Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid


Denis Leary - 2008
    In Why We Suck, Dr. Denis Leary uses his common sense, and his biting and hilarious take on the world, to attack the politically correct, the hypocritical, the obese, the thin--basically everyone who takes themselves too seriously. He does so with the extra oomph of a doctorate bestowed upon him by his alma mater Emerson College. "Sure it's just a celebrity type of thing--they only gave it to me because I'm famous," Leary explains. "But it's legal and it means I get to say I'm a doctor--just like Dr. Phil." In Why We Suck, Leary's famously smart style and sardonic wit have found their fullest and fiercest expression yet. Zeroing in on the ridiculous wherever he finds it, Leary unravels his Irish Catholic upbringing, the folly of celebrity, the pressures of family life, and the great hypocrisy of politics with the same bright, savage, and profane insight he brought to his critically acclaimed one-man shows No Cure for Cancer and Lock 'n Load, and his platinum-selling song, "Asshole." Proudly Irish American, defiantly working class, with a reserve of compassion for the underdog and the overlooked, Leary delivers blistering diatribes that are penetrating social commentary with no holds barred. Leary's book will find wide appeal among people who want to laugh out loud or find a guide who matches their view of what's wrong in America and the world-at-large; and fans of his one-man shows, his many movies, and Rescue Me, Leary's Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated television show. Why We Suck is the latest salvo from one of America's most original and biting comic satirists.

Life with Father


Clarence Day Jr. - 1935
    Clarence Day's reminiscences of growing up in a turn-of-the-century New York household which keeps wriggling out from under the thumb of a blustering Wall Street paterfamilias are classics of American humor, lively and nostalgic sketches that still manage to evoke the enduring comedy of family life. Father's explosive encounters with horse and cook, servants and shopkeepers, wife and children—to say nothing of his vigorous pursuit of ice!—retain their hilarious appeal in no small part because the younger Day never seems put out by the older man's actions, never describes him with less than affectionate amusement. As a result, Life with Father remains as a contemporary critic described it: "A delightful book alive with energy and collisions and the running water of happiness."A bestseller when it was first published in 1935, Life with Father was the inspiration for one of the longest-running hits in Broadway history and was later adapted successfully for both film and television.Clarence Day was born in 1874. After graduation from Yale, he followed his father to Wall Street, but his business career was cut short by illness. Turning to writing and drawing, he became an early contributor to The New Yorker and authored several books, the most famous of which was Life with Father. Day died in December 1935, just a few months after Life with Father was published. Life with Mother appeared posthumously."A delightful book alive with energy and collisions and the running water of happiness."—The New Republic"One of the most chuckling books of our time."—The Atlantic"The only reason for reading Life with Father is the fun of it."—New York Times"Such a rich and rounded character as Father has not appeared in literature for many a year. A novelist would be ranked as a genius for inventing him; Clarence Day didn't need to."Books"It won't be so much fun reading Life with Father unless you have someone at hand to whom you can read snatches whenever enjoyment becomes too great to be self-contained any longer."—Boston Transcript

Bossypants


Tina Fey - 2011
    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 all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter


Scaachi Koul - 2017
    Her subjects range from shaving her knuckles in grade school, to a shopping trip gone horribly awry, to dealing with internet trolls, to feeling out of place at an Indian wedding (as an Indian woman), to parsing the trajectory of fears and anxieties that pressed upon her immigrant parents and bled down a generation. Alongside these personal stories are pointed observations about life as a woman of colour, where every aspect of her appearance is open for critique, derision or outright scorn. Where strict gender rules bind in both Western and Indian cultures, forcing her to confront questions about gender dynamics, racial tensions, ethnic stereotypes and her father's creeping mortality--all as she tries to find her feet in the world.

Journey into the Whirlwind


Evgenia Ginzburg - 1967
    Yet like millions of others who suffered during Stalin's reign of terror, she was arrested—on trumped-up charges of being a Trotskyist terrorist and counter-revolutionary—and sentenced to prison. With an amazing eye for detail, profound strength, and an indefatigable spirit, Ginzburg recounts the years, days, and minutes she endured in prisons and labor camps, including two years of solitary confinement. A classic account of survival, Journey into the Whirlwind is considered one of the most important documents of Stalin's regime ever written.

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)


Andy Warhol - 1975
    A loosely formed autobiography by Andy Warhol, told with his trademark blend of irony and detachmentIn The Philosophy of Andy Warhol—which, with the subtitle "(From A to B and Back Again)," is less a memoir than a collection of riffs and reflections—he talks about love, sex, food, beauty, fame, work, money, and success; about New York, America, and his childhood in McKeesport, Pennsylvania; about his good times and bad in New York, the explosion of his career in the sixties, and his life among celebrities.

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman


Sam Wasson - 2010
    Here, for the first time, Sam Wasson presents the woman behind the little black dress that rocked the nation in 1961. The first complete account of the making of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. reveals little-known facts about the cinema classic: Truman Capote desperately wanted Marilyn Monroe for the leading role; director Blake Edwards filmed multiple endings; Hepburn herself felt very conflicted about balancing the roles of mother and movie star. With a colorful cast of characters including Truman Capote, Edith Head, Givenchy, "Moon River" composer Henry Mancini, and, of course, Hepburn herself, Wasson immerses us in the America of the late fifties before Woodstock and birth control, when a not-so-virginal girl by the name of Holly Golightly raised eyebrows across the country, changing fashion, film, and sex for good. Indeed, cultural touchstones like Sex and the City owe a debt of gratitude to Breakfast at Tiffany's.In this meticulously researched gem of a book, Wasson delivers us from the penthouses of the Upper East Side to the pools of Beverly Hills, presenting Breakfast at Tiffany's as we have never seen it before—through the eyes of those who made it. Written with delicious prose and considerable wit, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. shines new light on a beloved film and its incomparable star.

Do You Mind If I Cancel? (Things That Still Annoy Me)


Gary Janetti - 2019
    He chronicles the torture of finding a job before the internet when you had to talk on the phone all the time, and fantasizes, as we all do, about who to tell off when he finally wins an Oscar. As Gary himself says, "These are essays from my childhood and young adulthood about things that still annoy me."Original, brazen, and laugh out loud funny, Do You Mind if I Cancel? is something not to be missed.

Life Among the Savages


Shirley Jackson - 1953
    But the writer possessed another side, one which is delightfully exposed in this hilariously charming memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont. Fans of Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Cheaper by the Dozen, and anything Erma Bombeck ever wrote will find much to recognize in Shirley Jackson's home and neighborhood: children who won't behave, cars that won't start, furnaces that break down, a pugnacious corner bully, household help that never stays, and a patient, capable husband who remains lovingly oblivious to the many thousands of things mothers and wives accomplish every single day."Our house," writes Jackson, "is old, noisy, and full. When we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books." Jackson's literary talents are in evidence everywhere, as is her trenchant, unsentimental wit. Yet there is no mistaking the happiness and love in these pages, which are crowded with the raucous voices of an extraordinary family living a wonderfully ordinary life.

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow


Jerome K. Jerome - 1886
    This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading 'the best hundred books, ' you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change." (from the Preface to "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome Jerome)

The Solace of Open Spaces


Gretel Ehrlich - 1984
    A stunning collection of personal observations that uses images of the American West to probe larger concerns in lyrical, evocative prose that is a true celebration of the region.

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice


Terry Tempest Williams - 2012
    It was a shock to Williams to discover that her mother had kept journals. But not as much of a shock as what she found when the time came to read them.  “They were exactly where she said they would be: three shelves of beautiful cloth-bound books . . . I opened the first journal. It was empty. I opened the second journal. It was empty. I opened the third. It too was empty . . . Shelf after shelf after shelf, all of my mother’s journals were blank.” What did Williams’s mother mean by that? In fifty-four chapters that unfold like a series of yoga poses, each with its own logic and beauty, Williams creates a lyrical and caring meditation of the mystery of her mother's journals. When Women Were Birds is a kaleidoscope that keeps turning around the question “What does it mean to have a voice?”

I Am America (And So Can You!)


Stephen ColbertPeter Grosz - 2007
    I Am America (And So Can You!) contains all of the opinions that Stephen doesn't have time to shoehorn into his nightly broadcast.Dictated directly into a microcassette recorder over a three-day weekend, this book contains Stephen's most deeply held knee-jerk beliefs on The American Family, Race, Religion, Sex, Sports, and many more topics, conveniently arranged in chapter form.Always controversial and outspoken, Stephen addresses why Hollywood is destroying America by inches, why evolution is a fraud, and why the elderly should be harnessed to millstones.You may not agree with everything Stephen says, but at the very least, you'll understand that your differing opinion is wrong.I Am America (And So Can You!) showcases Stephen Colbert at his most eloquent and impassioned. He is an unrelenting fighter for the soul of America, and in this book he fights the good fight for the traditional values that have served this country so well for so long.Please buy this book before you leave the store.About the AuthorStephen Colbert is America.Description from book jacket

Roughing It


Mark Twain - 1872
    He wrote it during 1870–71 and published in 1872, as a prequel to his first book The Innocents Abroad (1869). This book tells of Twain's adventures prior to his pleasure cruise related in Innocents Abroad.

Mother, Can You Not?


Kate Friedman-Siegel - 2016
    There is also nothing more annoying. Who else can proudly insist that you’re perfect while simultaneously making you question every career, fashion, and relationship decision you have ever made?   No one understands the delicate mother-daughter dynamic better than Kate Siegel—her own mother drove her so crazy that she decided to broadcast their hilarious conversations on Instagram. Soon, hundreds of thousands of people were following their daily text exchanges, eager to see what outrageous thing Kate’s mom would do next. Now, in Mother, Can You NOT?, Kate pays tribute to the woman who invented the concept of drone parenting.  From embarrassing moments (like crashing Kate's gynecological exams) to outrageous stories (like the time she made Kate steal a cat from the pound) to hilarious celebrations (including but not limited to parties for Kate's menstrual cycles), Mother, Can you NOT? lovingly lampoons the lengths to which our mothers will go to better our lives (even if it feels like they’re ruining them in the process).