In her book Self-Inflicted Wounds, comedian, actress, and cohost of CBS’s daytime hit show The Talk, Aisha Tyler recounts a series of epic mistakes and hilarious stories of crushing personal humiliation, and the personal insights and authentic wisdom she gathered along the way. The essays in Self-Inflicted Wounds are refreshingly and sometimes brutally honest, surprising, and laugh-out-loud funny, vividly translating the brand of humor Tyler has cultivated through her successful standup career, as well as the strong voice and unique point of view she expresses on her taste-making comedy podcast Girl on Guy. Riotous, revealing, and wonderfully relatable, Aisha Tyler’s Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation is about the power of calamity to shape life, learning, and success.

    In between, the beloved actress, writer, and Hollywood power-bruncher gets Kanye West'd at her best friend's birthday, thwarts an "only in LA" crime, and learns what it means to have it all.

    And how did this guy (he lifted his brother’s homework through the entire tenth grade) ever become a writer, not to mention the author of fourteen critically acclaimed books for young people?The frontier may be mild, but the book is not. Fans of Tara Westover’s Educated, Jack Gantos’s Hole in My Life, and Walter Dean Myers’s Bad Boy will laugh, will cry, and will remember.“Funny, bittersweet and brutally honest. Readers will clasp this hard-to-put-down book to their hearts even as they laugh sympathetically.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

     After a period as a fighter pilot in World War Two and then some time at university studying aeronautical engineering Crossfield joined NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. He quickly showed his talents as a research pilot and before long was training in a variety of aircraft, including the X-1, X-4, X-5, XF-92, D-558-I and D-558-II. Yet, Crossfield’s greatest flight came on November 20, 1953, when he was towed to a height of 72,000 feet by a Boeing P2B Superfortress before diving 62,000 feet and reaching a speed of 1,320 miles per hour. This meant that he was the first person in history to travel at more than twice the speed of sound. A number of years later Crossfield became both a test pilot and design consultant for the X-15 rocket-powered plane. Always Another Dawn provides brilliant insight into the development of this plane, and Crossfield’s impact upon it, which would eventually travel at six times the speed of sound. "Scott Crossfield was a pioneer and a legend in the world of test flight and space flight," said Mike Coats, Johnson Space Center Director. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of aviation after the Second World War as well as the how men like Crossfield risked their lives the early years of the space race in order to further our attempts to reach the stars. Albert Scott Crossfield was an American naval officer and test pilot. He was instrumental in the development aeronautics and space flight through the 1950s. He co-authored Always Another Dawn, a story of a rocket test pilot, with Clay Blair Jr., which was published in 1960. He died in a place crash in 2006. Clay Blair Jr. had passed away in 1998.

    His parents had just divorced and puberty was confusing. Trying to be funny solved everything.HELP is the hilarious and heartbreaking account of Simon’s ongoing compulsion to reveal his entire self on stage. To tell the truth so it can’t hurt him any more. Loneliness, anxiety, depression – this book has it all. And more.From a complicated childhood in Essex to an Ayahuasca-led epiphany in the Amazon rainforest, this story will make you laugh, cry and then feel happier than you’ve ever been.

    Fifty true stories told on The Moth Radio Hour.

    Above all, "Drama" is a tribute to the most important influence in John Lithgow's life: his father, Arthur Lithgow. An actor, director, producer, and great lover of Shakespeare, Arthur brought theatre to John's boyhood, where performance and storytelling were a constant and cherished part of family life. Lithgow brings the theatre worlds of New York and London to life as he relives his collaborations with renowned performers and directors including Mike Nichols, Bob Fosse, Liv Ullmann, Meryl Streep, and Brian De Palma. Lithgow's ruminations on the nature of theatre, performance, and storytelling cut to the heart of why actors are driven to perform, and why people are driven to watch them do it. At once hilarious and reflective, "Drama" pulls back the curtain on the making of one of our most beloved actors.“John Lithgow’s memoir is both unflinching and irresistible. It captures the long, hard road to the stage for any actor, or for virtually anyone trying to make it in New York, and shows how putting all of your hopes into the one thing you love isn’t so crazy after all.” —Gay Talese"A memoir as finely crafted as one of Lithgow’s performances."—Steve Martin“John Lithgow’s memoir of his training as an actor is more than an insider’s view of his craft. Lithgow likens acting to storytelling, and he’s a wonderful writer. The portrait of his father is as finely articulated as it is heartfelt, and the account of the young actor’s struggles with his too-young, too-early first marriage is both moving and candid. I loved this book.” — John Irving“This book has all the drama we’ve come to expect from John Lithgow, the alternately dark, tender, romantic, dangerous, deranged actor we find in Drama, which is also a family tale of the richest variety. A great read.” — Mary Karr

    We’re judged by social media’s faceless masses, pressured into maintaining a Pinterest-perfect home, and expected to base our self-worth on retweets, faves, likes, and followers. Our collective FOMO, and the disparity between the ideal and reality, is leading us to spend more and feel worse. No wonder we’re getting twitchy. Save for an Independence Day–style alien invasion, how do we begin to escape from the stressors that make up our days?Jen Lancaster is here to take a hard look at our elevating anxieties, and with self-deprecating wit and levelheaded wisdom, she charts a path out of the quagmire that keeps us frightened of the future and ashamed of our imperfectly perfect human lives. Take a deep breath, and her advice, and you just might get through a holiday dinner without wanting to disown your uncle.

    J. Jacobs read the entire Encyclopædia Britannica from cover to cover in a quest to learn everything in the world. In The Year of Living Biblically, he followed every single rule of the Bible -- from the Ten Commandments right on down to stoning adulterers.Now comes a collection of his most hilarious and thought-provoking experiments yet. In his role as human guinea pig, Jacobs fearlessly takes on a series of life-altering challenges that provides readers with equal parts insight and humor. (And which drives A.J.'s patient wife, Julie, to the brink of insanity.)Among the many adventures:• He outsources his life. A.J. hires a team of people in Bangalore, India, to take care of everything in his life from answering his e-mails to arguing with his spouse.• He spends a month practicing Radical Honesty -- a movement that encourages us to remove the filters between our brains and mouths. (To give you an idea of what happened, the name of the chapter is "I Think You're Fat.")• He goes to the Academy Awards disguised as a movie star to understand the strange and warping effects of fame.• He commits himself to ultimate rationality, using cutting-edge science to make the best decisions possible. It changes the way he makes choices big and small, from what to buy at the grocery store to how to talk to his kids. And his revelations will change how you make decisions, too.• He attempts to follow George Washington's rules of life, uncovering surprising truths about leadership and politics in the twenty-first century. He also spends a lot of time bowing and doffing his hat.• And then there's the month when he followed his wife's every whim -- foot massages, Kate Hudson movies, and all. Depending on your point of view, it's either the best or worst idea in the history of American marriage.A mix of Bill Bryson, George Plimpton, and Malcolm Gladwell, A.J. explores the big issues of our time -- happiness, dating, morality, marriage -- by immersing himself in eye-opening situations. You'll be entertained by these stories -- some of which are new, some of which had their start in Esquire magazine. But you'll also learn to look at life in new ways.The Guinea Pig Diaries is a book packed with both laughs and enlightenment -- and that's a promise we can make with Radical Honesty.

    He has a public meltdown while chaperoning Oasis at an awards ceremony; he’s lost joy in his bathroom full of rock’n’roll memorabilia; and his young son is in trouble at school for emulating rock star behaviour.Reluctantly Michael consults Mrs Henckel, a no-nonsense therapist with zero experience of pop culture. As Michael addresses his feelings about the past, in particular his failed teenage band, Mental Elf, he’s forced to confront the question: is it finally time to grow up and forget rock’n’roll?Michael Odell is a former contributing editor to Q magazine and has written about music for NME, the Guardian, the Independent and Spin, among others. Currently he does interviews and writes on family matters for The Times. He lives in Bristol."Please don't put your life in the hands of a rock 'n' roll band, who'll throw it all away." So advised Noel Gallagher in 1995 and Michael Odell ignored him anyway.One of Britain's most fearless rock interrogators, Odell turns his merciless searchlight on himself in this wry, compelling odyssey into the heart of his own - and rock n roll's - madness. Larks with the legends are all here (Bowie, McCartney, Mick `n' Keef ... Michael Buble) but it's his inner life which illuminates, his psyche traumatically crumbling as he confronts his chaotic past. Hilarious, tragic and timely, this is high farce in high (and low) places, uncovering why rock's lost highway is littered with the bodies of the righteous dreamers. Could it be because "the music people are all mad?" (Clue: yes.)' -- Sylvia Patterson, author of I'm Not with the Band `Hilarious and disarmingly honest; a journey into the neurosis of rock fame, but through doors you don't expect.' -- Rachel Joyce, author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry `Rock Bottom is one of the best music books ever written, because Michael Odell knows music isn't about the musicians - it's about what it does to the listener, even if what it does ends up being wholly disastrous. It's sad, funny, fascinating and wise. And everyone who ever claimed a record changed their life should read it, and then think again.' -- Michael Hann, former Guardian music editor

    He eats film, he drinks film, and sometimes he'll even watch a film. But most of all he loves talking to people about film: whether a comely student with low confidence and a father complex, a Studio 'development' exec who doesn't trust his own judgement, or the countless people Gordy LaSure's encountered in his capacity as the web moderator on an Excessive Sweating Discussion Forum. Gordy LaSure's alwaystalking about films and how they'd be a shit ton better if only people would pull their asses out of their ears and listen to Gordy LaSure.The voyage of this book can be categorised as an attempt to understand How In Hell Film Works. Why are some films bad, and some films terrible?How come just a handful of films (Titanic, Porky's, Dirty Harry) are any good at all? Gordy'll tell you How and Why, and he'll give you a slug of Wherefore on the side. And he doesn't shoot from the hip; he shoots from the gut.

    It argues for more audience-responsive approaches to what theatre does for those who witness, watch or participate.

    Widely known for his roles in the films Big Fan and Ratatouille, as well as the television hit The King of Queens, Patton Oswalt—a staple of Comedy Central—has been amusing audiences for decades. Now, with Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, he offers a fascinating look into his most unusual, and lovable, mindscape. Oswalt combines memoir with uproarious humor, from snow forts to Dungeons & Dragons to gifts from Grandma that had to be explained. He remem­bers his teen summers spent working in a movie Cineplex and his early years doing stand-up. Readers are also treated to several graphic elements, includ­ing a vampire tale for the rest of us and some greeting cards with a special touch. Then there’s the book’s centerpiece, which posits that before all young creative minds have anything to write about, they will home in on one of three story lines: zom­bies, spaceships, or wastelands. Oswalt chose wastelands, and ever since he has been mining our society’s wasteland for perversion and excess, pop culture and fatty foods, indie rock and single-malt scotch. Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is an inventive account of the evolution of Patton Oswalt’s wildly insightful worldview, sure to indulge his legion of fans and lure many new admirers to his very entertaining “wasteland.”

    An Off the Grid lodge owner in Fish Lakes, Alaska, Tom enthralls roomfuls of guests every year from the Lower 48 and around the world with tales of his adventures, foibles, and SNAFUs in 44 years living in the Alaskan wilderness. From his start as a Pennsylvania farmboy who ran off to join the United States Air Force, to his arrival in Alaska with less than a hundred dollars in his wallet and a growing family in his back seat, to his forty years as a Bush pilot and his accidental introduction to the fishing lodge business, to his multiple brushes with death, hardship, and questionable characters, Tom Brion has a story to cover it all. A pioneer in sustainable homesteading and off-the-Grid living, Tom Brion built his first lodge in Alaska on five acres in the Lake Creek area, in 1979, and continues to this day building and working heavy machinery 60 miles from any road. Born in 1941, Tom has collected 74 years of humorous, heart-wrenching, and sometimes mind-blowing stories of traveling, hunting, and exploring the backcountry of Alaska in the pilot’s seat of a Vietnam-era Cessna Birddog. A biography in the form of short life stories, Tom Brion’s memoir takes us to a rural Bush life where people live off the land, drill their own wells, put out their own forest fires, and depend on their neighbors to pick up their mail. Surrounded by nature, Tom continues to fly, plow, run his bulldozer, and wrangle his subsistence fishwheel up the river every year in the Skwentna area of Alaska, where temperatures in winter drop to 45 below zero and summers can see entire months without rain. Follow him in this (mostly) nonfiction anthology of (somewhat) true stories from the Last Frontier as he gives the straight scoop about bears, outhouses, farming, flooding, fishing, moose, guns, and aviation in the 49th State.An avid hunter, outdoorsman, fisherman, and jack of all trades, Tom documents his life with photos and illustrations that detail an epic adventure from start to finish.

    Miraculously, his daughter was unharmed, but his wife faced a series of life-threatening injuries, including the same one that famously left Christopher Reeve paralyzed. Following the accident, Segal began sending regular email updates to their circle of friends and family—a list that continued to grow as others heard of the event and were moved by the many emotional and spiritual issues it raised. Segal's compelling memoir is an intimate and honest chronicle built around these email updates, and is a profound example of how people show up for one another in times of crisis.Alternatingly harrowing, humorous, heartbreaking, and hopeful, this is an uplifting tribute to love, determination, and how the compassion of community holds the power to heal, serving as an inspiring testament to the resilience of the human spirit when faced with pain and adversity.