Book picks similar to
Thurber and Company by James Thurber
humor
non-fiction
if-you-want-one--or-more---tell-me
essays
Damon Runyon Omnibus
Damon Runyon - 1944
A world of speakeasies and dancing girls where a gambler or bootlegger is perfectly normal and respectable in every way. Those familiar with "Guys and Dolls" know what to expect!
What The Pandemic Learned From Me
Anindita Das - 2021
A journey of self-realization and renewed assessment of our lives, marked by silly anecdotes, mindless distractions, and everyday truths. This book is a humorous retelling of the author’s personal blunders and mind-boggling human behavior in general, strung together by a series of hilarious open letters. It is a modest pursuit to deliver a little relief, and diversion from the pandemic’s grim realities. It’s also an attempt to reaffirm the need for a good laugh to help deal with the doom and gloom that now surrounds our lives. Each letter picks up a relatable theme of our lockdown life – be it our obsession with baking banana bread, growing out our beards, or finding the fanciest holiday homes in Goa. What comes out, is a light and delightful offering that anyone living in this era shouldn’t miss. “A breezy read that goes well with your evening tea (like Marie Gold) or finds a permanent spot on your nightstand. A perfect picker-upper if you're feeling down, it reminded me of Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and Hugh Prather's 'Notes to Myself'.”- Manish Bhatt, Founder/CCO August Communications“Hits a cord with everyone who has left the rat race of ‘acquiring new skills’. It is honest, straightforward, and downright hilarious. I loved the book. I found it clutter-breaking, relatable and non-preachy.” - Shilpi Agarwal, Blogger @bookgasmicSome important information:o The book is part memoir, part random lists and part mean musings.o It celebrates the ability to find humor in unexpected predicaments and life in general.o It’s a collection of letters addressed to the most unlikely of receivers, filled with pithy observations, irreverent and ruthless humor about the little idiosyncrasies of life in lockdown.o Each of these perfectly bite sized letters are wonderful accompaniments to the massive mood swings that is our reality in the times of corona.o Under no circumstance, this book is to be taken seriously, seriously.Savor this quick pick-me-up with a hot cup, a pinch of salt and a great deal of grins."
Not Quite the Classics
Colin Mochrie - 2012
Borrowing from a well-known improve game, Mochrie takes the first and last lines from familiar classics and reimagines everything in between. With the same engaging humour he exhibits on stage, television, and film, he takes the reader in bizarre and hilarious new directions, using the original writer's words as a launch and landing point. Imagine A Tale of Two Cities in which Wile E. Coyote gets his revenge on the Road Runner, Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat with zombies, or The Night Before Christmas with a time travelling twist. Imagine Sherlock Holmes devising a foolproof method for eliciting laughter and then taking the stage at a Victorian comedy club in Old London.This inspired collection is comical, quirky, and clever classic Mochrie.
Dance For Me
Tiffini Johnson - 2013
Her days consist of fishing in the Mekong River with her father, watching her younger sister Srey, cooking with her mother and dancing joyfully throughout the hut. When her sister becomes ill with dengue fever and the family worries she will die, her father journeys to the city in search of help. He returns with a doctor and a mysterious woman whom he tells Maelea she will now work for as a domestic servant. Maelea is promised a door to a better future, including school, but finds herself trapped in a brothel instead. There she endures unimaginable torture, isolation and is forced to sell her body up to 60 times a night for two years until one horrific act of terror becomes an unlikely saving grace. Dance For Me is an honest and compassionate look into child sex trafficking. it will make you angry, it will make you sad and it will inspire you to act for those who you cannot.
I-SPY : A peep into the world of Spies
Amit Bagaria - 2019
I am sure you’ve seen at least one, if not more of the 26 films made on fictional British spy 007. You may’ve also seen TV shows like The Americans, Blindspot, Chuck, Covert Affairs, Homeland, Nikita, Quantico, The Blacklist, and/or The Night Manager. I wrote this book after I realised that the average person may not know even one-sixth of what I know about spies and spying. Almost each of the Top 50 nations (by GDP, population or military power) has a spy agency/service. Many countries have more than one ‘secret service’ or ‘intelligence agency’. USA has 16. Some countries’ spy agencies are more powerful than entire smaller nations, with annual budgets larger than their GDPs. This books attempts to tell the story of 20 of the world’s largest and most powerful spy agencies, details their important missions, reveals their darkest secrets, and gives you an inside perspective of the often quite gory but thrilling ‘world of spies’. It gives you a 360º view of those spy agencies you only read about or see in a movie or TV show. With one chapter per agency, you can read only chapters you may be interested in. The life of most spies is not as glamorous as it is made out to be. You may think it is all about high-tech and guns and car chases and ‘hot’ women, but that’s not the case. In the real spy world, the techniques boil down to the interpretation of basic human psychology. Even though a spy learns several action techniques on how to get out of a dangerous situation, including how to withstand torture, if he/she is resorting to car chases, it means they’re doing something wrong. Spies don’t get paid very well. Gambling at a casino or flying on a private jet may be part of the job, but a spy doesn’t get to spend this kind of money on personal expenses. Spies cannot disclose the nature of their work to their family and friends, to maintain secrecy. Many have to live away from home for weeks, months, even years. Married life is a mess, as the spouse starts suspecting the spy of having an affair. Who can become a spy? Do you need a law enforcement (police) or military background? Not really. Spies have degrees as diverse as law, political science, finance, economics – even professional athletes have become successful spies.
Overland
Ewen Levick - 2019
From vast deserts to an Indonesian fishing boat, a slow train through Burma to an armed confrontation in Laos, lullabies from middle-aged Chinese businessmen to a cold night on the Great Wall, wolves and reindeer herders, thieves and nomads: this is a vivid illustration of Asia and the people who live there, and of one ancient, stubborn motorcycle travelling through the world's wild places.
Years of Minutes: The Best of Rooney from 60 Minutes
Andy Rooney - 2003
Photos throughout.
The LawDog Files
D. LawDog - 2017
In THE LAWDOG FILES, he chronicles his official encounters with everything from naked bikers, combative eco-warriors, suicidal drunks, respectful methheads, prison tattoo artists, and creepy children to six-foot chickens and lethal chihuahuas. THE LAWDOG FILES range from the bittersweet to the explosively hilarious, as LawDog relates his unforgettable experiences in a laconic, self-deprecating manner that is funny in its own right. The book is more than mere entertainment, it is an education in two English dialects, Police and Texas Country. And underlying the humor is an unmistakable sympathy for society's less fortunate - and in most cases, significantly less intelligent - whose encounters with the law are an all-too-frequent affair.
Twirty-Something: A Young Woman's Guide to Giant Underwear
Ingrid Reinke - 2013
Twirty-Something: A Young Woman's Guide to Giant Underwear is a hilarious new Kindle Single from Award-Winning and Amazon Best-Selling author and humorist Ingrid Reinke.On the cold January day when Ingrid Reinke turned 30, she looked back upon the last decade of her life in deep thought before finally shaking her head and mumbling to herself the following insight: "Wow, what a shit show."So, she sat down, braless and alone, and penned a collection of laugh-out-loud essays about the ridiculous, shocking and occasionally horrifying things that happen to us as we ungracefully age from 20 to 30, try, semi-successfully, to leave our clueless years behind and become mature, responsible grown-up women.From weird hairs to boob sweat, OCD to weddings, Twirty-Something swings between a no-holds-barred conversation and a cautionary tale about aging and all the crap that comes along with it.Sometime instruction manual, sometime commiseration partner, get ready for Reinke's honest and occasionally potty-mouthed accounts of this tumultuous decade.So hike up your yoga pants, plop another ice cube in your Pinot Grigio and get ready to laugh at the author, young women in general, and most of all at yourself.
Dating Your Mom
Ian Frazier - 1986
Ian Frazier, long considered one of our most treasured humorists, proves that comedy can be just as smart as it is entertaining.
The Pushcart Prize XXXVI: Best of the Small Presses 2012 Edition
Bill Henderson - 2011
The result: "The most creative, generous, and democratic of any of the annual volumes" (Rick Moody).Among its numerous awards, the Pushcart Prize has been chosen for the Poets Writers / Barnes Noble "Writers for Writers" Award and the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement recognition.
Mistaken Identity (Jack Dillon Dublin Tales Book 8)
Mike Faricy - 2019
Faricy takes things from there into a 'Can't put it down' tale that will have you riveted. A great read. - The Irish Gazette Two American women, Kate Betto and Megan Ganino, a redhead and a blonde, are arrested and cooperate with authorities to aid in the conviction of a pair of major drug dealers. At the conclusion of the trial, they're secretly flown back to the US to serve time. It happens to be the same day that Kate Murray and Megan Gaffney, a blonde and a redhead, arrive in Dublin to celebrate their college graduation, rent a car, and drive west. Things go terribly wrong almost immediately. US Marshal Jack Dillon and DI Paddy Suel investigate a torched rental car and quickly learn there's a lot more going on . . . and the clock is ticking! Grab your copy NOW!
Steve Jobs Graduation Speech
Steve Jobs - 2011
Here, word for word is that amazing speech to inspire you to find what it is that you "Love".
Why We Need Love
Simon Van Booy - 2010
In Why We Need Love, Simon Van Booy curates an enlightening collection of excerpts, passages, and paintings, presenting works by Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Donne, William Blake, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, O. Henry, W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, E. E. Cummings, Anaïs Nin, Marc Chagall, J. Krishnamurti, and others.Provocative and eye-opening, Why We Need Love is one of three slim selections of philosophical texts and excerpts—along with Why We Fight and Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter—introduced and contextualized by acclaimed author Simon Van Booy (Love Begins in Winter, The Secret Lives of People in Love).