Splitsider

Posts tagged as books

Books

A Comprehensive Guide to the Best Humor Books Ever Written

by @ 1:00 pm

Several months ago there was a lovely post on this site touting The Ultimate Comedy Library. As a print humorist, I couldn’t help but note, tears-in-eyes, that it was mostly books by contemporary actors and standups. Not people who wasted their one and only life sitting alone in front of a computer trying to think up jokes, in the vain hope, not of fame or fortune let’s not be silly, but someday, maybe, if they’re lucky, making it onto someone’s list of… The Ultimate Comedy Library.

Now just because your dreams are microscopically small doesn’t mean you’re going to get them, and we’re all responsible for our own [...]

Spending Dollars

Fun Thing to Buy of the Day: 'Art Girls Are Easy' by Julie Klausner

by | May 7th, 2013

This week Julie Klausner’s new book Art Girls Are Easy is out and available to be ready by you. Art Girls is Klausner’s second book, following the How Was Your Week host/Billy on the Street writer/Vulture contributor’s 2010 heartache-chronicling memoir I Don’t Care About Your Band. After Klausner announced the novel’s release date in March, Rookie ran an excerpt from of the novel, which takes place at an all-girls arts camp. If you enjoy Klausner's aforementioned podcast or writing, or just like reading about smart young girls, this is a book that you should read.

Interviews

Talking to Jen Kirkman About Stand-Up, Misogyny on Twitter, and Her New Book

by | April 25th, 2013

Jen Kirkman isn’t asking you to agree with her decision to not have kids. Just quit grilling her about it.

That’s the main point she’s trying to get across in her very funny new book: I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids.

The book is a first for Kirkman, an LA-based comic best known for her Funny or Die Drunk History sketches and, most recently, as a writer and panelist on Chelsea Lately. Like her popular standup act, whose die-hard fans include Paul F. Tompkins, I Can Barely Take Care of Myself includes hilarious perspectives and anecdotes about the confrontations she’s [...]

Spending Dollars

Fun Thing to Buy of the Day: ‘Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls’ by David Sedaris

by | April 23rd, 2013

This week humorist David Sedaris has a new book out called Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls. The collection marks Sedaris’s return to his celebrated style of unique personal essays found in his previous books like Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked, and When You Are Engulfed In Flames after his recent foray into fable-like short stories about animals with his 2010 collection Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. This newest title also has an animal in it, but the book's not necessarily about talking animals, unless maybe Sedaris has encountered one in real life, which could be interesting. His regular non-fiction stories [...]

Spending Dollars

Fun Thing to Buy of the Day: 'I Can Barely Take Care of Myself' by Jen Kirkman

by | April 16th, 2013

A lot of people ask stand-up comedian Jen Kirkman about when she’s going to have a baby, even though she doesn’t have any interest in doing so. In order to better explain herself, she's written a book about it. In her new book I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids, Kirkman writes about her choice to live child-free, especially in the face of a lot of people all the time asking her why she’s made that choice. A few weeks ago Simon & Schuster released the first thirty pages to read on the Internet, but now you can have a [...]

Spending Dollars

Fun Thing to Buy of the Day: ‘Dad is Fat’ by Jim Gaffigan

by | May 8th, 2013

Jim Gaffigan wrote a book. It's out this week, it's called Dad is Fat, and it's a memoir about his experience with marriage and raising five children in New York City. Considering the fact that CBS ordered a pilot from Gaffigan also based on the standup and actor's real-life experience of marriage and raising five children in New York City, you can rest assured that he knows enough about the subjects of marriage, fatherhood, and the difficulties of Manhattan residential life to write a whole book about them while also being funny.

Books n Stuff

Megan Amram Gets a Book Deal

by | May 6th, 2013

Megan Amram is writing a book about science. Publisher's Weekly reports that Amram, a comedy writer who amassed hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers before landing a job on Parks and Recreation's writing staff, sold a book to Scribner Publishing. Called Science…for Her, the publisher describes it as a "faux-expert compendium of scientific knowledge" that plays with the “satirical conceit that ‘science is hard for most people, let alone women.'" Here's hoping she gets to keep her intentionally gross Twitter picture, which she describes as "Jabba the Hut on his Quinceañera," for her author bio.

Books n Stuff

Details on Jason Segel's Young Adult Novel Series 'Nightmares!' Revealed

by | April 24th, 2013

Jason Segel revealed earlier this month that he has a series of young adult novels on the way, and now, we've learned the books' titles and what they're about. Entitled Nightmares!, the series is "an adventure story about a group of kids who realize it’s up to them to save their town from fear, which has manifested itself in the form of nightmare creatures that have slipped into the everyday world." Segel, who has previously written movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Muppets, said in a statement, "Ultimately, it’s a story about learning that we can accomplish anything, as long as we are brave enough to try. These [...]

Spending Dollars

Fun Thing to Buy of the Day: A New, Complete Guide to 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'

by | April 18th, 2013

There’s guides to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and then there’s more specific and complete guides to Monty Python’s Flying Circus. This new two-volume collection, titled Monty Python's Flying Circus: An Utterly Complete, Thoroughly Unillustrated, Absolutely Unauthorized Guide to Possibly All the References from Two Sheds Jackson to Zambesi probably falls under the latter category, even if it's only because that name makes the collection sound very important. The first book covers episodes 1-26 of the celebrated television show and the second one covers episodes 27-45. The two books cost about 15 dollars each, making the guide a good investment if you want to delve deep into the [...]

Books n Stuff

Jack Handey's First Novel Comes Out in July

by | April 15th, 2013

Beloved humorist Jack Handey (SNL's Deep Thoughts, The New Yorker), has written his first novel. Entitled The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure, the lean 240-page book is set for release on July 16th. Here's the official summary:

Are you a fan of books in which famous tourist destinations are repurposed as unlivable hellholes for no particular reason? Read on! Jack Handey's first novel is an exotic tale with laugh-out-loud twists and unforgettable characters. A reliably unreliable narrator and his friend, some guy named Don, need to get out of town. They have a taste for adventure, so they pay visit to a relic of bygone days-a travel [...]

Reviews

'Dad Is Fat' Review: How Jim Gaffigan Lives Completely Unlike Your Average Comedian

by | May 7th, 2013

In comedy circles, Jim Gaffigan has almost a living-legend aura around him. His broad appeal and ability to do the same clean material in every type of room is widely admired. "If you're a comedian, you should be able to perform in front of any kind of crowd, and the goal is to be someone like Jim Gaffigan who can do Eugene [Mirman]'s show and he can do my show, but then he can also perform at Carnegie Hall or whatever, the Pepsi Thunderdome in Janesville, Wisconsin, and do as well in front of every kind of crowd," Liam McEneaney told me last year. Even more amazing to many is [...]

Reviews

Marc Maron Gets Personal (Again) in His New Book, 'Attempting Normal'

by | April 30th, 2013

Marc Maron’s new book, Attempting Normal, comes to us at an interesting and pivotal moment in his life.  After two and a half decades of toiling in relative obscurity, the forty-nine year-old comic finally seems to be getting his due. His wildly popular and groundbreaking WTF podcast is closing in on its 400th episode and only getting better. This Friday sees the debut of the IFC series Maron, a show loosely based on the neurosis-fueled chaos that is his life. And now, at long last, after countless hours sweating it out on stage in half-filled B rooms and dive bars to frequently apathetic audiences, the comic who on [...]

Davi

David Sedaris's List of His Favorite Book Titles Is Lovely

by | April 23rd, 2013

To commemorate the release of his new book Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris made a list of his five favorite absurdly-long book titles for Barnes & Noble. On His Deathbed The Acrobat Tells His Daughter To Buy Land is only the tip of the iceberg.

Spending Dollars

Fun Thing to Buy of the Day: 'A Companion to Woody Allen'

by | April 17th, 2013

One new release in books this week is A Companion to Woody Allen, the latest of the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Film Directors series. The book costs a whopping $164.00, meaning this is not the companion for the casual Woody Allen movie-watcher, but if you are a truly dedicated fan of the the man, and want to get really academic about his work, this may be the way to go. The book is edited by two renowned Woody Allen experts and collects 26 different essays on the director and his films, covering topics like Allen’s influences as a filmmaker, his relationship to his onscreen persona, and his portrayal of [...]

Older posts »
-->