers through media history, text, and technique. You will find many of these comedians utterly appalling, some surprisingly funny, and others just plain weird. They are all, however, culturally and politically relevant—the American right is attempting to seize spaces of comedy and irony previously held firmly by the left. You might not like this brand of humor, but you can't ignore it.\\nFrom the Back Cover\\n"An excellent tour through the contemporary right-wing media comedy complex, an area many of us know too little about and have resisted investigating on our own. I praise the authors for how beautifully they weave analysis into their descriptions of comedic performances and texts."—Viveca S. Greene, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Hampshire College\\n"A lively tour of the menagerie of sad right-wing comedy tryhards who wield a surprising amount of power in today's media ecosystem."—Ken Klippenstein, investigative journalist, The Intercept\\n"Looking directly at a partial eclipse, the authors of That's Not Funny push our critical considerations of humor beyond questions of taste, value, or political allegiance. They confront far-right laughter so we don't have to in their most engaging, timely, and evocative study."—Maggie Hennefeld, author Specters of Slapstick & Silent Film Comediennes

Home is a foreign country: they do things differently there.In a tiny flat in West London, sixteen-year-old Marina lives with her emotionally delicate mother, Laura, and three ancient Hungarian relatives. Imprisoned by her family’s crushing expectations and their fierce unEnglish pride, by their strange traditions and stranger foods, she knows she must escape. But the place she runs to makes her feel even more of an outsider.At Combe Abbey, a traditional English public school for which her family have sacrificed everything, she realises she has made a terrible mistake. She is the awkward half-foreign girl who doesn’t know how to fit in, flirt or even be. And as a semi-Hungarian Londoner, who is she? In the meantime, her mother Laura, an alien in this strange universe, has her own painful secrets to deal with, especially the return of the last man she’d expect back in her life. She isn’t noticing that, at Combe Abbey, things are starting to go terribly wrong.

From the brilliantly demented minds behind The Eric Andre Show and Bad Trip, an insane illustrated compendium about the art of pranking.Eric André is a master of the art of pranking—“an Andy Kaufman for the Four Loko generation,” as Spin magazine once hailed him. For over a decade, he and longtime collaborator Dan Curry have dreamed up and performed a cornucopia of outrageous, often illegal, and always death-defying hijinks for the Adult Swim series The Eric Andre Show, as well as in the hit movie Bad Trip. Now, in their very first book, Eric and Dan reveal the secret fuel behind their surrealistic prank machine. Get ready to gorge your thirsty peepers on epic stories of shame, redemption, and glory behind pranks so dumb they’re brilliant…and beyond the realm of criticism.But wait, there’s more! This pranktastic potpourri includes:-Tips for prankers of any skill level, from the importance of a “safe word” to why you should always keep the camera rolling, even after the prank is over.-All new pranks to try at home such as “Jell-O Surprise,” “Benadryl Steaks,” “Amateur Graverobber” and “The Jim Morrison.”-Wild behind-the-scenes stories about the most classic pranks from The Eric Andre Show and Bad Trip.-Learn about the dark existential dread behind everyone’s favorite mac-and-cheese-spurting DJ, Kraft Punk.-Discover how Eric avoided getting stabbed when a penis-in-a-finger-trap prank went horribly wrong.-Exclusive never-before-filmed pranks deemed too hot for TV.-Inspirational quotes from philosophers so obscure that they might not even exist.Artfully designed, loaded with funny photos, and a gracious foreblurb by Jack Black, Dumb Ideas is an essential manual for getting a laugh out of friends, family, and complete strangers—and staying out of jail while doing it.

The Definitive Joke Writing HandbookLearn comedy writing and how to write a joke with a simple comedy-writing and joke-writing formula you can use right now to write your own jokes. See why Amazon reviewers call How to Write Funny "one of the best books on comedy writing" and "one of the best books on humor writing."Author Scott Dikkers will show you how to write jokes. He’s a master joke writer, founder of the world’s most popular humor site TheOnion.com, #1 New York Times and #1 Amazon best-selling humor author, professional public speaker, and successful cartoonist. Scott created and leads the “Writing with The Onion” training center at the famed Second City in Chicago. His students have been hired for the top comedy writing jobs in TV and won dozens of Emmy Awards. He’s consulted with top entertainment companies like NBC, Comedy Central, and Pixar.This easy-to-follow guide lays out a clear system and simple formula for how to write a joke that will get big, milk-coming-out-of-your-nose laughs, reliably and repeatably. You'll learn...• The 3 sure-fire ways to generate funny text• The 11 different “Funny Filters” and how to use them to write jokes• The secret to getting rid of writer's block—permanently• And many more humor writing tips, tricks, and techniquesTable of Contents1 IntroductionUse the techniques in this book to reliably create top-notch humor writing (page 11)2 Your Brain’s Comedy EngineAccess both hemispheres of your brain to eliminate writer’s block and tap an endless reserve of comedy ideas (page 21)3 The Humor Writer’s Biggest ProblemOvercome this one devastating obstacle to reach the widest possible audience (page 29)4 How To Get LaughsUnderstand the different kinds of laughs, and how to generate the best one (page 43)6 The Secret IngredientInfuse your humor with this vital component to create writing that makes people laugh (page 57)6 The 11 Funny FiltersCreate any joke using the 11 fundamental building blocks of humor (page 67)Funny Filter 1: Irony (page 68)Funny Filter 2: Character (page 70)Funny Filter 3: Shock (page 76)Funny Filter 4: Hyperbole (page 80)Funny Filter 5: Wordplay (page 83)Funny Filter 6: Reference (page 88)Funny Filter 7: Madcap (page 92)Funny Filter 8: Parody (page 90)Funny Filter 9: Analogy (page 100)Funny Filter 10: Misplaced Focus (page 104)Funny Filter 11: Metahumor (page 106)7 Using The Funny FiltersLayer the building blocks to create increasingly hilarious jokes (page 113)8 Process OverviewMaster this simple system to become a prolific humor writer (page 137)If you've wondered how you can start writing jokes, how to tell jokes to your friends, how to add humor to your writing, how to add jokes in a speech, or how to add humor to your presentation, this book spells out the simple joke writing formula professionals use.How to Write Funny is for you whether you want to find a comedy writing job or just want to learn how to tell a joke.Click "Look inside" to see more!

Evelyn Waugh's acidly funny and formally daring satire, Vile Bodies reveals the darkness and vulnerability that lurks beneath the glittering surface of the high life. In the years following the First World War a new generation emerges, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of twenties' Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade - whether promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. In a quest for treasure, a favourite party occupation, a vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the fulfilment of unconscious desires. If you enjoyed Vile Bodies, you might like Waugh's A Handful of Dust, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'The high point of the experimental, original Waugh' Malcolm Bradbury, Sunday Times 'This brilliantly funny, anxious and resonant novel ... the difficult edgy guide to the turn of the decade' Richard Jacobs 'It's Britain's Great Gatsby' Stephen Fry, director of Vile Bodies film adaptation Bright Young Things

A modern, feminist take on the classic joke book to amuse and empower readers who are tired of being the punchline.\\nA man walks into a bar. It’s a low one, so he gets a promotion within his first six months on the job.\\nFour comedy writers transform classic joke setups into sharp commentary about the everyday and structural sexism that pervades all facets of life. Jokes to Offend Men arms readers with humorous quips to shut down workplace underminers, condescending uncles, and dismissive doctors, or to share with their exhausted friends at the end of a long day. A cutting, cathartic spin on the old-fashioned joke book, Jokes to Offend Men is a refreshing reclamation of a tired form for anyone who's ever been told to "lighten up, it's just a joke!"

Learn How to Write a Funny Story\nCan you learn how to write comedy? Absolutely—anyone can.\nScott Dikkers will tell you how. He’s co-founder and longest-serving editor-in-chief of The Onion, the world’s most popular humor publication, and founder of The Onion Training Center at the Second City in Chicago. He’s also a #1 best-selling humor author and winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor.\nIn How to Write Funnier, he tells you everything you need to know to start writing funny stories, how to write funny scenes, and how to write funny sketches.\nBut that’s just the beginning. How do you get a job in comedy? How do you write for The Onion? How do you write for the New Yorker? How do you get published in McSweeney’s? How do you write for money? How do you become a career comedy writer?\nIt's all in How to Write Funnier, the followup to How to Write Funny\nWriters Scott has mentored, trained, or hired for their very first comedy-writing job have gone on to win several Emmy Awards, written movies nominated for an Academy Award, and become best-selling authors themselves.\nOne student said this about How to Write Funny (Book 1)\n“This book is one of my very favorite books on comedy. It's helped me get published on satire sites like Reductress.com and helped me get admitted to comedy festivals. The fact that all comedy writers don't know about this book is (1) unfortunate but also (2) fantastic, because it will give the people who do read it a big advantage.”\nHow to Write Funnier gives you the step-by-step writing process professinoals use for creating hilarious comedy articles, prose pieces, and stories that will jump off the page, grab readers by the sphincter and make them LOL, spit-take, make other passengers on the bus look at them like they’re crazy because they’re laughing so hard reading your story.\nThe first book in this series, How To Write Funny, showed you how to write a joke. How to Write Funnier (Book 2) shows you how to stack up those jokes the right way to make funny articles, stories, listicles or prose pieces that will make people remember you.\nInside:\n• The 13 Most Common Mistakes in Humor Writing\n• The 11 Different Ways to Structure a humor piece\n• How to get ideas for writing a great story\n• 8 steps for how to get feedback on your writing that will truly make it funnierTap the “Pre-order with 1-click” button to get it now!

The movie High Fidelity is sacred ground for music lovers and cinephiles alike. Through the story of hapless record store owner Rob Gordon and his coterie of vinyl snobs, the 1997 film made it cool to let your geek flag fly and embrace your irrational enthusiasms. In Top Five, journalist Andrew Buss offers a rollicking oral history of the making of the film and its continued influence on popular culture.When a book is as universally praised as Nick Hornby’s original novel, adapting it for screen can be a tricky prospect. Top Five examines the difficulties that went into writing the movie: although the book was set in London, the screenwriting team (which included star John Cusack) transplanted the story to Chicago, drawing on their own experiences growing up there. Fears that the film would be an Americanized dilution of the source material evaporated when fans of the book saw just how true the film stayed to Rob’s story.Buss draws on interviews with actors like Cusack, Jack Black, and Iben Hjejle, along with all the key principals behind the scenes, including director Stephen Frears and the movie’s screenwriter, producers, and composer. Together they offer a multi-perspectival account that captures the legacy of the film, showing how it created an indelible snapshot of ’90s culture while anticipating our current era of media surfeit and content overload.

Winner, Susan Koppleman Award for Best Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited Book in Feminist Studies, Popular and American Culture Associations (PACA), 2017Amy Schumer, Samantha Bee, Mindy Kaling, Melissa McCarthy, Tig Notaro, Leslie Jones, and a host of hilarious peers are killing it nightly on American stages and screens large and small, smashing the tired stereotype that women aren't funny. But today's funny women aren't a new phenomenon—they have generations of hysterically funny foremothers. Fay Tincher's daredevil stunts, Mae West's linebacker walk, Lucille Ball's manic slapstick, Carol Burnett's athletic pratfalls, Ellen DeGeneres's tomboy pranks, Whoopi Goldberg's sly twinkle, and Tina Fey's acerbic wit all paved the way for contemporary unruly women, whose comedy upends the norms and ideals of women's bodies and behaviors.Hysterical! Women in American Comedy delivers a lively survey of women comics from the stars of the silent cinema up through the multimedia presences of Tina Fey and Lena Dunham. This anthology of original essays includes contributions by the field's leading authorities, introducing a new framework for women's comedy that analyzes the implications of hysterical laughter and hysterically funny performances. Expanding on previous studies of comedians such as Mae West, Moms Mabley, and Margaret Cho, and offering the first scholarly work on comedy pioneers Mabel Normand, Fay Tincher, and Carol Burnett, the contributors explore such topics as racial/ethnic/sexual identity, celebrity, stardom, censorship, auteurism, cuteness, and postfeminism across multiple media. Situated within the main currents of gender and queer studies, as well as American studies and feminist media scholarship, Hysterical! masterfully demonstrates that hysteria—women acting out and acting up—is a provocative, empowering model for women's comedy.

"A boisterous debut … the authors are as funny as one would expect … this is a hoot.” ―Publishers Weekly“Will entice fans of Key & Peele … a fun and funny primer on the art form.” ―BooklistAuthors Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key build on the popularity of their 2022 Webby Award–winning podcast and delve deeper into the world of sketch, helped along with new essays created expressly for the book by comedy greats.The History of Sketch Comedy will appeal to all kinds of comedy fans as well as fans of Keegan-Michael Key, whether they know him from his Emmy and Peabody-winning work on Key & Peele; his roles in Fargo, The Prom, Schmigadoon!, The Bubble, and the upcoming Wonka; voiceover work in The Lion King; or as President Barack Obama's anger translator, Luther.With epic personal tangents and hilarious asides, the Keys take you on an illuminating journey through all facets of comedy from the stock characters of commedia del arte in the 16th century, to the rise of vaudeville and burlesque, the golden age of television comedy, the influence of the most well-known comedy schools, and the ascension of comedy films and TV specials—all the way through to a look at the future of sketch on social media platforms. Along the way, we hear tales of Keegan's childhood, his comedy influences, and the vicissitudes of his career path. As the New York Times said in its review of their podcast, "this comedy nerd history is filtered through memoir, with Key relating stories of his budding fandom, training and rise from improv comic to television sketch artist."Part memoir, part masterclass, and hilariously embellished with priceless commentary, The History of Sketch Comedy highlights the essential building blocks of sketch comedy while interweaving Keegan's personal career journey and the influence of his comedy heroes. The text is complemented by original art by Elle Key and exclusive essays compiled from conversations with influential performers, sketch writers, and uber comedy fans including Mel Brooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, John Oliver, Tracy Morgan, Carol Burnett, Jim Carrey, Jordan Peele, and many more. This book is as entertaining as it is enlightening—a must-read for fans of comedy and all who aspire to comic greatness.EXPANDING THE HIT PODCAST: With content from the #1 trending, NAACP-award-nominated and Webby-Award-winning Audible podcast, and featuring new-for-the-book material as well as never-before-heard stories and essays, this book will be a hit for newcomers and avid listeners of the podcast alike.MASTER OF THE MEDIUM: Keegan-Michael Key is a bona fide maestro of comedy, with the chops, experience, and love for the history of the medium that make him the perfect expert on all things sketch. As co-writer Elle Key likes to say, "If Keegan-Michael Key was a guest lecturer at NYU teaching a course called 'The History of Sketch Comedy,' it would be a very popular class."EXCLUSIVE ESSAYS: Keegan and Elle interviewed over a dozen comedy legends exclusively for this book, and got their takes on topics ranging from the influence of Saturday Night Live, to women in comedy, to the mathematics of sketch. Hear, in their own words, from Mel Brooks, Mike Myers, Jordan Peele, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, John Oliver, Tracy Morgan, Stephen Colbert, Carol Burnett, Chris Rock, Bob Odenkirk, Mike Birbiglia, Matt Lucas, Ken Jeong, Christopher Guest, Gary Oldman, Kevin Nealon, Laraine Newman, and Jim Carrey.GIFTABLE VOLUME OF COMEDY GOLD: Original illustrations and personal photographs throughout make this unique comedy book as visually entertaining as it is enlightening. The perfect gift for comedy fans of all ages as well as anyone aspiring to write, perform, or produce comedic art.Perfect for: Comedy lovers of all kinds Fans of Key & Peele Fans of improv, sketch, stand-up, and shows like SNL, MadTV, Monty Python, and Mr. Show Gift giving or self-purchase for established and aspiring comedians Readers of such bestse

From the creator of The Good Place and the cocreator of Parks and Recreation, a hilarious, thought-provoking guide to living an ethical life, drawing on 2,400 years of deep thinking from around the world.\\nMost people think of themselves as “good,” but it’s not always easy to determine what’s “good” or “bad”—especially in a world filled with complicated choices and pitfalls and booby traps and bad advice. Fortunately, many smart philosophers have been pondering this conundrum for millennia and they have guidance for us. With bright wit and deep insight, How to Be Perfect explains concepts like deontology, utilitarianism, existentialism, ubuntu, and more so we can sound cool at parties and become better people.\\nSchur starts off with easy ethical questions like “Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?” (No.) and works his way up to the most complex moral issues we all face. Such as: Can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people? How much money should I give to charity? Why bother being good at all when there are no consequences for being bad? And much more. By the time the book is done, we’ll know exactly how to act in every conceivable situation, so as to produce a verifiably maximal amount of moral good. We will be perfect, and all our friends will be jealous. OK, not quite. Instead, we’ll gain fresh, funny, inspiring wisdom on the toughest issues we face every day.

From the veteran comedian and actor from The Wrestler and Louie comes a hilarious book of travel essays from his time on tour through secondary markets in the US, Canada, and Israel.Hello. It’s Todd Barry. Yes, the massively famous comedian. I have billions of fans all over the world, so I do my fair share of touring. While I love doing shows in the big cities (New York, Philadelphia), I also enjoy a good secondary market (Ithaca, Bethlehem). Performing in these smaller places can be great because not all entertainers stop there on tour; they don’t expect to see you. They’re appreciative. They say things like “Thank you for coming to Hattiesburg” as much as they say “Nice show.” And almost every town has their version of a hipster coffee shop, so I can get in my comfort zone. My original plan was to book one secondary market show in all fifty states, in about a year, but that idea was funnier than anything in my act. So, instead of all fifty states in a year, my agent booked multiple shows in a lot of states, plus Israel and Canada.Thank You For Coming to Hattiesburg is part tour diary, part travel guide, and part memoir (Yes, memoir. Just like the thing presidents and former child stars get to write). Follow me on my journey of small clubs, and the occasional big amphitheater. Watch me make a promoter clean the dressing room toilet in Connecticut, see me stare at beached turtles in Maui, and see how I react when Lars from Metallica shows up to see me at a rec center in Northern California. I’d love to tell you more, but I need to go book a flight to Evansville, Indiana.

"I'm huge on Twitter." --An ancient proverb that means Lonely in real life. --JOEL KIM BOOSTER Jokes and haikus have a common goal: to pack the greatest punch in the most succinct way possible. In Eating Salad Drunk, today's biggest names in comedy come together to do just that, with hilarious, poignant, and (sometimes) dirty haikus about living and coping in our modern "burnout age." Contributors include Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Ian Black, Aubrey Plaza, Margaret Cho, Maria Bamford, Ray Romano, Aparna Nancherla, Ziwe Fumudoh, Chris Gethard, Sasheer Zamata, Colin Mochrie, Zach Woods, and many more! Curated by Gabe Henry, author and manager of the popular Brooklyn comedy venue Littlefield, Eating Salad Drunk's topics include: -Modern Romance -Friends & Family -Screentime -Nature Calls -Food -Entertainment -The Struggle is Real -Words of Wisdom, and -Self Love & Loathing The book also includes 50 super-relatable black and white drawings by New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake, as well as a foreword by stand-up comedian and actor Aparna Nancherla (Crashing, BoJack Horseman, Inside Amy Schumer). Eating Salad Drunk is the perfect gift for any fan of humor as an escape from our dystopian present. *All author proceeds go towards Comedy Gives Back, a nonprofit that provides mental health, medical, and crisis support resources for comedians.

Why do we laugh? The answer, argued Freud in this groundbreaking study of humor, is that jokes, like dreams, satisfy our unconscious desires. The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious explains how jokes provide immense pleasure by releasing us from our inhibitions and allowing us to express sexual, aggressive, playful, or cynical instincts that would otherwise remain hidden. In elaborating this theory, Freud brings together a rich collection of puns, witticisms, one-liners, and anecdotes, which, as Freud shows, are a method of giving ourselves away.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The legendary Deep Thoughts and New Yorker humorist Jack Handey is back with his very first novel-a hilarious, absurd, far-flung adventure tale.THE STENCH OF HONOLOLUAre you a fan of books in which famous tourist destinations are repurposed as unlivable hellholes for no particular reason? Read on!Jack Handey's exotic tale is full of laugh-out-loud twists and unforgettable characters whose names escape me right now. A reliably unreliable narrator and his friend, who is some other guy, need to get out of town. They have a taste for adventure, so they pay a visit to a relic of bygone days-a travel agent-and discover an old treasure map. She might have been a witch, by the way. Our heroes soon embark on a quest for the Golden Monkey, which takes them into the mysterious and stinky foreign land of Honolulu. There, they meet untold dangers, confront strange natives, kill and eat Turtle People, kill some other things and people, eat another thing, and discover the ruins of ancient civilizations. As our narrator says, "The ruins were impressive. But like so many civilizations, they forgot the rule that might have saved them: Don't let vines grow all over you."

A VULTURE BEST COMEDY BOOK OF 2023From the star of the “deeply funny, unexpectedly informative” (The Daily Beast) Netflix mockumentary Cunk on Earth, a helpful guide covering every single topic in the known universe, from Adam and Eve to Top Gun.Once in a blue moon, a book comes along that changes the world. The Origin of Species. War and Peace. 1984. And now, Cunk on Everything: The Encyclopedia Philomena, by Philomena Cunk.Philomena Cunk is one of the greatest thinkers of the 21st century, and in Cunk on Everything she turns her attention to our biggest issue: why are there so many books? Wouldn't it be better if there was just one? This is that book — an encyclopedia of all human knowledge, delving into not only life's greatest mysteries but our most important political figures and cultural touchstones.Read it, and you'll never have to read another book again.

An all-new collection of honest, hilarious, and enlightening conversations with some of the most exciting names in comedy--from New York Times bestselling author and lifelong comedy nerd Judd Apatow. No one knows comedy like Judd Apatow. From interviewing the biggest comics of the day for his high school radio show to performing stand-up in L.A. dive bars with his roommate Adam Sandler, to writing and directing Knocked Up and producing Freaks and Geeks, Apatow has always lived, breathed, and dreamed comedy. In this all-new collection of interviews, the follow-up to the New York Times bestselling Sick in the Head, Apatow sits down with comedy legends such as David Letterman, Whoopi Goldberg, and Will Ferrell, as well as the writers and performers who are pushing comedy to the limits, and defining a new era of laughter: John Mulaney, Hannah Gadsby, Bowen Yang, Amber Ruffin, Pete Davidson, and others. In intimate and hilariously honest conversations, they discuss what got them into comedy, and what--despite personal and national traumas--keeps them going. Together, they talk about staying up too late to watch late-night comedy, what kind of nerds they were high school, and the right amount of delusional self-confidence one needs to "make it" in the industry. Like eavesdropping on lifelong friends, these pages expose the existential questions that plague even the funniest and most talented among us: Why make people laugh while the world is in crisis? What ugly, uncomfortable truths about our society--and ourselves--can comedy reveal? Along the way, these comics reminisce about those who helped them on their journey--from early success through failure and rejection, and back again--even as they look ahead to the future of comedy and Hollywood in a hyper-connected, overstimulated world. With his trademark insight, curiosity, and irrepressible sense of humor, Apatow explores the nature of creativity, professional ambition, and vulnerability in an ever-evolving cultural landscape, and how our favorite comics are able to keep us laughing along the way.

WINNER OF THE 2024 AUDIE AWARD FOR HUMORA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA BARNES AND NOBLE'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARA TOWN & COUNTRY BEST CELEBRITY MEMOIR OF 2023A VULTURE BEST COMEDY BOOK OF 2023Hey you guys, it’s Leslie. I’m excited to share my story with you.Now, I’m gonna be honest: Some of the details might be vague because a b*tch is fifty-five and she’s smoked a ton of weed. But while bits might be a touch hazy, I can promise you the underlying truth is REAL. Whether I’m talking about my childhood growing up in the South, my early stand-up days driving from gig to gig through the darkest parts of our country and praying I wouldn’t get murdered, what Chris Rock told Lorne Michaels, that time I wanted to shoot Whoopi Goldberg on SNL, and yeah, I’ll tell you all about Ghostbusters and the nudes and Supermarket Sweep and The Daily Show . . . I’m sharing it all in these pages. It’s not easy being a woman in comedy, especially when you’re a tall-*ss Black woman with a trumpet voice. I have to fight so that no one takes me for granted, and no one takes advantage. These are the stories that explain why. (Cue the Law & Order theme.)

Jack Handey is one of America's favorite humorists, from his New Yorker pieces to his Deep Thoughts books and Saturday Night Live sketches. Now, in What I'd Say to the Martians, Handey regales readers with his incredible wit and wacky musings.

The New Yorker Best Books of 2023NPR's Books We Love 2023“A deeply honest and funny look at how exhausting it can be to live a human life, Unreliable Narrator is a book for anyone who wants to laugh and feel less alone.”—Amy PoehlerA hilarious and insightful collection of essays exploring impostor syndrome, from the inside and out, by the most successful fraud in comedyAparna Nancherla is a superstar comedian on the rise—a darling of Netflix and Comedy Central’s comedy special lineups, a headliner at comedy shows and music festivals, a frequenter of late night television and the subject of numerous profiles. She’s also a successful actor who has written a barrage of thoughtful essays published by the likes of the New York Times. If you ask her, though, she’s a total fraud. She’d hate to admit it, but no one does impostor syndrome quite like Aparna Nancherla.UNRELIABLE NARRATOR is a collection of essays that uses Aparna’s signature humor to illuminate an interior life, one constantly bossed around by her depression (whom she calls Brenda), laced with anxiety like a horror movie full of jump-scares, and plagued by an unrepenting love-hate relationship with her career as a painfully shy standup comedian. But luckily, crippling self-doubt comes with the gift of keen self-examination. These essays deliver hilarious and incredibly insightful meditations on body image, productivity culture, the ultra-meme-ability of mental health language, and who, exactly, gets to make art “about nothing.” Despite her own arguments to the contrary, UNRELIABLE NARRATOR is undeniable proof that Aparna is a force—as a comedian and author alike—to be reckoned with.

From stand-up comedian, actress, and host of The Netflix Afterparty, London Hughes, comes an uplifting and raucously funny memoir to show you how to ditch the self-loathing, start the self-loving, and engage with your inner winner.London Hughes has come a long way from secretly writing Frasier fan fiction alone in her bedroom. Between her breakout Netflix comedy special, To Catch a D*ck, her dating podcast “London, Actually,” and her award-winning TV performances, London the South Londoner has taken the entertainment world by storm. And now, in this sassy, brash, fearless, and funny memoir, London is ready to inspire women of all ages and races with her story—because London is absolutely the best person in the whole wide world to take you on a wild journey of self-discovery. As she herself puts it: “I’ve always been funny. I’ve always been cute. I’ve always been confident. I was born to do this shit.”All her life, London longed to be a badass—an awesome bullet-proof woman who nobody could mess with. At a young age, she made sure she was ready to become a star, developing her own living-room popstar training regimen to prepare for her future life. But London also had her fair share of disastrous experiences in terms of friendships, relationships, and career choices. Each of the fiascos in London’s life has, with hindsight, proved to be a formative life lesson, and helped her grow into the fearless person she is today. You'll definitely be grateful these setbacks happened to her and not you, but you'll also learn that however bad things get, you can always build your self-worth, think long-term, and emerge triumphant, no matter what the world throws at you.From starring in a school sex education video called “Swings and Roundabouts” to being gushed over by a fan while standing next to the Renee Zellweger, London leaves no stone unturned in Living My Best Life, Hun. It took London some time to find her voice and her people, but now that she has, she's mentally high-fiving her 14-year-old self every day.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE A.V. CLUB • From the writer and director of Knocked Up and the producer of Freaks and Geeks comes a collection of intimate, hilarious conversations with the biggest names in comedy from the past thirty years—including Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Roseanne Barr, Harold Ramis, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Lena Dunham. Before becoming one of the most successful filmmakers in Hollywood, Judd Apatow was the original comedy nerd. At fifteen, he took a job washing dishes in a local comedy club—just so he could watch endless stand-up for free. At sixteen, he was hosting a show for his local high school radio station in Syosset, Long Island—a show that consisted of Q&As with his comedy heroes, from Garry Shandling to Jerry Seinfeld. They talked about their careers, the science of a good joke, and their dreams of future glory (turns out, Shandling was interested in having his own TV show one day and Steve Allen had already invented everything).Thirty years later, Apatow is still that same comedy nerd—and he’s still interviewing funny people about why they do what they do.Sick in the Head gathers Apatow’s most memorable and revealing conversations into one hilarious, wide-ranging, and incredibly candid collection that spans not only his career but his entire adult life. Here are the comedy legends who inspired and shaped him, from Mel Brooks to Steve Martin. Here are the contemporaries he grew up with in Hollywood, from Spike Jonze to Sarah Silverman. And here, finally, are the brightest stars in comedy today, many of whom Apatow has been fortunate to work with, from Seth Rogen to Amy Schumer. And along the way, something kind of magical happens: What started as a lifetime’s worth of conversations about comedy becomes something else entirely. It becomes an exploration of creativity, ambition, neediness, generosity, spirituality, and the joy that comes from making people laugh.Loaded with the kind of back-of-the-club stories that comics tell one another when no one else is watching, this fascinating, personal (and borderline-obsessive) book is Judd Apatow’s gift to comedy nerds everywhere.Praise for Sick in the Head“I can’t stop reading it. . . . I don’t want this book to end.”—Jimmy Fallon “An essential for any comedy geek.”—Entertainment Weekly “Fascinating . . . a collection of interviews with many of the great figures of comedy in the latter half of the twentieth century.”—The Washington Post “Open this book anywhere, and you’re bound to find some interesting nugget from someone who has had you in stitches many, many times.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “An amazing read, full of insights and connections both creative and interpersonal.”—The New Yorker “Fascinating and revelatory.”—Chicago Tribune “For fans of stand-up, Sick in the Head is a Bible of sorts.”—Newsweek“These are wonderful, expansive interviews—at times brutal, at times breathtaking—with artists whose wit, intelligence, gaze, and insights are all sharp enough to draw blood.”—Michael Chabon “Anyone even remotely interested in comedy or humanity should own this book. It is hilarious and informative and it contains insightful interviews with the greatest comics, comedians, and comediennes of our time. My representatives assure me I will appear in a future edition.”—Will Ferrell

“A sensitive and vivid study of early female stand-ups… [Levy is a] painstaking, knowledgeable guide.” —New York Times Book Review\\nA hilarious and moving account of the trailblazing women of stand-up comedy who broke down walls so they could stand before the mic—perfect for fans of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Hacks\\nToday, women are ascendant in stand-up comedy, even preeminent. They make headlines, fill arenas, spawn blockbuster movies. But before Amy Schumer slayed, Tiffany Haddish killed, and Ali Wong drew roars, the very idea of a female comedian seemed, to most of America, like a punch line. And it took a special sort of woman—indeed, a parade of them—to break and remake the mold.\\nIn on the Joke is the story of a group of unforgettable women who knocked down the doors of stand-up comedy so other women could get a shot. It spans decades, from Moms Mabley’s rise in Black vaudeville between the world wars, to the roadhouse ribaldry of Belle Barth and Rusty Warren in the 1950s and '60s, to Elaine May's co-invention of improv comedy, to Joan Rivers's and Phyllis Diller’s ferocious ascent to mainstream stardom. These women refused to be defined by type and tradition, facing down indifference, puzzlement, nay-saying, and unvarnished hostility. They were discouraged by agents, managers, audiences, critics, fellow performers—even their families. And yet they persevered against the tired notion that women couldn’t be funny, making space not only for themselves, but for the women who followed them.\\nMeticulously researched and irresistibly drawn, Shawn Levy's group portrait forms a new pantheon of comedy excellence. In on the Joke shows how women broke into the boys’ club, offered new ideas of womanhood, and had some laughs along the way.

“Many have tried, and many will try, to capture the sweet, innocent insanity of life as a young girl during the ’90s and 2000s. None have come close to the comedic perfection Lillian Stone nails again and again in Everybody’s Favorite.” —Glamour, Best Nonfiction Books of 2023From one of the Internet’s favorite self-deprecating commentators comes Everybody’s Favorite, a laugh-out-loud essay collection that tackles the relentless pursuit of perfection while navigating growing up in the early 2000s.Lillian Stone—childhood evangelical, AOL girlfriend, and professional nail biter is always living on the edge of anxiety. From the pitfalls of a girl plagued by religious trauma, the incomprehensible yet unforgiving need for perfection, and a poorly-behaved twenty-pound beagle, Everybody’s Favorite is a refreshing story of what it means to pick yourself when the world is telling you otherwise. Still navigating the ins and outs of adulthood, accompanied by an obsessive-compulsive disorder that’s become an exercise in self-acceptance and thus compassion, Lillian has become an expert in fighting the urge to be someone else’s idea of perfect. In this laugh-out-loud essay collection, replete with cringe-inducing touchstones of an early-aughts girlhood, Lillian Stone recounts her quest to be everybody’s favorite.Set largely during the early 2000s Ozarks, and peppered with Stone’s biting satire and gloriously self-deprecating personal anecdotes, Everybody’s Favorite is a wry, empathetic look at the chaos that ensues when we contort ourselves into an ever-changing assortment of socially acceptable shapes —only to fall out of place, twist an ankle, pee your pants a little, and realize that the pursuit of perfection isn’t really all that interesting.

An exciting history of the improv group you've never heard of that changed comedy in America―this is the story of Boom Chicago in Amsterdam as told by its founders and most famous alumni."It’s kind of crazy, the impact on culture so many Boom Chicago alums have had. Boom was where I became my best comedic self: the excitement of Amsterdam, the freedom of that environment, the letting loose―it's magic. There's no better training ground." ―Jordan Peele"Boom Chicago should have ended up on the scrap heap of 'Terrible Ideas Americans Have While Stoned in Amsterdam.' But when you stubbornly love one thing (comedy) as much as another thing (Amsterdam), you just believe they should be together. And here we are―thirty years later, Boom Chicago is alive and kicking." ―Seth Meyers"Working at Boom Chicago was an unbelievable experience. Thank goodness someone was smart enough to write it all down! You're lucky 'cause you get to read about THE most exciting, fun, and illegal time I've ever had!" ―Amber RuffinFeaturing interviews with: Meyers, Peele, Ruffin, Jason Sudeikis, Ike Barinholtz, Greg Shapiro, Kay Cannon, and many more; and a sixteen-page, full-color insert with both behind-the-scenes snapshots and images from live performances.What do Ted Lasso, Get Out, Late Night with Seth Meyers, 30 Rock, A Black Lady Sketch Show, Breaking Bad, Saturday Night Live, Girls5Eva, The Colbert Report, Inside Amy Schumer, Pitch Perfect, Key & Peele, The Daily Show, MADtv, Rick and Morty, The Amber Ruffin Show, Horrible Bosses, Portlandia, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Suicide Squad, Superstore, How I Met Your Mother, Wicked, The Pee-Wee Herman Show, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Broad City all have in common? They all feature writers, creators, directors, or stars who got their start at Boom Chicago.Having risen roughly to the middle of Chicago's cutthroat comedy scene, Andrew Moskos and Pep Rosenfeld decamped the Midwest for Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1993 to start their own improv comedy troupe, Boom Chicago. In a foreign land with zero tradition of English-language humor, Moskos and Rosenfeld unwittingly created the finishing school for some of today's most groundbreaking comedic talents. They (along with coauthors Matt Diehl and Saskia Maas) document this journey in the definitive oral history Boom Chicago Presents the 30 Most Important Years in Dutch History.From its stages, Boom Chicago went on to launch cultural game changers like Seth Meyers, Jordan Peele, Amber Ruffin, Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, Ike Barinholtz, Kay Cannon, and Tami Sagher (and that's just a partial list). At Boom, these young upstarts honed their craft in front of unsuspecting foreign audiences and visiting dignitaries like Burt Reynolds, Run-DMC's Jam Master Jay, Dutch royalty, and the Netherlands's prime minister―all while navigating a world with legal weed and prostitution, annual holiday celebrations involving blackface, cookies with weird racist names, and football that has nothing to do with the NFL. From this culture shock, this collective created a more topical, inclusive, tech-savvy humor that would become the dominant comedy style of our time.

Analyzes the logical structure of various types of mathematical proofs and jokes, showing how humor and mathematics are related by common creative processes and discussing Thom's "catastrophe theory" to describe how switches, reversals, and jumps in meaning are used in humor

While other books give you tips on how to “write funny,” this book offers a paradigm shift in understanding the mechanics and art of comedy, and the proven, practical tools that help writers translate that understanding into successful, commercial scripts. The Hidden Tools of Comedy unlocks the unique secrets and techniques of writing comedy. Kaplan deconstructs sequences in popular films and TV that work and don’t work, and explains what tools were used (or should have been used).

A biting humor collection about the cult of productivity and the feeling of impending doom that comes with it, from Reductress.Juggling careers, maintaining relationships, managing side gigs, and sustaining an engaging social media presence is hard––and we're expected to do it all while battling the ever-present feeling of existential dread against the backdrop of climate catastrophe, an ongoing pandemic, and social isolation.From the editors and most popular writers of Reductress, the only satirical women’s magazine in publication, How to Stay Productive When the World is Ending is a collection of essays, how-tos, and “inspirational” graphics to help you laugh when staying both sane and productive in a commodified world feels impossible. From “’Doing What You Love’ and Why That’s Bad,” to "Why I'm Prioritizing My Career Over Finding a Better Career," this collection perfectly skewers the indignities, big and small, of living through late-stage capitalism.

A candid, compulsively readable, hilarious, and heartbreaking memoir of resilience and redemption by comedic genius Molly Shannon At age four, Molly Shannon's world was shattered when she lost her mother, baby sister, and cousin in a car accident with her father at the wheel. Held together by her tender and complicated relationship with her grieving father, Molly was raised in a permissive household where her gift for improvising and role-playing blossomed alongside the fearlessness that would lead her to become a celebrated actress. From there, Molly ventured into the wider world of New York and Los Angeles show business, where she created her own opportunities and developed her daring and empathetic comedy. Filled with behind-the-scenes stories involving everyone from Whitney Houston to Adam Sandler to Monica Lewinsky, many told for the first time here, Hello, Molly! spans Molly's time on Saturday Night Live--where she starred alongside Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Cheri Oteri, Tracy Morgan, and Jimmy Fallon, among many others. At the same time, it explores with humor and candor her struggle to come to terms with the legacy of her father, a man who both fostered her gifts and drive and was left with the impossible task of raising his kids alone after the loss of her mother. Witty, winning, and told with tremendous energy and heart, Hello, Molly!, written with Sean Wilsey, sheds new and revelatory light on the life and work of one of our most talented and free-spirited performers.

No matter how many times female comedians buck the conventional wisdom, people continue to ask: "Are women funny?" The question has been nagging at women off and on (mostly on) for the past sixty years. It's incendiary, much discussed, and, as proven in Yael Kohen's fascinating oral history, totally wrongheaded.\nIn We Killed, Kohen pieces together the revolution that happened to (and by) women in American comedy, gathering the country's most prominent comediennes and the writers, producers, nightclub owners, and colleagues who revolved around them. She starts in the 1950s, when comic success meant ridiculing and desexualizing yourself; when Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller emerged as America's favorite frustrated ladies; when the joke was always on them. Kohen brings us into the sixties and seventies, when the appearance of smart, edgy comedians (Elaine May, Lily Tomlin) and the women's movement brought a new wave of radicals: the women of SNL, tough-ass stand-ups, and a more independent breed on TV (Mary Tyler Moore and her sisters). There were battles to fight and preconceptions to shake before we could arrive in a world in which women like Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, and Tina Fey can be smart, attractive, sexually confident―and, most of all, flat-out funny.\nAs the more than 150 people interviewed for this riveting oral history make clear, women have always been funny. It's just that every success has been called an exception and every failure an example of the rule. And as each generation of women has developed its own style of comedy, the coups of the previous era are washed away and a new set of challenges arises. But the result is the same: They kill. A chorus of creative voices and hilarious storytelling, We Killed is essential cultural and social history, and―as it should be!―great entertainment.

“To sit with George Schlatter and hear his stories is a gift.” ― Billy CrystalIn 1967, producer George Schlatter pitched an idea for a quirky new television show: one inspired by the hippie counterculture, which would take the idea of sit-ins, love-ins, and be-ins, and manifest that politicized, sexualized, consciousness-raising energy into pure comedy. Much to the surprise of NBC executives, Laugh-In soon became the #1 show on American TV, and the careers of beloved stars like Lily Tomlin and Goldie Hawn were born. 

Still Laughing features never-before-told stories from the creation of one of the most groundbreaking shows in television history. It also recounts the coming-of-age of one of Hollywood’s most iconic producers, from his early nightclub days rubbing elbows with mob figures like Mickey Cohen and John Stompanato, to his influential friendships with Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra, for whom George was asked to deliver a eulogy at his funeral decades later. 

An inside look at Hollywood in the wake of the cultural upheaval of the ‘60s and ‘70s, Still Laughing demonstrates the crucial, deeply creative role a working producer plays in bringing a show (and its stars) to life. With spit-fire humor, tireless wit and keen perception, Still Laughing tells of the rise of some of comedy’s greatest talents, and reveals the actual people cloistered inside larger-than-life celebrity.

In The Comedians, comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff brings to life a century of American comedy with real-life characters, forgotten stars, mainstream heroes and counterculture iconoclasts. Based on over two hundred original interviews and extensive archival research, Nesteroff’s groundbreaking work is a narrative exploration of the way comedians have reflected, shaped, and changed American culture over the past one hundred years.Starting with the vaudeville circuit at the turn of the last century, Nesteroff introduces the first stand-up comedianan emcee who abandoned physical shtick for straight jokes. After the repeal of Prohibition, Mafia-run supper clubs replaced speakeasies, and mobsters replaced vaudeville impresarios as the comedian’s primary employer. In the 1950s, the late-night talk show brought stand-up to a wide public, while Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and Jonathan Winters attacked conformity and staged a comedy rebellion in coffeehouses. From comedy’s part in the Civil Rights movement and the social upheaval of the late 1960s, to the first comedy clubs of the 1970s and the cocaine-fueled comedy boom of the 1980s, The Comedians culminates with a new era of media-driven celebrity in the twenty-first century.

As seen on The View and Good Morning America!\\nIf you think Joan Rivers said funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things ONSTAGE, wait ’til you read the funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things she said OFFSTAGE…things that will make you laugh out loud…and keep Melissa in therapy for the foreseeable future.\\nThe only thing my mother loved more than making people laugh was lying…or as she’d say, “embellishing.” Her motto was: “Why let the truth ruin a good story?”\\nThis book contains some of those stories.\\n*****************\\n“When Joan told a story, the truth disappeared faster than I did.”\n— Jimmy Hoffa\\n“If you thought Dante’s Inferno was hot, read Lies My Mother Told Me; it’s a five-alarmer.”\n— Dante’s second wife, Allie\\n“Twelve of my twenty-six personalities loved this book.”\n— Sybil\\n“The words on the page absolutely crackle and spark; I burned my fingers reading it!”\n— Annie Sullivan\\n“The Bible may be the good book, but Lies My Mother Told Me is way funnier.”\n— Matthew 2:14\nThe Jets. 7\\n“Lies My Mother Told Me is the feel-good book of 2022.”\n— Torquemada\\n“All’s not well that ends well. I’ve had massages with happier endings.”\n— Wm. Shakespeare\\n“Melissa, I don’t care what your mother said in this book, I LOVE your bangs.”\n— Mamie Eisenhower\\n“Lies My Mother Told Me is so funny even those ‘woke’ m***********s will laugh.”\n— Lenny Bruce

A New York Times BestsellerFrom Scott Aukerman and the comedic geniuses who created the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast comes a book that brings the chaotic, hilarious, and outrageous characters of the pod to the page.Foreword by Patton Oswalt and Bob OdenkirkPreface by Jack Quaid and Tatiana MaslanyIntroduction by Lin-Manuel Miranda and “Weird Al” YankovicIn Comedy Bang! Bang!: The Podcast: The Book, Scott Aukerman transports readers into the zany world of the popular podcast. The book features anecdotes and opinions from the show’s wild cast of recurring characters, matching the show in tone and wackiness, with essays, lists, plays, nods to running bits, and four-color illustrations throughout, helping to bring the wacky, satirical, undefinable world of Comedy Bang! Bang! to life in new and surprising ways!Curated by Aukerman, the book also features pieces from Bobby Moynihan, Paul F. Thompkins, Ben Schwartz, Mary Holland, Andy Daly, Lauren Lapkus, Paul Brittain, Jessica McKenna, Ego Nwodim, and many more, all reprising roles of characters they’ve created for the podcast, taking readers even deeper inside the lives of these off-the-wall personalities. If you’ve ever enjoyed a Solo Bolo or wondered what makes Bob Ducca tick, this book is chock-full of inside jokes, character studies, and hilarity!

Part road-trip comedy and part social science experiment, a scientist and a journalist detail their epic quest to discover the secret behind what makes things funny.Two guys. 19 experiments. Five continents. 91,000 miles. And a book that will forever change the way you think about humor.Part road-trip comedy and part social science experiment, a scientist and a journalist detail their epic quest to discover the secret behind what makes things funny.Dr. Peter McGraw, founder of the Humor Research Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, teamed up with journalist Joel Warner on a far-reaching search for the secret behind humor. Their journey spanned the globe, from New York to Japan, from Palestine to the Amazon. Meanwhile, the duo conducted their own humor experiments along the way—to wince-worthy, hilarious, and illuminating results.In their quixotic search, they questioned countless experts, from comedians like Louis C.K. to rat-tickling researchers, and answered pressing (and not-so-pressing) questions such as, “What’s the secret to winning The New Yorker cartoon caption contest?”; “Who has the bigger funny bone—men or women, Democrats or Republicans?”; and “Is laughter really the best medicine?” As a final test, McGraw uses everything they learned to attempt stand-up—at the largest comedy festival in the world.Funny, surprising, and often touching, The Humor Code is a revealing exploration of humor, society, and an unusual friendship.

From Lane Moore, the award-winning, critically acclaimed author of How to Be Alone, comes a searingly intimate, yet wildly funny, exploration of the frustrating, messy, and, at times, deeply joyful experience of learning how to make meaningful friendships as an adult.Part memoir, part self-help, You Will Find Your People uncovers the complex, frightening, and often vulnerable process of building real, healthy friendships and finally creating your chosen family. Lane Moore takes readers on a journey that examines and challenges the ideas of friendship we’ve seen in pop culture, answers every question you’ve ever had about friend breakups, and teaches us how to fearlessly ask for what we want in friendships once and for all.Full of Moore’s hilarious personal anecdotes, advice on how to identify your attachment style, and real tools to create better communication and boundaries, this book is your personal guide on how to heal from your past friendships, improve your current ones, and finally have the friendships we know we deserve.

From comedian Ginny Hogan, this laugh-out-loud collection of humor observations explores all the ups and downs of modern romance. Through hilarious, absurd-yet-relatable short stories, quizzes, over-think pieces, and more, Hogan details every stage of a modern relationship--from meeting on an app to becoming official, to breaking up or getting married, to being single. Find out how to successfully ignore any and all red flags. Take a quiz to see if that anxiety attack you're having means you're in a new relationship or if it's that cold brew you just chugged. Read chilling tales about the unfortunate few who actually did lose their phones (they didn't mean to ghost you, they promise). Begging to be shared with friends or sat next to your phone full of Tinder notifications, I'm More Dateable than a Plate Of Refried Beans is the ultimate humor book for anyone who is dating or has ever dated. LAUGH-OUT-LOUD HUMOR FOR ALL: This hilarious book has a little something for everybody, whether you're single, dating, married, monogamous, polyamorous--you name it! UNIQUE CONTENT: Full of absurd yet relatable stories, quirky lists, quizzes and more, this is a nice repose to other modern dating books, whose pages try to offer sincere advice. Modern dating is weird and sometimes you just need to commiserate and laugh! GREAT GIFT: This book begs to be shared, a fun gift for your single friends, friends who are dating, and even your friends who are married! Perfect for: * Anyone who has dated or is dating * Galentine's day, birthday, and holiday shoppers * Parents looking for gifts for their tech-savvy Millennial and Gen Z kids * Fans of How to Date Men when You Hate Men by Blythe Roberson, Notes from the Bathroom Line by Amy Solomon, and No One Asked for This by Cazzie David

NATIONAL BESTSELLERBest Book of the Year —NPR, Vulture, Book Riot, B&N"America the Beautiful? is so funny and special and illuminating that it makes even me, a person who cannot tolerate trees or weather, wish I could've tagged along in the back seat." — Samantha Irby, author of Wow, No Thank You. and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.The author of How to Date Men When You Hate Men examines Americans’ obsession with freedom, travel, and the open road in this funny, entertaining travelogue that blends the humorous observations of Bill Bryson with the piercing cultural commentary of Jia Tolentino.For writer and comedian Blythe Roberson, there are only so many Mary Oliver poems you can read about being free, and only so many times you can listen to Joni Mitchell’s travel album Hejira, before you too, are itching to take off. Canonical American travel writers have long celebrated the road trip as the epitome of freedom. But why does it seem like all those canonical travel narratives are written by white men who have no problems, who only decide to go the desert to see what having problems feels like?To fill in the literary gaps and quench her own sense of adventure, Roberson quits her day job and sets off on a Great American Road Trip to visit America’s national parks.America the Beautiful? is a hilarious trip into the mind of one of the Millennial generation’s funniest writers. Borrowing her Midwestern stepfather’s Prius, she heads west to the Loop of mega-popular parks, over to the ocean and down the Pacific Coast Highway, and, in a feat of spectacularly bad timing, through the southwestern desert in the middle of July. Along the way she meets new friends on their own personal quests, learns to cope with abstinence while missing the comforts of home, and comes to understand the limits—and possibilities—of going to nature to prove to yourself and your Instagram followers that you are, in fact, free.The result is a laugh-out-loud-while-occasionally-raging-inside travelogue, filled with meditations and many, many jokes on ecotourism, conservation, freedom, traffic, climate change, and the structural and financial inequalities that limit so many Americans’ movement. Ultimately, Roberson ponders the question: Is quitting society and going on the road about enlightenment and liberty—or is it just selfish escapism?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER“In fact very funny.” —Cosmopolitan“[A] hilarious and much-needed book.” —Samantha Bee, Emmy Award–winning comedian, author, and host of Full Frontal with Samantha BeeFor fans of the perceptive comedy of Hannah Gadsby, Lindy West, and Sarah Silverman, Academy Award–nominated and acclaimed stand-up comedian Jena Friedman presents a witty and insightful collection of essays on the cultural flashpoints of today.Growing up, Jena Friedman didn’t care about being likable. And she never wanted to be a comedian, either. A child of the 90s, she wouldn’t discover her knack for the funny business until research for her college thesis led her to take an improv class in Chicago.That anthropology paper, written on race, class, and gender in the city’s comedy scene, was, in Jena’s own words, “just as funny as it sounds.” But it did lay the groundwork for a career that has seen her write and produce for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Late Show with David Letterman, and the Oscar nominated Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.Friedman’s debut collection, Not Funny, takes on the third rails of modern life in Jena’s bold and subversive style, with essays that explore cancel culture, sexism, work, celebrity worship, and…dead baby jokes.In a moment where women’s rights are being rolled back, fascism is on the rise, and so many of us could use a breather as we struggle to get by, Jena applies her unique gifts to pull a laugh from things deemed too raw, too precious, and too scary to joke about. She shares her stories of taking on those who told her she was too brash, too edgy, and too “unlikable” to make it. She deftly dissects how we get coerced into silence on the issues that matter most, until they’ve gone too far afield to be turned back around again. And she shares her struggles to make it (-ish) in a world that, more often than not, would rather tune out than listen to a woman confronting the indignities we’ve been told to bear.

An instant New York Times bestseller, I'll Show Myself Out is the eagerly anticipated second essay collection from Jessi Klein, author of the acclaimed debut You’ll Grow Out of It.\n“Sometimes I think about how much bad news there is to tell my kid, the endlessly long, looping CVS receipt scroll of truly terrible things that have happened, and I want to get under the bed and never come out. How do we tell them about all this? Can we just play Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire and then brace for questions? The first of which should be, how is this a song that played on the radio?”\nIn New York Times bestselling author and Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Jessi Klein’s second collection, she hilariously explodes the cultural myths and impossible expectations around motherhood and explore the humiliations, poignancies, and possibilities of midlife.\nIn interconnected essays like “Listening to Beyoncé in the Parking Lot of Party City,” “Your Husband Will Remarry Five Minutes After You Die,” “Eulogy for My Feet,” and “An Open Love Letter to Nate Berkus and Jeremiah Brent,” Klein explores this stage of life in all its cruel ironies, joyous moments, and bittersweetness.\nWritten with Klein’s signature candor and humanity, I'll Show Myself Out is an incisive, moving, and often uproarious collection.

An insider’s look at the power of comedy to effect social changeFrom Trevor Noah’s The Daily Show and Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act, to Issa Rae’s Insecure and Corey Ryan Forrester’s Twitter feed, today’s multi-platform comedy refuses to shy away from the social issues that define our time.As more comedians lean into social justice activism, they help reshape the entertainment industry and offer creative, dynamic avenues for social change.The Revolution Will Be Hilarious offers a compelling insider’s look at how comedy and social justice activists are working together in a revolutionary media moment. Caty Borum invites readers into an expanding, enterprising arena of participatory culture and politics through in-depth interviews with comedians, social justice leaders, and Hollywood players. Their insights shed light on questions such as: What role does comedy play in helping communities engage the public with challenging social issues? How do social justice organizations and comedians co-create entertaining comedy designed to build the civic power of marginalized groups? And how are entertainment industry leaders working with social justice organizations to launch new comedy as both entertainment and inspiration for social change?Through this exploration, Borum argues that building creative power is crucial for marginalized groups to build civic power. The Revolution Will Be Hilarious positions the rise of social justice comedy as creative, disruptive storytelling that hilariously invites us to agitate the status quo and re-imagine social realities to come closer to the promise of equity and justice in America.

If you've ever dared to express dissatisfaction with the state of your life, you've inevitably received a variety of helpful suggestions: "Have you tried meditation? Exercise? A cult? An exercise cult?" In Do I Feel Better Yet?, Madeleine Trebenski explores more than 45 so-called solutions suggested to her in the name of self-care. In a playful and at times sardonic chronicle of the elusive promises of multistep skin-care routines, gratitude journaling, scented candles, and more, Trebenski perfectly captures what it's like to live in a time when homemade kombucha and weighted blankets are said to single-handedly solve all our problems. These essays will make you laugh, make you feel less alone, and maybe make you feel better—even if just for a little while.

A nefarious blackmail.\nAn attempted murder.\nAnother metric ton of coffee...\\nSomeone is trying to blackmail one of The Great American's biggest influencelebs, and Frank Harken—private investigator—along with his trusty coffeebot, Arjay, will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of it(1)(2).\\nAs they follow the clues, the two are pulled deeper and deeper into the giant mall's secret machinations, and with every twist and turn the case provides, it becomes clearer that there's a sinister force looming over the Great American, one that has no qualms about using—and disposing—of anyone and anything to accomplish its goals.\\nBy the end of it all, only one thing will be for certain: Harken could really, really use a cup of coffee.\\nThe Great American Betrayal is the sci-fi comedy satire sequel to The Great American Deception, about which Publishers Weekly (starred review, PW Picks) said, "Sure to appeal to fans of Douglas Adams, this zany, uproarious mystery is a constant delight."\nIf you like quirky characters, cultural mashups, and original wordplay, then you'll love Scott Stein's futuristic send-up.\\n(1) Except for dogs. Arjay loves dogs.\n(2) And maybe hats.

The definitive, behind-the-scenes look at the most popular sitcom of the last decade, The Big Bang Theory, packed with all-new, exclusive interviews with the producers and entire cast. The Big Bang Theory is a television phenomenon. To the casual viewer, it's a seemingly effortless comedy, with relatable characters tackling real-life issues, offering a kind of visual comfort food to its millions of dedicated fans. But the behind-the-scenes journey of the show from a failed pilot to a global sensation is a fascinating story that even the most die-hard fans don't know in its entirety.  THE BIG BANG THEORY: THE DEFINITIVE, INSIDE STORY OF THE EPIC HIT SERIES is a riveting, entertaining look at the sitcom sensation, with the blessing and participation of co-creator Chuck Lorre and executive producer Steve Molaro, as well as Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Melissa Rauch, Mayim Bialik, and more. Glamour senior editor Jessica Radloff, who has written over 150 articles on the series (and even had a cameo in the finale!), gives readers an all-access pass to its intrepid producing and writing team and beloved cast. It's a story of on-and-off screen romance told in hilarious and emotional detail, of casting choices that nearly changed everything (which even some of the actors didn't know until now), of cast members bravely powering through personal tragedies, and when it came time to announce the 12th season would be its last, the complicated reasons why it was more difficult than anyone ever led on. Through hundreds of hours of interviews with the sitcom's major players, Radloff dives into all this and much more. The book is the ultimate celebration of this once-in-a-generation show and a must-have for all fans.   

From the razor-sharp mind of comedian Iliza Shlesinger, a collection of hilarious and insightful essays about the exasperating issues of everyday life\n“Iliza is exceptionally funny. If this book doesn’t make you laugh, it means you can’t read. In which case, disregard.” —Jimmy Kimmel\n“A book for everyone wrestling with what it means to show up for ourselves and the world today. I love Iliza, and I love her advice.” —Rebecca Serle, New York Times bestselling author of One Italian Summer\n“Send me a copy of your book and I’ll read it.” —Sharon Stone\n“All Things Aside . . . is Iliza: fresh, funny, and a reinvention of the form.” —Ted Sarandos, co-CEO, Netflix\nAll Things Aside is a punchy, honest, incisive book that shares a view of the world through the eyes of the inimitable Iliza Shlesinger. From the macro to micro, Shlesinger tackles it all with her no-bullshit comedic style.\nThroughout the book, Shlesinger dives from one subject into the next, making her hilarious asides the meat of her stories, much like she does in her stand-up comedy. Topics range from dissecting social expectations to the notion that products marketed specifically to women are scams, and all manner of things in between. She even dares to ask herself the all-important question that every woman is forced to consider at some point—Am I actually an annoying person? Shlesinger also shares intimate moments, including a devastating miscarriage, which she manages to navigate not only with grace but somehow with side-splitting humor.\nAs Margaret Cho explains in the book’s foreword, “Every woman has something to gain from the Everywoman Iliza presents in her hilarious and astute worldview. . . . I’ve learned [from Iliza] that you don’t have to quit when you are in pain, that you can write your way out of the suffering. That there is beautiful truth to be unearthed from the depths of despair. That the stupid can be smart and that we put ourselves through hell for nothing.”All Things Aside offers unexpected insights, much-needed truths, and tons and tons of laughs.

Beloved Saturday Night Live alum Kevin Nealon shares original full-color caricatures and insightful personal essays about his famous friendsIn I Exaggerate, famed comedian and actor Kevin Nealon pairs his artwork with sweet, funny, and endearing stories about the subjects he paints. From reminiscences about Saturday Night Live hosts to an excerpt from the eulogy he gave at his dear friend Garry Shandling's funeral, the writing in this book is warm and nostalgic, and the list of subjects Kevin wants to cover is everyone you could hope for. In addition to Nealon's paintings, the book includes doodles on SNL scripts, early artwork drafts, and insights into his relationship with art, which he likens to his relationship to comedy. This is a charming project from a comedy all-star. Subjects include: Budd Friedman, Robin Williams, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Andy Kaufman, Jim Carey, Buzz Aldrin, Tilda Swinton, Dana Carvey, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Chris Farley, Chris Rock, Daisy Edgar Jones, Timothée Chalamet, James Taylor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christopher Walken, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Howard Stern, Carrie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Billie Eilish, John Travolta, Harry Dean Stanton, The Pointer Sisters, Garry Shandling, Tom Petty, Tiffany Haddish, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Emma Stone, Prince Rogers Nelson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Robert Plant, Rami Malik, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Dave Chappelle, Lady Gaga, Jeff Daniels, Norm MacDonald, Arnold Palmer, Brad Paisley, Ken Jeong, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Anya-Taylor Joy, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Whitney Houston, and Anthony Bourdain.

Work is a joke. Laughing at it is political.\nHumor, Groucho Marx asserted, is “reason gone mad.” For Walter Benjamin, laughter was “the most revolutionary emotion.” In a moment when great numbers of people are reevaluating their commitment to the hellscape we call “work,” what does it mean to take comedy seriously—and to turn it against work?\nBoth philosophically brilliant and deeply personal, Comedy Against Workdemonstrates how laughing about work can puncture the pretensions of tyrannical bosses while uniting us around a commitment to radically new ways of making the world together. At the same time, Lane-McKinley exposes a war at the heart of contemporary comedy between those who see comedy as a weapon for punching down and those whose laughter points to social transformation. From stand-up to sitcoms, podcasts to late night, comedy reveals our longing to subvert power, escape the prison of work, and envision the joys of a liberated world.

About the Author\\nSteve Martin is one of the most well-known talents in entertainment. His work has earned him an Academy Award®, five Grammy® awards, an Emmy®, the Mark Twain Award, and the Kennedy Center Honors.\\nAs an author, Martin’s work includes the novel An Object of Beauty, the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a collection of comic pieces, Pure Drivel, a bestselling novella, Shopgirl, and his memoir Born Standing Up. Martin’s films include The Jerk, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Roxanne, Parenthood, L.A. Story, Father of the Bride, and Bowfinger.\\nHarry Bliss is a cartoonist and cover artist for the New Yorker magazine. His syndicated single-panel comic ‘Bliss’ appears in newspapers internationally. He has written and illustrated over 20 books for children and is the founder of the Cornish CCS Fellowship for Graphic Novelists in Cornish, New Hampshire.\\n** New York Times Bestseller **\\nNumber One Is Walking is Steve Martin’s cinematic legacy―an illustrated memoir of his legendary acting career, with stories from his most popular films and artwork by New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss.\\nSteve Martin has never written about his career in the movies before. In Number One Is Walking, he shares anecdotes from the sets of his beloved films―Father of the Bride, Roxanne, The Jerk, Three Amigos, and many more―bringing readers directly into his world. He shares charming tales of antics, moments of inspiration, and exploits with the likes of Paul McCartney, Diane Keaton, Robin Williams, and Chevy Chase. Martin details his forty years in the movie biz, as well as his stand-up comedy, banjo playing, writing, and cartooning, all with his unparalleled wit.\\nWith gorgeously illustrated cartoons and single-panel “diversions” in Steve and Harry’s signature style, Number One Is Walking is full of the everyday moments that make up a movie star’s life, capturing Steve Martin’s singular humor and acclaimed career in film. The perfect gift from the team who brought you the #1 New York Times bestseller A Wealth of Pigeons.

About the Author\\nJohn Waters is a writer, a film director, an actor, and a visual artist best known for his films, including Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Serial Mom. He is the author of the national bestsellers Role Models, Carsick and Mr. Know-It-All. His spoken-word shows This Filthy World, False Negative, and A John Waters Christmas continue to be performed around the world. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.\\nA hilariously filthy tale of sex, crime, and family dysfunction from the brilliantly twisted mind of John Waters, the legendary filmmaker and bestselling author of Mr. Know-It-All.\\nMarsha Sprinkle: Suitcase thief. Scammer. Master of disguise. Dogs and children hate her. Her own family wants her dead. She’s smart, she’s desperate, she’s disturbed, and she’s on the run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her Liarmouth―until one insane man makes her tell the truth.\\nLiarmouth, the first novel by John Waters, is a perfectly perverted “feel-bad romance,” and the reader will thrill to hop aboard this delirious road trip of riotous revenge.