Book picks similar to
Glad to Wear Glasses by John Hegley
poetry
comedy
funny
humour
P.S. I Still Hate It Here: More Kids' Letters From Camp
Diane Falanga - 2012
I Hate it Here comes an all-new, even more outrageous and laugh-out-loud funny collection of real letters written by children ages eight to sixteen to their parents about their adventures at summer camp. Written with the same wit and honesty that made the first book a runaway hit, these new letters take the reader on a familiar adventure that conjures up the experience of being away from home, and the hilarious and lasting memories that accompany that special place called sleepaway camp.
Bastards & Boneheads: Canada’s Glorious Leaders, Past and Present
Will Ferguson - 1999
It’s called BASTARDS AND BONEHEADS.Bastards succeed. Whether their goals are noble or immoral, Bastards are ruthless. Active. They cause events to unfold by an act of focussed will. Boneheads fail, usually by stumbling over their own two feet. Boneheads are reactive. Inept. They cause events to unfold mainly by accident. Bastards screw Canada. Boneheads just screw up.BASTARDS AND BONEHEADS makes an excellent parlour game. Pierre Trudeau was a Bastard. Joe Clark was not. Brian Mulroney managed to be both. Your turn: Jean Chrétien—Bastard or Bonehead?But Ferguson doesn’t limit himself to the prime ministers. No, sir. He takes on the full sweep of Canadian history, examining and evaluating the key personalities behind our most momentous events. When the English captured Quebec in 1759, was it a “Battle of Boneheads” or a “Contest of Bastards”? Was the War of 1812 won by Bastards? Or lost by Boneheads? From the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War to Canada’s contribution to the Holocaust, from the battle for women’s rights to the rise of the separatist movement, Will Ferguson looks at our past head-on, wars and all. This is history on the edge: opinionated, hard-hitting, outrageous and always thought-provoking. Watch out, Canada. Will Ferguson is headed our way.
The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman: Including The Brother
Flann O'Brien - 1976
And who is funnier?"- Edna O'BrienThe cream of Flann O'Brien's comic tour-de-force, the Keats and Chapman stories began in O'Brien's column in the Irish Times. He called them "studies in literary pathology" -- monstrously tall tales that explore the very limits of the shaggy dog story. As one critic wrote, they will accumulate the fantasy to the point of sadism, and then cash home with the flat, desolating pun."The Brother" is another of O'Brien's funniest creations. He is the archetypal Dublin man -- an authority on every one of mankind's ills, from the common cold to the court case. Forget the experts, The Brother knows best."The best comic writer I can think of."- S. J. Perelman
I Want to Buy a Vowel
John Welter - 1996
In this terminally irreverent (Richmond News-Leader) novel, he finds himself taking on everyone from his editor and his girlfriend to the fundamentalists and vegetarians covered on his beat -- and along the way, learns some surprising (and hilarious) lessons about life, love, and the press.
Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters
Mallory Ortberg - 2014
Everyone knows that if Scarlett O’Hara had an unlimited text-and-data plan, she’d constantly try to tempt Ashley away from Melanie with suggestive messages. If Mr. Rochester could text Jane Eyre, his ardent missives would obviously be in all-caps. And Daisy Buchanan would not only text while driving, she’d text you to pick her up after she totaled her car. Based on the popular web-feature, Texts from Jane Eyre is a witty, irreverent mashup that brings the characters from your favorite books into the twenty-first century.
The Comedy Film Nerds Guide to Movies: Featuring Dave Anthony, Lord Carrett, Dean Haglund, Allan Havey, Laura House, Jackie Kashian, Suzy Nakamura, Greg Proops, Mike Schmidt, Neil T. Weakley, and Matt Weinhold
Graham Elwood - 2012
Is it serious movie discussion? Is it funny? Do the writers know what the hell they are talking about? Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. OK, that’s too many Yes’s but you get the point. Graham Elwood and Chris Mancini, both professional filmmakers and comedians, created Comedyfilmnerds.com to mind meld the idea of real movie talk and real funny. And they called in all of their professionally funny and filmy friends to help them. Comedians and writers who have been on everything from the Tonight Show to having their own comedy specials tell you what’s what on their favorite film genres. While "The Comedy Film Nerds Guide to Movies" is funny and informative, each film genre is given a personal touch. All of the Comedy Film Nerds have a love of film and a personal connection to each genre. Read about a love of film from an insider’s perspective. "The Comedy Film Nerds Guide to Movies" is for the movie lover with a good sense of humor.
Through it All I've Always Laughed: Memoirs of Count Arthur Strong
Count Arthur Strong - 2013
He has countless friends in the showbiz world. People like Barry Cryer, the white haired one with glasses off 'I'm Sorry I Haven't Got A Clue' and 'Jokers Wild'. This is his first volume, of what he believes may be a 6 volume collection, of his memoirs. He has a few select dates still available for anything (except window cleaning) and is represented, (if you can call it that) by Richard Daws at Komedia Entertainment. (Or if you want to go directly through me and pay cash, I can do that as well.) (In fact I prefer that.) Thank you.
What's My Motivation?
Michael Simkins - 2004
While his friends were out getting laid and stoned, he was tucked up at home dreaming of his name in lights, of holding an audience rapt, of perhaps becoming a TV heart-throb, or having someone, anyone, ask for his autograph in the supermarket. This is the true story of an obsessive pursuit of acting fame. It is a life marked by occasional hard-fought successes and routine helpings of ritual humiliation: scout hut Gilbert and Sullivan, dodgy rock operas, sewage farm theatre workshop, Christmas panto hell, straight-to-video film flops, leading roles in Crimewatch reconstructions and dressing up as a chicken to advertise TV dinners. It is a hilarious tale of turgid theatre, tights, trusses and tonsil tennis with Timothy Spall.
My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism
Titania McGrath - 2020
. . If virtue-signalling wokery drives you as nuts as it drives me, you will love it' Piers Morgan'Required reading for anyone needing an antidote to the mass hysteria of humanity's latest religion' Entertainment FocusAfter the success of her debut Woke: A Guide to Social Justice, radical slam poet and intersectional feminist Titania McGrath has turned her talents to the realm of children's non-fiction. Aimed at activists from the age of six months to six years, Titania's book will help cultivate a new progressive generation. In a series of groundbreaking and poignant chapters, she will take you on a journey with some of the most inspiring individuals in history, such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Meghan Markle, Nelson Mandela, Hillary Clinton, and Joseph Stalin.
Praise for Woke:'Beautiful classic satire' Ricky Gervais'The latest genius twist in Britain's long tradition of satirical spoof' Daily Express 'Titania McGrath mercilessly satirises the Left's online umbrage brigade, the permanently offended, those who have taken on the role of policing thoughts and words to the point of absurdity' The Herald 'Hilarious' Evening Standard 'Hilarious' Spectator 'Hilarious' The Times 'Utterly unfunny' Peter Hitchens
They Call Me Naughty Lola: Personal Ads from the London Review of Books
David Rose - 2006
And worn more expensive shoes than these. So don't think placing this ad is the biggest comedown I've ever had to make. Sensitive F, 34.Employed in publishing? Me too. Stay the hell away. Man on the inside seeks woman on the outside who likes milling around hospitals guessing the illnesses of out-patients. 30-35. Leeds.They Call Me Naughty Lola is a testament to the creativity and humor that can still be found among men and women longing for love and allergic to the concepts of Internet and speed dating. Here is an irresistible collection of the most brilliant and often absurd personal ads from the world's funniest-- and most erudite-- lonely-hearts column. The ads have been called "surreal haikus of the heart," and in an age of false advertising, the men and women who write them are hindered neither by high expectations nor by positivism of any kind. And yet, while hopes of finding a suitable mate remain low, the column has produced a handful of marriages, many friendships, and at least one divorce. Here are the young, old, fat, bald, healthy, ill, rich, and poor hoping that they can find true love, or at the very least, someone to call them Naughty Lola.
2⁷ Nerd Disses: A Significant Quantity of Disrespect
Zach Weinersmith - 2013
For example, I was once pinned down by a young lad who repeatedly asked me why I was hitting myself, when he knew full well that I had temporarily ceded hegemony over my hands and forearms. I tried to explain it to him, but he didn’t seem to comprehend. In retrospect, I can only conclude that my explanation was not articulate enough.To that end, I and Phil Plait have teamed up to create precisely 128 insults designed to weaken the resolve of aggressors, while educating them in their primary field of interest. Whether the person pummeling you is a student of mathematics or belles-lettres, we have the right words for the occasion.Zach WeinersmithPS: In the highly likely situation that the person pummeling you refuses to cease his aggression until he understands the meaning of the insult, we have also provided an appendix in which the insults are explained.
Kill Your Friends
John Niven - 2008
Twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, a world where 'no one knows anything' and where careers are made and broken by chance and the fickle tastes of the general public - 'Yeah, those animals'.Fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine Stelfox blithely criss-crosses the globe ('New York, Cologne, Texas, Miami, Cannes: you shout at waiters and sign credit card slips and all that really changes is the quality of the porn') searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification.But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.Kill Your Friends is a dark, satirical and hysterically funny evisceration of the record business, a place populated by frauds, charlatans and bluffers, where ambition is a higher currency than talent, and where it seems anything can be achieved - as long as you want it badly enough.
Calcium Made Interesting: Sketches, Letters, Essays & Gondolas
Graham Chapman - 2006
Like those other outstanding comics Spike Milligan and Peter Cook he had an innate belief in absurdity as a way of life - his humour and sheer joy in madness for its own sake was as likely to find its outlet on the street as on the stage. The other Pythons often said that just listening to Graham tell them about one of his wild evenings out was fodder for a dozen sketches. He was inventive, fearless, willing to take chances and make stands. Openly gay, capable of outrageous alcohol-fuelled behaviour, Graham Chapman lived an untidy life, and in some respects this book mirrors that. Inside is everything from television scripts and sketches to humorous essays on serious topics, comic flights of fancy that serve no purpose except to elicit a laugh, letters to friends and fellow hellraisers like Keith Moon and Ringo Starr, his behind-the-scenes account of the filming of Life of Brian, his views on fellow Pythons, and much more.
I Think the Nurses are Stealing My Clothes: The Very Best of Linda Smith
Warren Lakin - 2006
Her voice lit up Radio 4's News Quiz, she was brilliant on QI and she tirelessly travelled the UK as one of the most respected and loved comics on the circuit.' STEPHEN FRYStephen Fry spoke for much of middle England when he responded to the news of Linda Smith's tragic death of cancer, aged 48, earlier this year. Linda was the brilliant mainstay of Radio 4's The News Quiz, Just a Minute, and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue for many years. She was just establishing her career on TV through blistering performances on Have I Got News for You, QI and Room 101, when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.Linda was one of the few women to conquer the male dominated world of comedy and she had the wit and the charm to win over millions of male and female fans in equal measure. She had an eye for the absurdities of modern life and loved to prick the egos of the pompous and the vain. She could be savage about the people she despised too. When she spoke of the "dead devil-eyes of Nicky Campbell" she meant it. When she called David Mellor, "the thinking woman's fat ugly bastard", she meant it even more. When she called David Blunkett "Satan's bearded folk singer", it was a simple statement of fact. No wonder then Linda was voted the 'wittiest person alive' by Radio 4 listeners in 2002.In this brilliant anthology, we go right back to the start of Linda's career and re-live her very best material from the picket lines of the Miners' Strike, to the Edinburgh Festival and on to her mainstream success on BBC radio and TV, and as touring comedian loved up and down the country. The Very Best of Linda Smith is being compiled and edited by her partner of twenty-three years, Warren Lakin. The book also carries contributions from her extensive fan club including: Paul Merton, Graham Norton, Clive Anderson, Bill Bailey, Jo Brand, Alan Davies, Jack Dee, Dawn French, Stephen Fry, Tony Hawks, Eddie Izzard, Matt Lucas, Nicholas Parsons and Alexei Sayle amongst others. It will be the must-have gift for comedy fans and Radio 4 listeners this Christmas.