Book picks similar to
Satiristas: Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs & Vulgarians by Paul Provenza
comedy
nonfiction
non-fiction
humor
In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash
Jean Shepherd - 1966
In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations.In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage "You can never go back." Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth.A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.
How Music Works
David Byrne - 2012
In the insightful How Music Works, Byrne offers his unique perspective on music - including how music is shaped by time, how recording technologies transform the listening experience, the evolution of the industry, and much more.
POPism: The Warhol Sixties
Andy Warhol - 1980
In the detached, back-fence gossip style he was famous for, Warhol tells all—the ultimate inside story of a decade of cultural revolution.
Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure
Larry Smith - 2008
When the online storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers to submit six-word memoirs, they proved a whole, real life can be told this way, too. The results are fascinating, hilarious, shocking, and moving. From small sagas of bittersweet romance ("Found true love, married someone else") to proud achievements and stinging regrets ("After Harvard, had baby with crackhead"), these terse true tales relate the diversity of human experience in tasty bite-size pieces. The original edition of Not Quite What I Was Planning spent six weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and thanks to massive media attention—from NPR to the The New Yorker—the six-word memoir concept spread to classrooms, dinner tables, churches, synagogues, and tens of thousands of blogs. This deluxe edition has been revised and expanded to include more than sixty never-before-seen memoirs. From authors Elizabeth Gilbert, Richard Ford, and Joyce Carol Oates to celebrities Stephen Colbert, Mario Batali, and Joan Rivers to ordinary folks around the world, everyone has a six-word story to tell.
Learning to Love You More
Harrell Fletcher - 2007
A collaboration between writer, filmmaker and artist Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher, this book brings together the best of the popular website learningtoloveyoumore.com, which asks ordinary people to contribute to assignments posted on the site and features responses that are surprising, touching, imaginative, and often hilarious.
Cautionary Tales
Stephen Tobolowsky - 2011
He has played everyone from Ned Ryerson in "Groundhog Day" to Sandy Ryerson in "Glee." He has amused thousands with his true stories on "The Tobolowsky Files" at Slashfilm.com. Here he shares some homespun philosophy and more true stories that prove tales of sex, drugs, and rock and roll are often the most humiliating and almost always the most enjoyable.
Mr. Show-What Happened?: The Complete Story & Episode Guide
Naomi Odenkirk - 2002
Show began developing a cult-like following, which has only grown since the series end. This lavishly-illustrated book features original, never-before-seen material--plus a complete episode guide--making it a rich, unique retrospective.
New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer
Bill Maher - 2005
He is best known not just for being funny, but for advocating truth over sensitivity and taking on the political establishment.Maher first came to national attention as the host of the hit ABC-TV program Politically Incorrect, where he offered a combustible mixture of irreverence and acerbic humor that helped him to garner a loyal following, as well as a reputation for being a controversial bad boy.Bill Maher's popular new HBO television show, Real Time, has put Maher more front and center than ever before. Partic-ularly one regular segment on the show, entitled "New Rules," has been a hit with his ever-growing legion of fans. It is the part of the show during which Maher takes serious aim, bringing all of his intelligence, incisiveness, wit, and his signature exasperation to bear on topics ranging from cell phones ("I don't need my cell phone to take pictures or access the Internet. I just need it to make a phone call. From everywhere! Not just the places it likes!") to fast food ("No McDonald's in hospitals. I'm not kidding!) to the conservative agenda ("Stop claiming it's an agenda. It's not an agenda. It's a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass.")His new book, the first since his bestselling When You Ride ALONE You Ride with bin Laden, brings these brilliantly conceived riffs and rants to the written page. Appropriately titled New Rules, the book will collect some of the best of the rules derived from previously written material and will also contain substantial new material, including some longer form "editorials"--of course with a twist and bite that only Bill Maher can deliver.
Rules for the Unruly: Living an Unconventional Life
Marion Winik - 2001
Winik's amusing tales of outrageous mistakes, haunting uncertainty, and the never-ending struggle to stay true to her heart strike a powerful chord with creative, impassioned, independent-minded free spirits who know they're different -- and want to stay that way. Winik's seven Rules for the Unruly are: THE PATH IS NOT STRAIGHT · MISTAKES NEED NOT BE FATAL PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN ACHIEVEMENTS OR POSSESSIONS BE GENTLE WITH YOUR PARENTS · NEVER STOP DOING WHAT YOU CARE ABOUT MOST LEARN TO USE A SEMICOLON · YOU WILL FIND LOVE Rules for the Unruly shows us how taking risks, living creatively, and cherishing our inner weirdness can become the secret of our happiness and success, not our downfall.
I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are
Rachel Bloom - 2020
Rachel Bloom has felt abnormal and out of place her whole life. In this exploration of what she thinks makes her "different," she's come to realize that a lot of people also feel this way; even people who she otherwise thought were "normal."In a collection of laugh-out-loud funny essays, all told in the unique voice (sometimes singing voice) that made her a star; Rachel writes about everything from her love of Disney, OCD and depression, weirdness, and female friendships to the story of how she didn't poop in the toilet until she was four years old; Rachel's pieces are hilarious, smart, and infinitely relatable (except for the pooping thing).
The Wreckage of My Presence
Casey Wilson - 2021
In this dazzling collection of essays, skillfully constructed and brimming with emotion, she shares her thoughts on the joys and vagaries of modern-day womanhood and motherhood, introduces the not-quite-typical family that made her who she is, and persuasively argues that lowbrow pop culture is the perfect lens through which to understand human nature.Whether she’s extolling the virtues of eating in bed, processing the humiliation over her father’s late in life perm, or exploring her pathological need to be liked, Casey is witty, candid, and full of poignant and funny surprises. Humorous dives into her obsessions and areas of personal expertise—Scientology and self-help, nice guys, reality television shows—are matched by touching meditations on female friendship, grief, motherhood, and identity. Reading The Wreckage of My Presence is like spending time with a close friend—a deeply passionate, full-tilt, joyous, excessive, compulsive, shameless, hungry-for-it-all, loyal, cheerleading friend. A friend who is ready for any big feeling that comes her way and isn’t afraid to embrace it.Bed person --The wreckage of my presence --To all the boys I loved before --Cool girl --A saber story --Send in the clowns --Flyentology --Hide your phones --Expect a miracle --Hiked out --The BBQ --Tears of a clown --Happy endings --My husband's just not that into me; or Afrin: a love story --Grandpa's pretty girl --It doesn't do --What dis --Open-door policy --Mother's day --People don't know how to act --Gimme some sugar; or, the wreckage of my presence redux
Chasing Down the Dawn
Jewel - 2000
Soundlessly, theyspill onto the sidewalk, like a frayed edge. Theground will freeze soon. The night is cold. I canfeel it reach my skin through the glass of mywindow. My pane. My lamp. My towels.Funny how every hotel room becomes my own.My home. If only for one night.Welcome to a world set to the ever-changing rhythms of an artist's life.Since childhood, Jewel has turned to her own short stories, vivid narratives, and starkly honest writings to revisit the past, chronicle the many characters she's encountered, and trace the intricate, unpredictable patterns of her days. In Chasing Down the Dawn, recording artist, actress, and bestselling author Jewel opens her intimate journals to create a vivid montage of the people, places, relationships, and passages that colored the life she came from and marked the last magical, turbulent, and ultimately transformational year.Drawn from her remarkable chronicle of life on the road during the Spirit World Tour, this unforgettable collection of freeze-frames captures unusual images from Jewel's childhood in Alaska, her beginnings as a struggling artist, and her challenges as a daughter, sister, and woman. Jewel paints an unblinkingly honest picture of the exceptional journey that carried her to the world's stage.Here, as if pulled from a stack of snapshots, are Jewel's moment-by-moment observations on life as she now lives it: the pleasure of sold-out performances and the pressures of her industry .. the sweetness of love and bitterness of loss ... friendship, freedom, and the small miracles we ourselves create. And herein a book that allows the reader a rare glimpse of life's turning points as if viewed from over the author's shoulder -- are Jewel's deeply personal insights on the events that shaped her understanding: her parents' divorce, her experience of poverty, the healing of her difficult relationship with her father, and the development of her unique talent.With the publication of her bestselling collection of poetry, A Night Without Armor, Jewel established herself as a light on the literary horizon. With acutely observed, elegantly written depictions of the musicians, lovers, bikers, strangers, celebrities, and characters that inhabit the singer/songwriter's world, illustrated with Jewel's own drawings and never-before-seen photographs from her family archives, Chasing Down the Dawn is more than a collection of vignettes, observations, and stories. It is a finely wrought mosaic in prose and poetry, set to the rhythms of life.
Love You to Bits and Pieces: Life with David Helfgott
Gillian Helfgott - 1996
The highly acclaimed movie Shine tells David's extraordinary story from child musical prodigy, through tormenting mental breakdown, to triumphant recovery. This book, written by David's wife, Gillian, is the equally extraordinary story of their lives since the couple's fateful meeting in 1983, and David's own account and analysis of his life prior to that meeting. The book charts David's struggles to escape the legacy of his troubled childhood and how, with the help of his wife and friends, he forms a new sense of self without losing his magical quirkiness and childlike sense of wonder. When David achieves his dream of once again performing Rakhmaninov's Third Concerto in 1995, it is a moment of overwhelming personal affirmation, and the culmination of Gillian's unswerving belief in his brilliance.
7 Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin
James Sullivan - 2010
A critical biography, Seven Dirty Words is an insightful (and, of course, hilarious) examination of Carlin’s body of work as it pertained to its cultural times and the man who created it, from his early days as amore-or-less conventional comedian to his stunning transformation into the subversive comedic voice of the emerging counterculture. Sullivan also chronicles Carlin’s struggles with censorship and drugs, as well as the full-blown renaissance he experienced in the 1990s, both personally and professionally, when he became an elder statesman to a younger generation of comics who revered him. Seven Dirty Words is nothing less than the definitive biography of an American master who changed the world, and also a work of cultural commentary which frames George Carlin’s extraordinary legacy.
The Internet is a Playground
David Thorne - 2010
The complete collection of articles and emails from 27bslash6 such as Overdue Account, Party in Apartment 3 and Strata Agreement plus articles too litigious to be on the website.