Book picks similar to
Summerlandish: Do As I Say, Not As I Did by Summer Land
non-fiction
biography
memoirs
memoir
I'll Tell You One Damn Thing and That's All I Know
Jann Arden - 2004
It's this juxtaposition, the poet's gift for poignant love songs paired with a comedian's timing and self-deprecating wit, that has earned Jann a legion of loyal fans on the stage as well as the page. Two years after the success of her first publication if i knew, don(c)^t you think i'd tell you? (Insomniac Press), acclaimed singer / songwriter and now bestselling author Jann Arden is at it again with her second book, i'll tell you one damn thing, and that's all i know. Little escapes the observant and immensely creative Jann whose musings and entertaining ramblings travel beyond goose poop (if you don't remember, buy the first book) to ponder the state of the world, the state of the States, and the state of her hair (she really is a blonde).
In Search of Nice Americans
Geoff Steward - 2017
From New York to Alaska, he tries to fend for himself without his trusty PA and life support, the unflappable Charmaine, for whom contentment lies in Jesus Christ and custard creams.With his blend of waspish wit and mischievous charm, Steward seeks out normal Americans, such as Joe le Taxi, the former NYPD officer who was one of the first on the scene at the Twin Towers and now runs an extortionate executive taxi service; Pam and Bob, a paranoid psychiatrist and a failed actor who once saw the back of Meryl Streep s head; Taylor the Alaskan bushwhacker who was raised by wolves and revels in their scat; Jeb the Yosemite inn-sitter who lives his life at the pace of a Ford Model T; Kacey Musgraves, the controversial country music star staying at the farm in Tennessee; and Sheriff Duke of Calhoun County, South Carolina, who reintroduces Steward to the long (and armed) arm of the law.For anyone at a crossroads, contemplating a temporary or permanent career break, this affectionate travel romp is essential reading. Journeying coast-to-coast across the US with Steward might just remind you that, despite the post-Trump hysteria, there are many normal and decent Americans out there
When You Find Out the World is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments
Kelly Oxford - 2016
Whether it is with the kind of tweets that led Rolling Stone to name her one of the Funniest People on Twitter, or with pictures of her hilariously adorable family (human and animal), or with something much more serious, like creating the hashtag #NotOkay, where millions of women came together to share their stories of sexual assault, Kelly has a unique, razor-sharp perspective on modern life. As a screen writer, professional sh*t disturber, wife and mother of three, Kelly is about everything but the status quo.Perfect for anyone who ever wished David Sedaris and Mindy Kaling would just finally write a book together already, When You Find Out the World Is Against You is filled with the biting, wise, and laugh-out-loud insights that have won Kelly legions of fans. Whether she’s detailing her obsession with going to camp as an eleven-year-old so she can become a “kissing bandit,” exploring the bittersweet boredom that so often accompanies parenthood, calling out the insanity of a posse of Internet poodle vigilantes, writing bracingly about the anxiety that has plagued her for as long as she can remember or taking us to ride shotgun as she stalks her husband on an accidental date with another man, When You Find Out the World Is Against You is Kelly at her most honest and disarmingly funny best. Her comedic skill, down-to-earth voice and bull’s-eye observations on the absurdity of modern life mean there is nothing quite like seeing the world through Kelly’s eyes.
Five Hundred Mile Walkies
Mark Wallington - 1986
His two-legged companion is Mark. This is a heroic study of survival against the odds, as together they take a journey, up hill and down dale, with rucksacks full of kennomeat, along Britain's longest coastal footpath - from Somerset to Devon, from Cornwall to Dorset.
Home is Burning
Dan Marshall - 2015
First diagnosed when he was only ten years old, she was the model of resilience throughout his childhood, fighting her disease with tenacity and a mouth foul enough to make a sailor blush. But just as she faces a relapse, her husband —a successful businessman and devoted father—is diagnosed with ALS. He is told that in a few months' time, he be unable to walk, eat, or breathe on his own. Dan, a recent college graduate living the good life in Los Angeles, has no choice but to return home to help. Reinstalled in his parents' basement (in one of the only non-Mormon homes in a Salt Lake City subdivision) Dan is reunited with his siblings. His older sister Tiffany is resentful, having stayed closer to home to bear the brunt of their mother's illness. Younger brother Greg comes to lend a hand, giving up a journalism career and evenings cruising Chicago gay bars. Younger sister Michelle is a sullen teenager experimenting with drinking and flirting with her 35-year-old soccer coach. And baby sister Chelsea—the oddest duck in a family of misfits—can only think about dance. Together they form Team Terminal, going to battle against their parents' illnesses and cracking plenty of jokes along the way. As Dan steps into his role as caregiver, wheelchair wrangler, and sibling referee, he watches pieces of his previous life slip away, and comes to realize that you don't get to choose when it's time to grow up.
Feminasty: The Complicated Woman's Guide to Surviving the Patriarchy Without Drinking Herself to Death
Erin Gibson - 2018
Since women earned the right to vote a little under one hundred years ago, our progress hasn't been the Olympic sprint toward gender equality first wave feminists hoped for, but more of a slow, elderly mall walk (with frequent stops to Cinnabon) over the four hundred million hurdles we still face. Some of these obstacles are obvious-unequal pay, under-representation in government, reproductive restrictions, lack of floor-length mirrors in hotel rooms. But a lot of them are harder to identify. They're the white noise of oppression that we've accepted as lady business as usual, and the patriarchy wants to keep it that way. Erin Gibson has a singular goal-to create a utopian future where women are recognized as humans. In Feminasty -- titled after her nickname on the hit podcast "Throwing Shade" -- she has written a collection of make-you-laugh-until-you-cry essays that expose the hidden rules that make life as a woman unnecessarily hard and deconstructs them in a way that's bold, provocative and hilarious. Whether it's shaming women for having their periods, allowing them into STEM fields but never treating them like they truly belong, or dictating strict rules for how they should dress in every situation, Erin breaks down the organized chaos of old fashioned sexism, intentional and otherwise, that systemically keeps women down.
Frontier Follies: Adventures in Marriage & Motherhood in the Middle of Nowhere
Ree DrummondRee Drummond - 2020
On her blog, in her magazine, and on her cooking show, Ree shares recipes, tales of her adventures in the country, and stories of everyday life with her four children and cowboy/rancher husband.In this down-to-earth and charming book, Ree shares real-life anecdotes about parenting from her own unique vantage point. While her busy life is constantly full of new surprises, what's most important to her is family. Over the years she's learned a few things about balancing motherhood with a million other things, and now she offers the wisdom of her experiences; the ups, the downs, the bumps in the road, the laughter and the tears; in stories brimming with the relatable wit and humor found in her cookbooks and her bestselling love story, The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.A celebration of motherhood, family, love, and laughter, Frontier Follies is a keepsake to treasure and share with the wonderful women in your life
Bouncing Back: I've Survived Everything... and I Mean Everything...and You Can Too!
Joan Rivers - 1997
-- I've Been Through It All. This degree comes not on parchment but on gauze, and it entitles me to tell you that there is a way to get through any misfortune." -- From Bouncing BackSurvival stratagems from Joan RiversWhatever doesn't kill you makes you strongerAnd always remember: Surviving is the best revengeLook at Alexander Graham Bell, who did 22,000 experiments before he hit on the telephone. Just a few more and he would have had call waitingWhenever I hit bottom, the only thing I think of was set down by Jerome Kern: Pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again. Dr. Kevorkian will get no call from me, unless I think he'd look good in a brooch.A fiercely honest and moving story of how Joan Rivers, one of comedy's greatest stars, survived the worst that life could throw at her, how she hit bottom and then made it back to the top.
One Sip at a Time: Learning to Live in Provence
Keith Van Sickle - 2017
So they came up with a plan…Follow their adventures (and misadventures) as they quit their jobs, become consultants and split their time between two countries. Laugh along as they build a life in Provence, slowly mastering a new language and making friends with the locals over long meals and just a bit too much wine.This light and breezy memoir is full of wry observations on France, like the power of cheese to sway elections, the right and wrong ways for men to kiss each other, and the law requiring that blood donors must speak French.If you’ve ever dreamed of changing gears and learning what joie de vivre is really all about, you won’t want to miss this delightful book.
Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud
Elizabeth Greenwood - 2016
So off she sets on a darkly comic foray into the world of death fraud, where for $30,000 a consultant can make you disappear--but your suspicious insurance company might hire a private detective to dig up your coffin...only to find it filled with rocks.Greenwood tracks down a British man who staged a kayaking accident and then returned to live in his own house while all his neighbors thought he was dead. She takes a call from Michael Jackson (no, he's not dead--or so her new acquaintances would have her believe), stalks message boards for people contemplating pseudocide, and gathers intel on black market morgues in the Philippines, where she may or may not obtain some fraudulent goodies of her own. Along the way, she learns that love is a much less common motive than money, and that making your death look like a drowning virtually guarantees that you'll be caught. (Disappearing while hiking, however, is a way great to go.)Playing Dead is a charmingly bizarre investigation in the vein of Jon Ronson and Mary Roach into our all-too-human desire to escape from the lives we lead, and the men and women desperate enough to give up their lives--and their families--to start again.
I Like You Just the Way I Am: Stories About Me and Some Other People
Jenny Mollen - 2014
She is also a wife, married to a famous guy (which is annoying only because he gets free shit and she doesn't). She doesn't want much from life. Just to be loved—by everybody: her parents, her dogs, her ex-boyfriends, her ex-boyfriends' dogs, her husband, her husband's ex-girlfriends, her husband's ex-girlfriend's new boyfriends, etc. Some people might call that impulse crazy, but isn't "crazy" really just a word boring people use to describe fun people? (And Jenny is really, really fun, you guys!)In these pages, you'll find stories of Jenny at her most genuine, whether it's stalking her therapist (because he knows everything about her so shouldn't she get to know everything about him?); throwing a bachelorette party so bad that one of the guests is suspected dead; or answering the eternal question, Would your best friend blow your husband on a car ride to dinner if she didn't know you were hiding in the backseat?I Like You Just the Way I Am is about not doing the right thing—about indulging your inner crazy-person. It is Jenny when she's not trying to impress anyone or come across as a responsible, level-headed member of society. With any luck it will make you better acquainted with who you really are and what you really want. Which, let's be honest, is most likely someone else's email password.
Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir
Bob Odenkirk - 2022
Show, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Nobody opens up about the highs and lows of showbiz, his legendary cult status as a comedy writer, and what it's like to reinvent himself as a no-holds-barred action film ass-kicker at fifty.
Bob Odenkirk's career is inexplicable. And yet he will try like hell to explain it here, because that is what memoirs are for. Charting a "Homeric" decades-long "Odyssey" from his origins in the seedy comedy clubs of Chicago all the way to a dramatic career that is baffling to his friends, it's almost like there are two or three Bob Odenkirks...but there is just one and one is enough, frankly. Bob embraced a life in comedy after a chance meeting with Second City's legendary Del Close, which eventually led to a job as a writer at SNL. As he weathered the beast that is live comedy, he stashed away the secrets of sketch writing--employing them in the immortal "Motivational Speaker" sketch for his friend Chris Farley, honing them on The Ben Stiller Show, and perfecting them on Mr. Show With Bob and David, which inspired an entire generation of comedy writers and stars. Then his career met the hope-dashing machine that is Hollywood development. But when all hope was lost for the umpteenth time, Bob was more astonished than anyone to find himself on Breaking Bad. His embrace of this strange new world of dramatic acting led him to working with Steven Spielberg, Alexander Payne, and Greta Gerwig, until finally re-re-inventing himself as a bona-fide worldwide action star for reasons that even he does not fully grasp! Read this and do your own psychoanalysis--it's fun!Throughout Bob's travels, his memoir preserves the voice he cultivated from years of comedy writing. Featuring humorous tangents, joyful interludes, never-before-seen photos, wild characters from his winding career, and his trademark upbeat but unflinching drive, Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama is a classic showbiz tale--and a moving story about what it's like to risk everything you think you know to make a change.
We Are Not Broken
George M. Johnson - 2021
Johnson that celebrates Black boyhood and brotherhood in all its glory!This is the story of George, Garrett, Rall, and Rasul -- four children raised by Nanny, their fiercely devoted grandmother. The boys hold each other close through early brushes with racism, memorable experiences at the family barbershop, and first loves and losses. And with Nanny at their center, they are never broken.Complete with letters from the grandchildren to their beloved matriarch and a full color photo insert.
On My Knees: A Memoir
Periel Aschenbrand - 2013
Watch out Portnoy, watch out Caulfield, watch out Bukowski, watch out Candace Bushnell. Hell, everybody, real or imagined, just watch out! Because here comes Periel Aschenbrand!" -Jonathan AmesPeriel Aschenbrand seems to have no fear. Not only has she appeared naked on the cover of her first book, but she also started her own political t-shirt line with sayings like "The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own," and "If It's Date Rape, Do I Get Dinner?" But after she breaks up with her longtime boyfriend, shortly following her deeply beloved grandmother's passing, the normally indomitable Periel finds herself demoralized, sinking into the midst of a major life low, and questioning whether she'll ever bounce back, find her footing, and fall in love again.At the beginning of On My Knees, we find her drinking her days away on plastic-covered couches as she squats in her dead grandmother's apartment. But out of the darkness that threatens to overwhelm her, she begins a powerful, transformative journey through crazy one night stands and ill-advised hookups with friends; bad benders mixing margaritas and marijuana; a run-in with Philip Roth; and, in the end, a trip to Israel and an encounter with the man who finally shows her that the chance for love never disappears.
Talking to Girls about Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut
Rob Sheffield - 2010
"No rock critic-living or dead, American or otherwise-has ever written about pop music with the evocative, hyperpoetic perfectitude of Rob Sheffield." So said Chuck Klosterman about Love is a Mix Tape, Sheffield's paean to a lost love via its soundtrack. Now, in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, Sheffield shares the soundtrack to his eighties adolescence. When he turned 13 in 1980, Rob Sheffield had a lot to learn about women, love, music and himself, and in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran we get a glimpse into his transformation from pasty, geeky "hermit boy" into a young man with his first girlfriend, his first apartment, and a sense of the world. These were the years of MTV and John Hughes movies; the era of big dreams and bigger shoulder pads; and, like any all-American boy, this one was searching for true love and maybe a cooler haircut. It's all here: Inept flirtations. Dumb crushes. Deplorable fashion choices. Members Only jackets. Girls, every last one of whom seems to be madly in love with the bassist of Duran Duran. Sheffield's coming-of-age story is one that we all know, with a playlist that any child of the eighties or anyone who just loves music will sing along with. These songs-and Sheffield's writing-will remind readers of that first kiss, that first car, and the moments that shaped their lives.