Narcissus Leaves the Pool


Joseph Epstein - 1999
    In Narcissus Leaves the Pool, he displays his signature verve and charm in sixteen agile, entertaining pieces. Among his targets in this collection are name-dropping, talent versus genius, the cult of youthfulness, and the information revolution.

The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst


John Wilson - 2005
    A paperback guide to 100 of the funniest bad movies ever made, this book covers a wide range of hopeless Hollywood product, and also including rare Razzie ceremony photos and a complete history of everything ever nominated for Tinsel Town's Tackiest Trophy.

Louder and Funnier


P.G. Wodehouse - 1932
    G. Wodehouse is recognized as the greatest English comic writers of the twentieth century, rightly admired throughout the world and translated into more than thirty languages. Launched on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, this series presents each Overlook Wodehouse as the finest edition of the master’s work ever published—beautifully designed and faithful to the original. This season, Overlook is pleased to offer the latest two hilarious volumes. Louder and Funnier is a collection of articles written for Vanity Fair, with subjects ranging from Shakespeare and divorce to income tax and ocean liners. The Prince and Betty is an engrossing, hilarious story of an unscrupulous millionaire and his plans to build a casino in the Mediterranean. Revised by Wodehouse after the initial publication, it features the master’s signature reflections on the rich in one of his classic novels.

Mr Jones' Rules For The Modern Man


Dylan Jones - 2006
    'Mr Jones Rules' is a witty, stylish and indispensable guide to being a modern man.

The Perfectly Useless Book of Useless Information: You'll Never Need to Know Anything That's in This Book...But Read It Anyway


Don Voorhees - 2010
    Frank Sinatra's mother was a convicted felon. Bugs Bunny was born in Brooklyn. The average American home contains $90 in loose change. It is illegal to use the American flag in advertising.And there's no good reason to also discover...Which game show host previously worked as a garbageman. Which day of week is the most popular to rob a bank. Which millionaire loaned his kidnapped grandson ransom money at 4 percent interest. Which country once had a dog for a king.

1001 Dumbest Things Ever Said


Steven D. Price - 2004
    A collection of stupid utterances, mostly unintentional--although not always--from politics, show business, sports, and anywhere else people can put their feet in their mouths.

Road Swing: One Fan's Journey Into The Soul Of America's Sports


Steve Rushin - 1998
    So he jumped into his fully alarmed Japanese S.U.V. and drove to American sports shrines for a year, everywhere from Larry Bird's boyhood home in French Lick, Indiana, to the cornfield just outside of Dyersville, Iowa, where Field of Dreams was filmed. Now in paperback, Road Swing is the story of his journey.

A Goomba's Guide to Life


Steven R. Schirripa - 2002
    Schirripa, The Sopranos’ own Bobby Bacala, exposes the inner mysteries of this unique Italian-American hybrid in A Goomba’s Guide to Life so that anyone can walk, talk, and live like a guy “from the neighborhood.”Über-goomba Steve Schirripa shows how being a goomba made him what he is today, offering lessons learned on his own journey from Bensonhurst to Vegas, and to his current gig as Bobby Bacala on one of TV’s most popular shows. Along the way, he shares secrets that will help you get in touch with your own inner goomba. You’ll learn what music to enjoy (Sinatra, yes; Snoop Dogg, no), what movies to watch (Raging Bull, yes; Titanic, never), which sports to follow (baseball is good; golf and tennis, fuhgeddaboudit), and even tips on goomba etiquette. Ever wonder how a real goomba gets the best seat in the house? (Hint: It involves tipping, jewelry, and intimidation.) Schirripa even includes goomba do’s and don’ts (never, ever criticize a goomba’s mother or her gravy; always wear more jewelry than you think you need).With knockout photographs of Schirripa and his compares, and insider information on how to think goomba, speak goomba, cook and eat goomba, and even how to behave at goomba weddings and funerals, A Goomba’s Guide to Life will show any wiseguy wannabe how to sing like a Soprano.

How To Succeed At Aging Without Really Dying


Lyla Blake Ward - 2009
    Most of all, it’s about the difficulties of staying on the planet when it’s spinning out of control.While taking a humorous look at health, grandparenthood, computers, and social issues, How to Succeed… answers such pressing questions as: What brand of yogurt guarantees you will live to 110? Can older people really shop online, or is the "submit order" button visible only to users under 30? And how many pixels does it take to win your grandchild’s affection?As we get older, we can whine or complain about our losses--memory, muscles, and mobility--or we can roll with the paunches. This book rolls.

Nul Points


Tim Moore - 2006
    But where once we settled down to admire the 'top-quality original songwriting' that the contest was inaugurated to showcase, throughout the long post-ABBA decades Eurovision has come to entertain us for all the wrong reasons: we chortle at its magnificent foolishness, its stubborn reinforcement of the crudest national stereotypes, at a scoreboard shamelessly corrupted by cross-border friendship and hatred. And as post-modern connoisseurs of showbiz meltdown, our focus has shifted from the blandly competent winners to the spangled, hapless, table-propping losers, those left to wander the lonely, windswept summit of Mount Fiasco. The gold standard of farcical failure, the benchmark of badness, to score nul points is to suffer international ignominy and find sympathetic understanding replaced by brutal guffaws. Remorseful of his own longstanding contributions to the latter chorus, yet darkly fascinated with those lives shadowed by the entertainment world's most grandiose humiliation, Tim Moore sets off to track down the thirteen Eurominstrels who have come and gone without troubling the scorers since Norway's Jahn Teigen twanged his silver braces and leapt splay-legged off the Palais des Congres stage in 1978. From Lisbon to Lithuania, from the Black Sea to the Baltic, Moore travels the continent to hear their extraordinary stories - 'poignant, ludicrous and heartwarming in almost equal measure' - recounting as he does so the no less improbable history of Eurovision itself, a towering cathedral of cheese that can nonetheless claim responsibility for keeping Norway out of the EU and catalysing the overthrow of a Portuguese dictatorship.

Sniglets (Snig'lit): Any Word That Doesn't Appear in the Dictionary, But Should


Rich Hall - 1984
    Comedy illustrated.

Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else


Rob Neyer - 2008
    In Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends, Neyer breathes new life into both classic and obscure stories throughout twentieth-century baseball—stories that, while engaging on their own, also tell us fascinating things about their main characters and about the sport's incredibly rich history. With his signature style, Rob gets to the heart of every anecdote, working through the particulars with careful research drawn from a variety of primary sources. For each story, he asks: Did this really happen? Did it happen, sort of? Or was the story simply the wild invention of someone's imagination? Among the scores of legends Neyer questions and investigates... -Did an errant Bob Feller pitch really destroy the career of a National League All-Star? -Did Greg Maddux mean to give up a long blast to Jeff Bagwell? -Was Fred Lynn the clutch player he thinks he was? -Did Tommy Lasorda have a direct line to God? -Did Negro Leaguer Gene Benson really knock Indians second baseman Johnny Berardino out of baseball and into General Hospital? -Did Billy Martin really outplay Jackie Robinson every time they met? -Oh, and what about Babe Ruth's “Called Shot”? Rob checks each story, separates the truths from the myths, and places their fascinating characters into the larger historical context. Filled with insider lore and Neyer's sharp wit and insights, this is an exciting addition to a superb series and an essential read for true fans of our national pastime.

An Altogether New Book of Top Ten Lists from Late Night With David Letterman


David Letterman - 1991
    Can sit naked in front of book without fear of radiation 9. Reader not distracted by Dave's awful haircut 8. Can be readily enjoyed in Amish households 7. If you fall asleep while reading the book you won't wake up to fat weather guy wishing Happy Birthday to one hundred-year-olds 6. Can use your imagination to picture lists being read aloud by handsome actor George Peppard 5. Origami! Origami! Origami! 4. Can be enjoyed by inmates who have lost their TV privileges 3. Carrying book around proudly announces to rest of world, "I can read large print!" 2. Easier to shoplift than 26-inch Trinitron Stereo Sony 1. Any book is better than Dave's TV show

The Cat Manual


Michael Ray Taylor - 2012
    The author "discovered" the feline world's best-kept secret in a file hidden on his mother's computer by her cat, Cleo, and now shares it with humanity for the first time. Topics covered range from avoiding visits to the vet, to the artful display of captured prey, to getting in the way of a human trying to read anything, including this paragraph. Upon publication, Cleo denied authorship and hired a team of lawyers, all of whom have their claws out, but despite her best efforts the word is spreading: The Cat Manual is hilarious for cat-lovers of all ages. From the author of Cave Passages and Dark Life.

Twirty-Something: A Young Woman's Guide to Giant Underwear


Ingrid Reinke - 2013
    Twirty-Something: A Young Woman's Guide to Giant Underwear is a hilarious new Kindle Single from Award-Winning and Amazon Best-Selling author and humorist Ingrid Reinke.On the cold January day when Ingrid Reinke turned 30, she looked back upon the last decade of her life in deep thought before finally shaking her head and mumbling to herself the following insight: "Wow, what a shit show."So, she sat down, braless and alone, and penned a collection of laugh-out-loud essays about the ridiculous, shocking and occasionally horrifying things that happen to us as we ungracefully age from 20 to 30, try, semi-successfully, to leave our clueless years behind and become mature, responsible grown-up women.From weird hairs to boob sweat, OCD to weddings, Twirty-Something swings between a no-holds-barred conversation and a cautionary tale about aging and all the crap that comes along with it.Sometime instruction manual, sometime commiseration partner, get ready for Reinke's honest and occasionally potty-mouthed accounts of this tumultuous decade.So hike up your yoga pants, plop another ice cube in your Pinot Grigio and get ready to laugh at the author, young women in general, and most of all at yourself.