Book picks similar to
The Book of the Year 2019 by James Harkin
non-fiction
nonfiction
audiobooks
humor
The Tent, the Bucket and Me
Emma Kennedy - 2009
But despite a brave new world of Casio hand-held calculators and digital watches, one thing remained the same: the family holiday. For the Seventies child, summer holidays didn't mean the joy of CentreParcs or the sophistication of a Tuscan villa. They meant being crammed into a car with Grandma and heading to the coast. With just a tent for a home and a bucket for the necessities, we would set off on new adventures each year stoically resolving to enjoy ourselves.For Emma Kennedy, and her mum and dad, disaster always came along for the ride no matter where they went. Whether it was swept away by a force ten gale on the Welsh coast or suffering copious amounts of food poisoning on a brave trip to the south of France, family holidays alwaysleft them battered and bruised.But they never gave up. Emma's memoir, The Tent, the Bucket and Me,is a painfully funny reminder of just what it was like to spend your summer holidays cold, damp but with sand between your toes.
Diary of a Mad Diva
Joan Rivers - 2014
And everyone, God help them.The result? A no-holds-barred, delightfully vicious and always hilarious look at the everyday life of the ultimate diva. Follow Joan on a family vacation in Mexico and on trips between New York and Los Angeles where she mingles with the stars, never missing a beat as she delivers blistering critiques on current events, and excoriating insights about life, pop culture, and celebrities (from A to D list), all in her relentlessly funny signature style.This is the Diary of a Mad Diva. For the first time in a century, a diary by someone that’s actually worth reading.
The Smartest Book in the World: A Lexicon of Literacy, A Rancorous Reportage, A Concise Curriculum of Cool
Greg Proops - 2015
The Smartest Book in the World is based on Proops’s sensational, iTunes Top 10 podcast that has been downloaded more than nine million times, in which his “bold, never-boring voice takes center stage” (The New York Times). The book is a rollicking reference guide to the most essential areas of knowledge in Proops’s universe, from the noteworthy names of the ancient world and baseball, to the movies you must see and the albums you must hear. Complete with history’s juiciest tales and curious back-stories, Proops expounds on the merits of poetry and proper punctuation, delivering this wealth of information with his signature style and Proopsian panache. An off-beat and exuberant guide to everything, The Smartest Book in the World gives you everything you need to know to always be the smartest person in the room. Well, unless the Proopmaster is there, too.
The Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason
Chapo Trap House - 2018
These self-described “assholes from the internet” offer a fully ironic ideology for all who feel politically hopeless and prefer broadsides and tirades to reasoned debate. Learn the “secret” history of the world, politics, media, and everything in-between that THEY don’t want you to know and chart a course from our wretched present to a utopian future where one can post in the morning, game in the afternoon, and podcast after dinner without ever becoming a poster, gamer, or podcaster. The Chapo Guide to Revolution features illustrated taxonomies of contemporary liberal and conservative characters, biographies of important thought leaders, “never before seen” drafts of Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom manga, and the ten new laws that govern Chapo Year Zero (everyone gets a dog, billionaires are turned into Soylent, and logic is outlawed). If you’re a fan of sacred cows, prisoners being taken, and holds being barred, then this book is NOT for you. However, if you feel disenfranchised from the political and cultural nightmare we’re in, then Chapo, let’s go...
God Is Disappointed in You
Mark Russell - 2011
if it would just cut to the chase. Stripped of its arcane language and its interminable passages of poetry, genealogy, and law, every book of the Bible is condensed down to its core message, in no more than a few pages each. Written by Mark Russell with cartoons by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, God Is Disappointed in You is a frequently hilarious, often shocking, but always accurate retelling of the Bible, including the parts selectively left out by Sunday School teachers and church sermons. Irreverent yet faithful, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to see past the fog of religious agendas and cultural debates to discover what the Bible really says.
Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No-Bullshit Guide to World Mythology
Cory O'Brien - 2013
In reality, mythology is more screwed up than a schizophrenic shaman doing hits of unidentified. Wait, it all makes sense now. In Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes, Cory O’Brien, creator of Myths RETOLD!, sets the stories straight. These are rude, crude, totally sacred texts told the way they were meant to be told: loudly, and with lots of four-letter words. Skeptical? Here are just a few gems to consider: � Zeus once stuffed an unborn fetus inside his thigh to save its life after he exploded its mother by being too good in bed. � The entire Egyptian universe was saved because Sekhmet just got too hammered to keep murdering everyone. � The Hindu universe is run by a married couple who only stop murdering in order to throw sweet dance parties…on the corpses of their enemies. � The Norse goddess Freyja once consented to a four-dwarf gangbang in exchange for one shiny necklace. And there’s more dysfunctional goodness where that came from.
Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good
Kevin Smith - 2012
He makes movies, writes comics, owns a store, and now he s built a podcasting empire with his friends and family, including a wife who s way out of his league. So here s some tough shit: Kevin Smith has cracked the code. Or, he s just cracked. "Tough Sh*t" is the dirty business that Kevin has been digesting for 41 years and now, he s ready to put it in "your" hands. Smear this shit all over yourself, because this is your blueprint (or brownprint) for success. Kev takes you through some big moments in his life to help you live "your" days in as Gretzky a fashion as you can: going where the puck is "gonna" be. Read all about how a zero like Smith managed to make ten movies with no discernible talent, and how when he had everything he thought he d ever want, he decided to blow up his own career. Along the way, Kev shares stories about folks who inspired him (like George Carlin), folks who befuddled him (like Bruce Willis), and folks who let him jerk off onto their legs (like his beloved wife, Jen).So make this your daily reader. Hell, read it on the toilet if you want. Just make sure you grab the bowl and push, because you re about to take one "Tough Sh*t."
Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body
Sara Pascoe - 2016
Animal combines autobiography and evolutionary history to create a funny, fascinating insight into the forces that mould and affect modern women.Animal is entertaining and informative, personal and universal – silly about lots of things and serious about some. It's a laugh-out-loud investigation to help us understand and forgive our animal urges and insecurities.
Everyone You Hate is Going to Die: And Other Comforting Thoughts on Family, Friends, Sex, Love, and More Things That Ruin Your Life
Daniel Sloss - 2021
He has two Netflix comedy specials: DARK, a brilliant, laugh-out-loud meditation on our relationship with death; and Jigsaw, which needles apart the ideas of love, romantic relationships, and marriage–and according to Sloss, singlehandedly caused 160 divorces and 95,000 break-ups (he’s got the tweets to back up those numbers). His HBO special, Daniel Sloss Live: X, is a miraculous 85 minutes on the topic of male toxicity.Now, in his first book, he picks up where Jigsaw and his other specials left off, and goes after every conceivable kind of relationship–with one’s country (Daniel’s is Scotland), with America, with lovers, ex-lovers, ex-lovers who you hate, ex-lovers who hate you, with parents, with best friends (male and female), not-best friends, with children, and with siblings. In Everyone You Hate Is Going to Die, every relationship gets the hilarious, brutal (but always incisive) Sloss treatment as he explains why all of our relationships are fragile and ridiculous and awful–but, just maybe, also valuable and meaningful.
Everything Is Awful: And Other Observations
Matt Bellassai - 2017
From the break-out star of BuzzFeed's “Whine About It” and the People’s Choice Award-winning comedian behind the web series “To Be Honest” comes a collection of hilariously anguished essays chronicling awful moments from Matt’s life so far, the humiliations of being an adult, and other little indignities.
Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)
Lauren Graham - 2016
In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”). In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her. Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”). Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.
Little Weirds
Jenny Slate - 2019
Inside you will find:× The smell of honeysuckle× Heartbreak× A French-kissing rabbit× A haunted house× Death× A vagina singing sad old songs× Young geraniums in an ancient castle× Birth× A dog who appears in dreams as a spiritual guide× Divorce× Electromagnetic energy fields× Emotional horniness× The ghost of a sea captain× And moreI hope you enjoy these little weirds.Love,Jenny Slate
Fake Law: The Truth About Justice in an Age of Lies
The Secret Barrister - 2020
But the law touches every area of our lives: from intimate family matters to the biggest issues in our society.Our unfamiliarity is dangerous because it makes us vulnerable to media spin, political lies and the kind of misinformation that frequently comes from other loud-mouthed amateurs and those with vested interests. This 'fake law' allows the powerful and the ignorant to corrupt justice without our knowledge - worse, we risk letting them make us complicit.Thankfully, the Secret Barrister is back to reveal the stupidity, malice and incompetence behind many of the biggest legal stories of recent years. In Fake Law, the Secret Barrister debunks the lies and builds an hilarious, alarming and eye-opening defence against the abuse of our law, our rights and our democracy.
Next Level Basic: The Definitive Basic Bitch Handbook
Stassi Schroeder - 2019
Millions of Vanderpump Rules viewers and podcast listeners know Stassi Schroeder as a major defender of Basic Bitch rights. There’s nothing more boring than people who take themselves too seriously or think that you have to be pretentious to be cool. Stassi champions the things that many of us are afraid to love publicly for fear of being labeled basic: lattes, pugs, bubbly cocktails, millennial pink, #OOTD (outfit of the day, obvs), astrology, hot dogs, the perfect pair of Louboutins, romantic comedies...the list goes on and on. This book is for people tired of pretending they would rather see a Daniel Day-Lewis movie about sewing or read War and Peace than watch a Saw marathon or read...well, this book! In Next Level Basic, the reality star, podcast queen, and ranch dressing expert gives you hilarious and pointed lessons on how to have fun and celebrate yourself, with exclusive stories from her own life and on the set of Vanderpump Rules. From her very public breakups to her most intimate details about her plastic surgery, Stassi shares her own personal experiences with her trademark honesty—all with the hope you can learn something from them.
Priestdaddy
Patricia Lockwood - 2017
There was the location: an impoverished, nuclear waste-riddled area of the American Midwest. There was her mother, a woman who speaks almost entirely in strange koans and warnings of impending danger. Above all, there was her gun-toting, guitar-riffing, frequently semi-naked father, who underwent a religious conversion on a submarine and discovered a loophole which saw him approved for the Catholic priesthood by the future Pope Benedict XVI - despite already having a wife and children.When the expense of a medical procedure forces the 30-year-old Patricia to move back in with her parents, husband in tow, she must learn to live again with her family's simmering madness, and to reckon with the dark side of a childhood spent in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Told with the comic sensibility of a brasher, bluer Waugh or Wodehouse, this is at the same time a lyrical and affecting story of how, having ventured into the underworld, we can emerge with our levity and our sense of justice intact.