Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation


Judith Mackrell - 2013
    Flappers is in part a biography of that restless generation: starting with its first fashionable acts of rebellion just before the Great War, and continuing through to the end of the decade when the Wall Street crash signal led another cataclysmic world change. It focuses on six women who between them exemplified the range and daring of that generation’s spirit.Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Tallulah Bankhead, Zelda Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and Tamara de Lempicka were far from typical flappers. Although they danced the Charleston, wore fashionable clothes and partied with the rest of their peers, they made themselves prominent among the artists, icons, and heroines of their age. Talented, reckless and willful, with personalities that transcended their class and background, they re-wrote their destinies in remarkable, entertaining and tragic ways. And between them they blazed the trail of the New Woman around the world.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays


Sloane Crosley - 2008
    Courtney Sullivan. Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays from Sloane Crosley is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory.From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions -- or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is. I Was Told There'd Be Cake introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.The pony problem --Christmas in July --The ursula cookie --Bring your machete to work day --The good people of this dimension --Bastard out of Westchester --The beauty of strangers --Fuck you, Columbus --One-night bounce --Sign language for infidels --You on a stick --Height of luxury --Smell this --Lay like broccoli --Fever faker

Sh*tty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us


Laurie Kilmartin - 2012
    As hilarious as it is universal, each chapter presents a common parenting scenario with advice on how to get through it in the easiest and most efficient way possible. With chapters such as “How to Sleep Until 9 A.M. Every Weekend” and “When Seeing an Infant Triggers a Mental Illness That Makes You Want to Have Another Baby,” as well as a Sh*tty Mom quiz, this is a must-have, laugh-out-loud funny book for the sh*tty parent in all of us.Praise for Sh*tty Mom:“A totally hilarious and uncensored look at some of the impossible situations we mothers find ourselves in.” —TheBump.com“Smartly, brashly, nearly criminally funny. It also—no small thing—carries a powerful message to all parents, but especially moms, that distilled to its essence is this: chill.” —Time.com“As the attachment parenting craze has hit a zenith in American culture, four very funny moms—comedy writers, TV producers, and a novelist—blast open a long-locked safe filled with frustrations faced by all modern mothers, with sympathetic and sharp humor. . . . The authors’ unfiltered candor is a welcome reminder for readers that they're not alone. . . .” —Publishers Weekly starred review“Both funny and practical.” —Brooklyn Based.net "Hilariously entertaining. A must-read survivor's guide for every mother!" --Christy Turlington Burns, founder of Every Mother Counts“Finally, Sh*tty Mom does for motherhood what Chelsea Handler does for female scatology. It’s a long overdue little burst of honesty from the supposed minority of mothers who are, in fact, not that maternal. . . . After a generation of supermoms one-upping each other in dead earnest on playgrounds and schoolyards, the emerging mass appeal of Sh*tty Mom is a welcome relief.” —The New York Observer"Witty, wise, and wicked! With tongue planted firmly in cheek, these savvy moms dispense some much needed comic relief about raising kids in our crazy culture."?--Dr. Harvey Karp, bestselling author of The Happiest Baby on the Block “The most inappropriate parenting book I've ever read. Loved it. The perfect book for any mother who wants to laugh instead of cry at those cringe-worthy moments and the universal indignities we experience on a daily basis.”--Jessica Seinfeld, bestselling cookbook author and founder of Baby Buggy “An antidote to the hostage situation that is modern parenting…subversive, delicious, and spit-out-your-latte funny.” --Pamela Druckerman, bestselling author of Bringing Up Bebe

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems


Randall Munroe - 2019
    How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.Bestselling author and cartoonist Randall Munroe explains how to predict the weather by analyzing the pixels of your Facebook photos. He teaches you how to tell if you're a baby boomer or a 90's kid by measuring the radioactivity of your teeth. He offers tips for taking a selfie with a telescope, crossing a river by boiling it, and powering your house by destroying the fabric of space-time. And if you want to get rid of the book once you're done with it, he walks you through your options for proper disposal, including dissolving it in the ocean, converting it to a vapor, using tectonic plates to subduct it into the Earth's mantle, or launching it into the Sun.By exploring the most complicated ways to do simple tasks, Munroe doesn't just make things difficult for himself and his readers. As he did so brilliantly in What If?, Munroe invites us to explore the most absurd reaches of the possible. Full of clever infographics and amusing illustrations, How To is a delightfully mind-bending way to better understand the science and technology underlying the things we do every day.

I Want My Epidural Back: Adventures in Mediocre Parenting


Karen Alpert - 2016
    It’s having a real live child.If you are the kind of mom who shapes your kiddo’s organic quinoa into reproductions of the Mona Lisa, do not read this book. If you stayed up past midnight to create posters for your PTO presidential campaign, do not read this book. If you look down your nose at parents who have Domino’s pizza on speed dial, do not read this book.But if you are the kind of parent who accidentally goes ballistic on your rugrats every morning because they won’t put their shoes on and then you feel super guilty about it all day so you take them to McDonald’s for a special treat but really it’s because you opened up your freezer and panicked because you forgot to buy more frozen pizzas, then absolutely read this book.I Want My Epidural Back is a celebration of mediocre parents and how awesome they are and how their kids love them just as much as children with perfect parents. Karen Alpert’s honest but hilarious observations, stories, quips and pictures will have you nodding your head and peeing in your pants. Or on the toilet if you’re smart and read it there.

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking


Oliver Burkeman - 2012
    What they have in common is a hunch about human psychology: that it's our constant effort to eliminate the negative that causes us to feel so anxious, insecure, and unhappy. And that there is an alternative "negative path" to happiness and success that involves embracing the things we spend our lives trying to avoid. It is a subversive, galvanizing message, which turns out to have a long and distinguished philosophical lineage ranging from ancient Roman Stoic philosophers to Buddhists. Oliver Burkeman talks to life coaches paid to make their clients' lives a living hell, and to maverick security experts such as Bruce Schneier, who contends that the changes we've made to airport and aircraft security since the 9/11 attacks have actually made us less safe. And then there are the "backwards" business gurus, who suggest not having any goals at all and not planning for a company's future. Burkeman's new book is a witty, fascinating, and counterintuitive read that turns decades of self-help advice on its head and forces us to rethink completely our attitudes toward failure, uncertainty, and death.

Awards for Good Boys: Tales of Dating, Double Standards, and Doom


Shelby Lorman - 2019
    Through clever illustrations and written vignettes, Awards for Good Boys makes literal the tendency to applaud men for doing the absolute least and offers hilarious and cathartic cultural commentary through which we may begin to unravel our own assumptions about gender roles and how we treat each other, both online and in real life.

If My Body Could Speak


Blythe Baird - 2019
    Blythe Baird deftly and uniquely charts a course through various modes of womanhood and women's bodies. Through love, loss, and the struggles of disordered eating, If My Body Could Speak uses sharp narratives and visceral imagery to get to the heart of a many-layered existence, speaking to many generations at once.

F*cked: Being Sexually Explorative and Self-Confident in a World That's Screwed


Corinne Fisher - 2017
    As the podcast grew, and Corinne and Krystyna got to know their fans, stories of sexual assault, verbal and emotional abuse, and crippling shame became common topics of discussion along with those humorous conversations highlighting overall sexual confusion among many adults. The podcast is now an community of over a million listeners worldwide, and a place where any and all taboo sex topics are discussed freely, both with celebrity guests and the real people in their lives.Their new book, F*cked, follows that model, as Corinne and Krystyna bring a mix of raw, ridiculous, and serious sexual conversation to the page that will include topics like:Why shame is completely made up and how we can stop giving into itSexual exploration and how it sometimes ends in a trip to the ERStuff we should stop doing: Snooping, nitpicking our bodies, and faking orgasmsAsking your sexual partner uncomfortable questionsHow to get yourself out of an unsafe situationMasturbation, threesomes, porn, sex toys, butt stuffAnd much, much moreCorinne and Krystyna are tired of books that pander to women like they’re hot messes, unable to handle their emotions without the assistance of a man, a glass of rosé, and a Xanax. This book will teach the reader, be they male, female, transgender or undecided, that you deal with sh*t, you brush your shoulder off, and you move the f*ck on. In a society where it has, for some reason, become chic to be the victim, they say this pity party ends now.This is a guide to love and sex for women who drink whiskey because they like it, not because it’s a cute thing to say on your Tinder profile. It has no trigger warnings because life doesn’t come with those. It won’t talk down to you or coddle you because you’re better than that. Corinne and Krystyna aren’t going to explain why he’s just not that into you, because it doesn’t f*cking matter. Despite what television, Rom-Coms, and glossy magazines tell you, you’re fine all by yourself. This is the book Bridget Jones should’ve read instead of writing that sh*tty diary in the first place.

Say Yes to What’s Next: How to Age with Elegance and Class While Never Losing Your Beauty and Sass!


Lori Allen - 2020
    But she’s also a wife, mother, grandmother, and breast cancer survivor.Whether you’re feeling invisible, disappearing into the fabric of your couch a little more every year, or simply being indecisive about what’s next, Lori offers herself as the poster child of what to do, not do, and how to see your way through the unexpected.In Say Yes to What’s Next she addresses essential issues, such as don’t let yourself go, marriage is awesome, but it’s no fairytale, keep your mouth shut and your heart open to your kids (and they’ll bring you grandkids), make time to parent your parents, maintain a close circle of girlfriends, get off the couch and live your passion, take charge of your money, and what to do when life gives you a faceplant. Say Yes to What’s Next is a life makeover and therapy session from a relatable you-can-and-you-should-do-this straight-shooter as Lori helps women shape their own futures with confidence, style, and sass.

Next Level Basic: The Definitive Basic Bitch Handbook


Stassi Schroeder - 2019
    Millions of Vanderpump Rules viewers and podcast listeners know Stassi Schroeder as a major defender of Basic Bitch rights. There’s nothing more boring than people who take themselves too seriously or think that you have to be pretentious to be cool. Stassi champions the things that many of us are afraid to love publicly for fear of being labeled basic: lattes, pugs, bubbly cocktails, millennial pink, #OOTD (outfit of the day, obvs), astrology, hot dogs, the perfect pair of Louboutins, romantic comedies...the list goes on and on. This book is for people tired of pretending they would rather see a Daniel Day-Lewis movie about sewing or read War and Peace than watch a Saw marathon or read...well, this book! In Next Level Basic, the reality star, podcast queen, and ranch dressing expert gives you hilarious and pointed lessons on how to have fun and celebrate yourself, with exclusive stories from her own life and on the set of Vanderpump Rules. From her very public breakups to her most intimate details about her plastic surgery, Stassi shares her own personal experiences with her trademark honesty—all with the hope you can learn something from them.

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage


Elizabeth Gilbert - 2009
    Resettling in America, the couple swore eternal fidelity to each other, but also swore to never, ever, under any circumstances get legally married. (Both were survivors of previous bad divorces. Enough said.) But providence intervened one day in the form of the United States government, which-after unexpectedly detaining Felipe at an American border crossing-gave the couple a choice: they could either get married, or Felipe would never be allowed to enter the country again. Having been effectively sentenced to wed, Gilbert tackled her fears of marriage by delving into this topic completely, trying with all her might to discover through historical research, interviews, and much personal reflection what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. Told with Gilbert's trademark wit, intelligence and compassion, Committed attempts to "turn on all the lights" when it comes to matrimony, frankly examining questions of compatibility, infatuation, fidelity, family tradition, social expectations, divorce risks and humbling responsibilities. Gilbert's memoir is ultimately a clear-eyed celebration of love with all the complexity and consequence that real love, in the real world, actually entails.

More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory


Franklin Veaux - 2014
    Now the new book More Than Two can help you find your own way. With completely new material and a fresh approach, Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert wrote More Than Two to expand on and update the themes and ideas in the wildly popular polyamory website morethantwo.com.From partners, authors and practicing polyamorists Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert comes the long-awaited, wide-ranging resource exploring the often-complex world of living polyamorously. Highlighting the nuances (no, this isn’t swinging), the relationship options (do you suit a V, an N, an open network?), the myths (don’t count on wild orgies and endless sex—but don’t rule them out, either!) and the expectations (communication, transparency and trust are paramount), the authors share not only their hard-won philosophies about polyamory, but also their hurts and embarrassments. More Than Two is entirely without judgment and peppered with a good dose of humor. Franklin and Eve underscore the importance of engaging in ethical polyamory, while gently guiding readers through the thorny issues of jealousy and insecurity. And no, they’re not trying to convert you: they know that polyamory isn’t for everyone. Franklin and Eve simply provide those who might be embarking on this lifestyle, or those who have already begun, with a toolkit to help them make informed decisions and set them on a path to enjoying multiple happy, strong, enriching relationships. More Than Two is the book the polyamory community has been waiting for. And who knows? It may just be the book you didn’t even know you were waiting for.

Sex Tips For Girls: Lust, Love, and Romance from the Lives of Single Women


Cynthia Heimel - 1983
    From from the sex-and-drugs-and-rock-and-roll diet to how to cure a broken heart, there is no better, funnier, truer guide to life, love, and the pursuit of men!

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.