The Girl in the Show

The Girl in the Show
Author: Anna Fields
Publisher: Arcade
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2017-08-08
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9781510718364

For fans of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Amy Schumer—and every other “funny woman”—comes a candid feminist comedy manifesto exploring the sisterhood between women’s comedy and women’s liberation. “I’m not funny at all. What I am is brave.” —Lucille Ball From female pop culture powerhouses dominating the entertainment landscape to memoirs from today’s most vocal feminist comediennes shooting up the bestseller lists, women in comedy have never been more influential. Marking this cultural shift, The Girl in the Show provides an in-depth exploration of how comedy and feminism have grown hand in hand to give women a stronger voice in the ongoing fight for equality. From I Love Lucy to SNL to today’s rising cable and web-series stars, Anna Fields’ entertaining retrospective combines amusing and honest personal narratives with the historical, political, and cultural contexts of the feminist movement. With interview subjects like Abbi Jacobson, Molly Shannon, Mo Collins, and Lizz Winstead among others—as well as actresses, stand-up comics, writers, producers, and female comedy troupes—Fields shares true stories of wit and heroism from some of our most treasured (and under-represented) artists. At its heart, The Girl in the Show captures the urgency of our continued struggle towards equality, allowing the reader to both revel in—and rebel against—our collective ideas of “women’s comedy.”

The Comedy Bible

The Comedy Bible
Author: Judy Carter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2010-05-04
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0743219023

Judy Carter, guru to aspiring comedy writers and stand-up comics, tells all about the biz of being funny and writing funny in this bright, entertaining, and totally practical guide on how to draw humor from your life and turn it into a career. Do you think you’re funny? Do you want to turn your sense of humor into a career? If the answer is yes, then Judy Carter’s The Comedy Bible is for you. The guru to aspiring stand-up comics provides the complete scoop on being—and writing—funny for money. If you’ve got a sense of humor, you can learn to make a career out of comedy, says Judy Carter. Whether it’s creating a killer stand-up act, writing a spec sitcom, or providing jokes for radio or one-liners for greeting cards, Carter provides step-by-step instructions in The Comedy Bible. She helps readers first determine which genre of comedy writing or performing suits them best and then directs them in developing, refining, and selling their work. Using the hands-on workbook format that was so effective in her bestselling first book, Stand-Up Comedy: The Book, Carter offers a series of day-by-day exercises that draw on her many years as a successful stand-up comic and the head of a nationally known comedy school. Also included are practical tips and advice from today’s top comedy professionals—from Bernie Brillstein to Christopher Titus to Richard Lewis. She presents the pros and cons of the various comedy fields—stand-up, script, speech and joke writing, one-person shows, humor essays—and shows how to tailor your material for each. She teaches how to find your “authentic” voice—the true source of comedy. And, perhaps most important, Carter explains how to take a finished product to the next level—making money—by pitching it to a buyer and negotiating a contract. Written in Carter’s unique, take-no-prisoners voice, The Comedy Bible is practical, inspirational, and funny.

Bell, Book and Candle

Bell, Book and Candle
Author: John Van Druten
Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Total Pages: 80
Release: 1951
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780822201045

THE STORY: Gillian Holroyd is one of the few modern people who can actually cast spells and perform feats of supernaturalism. She casts a spell over an unattached publisher, Shepherd Henderson, partly to keep him away from a rival and partly becaus

Three Things I'd Never Do

Three Things I'd Never Do
Author: Remi Carrington
Publisher: Phrey Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2020-06-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1947685260

I’m a cat person. He has two BIG dogs. There is no chance this will work. There are three things I said I’d never do— Never move back in with my parents. Thanks to a summer storm, not only am I residing with my parents—temporarily—but a tree falls on their house and traps me in the bathtub. Enter the hottie firefighter who rescues me, bubbles and all. Then my parents have to move in with me. Oh joy. Never let my mom set me up on a blind date. She asks so many times, I finally agree. And the hot firefighter—Adam—is the one who shows up. Because I’ve always wanted to go on a first date with a guy who has seen me in nothing but bubbles. Not. Never date a guy with a dog. Adam is nearly perfect . . . except he has dogs. The furry beasts frighten me, and no way would Pookie tolerate them. But for a chance at love and to get over my fear, I volunteer to dog sit for the weekend. It doesn’t go well. Someone is going to end up in the doghouse. It might be me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three Things I'd Never Do is a sweet romantic comedy with heartwarming characters and a touch of sizzle that will have you laughing your way to the happily ever after.

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces
Author: John Kennedy Toole
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Total Pages: 414
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802197620

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is "huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures" (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times).

Paradiso

Paradiso
Author: Dante Alighieri
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2016-06-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0553900544

This brilliant new verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum captures the consummate beauty of the third and last part of Dante's Divine Comedy. The Paradiso is a luminous poem of love and light, of optics, angelology, polemics, prayer, prophecy, and transcendent experience. As Dante ascends to the Celestial Rose, in the tenth and final heaven, all the spectacle and splendor of a great poet's vision now becomes accessible to the modern reader in this highly acclaimed, superb dual language edition. With extensive notes and commentary.

Is This Anything?

Is This Anything?
Author: Jerry Seinfeld
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1982112743

The first book in twenty-five years from “one of our great comic minds” (The Washington Post) features Seinfeld’s best work across five decades in comedy. Since his first performance at the legendary New York nightclub “Catch a Rising Star” as a twenty-one-year-old college student in fall of 1975, Jerry Seinfeld has written his own material and saved everything. “Whenever I came up with a funny bit, whether it happened on a stage, in a conversation, or working it out on my preferred canvas, the big yellow legal pad, I kept it in one of those old school accordion folders,” Seinfeld writes. “So I have everything I thought was worth saving from forty-five years of hacking away at this for all I was worth.” For this book, Jerry Seinfeld has selected his favorite material, organized decade by decade. In this “trove of laugh-out-loud one-liners” (Associated Press), you will witness the evolution of one of the great comedians of our time and gain new insights into the thrilling but unforgiving art of writing stand-up comedy.

It's Kind of a Funny Story

It's Kind of a Funny Story
Author: Ned Vizzini
Publisher: Disney Electronic Content
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2010-09-25
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1423141083

Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life—which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job—Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does. That's when things start to get crazy. At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he's just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away.

I Funny

I Funny
Author: James Patterson
Publisher: jimmy patterson
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2012-12-10
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0316206946

#1 bestselling author James Patterson doles out the laughs in the first book in the hit series! Middle-schooler Jamie Grimm faces bullies and self-doubt as he chases his dream of becoming the world’s greatest comedian Jamie Grimm is a middle schooler on a mission: he wants to become the world's greatest standup comedian--even if he doesn't have a lot to laugh about these days. He's new in town and stuck living with his aunt, uncle, and their evil son Stevie, a bully who doesn't let Jamie's wheelchair stop him from messing with Jamie as much as possible. But Jamie doesn't let his situation get him down. When his Uncle Frankie mentions a contest called The Planet's Funniest Kid Comic, Jamie knows he has to enter. But are the judges only rewarding him out of pity because of his wheelchair, like Stevie suggests? Will Jamie ever share the secret of his troubled past instead of hiding behind his comedy act? Prepare to laugh and cheer along with Jamie in this highly-illustrated, heartfelt middle school story.

I'll Have What She's Having

I'll Have What She's Having
Author: Erin Carlson
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2017-08-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316353906

A backstage look at the making of Nora Ephron's revered trilogy--When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle--which brought romantic comedies back to the fore, and an intimate portrait of the beloved writer/director who inspired a generation of Hollywood women, from Mindy Kaling to Lena Dunham. In I'll Have What She's Having entertainment journalist Erin Carlson tells the story of the real Nora Ephron and how she reinvented the romcom through her trio of instant classics. With a cast of famous faces including Rob Reiner, Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Billy Crystal, Carlson takes readers on a rollicking, revelatory trip to Ephron's New York City, where reality took a backseat to romance and Ephron--who always knew what she wanted and how she wanted it--ruled the set with an attention to detail that made her actors feel safe but sometimes exasperated crew members. Along the way, Carlson examines how Ephron explored in the cinema answers to the questions that plagued her own romantic life and how she regained faith in love after one broken engagement and two failed marriages. Carlson also explores countless other questions Ephron's fans have wondered about: What sparked Reiner to snap out of his bachelor blues during the making of When Harry Met Sally? Why was Ryan, a gifted comedian trapped in the body of a fairytale princess, not the first choice for the role? After she and Hanks each separatel balked at playing Mail's Kathleen Kelly and Sleepless' Sam Baldwin, what changed their minds? And perhaps most importantly: What was Dave Chappelle doing . . . in a turtleneck? An intimate portrait of a one of America's most iconic filmmakers and a look behind the scenes of her crowning achievements, I'll Have What She's Having is a vivid account of the days and nights when Ephron, along with assorted cynical collaborators, learned to show her heart on the screen.