Biography Humor

An Italian memoir. Laine gave up her job as a nurse, sold her home and gave away most of her belongings. She has three desires bubbling at the heart of her choice: to write a book, paint a picture and climb a mountain before she died. A man with a van took most of her remaining belongings, along with her basset hound Basil, down to the heel of Italy over 1,500 miles away, where she would spend the next four years. If it all seemed like a folly, then she was willing to take the risk. She moved to a house that she had only spent a week in the year before. She knew no one and yet she had ...

Comic glow and self-mockery. Addiction and depression. Dave Itzkoff draws a lively portrait of Robin Williams. It's a fresh and original look at the actor whose work touched millions of people around the world.

THREE MORE FUN STORIES FROM SPAIN is a second anthology of three entertaining, informative tales about the lives of diverse British people in Spain. All three titles are also available separately.

‘I never once attended a Sunday morning church service in Stanford. There was always the feeling that they weren’t aimed at families like ours.’ Pam Ayres was the sixth child in a hard-up family who lived in a council house, her parents’ generation were harrowed by the war. Yet they lived by the green in the village of Stanford in the Vale, where everything you needed was within walking distance and the sound of motorcars was rarely heard.

Filius Thoreau, arch-benefit fraudster and jaunty raconteur, celebrates the silver anniversary of his induction into the world of the workshy with his candid, but not too candid, autobiography in which he celebrates the unique and sinuous path he has steered through the minefield of work-obsessed modern Britain. From the dark days of the Poll Tax through the laissez-faire nineties to the ghastly government work schemes of the new millennium, Filius has marched onwards to the sound of his own personal drummer and constructed a uniquely apologist philosophy along the way.

When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he described it as a “comic weekly.” And although it has become much more than that, it has remained true in its irreverent heart to the founder’s description, publishing the most illustrious literary humorists of the modern era. This anthology gathers together, for the first time, the funniest work of more than seventy New Yorker contributors.

Attention all potty-mouthed, cheap-wine-drinking mothers: Prepare to meet your match. Any bad thought you’ve had about your kids, Nicole Knepper has had worse. Much worse. It’s not that she doesn’t love her kids. It’s that she understands what a mind-f*?% it can be to try to civilize those wild little beasts.

For the first time, comedian Jack Dee reveals the highs and lows of his early life and disastrous day jobs. You don't just wake up jaundiced and bitter; it's taken Jack years of dedication and commitment to brew his unique cocktail of disillusionment and bile. What turned this once optimistic young man into a grumpy middle-aged git? Was it working in an artificial-leg factory?

Matt Rife is well aware that he’s both the most loved and the most controversial comic in America today. And honestly, he thinks that’s your problem. In his very first book, Matt reveals without apology everything that led him to becoming comedy’s biggest lightning rod before he reached thirty, in a story full of bold and hysterical takes on everything from Justin Bieber tramp stamps and rap battles with ex-cons to Matt’s battles with depression and his many brushes with failure before finally hitting it big.

When three friends get together to take an exploratory trip around northern Spain they each have their own agenda. For Diego it’s a journey of rediscovery after nine years in Lancashire, while Justin is just eager to take a break from his humdrum life. For Frank it’s a sober return to a country where he taught and caroused for fifteen years until he found himself back in Blackburn after an unexpected windfall. Frank desires to take his new hobby of film-making to the next level, while his pals hope that it won’t come to dominate their every waking hour. TAKE THREE is a light-hearted ...

Jerry Lewis (1926-2017) achieved superstardom in the 1950s and 1960s with such films as The Caddy, The Bellboy, and The Nutty Professor. Later, Lewis was almost as well known for his dedication to the cause of muscular dystrophy and his annual Labor Day telethon, which he hosted for more than four decades. In King of Comedy, Shawn Levy offers a provocative portrait of the influential comedian, analyzing the complex, sometimes disturbing world of Lewis—from his rise to fame and philanthropic work to the dark side of his career and personal life.

In KENNETH’S QUEST – J.J. Birtwell relates the story of Mr Cooper’s search for his son. When Kenneth’s vulnerable son disappears from his home in Estepona, the Derbyshire builder flies to Spain to find him. Having little to go on, Kenneth and his ex-wife Maite do everything in their power to track the twenty-year-old down, and when young Adam is finally spotted in Alicante, Kenneth sets off to find him, beginning a quest that will take him as far as the northern coast. Following clues gathered through their detective work and chance encounters, Kenneth begins to learn a lot about ...

Chapters include, among others, “9 Non-threatening Leadership Strategies for Women,” "How to Ace Your Job Interview Without Over-acing It," and “Choose Your Own Adventure: Do You Want to Be Likable or Successful?” Each chapter also features an exercise with a set of "inaction items" designed to challenge women to be less challenging.

Randall Stevens, at 20 years old in 1966, was a wide-eyed, naive boy still a year away from being able to claim adulthood at that magic age of 21. Having come up with the idea to join one of the best state police organizations in the nation, he began the journey to become a Massachusetts State Police Trooper.

Comedy, Tragedy, Therapy. Simon Amstell did his first stand-up gig at the age of 13. His parents had just divorced, and puberty was confusing. Trying to be funny solved everything. Read by Simon Amstell, and interspersed with footage from his stand-up tours, HELP is the hilarious and heartbreaking account of Simon's ongoing compulsion to reveal his entire self onstage. To tell the truth so it can't hurt him anymore. Loneliness, anxiety, depression - this book has it all. And more.

Thatcher Stole My Trousers chronicles a time when comedy and politics united in electrifying ways. Recounting the founding of the Comedy Store, the Comic Strip and the Young Ones, and Alexei’s friendships with the comedians who – like him – would soon become household names, this is a unique and beguiling blend of social history and memoir. Fascinating, funny, angry and entertaining, it is a story of class and comedy, politics and love, fast cars and why it’s difficult to foul a dwarf in a game of football.

When Rebecca Barry and her husband moved to upstate New York to start their family, they wanted to be surrounded by natural beauty but close to a small urban center, doing work they loved, and plenty of time to spend with their kids. But living their dreams turned out not to be so simple.

G-Is for String is the story of a gullible college girl who dreamed of being a dancer all her life. When her friends encouraged her to enter an amateur dance contest in Rochester, New York, she fell into the world of exotic dancing and stripping. She spent the next thirteen years of life perfecting her performance art in places where artistry was a pleasant surprise.

Part memoir, part comedy routine, part advice manual, Challenge Accepted! is Celeste at her best, revealing her secrets to love, friendship, family and marriage (oh hai, #hothusband) and how to deal with life's many challenges: why she checks the bath for sharks, how Nutella quite literally shaped who she is as a woman and why being famous on Instagram is like being rich in Monopoly. Its real, like totally, really real.

AN ENCOUNTER is the story of Macu, a young man who leaves his tribe on his first solo hunting trip. Hoping to prove himself by killing and carrying home a small deer, his encounter turns out to be of a much more singular and fateful nature. An entertaining and instructive story suitable for readers of all ages.