Book picks similar to
The Rude Pundit's Almanack by Lee Papa
politics
current-affairs
humor
adult
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt - 1960
The niece of Theodore Roosevelt, she married a distant relative and Columbia University law student named Franklin Delano Roosevelt; he gradually ascended throughout the world of New York politics to reach the U.S. presidency in 1932. Throughout his three terms, Eleanor Roosevelt was not only intimately involved in FDR’s personal and political life, but led women’s organizations and youth movements and fought for consumer welfare, civil rights, and improved housing. During World War II she traveled with her husband to meet leaders of many powerful nations; after his death in 1945 she worked as a UN delegate, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights, newspaper columnist, Democratic party activist, world-traveler, and diplomat. By the end of her life, Eleanor Roosevelt was recognized throughout the world for her fortitude and commitment to the ideals of liberty and human rights. Her autobiography constitutes a self-portrait no biography can match for its candor and liveliness, its wisdom, tolerance, and breadth of view—a self-portrait of one of the greatest American humanitarians of our time.
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.
Shepherd's Quest
Brian S. Pratt - 2007
When Riyan stumbled upon an ancient burial tomb, he and the others soon discovered they had found the fabled King's Horde. A place reputed to hold a vast fortune.However, before they could gain access to the King's Horde, they must first recover the segments of the key that will open the sigil inscribed portal. One key they found within the ancient burial tomb in the hand of a long dead thief.Somehow they must find the segments of the key and open the Horde before word gets out. For should others learn that they have found the fabled King's Horde, less scrupulous men will be after them to claim the Horde for themselves.Their quest for the rest of The Broken Key ultimately leads them to a place located deep within hostile goblin territory, a place where even the goblins fear to go.
To Catch a Latte
Jenn McKinlay - 2018
Stop that espresso! Annie Talbot's coffeepot has been turned upside down when her cafe is declared a front for a money laundering scheme and the FBI suspects she is the mastermind. So now her sexy new tenant, Special Agent Fisher McCoy, is sifting through her coffee grounds looking for the real culprit while trying to keep his hands off the delightful Annie. Marriage-phobic Annie is doing her best to ignore FBI hottie Fisher, but he is so distracting, her lattes are steaming over and she's thinking crazy thoughts like marriage and happily ever after.
Bad Feminist
Roxane Gay - 2014
I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink—all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I’m not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue.In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman of color while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years and commenting on the state of feminism today. The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture.Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.Feel me, see me, hear me, reach me --Peculiar benefits --Typical first year professor --To scratch, claw or grope clumsily or frantically --How to be friends with another woman --Girls, girls, girls --I once was Miss America --Garish, glorious spectacles --Not here to make friends --How we all lose --Reaching for catharsis : getting fat right (or wrong) and Diana Spechler's Skinny --The smooth surfaces of idyll --The careless language of sexual violence --What we hunger for --The illusion of safety/the safety of illusion --The spectacle of broken men --A tale of three coming out stories --Beyond the measure of men --Some jokes are funnier than others --Dear young ladies who love Chris Brown --So much they would let him beat them --Blurred lines, indeed --The trouble with Prince Charming, or, He who trespassed against us --The solace of preparing fried foods and other quaint remembrances from 1960s Mississippi : thoughts on The help --Surviving Django --Beyond the struggle narrative --The morality of Tyler Perry --The last day of a young black man --When less is more --The politics of respectability --When Twitter does what journalism cannot --The alienable rights of women --Holding out for a hero --A tale of two profiles --The racism we all carry --Tragedy, call, compassion, response --Bad feminist : take one --Bad feminist : take two
Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography
Neil Patrick Harris - 2014
You will be born in New Mexico. You will get your big break at an acting camp. You will get into a bizarre confrontation outside a nightclub with actor Scott Caan. Even better, at each critical juncture of your life, you will choose how to proceed. You will decide whether to try out for Doogie Howser, M.D. You will decide whether to spend years struggling with your sexuality. You will decide what kind of caviar you want to eat on board Elton John’s yacht. Choose correctly and you’ll find fame, fortune, and true love. Choose incorrectly and you’ll find misery, heartbreak, and a hideous death by piranhas. All this, plus magic tricks, cocktail recipes, embarrassing pictures from your time as a child actor, and even a closing song. Yes, if you buy one book this year, congratulations on being above the American average, but make that book Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography!
A Date with Fate
Tracy Ellen - 2012
She’s twenty eight, owns a bookstore, and is one determined, control freak of a woman. She’s decided to take the entire weekend off to have some fun. Except Anabel’s unapologetically single and perfectly uncomplicated life is suddenly upside down with problems! The cheating love of her life is back in town. Her family is meddling in her personal business. An adulterous wife of a good friend has gone missing. She’s been targeted for death by a homicidal serial rapist. An evil aunt has gone fanatic. Her sociopathic cousin has stolen her gun. The macho police chief is driving her nuts. And one not-too-tall, deliciously dark, and definitely not handsome stranger is enticing her to break all her ironclad rules on dating in the most intriguing of ways. Strange things are happening in Northfield, Minnesota. But Anabel’s never met the challenge she won’t stare in the eye while daintily spitting sideways in the dirt. Will Anabel begin to believe that life is never simple, some rules are meant to be broken, and a certain mesmerizing complication may be worth the trouble--even if it kills her? (Adult Content)
You Can’t Be Serious
Kal Penn - 2021
It’s about being the grandson of Gandhian freedom fighters, and the son of immigrant parents: people who came to this country with very little and went very far—and whose vision of the American dream probably never included their son sliding off an oiled-up naked woman in a raunchy Ryan Reynolds movie…or getting a phone call from Air Force One as Kal flew with the country’s first Black president.With intelligence, humor, and charm on every page, Kal reflects on the most exasperating and rewarding moments from his journey so far. He pulls back the curtain on the nuances of opportunity and racism in the entertainment industry and recounts how he built allies, found encouragement, and dealt with early reminders that he might never fit in. And of course, he reveals how, after a decade and a half of fighting for and enjoying successes in Hollywood, he made the terrifying but rewarding decision to take a sabbatical from a fulfilling acting career for an opportunity to serve his country as a White House aide.Above all, You Can’t Be Serious shows that everyone can have more than one life story. Kal demonstrates by example that no matter who you are and where you come from, you have many more choices than those presented to you. It’s a story about struggle, triumph, and learning how to keep your head up. And okay, yes, it’s also about how he accidentally (and very stupidly) accepted an invitation to take the entire White House Office of Public Engagement to a strip club—because, let’s be honest, that’s the kind of stuff you really want to hear about.
Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump
Michael Cohen - 2020
As Trump’s lawyer and “fixer,” Cohen not only witnessed firsthand, but was also an active participant in the inner workings of Trump’s business empire, political campaign, and presidential administration.This is a story that you have not read in newspapers, or on social media, or watched on television. These are accounts that only someone who worked for Trump around the clock for over a decade—not a few months or even a couple of years—could know. Cohen describes Trump’s racist rants against President Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Black and Hispanic people in general, as well as the cruelty, humiliation, and abuse he leveled at family and staff. Whether he’s exposing the fact that Trump engaged in tax fraud by inflating his wealth or election fraud by rigging polls, or outing Trump’s Neanderthal views towards women or his hush-money payments to clandestine lovers, Cohen pulls no punches.He show’s Trump’s relentless willingness to lie, exaggerate, mislead, or manipulate. Trump emerges as a man without a soul—a man who courts evangelicals and then trashes them, panders to the common man, but then rips off small business owners, a con-man who will do or say absolutely anything to win, regardless of the cost to his family, his associates, or his country.At the heart of Disloyal, we see how Cohen came under the spell of his charismatic Boss and, as a result, lost all sense of his moral compass.The real real Donald Trump who permeates these pages—the racist, sexist, homophobic, lying, cheating President—will be discussed, written about, and analyzed for years to come.
I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections
Nora Ephron - 2010
. . but rarely acknowledging.Filled with insights and observations that instantly ring true—and could have come only from Nora Ephron—I Remember Nothing is pure joy.
The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous
Khushwant Singh - 2013
This book will appeal not only to admirers of Khushwant Singhs writing but also to anyone Interested in the history, politics and socio economic scenario of twentieth century India.People profiled in this book include Jawaharlal Nehru, Krishna Menon, Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, Amrita Sher Gil, Begum Para, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, M. S. Golwalkar, Mother Teresa, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Dhirendra Brahmachari, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, General Tikka Khan, Phoolan Devi, Giani Zail Singh and Bhagat Puran Singh.About the AuthorKhushwant singh is one of Indias best known and most widely read authors and columnists. He was founder-editor of Yojana and editor of the Illustrated Weekly of India, National Heraldand the Hindustan Times. His first book, The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories, was published in 1950 and he has published several acclaimed and bestselling books of fiction and non-fiction in the six decades since. He has also translated the work of major Punjabi and Urdu poets and writers, as well as the Japji and the Rehras: The Morning and Evening Prayers of the Sikhs.
In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History
Mitch Landrieu - 2018
A passionate, personal, urgent book from the man who sparked a national debate."There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence for it." When Mitch Landrieu addressed the people of New Orleans in May 2017 about his decision to take down four Confederate monuments, including the statue of Robert E. Lee, he struck a nerve nationally, and his speech has now been heard or seen by millions across the country. In his first book, Mayor Landrieu discusses his personal journey on race as well as the path he took to making the decision to remove the monuments, tackles the broader history of slavery, race and institutional inequities that still bedevil America, and traces his personal relationship to this history. His father, as state senator and mayor, was a huge force in the integration of New Orleans in the 1960s and 19070s. Landrieu grew up with a progressive education in one of the nation's most racially divided cities, but even he had to relearn Southern history as it really happened.Equal parts unblinking memoir, history, and prescription for finally confronting America's most painful legacy, In the Shadow of Statues will contribute strongly to the national conversation about race in the age of Donald Trump, at a time when racism is resurgent with seemingly tacit approval from the highest levels of government and when too many Americans have a misplaced nostalgia for a time and place that never existed.
100 Nasty Women of History
Hannah Jewell - 2017
When you learn about women in history, it's hard not to wonder: why do they all seem so prim and proper? The truth is, you're probably not being told the whole story. Also, (mostly male) historians keep leaving out or glossing over some of the most badass women who ever walked the surface of this planet. Fake news! But fret not. Former Buzzfeed senior writer and Washington Post pop culture host Hannah Jewell has got you covered. In 100 Nasty Women of History, Hannah will spill the tea on:-the women with impressive kill counts-the women who wrote dangerous things-the women who fought empires and racists-the women who knew how to have a good-ass time-the women who punched Nazis (metaphorically but also not)And that's just half of the women in this book. That's pretty metal.So, if you think that Nasty Women are a new thing, think again. They've always been around - you just haven't always heard of them. Take these stories and tell them to your friends. Write them on a wall. Sneakily tell them to your niece (who's old enough to hear the bad words, of course). Post them to your local MP (especially if it's a man). Make your friends dress up as Nasty Women for Halloween. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History who gave zero f*cks whatsoever. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History who made a difference. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History whom everyone needs to know about, right now.
Stupid History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Throughout the Ages
Leland Gregory - 2007
Historians and humorists alike may be surprised to learn that:* Samuel Prescott made the famous horseback ride into Concord, not Paul Revere.* As a member of Parliament, Isaac Newton spoke only once. He asked for an open window.* On April 24, 1898, Spain declared war on the U.S., thus starting the Spanish-American War. The U.S. declared war the very next day, but not wanting to be outdone, had the date on the declaration changed from April 25 to April 21.With these and many other stories, leading humorist Leland Gregory once again highlights both the strange and the funny side of humankind.
Worth the Weight
Mara Jacobs - 2012
A new life. An old flame?Lizzie Hampton is literally a shadow of her former self. Having lost half her body weight, she's headed to her small hometown to test out her new body on an old flame. Just a harmless fling to get her self-confidence back before she returns to the city and the new man in her life.But Lizzie's plan has a few bumps in the road.Finn Robbins can't believe Liz is back in town. Desperate to be the holder of her innocence eighteen years ago, he never got the chance. Now she's back and he can finally check her off his to do list. But her friends, his son, and the mysterious Annie may have something to say about that.