Funny Memoir

After 25 years of achieving what he thought were his dreams of being a headlining touring comedian and actor, Kyle Cease suddenly discovered that the belief that "when something happens, I will be happy" is a complete lie. With nothing more than an intuition, he decided to quit his stand-up career at its peak, and now - as a transformational comedian - he brings his one-of-a-kind self-help wisdom to sold-out audiences in his Evolving Out Loud Live stage show.

The second book by Sunset Strip video vixen Bobbie Brown, Cherry on Top documents Brown's transformation from 1990s sex symbol to comedy queen, revealing the dramatic ups and downs of her biggest reinvention yet. Once the hottest girl on the Sunset Strip, the blonde beauty in the video to Warrant's 1990s hit, "Cherry Pie" is now in her late 40s, and she's letting her mouth run wild as a headliner on the comedy stage a few doors down from the rock clubs she once frequented. She's still smoking hot, but telling jokes about farting on men's balls isn't helping her find The One.

Growing up, Jenny Pentland’s life was a literal sitcom. Many of the storylines for her mother’s smash hit series, Roseanne, were drawn from Pentland’s early family life in working-class Denver. But that was only the beginning of the drama. Roseanne Barr’s success as a comedian catapulted the family from the Rockies to star-studded Hollywood—with its toxic culture of money, celebrity, and prying tabloids that was destabilizing for a child in grade school.

Kristin Newman spent her 20s and 30s dealing with the stresses of her high-pressure job as a television comedy writer, and the anxieties of watching most of her friends get married and start families while she wrestled with her own fear of both. Not ready to settle down and yet loathe to become a sad-sack single girl, Kristin instead started traveling the world, often alone, for a few months each year, falling madly in love with attractive locals who provided moments of the love she wanted without the cost of the freedom she needed.

Michael J. Fox abandoned high school to pursue an acting career, but went on to receive honorary degrees from several universities and garner the highest accolades for his acting, as well as for his writing. In his new book, he inspires and motivates graduates to recognize opportunities, maximize their abilities, and roll with the punches -- all with his trademark optimism, warmth, and humor.

Welcome to a comedic trip through the life of one of the country’s most exciting comedians. Meet Dulcé Sloan, whose life has been an incredible journey filled with lessons and laughter. In addition to doing stand-up around the world, Dulcé is a trained actor, singer, and has been a correspondent on The Daily Show. Dulcé's first memoir is organized into essays from her life. From a childhood moving between cities, starting her own business selling toys at a Miami flea market, to being a Black kid in a predominately White school, she’s always used her masterful wit to challenge the status quo.

In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father's glowing memories of his graduate school years here.

Six-time Emmy Award-winning funnyman Tim Conway, best known for his characters on The Carol Burnett Show, offers a straight-shooting and hilarious memoir about his life on stage and off as an actor and comedian. In television history, few entertainers have captured as many hearts and made as many people laugh as Tim Conway. There's nothing in the world that Tim Conway would rather do than entertain - and in his first-ever memoir, What's So Funny?, that's exactly what he does.

Growing up, Jena Friedman didn’t care about being likable. And she never wanted to be a comedian, either. She wouldn’t discover her knack for the funny business until research for her college thesis led her to take an improv class in Chicago. That anthropology paper, written on race, class, and gender in the city’s comedy scene, was, in Jena’s own words, “just as funny as it sounds.” But it did lay the groundwork for a career that has seen her write and produce for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Late Show with David Letterman, and the Oscar-nominated Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.

Alan Zweibel started his comedy career selling jokes for seven dollars apiece to the last of the Borscht Belt standups. Then one night, despite bombing on stage, he caught the attention of Lorne Michaels and became one of the first writers at Saturday Night Live, where he penned classic material for Gilda Radner, John Belushi, and all of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. From SNL, he went on to have a hand in a series of landmark shows - from It’s Garry Shandling’s Show to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Is there a more sociable province than Newfoundland and Labrador? Or anywhere in Canada with a greater reputation for coming to the rescue of those in need? At this time of Covid, singer, songwriter and best-selling author Alan Doyle is feeling everyone's pain. Off the road and spending more days at home than he has since he was a child hawking cod tongues on the wharfs of Petty Harbour, he misses the crowds and companionship of performing. We're all experiencing our own version of that deprivation, and Alan, one of Newfoundland's finest storytellers, wants to offer a little balm.

Abandoned as an infant on the streets of Greenville, Mississippi, and rescued by a loving white family, Tommy Davidson spent most of his childhood unaware that he was different from his brother and sister. All that changed as he came of age in a society of racial barriers - ones that he was soon to help break. On a fledgling network, Tommy joined the cast of In Living Color, alongside other relative newcomers including Jim Carrey, Rosie Perez, Jamie Foxx, and Jennifer Lopez - all united by an ingenious throng of Wayans siblings, poised to break new ground.

Who but Carol Burnett herself has the timing, talent, and wit to pull back the curtain on the Emmy Award-winning show that made television history for 11 glorious seasons? In Such Good Company delves into little-known stories of the guests, sketches, and antics that made the show legendary as well as some favorite tales too good not to relive again. Carol lays it all out for us, from the show's original conception to its evolution into one of the most beloved primetime programs of its generation.

While he's not quite a household name, most people would consider H. Jon Benjamin, the voice-actor star of Archer and Bob's Burgers (and a sentient can of mixed vegetables in 2015's Wet Hot American Summer) a comedy show business success. But he'd like to remind everyone that as great as success can be, failure is also an option. In a hilarious, self-deprecating memoir, Jon lays out some of his many failures in all areas of life, from Work ("wherein I'm unable to deliver a sizzling fajita") to Family ("wherein a trip to PF Chang's fractures a family").

Funny How Life Works is a behind-the-scenes look at the life and career of comedian Michael Jr. Infused with the same laugh-out-loud humor and practical wisdom that define his stand-up acts, Michael shares a collection of stories meant to inspire listeners to embrace their purpose - their "punchline".

Was it a typo when the CEO mandated that the organization "institutionalize incompetents"? If not, how did the company wind up institutionalizing incompetence instead? How to Work for an Idiot is still the confessions of a recovering Idiot Boss. After decades of writing and consulting, Dr. Hoover finally realized that many of the people he kept trying to "energize" and "enlighten" were, well, idiots. More importantly, he was an idiot for thinking he could change them. This new edition is bigger and better - and filled with even more idiots - than before.

Daughter of Major Derek Hargreaves (spy?) and June Hargreaves (spy's wife?) sister of Sara (born to be Head Girl) and Ben (the usurper), Jenny's comedy career took off via drama school, cider, sausage rolls, sleeping with men who looked like they lived under a carpet, punk poetry, anorexia, bedsit misery, waitressing and not really having a clue about anything. This was a world before microphones, mobile phones, before everyone gave up smoking or started taking coke. Jenny Eclair was on the comedy circuit before there really was a comedy circuit.

Just the Funny Parts is a juicy and scathingly funny insider look at how pop culture gets made. For more than 30 years, writer, producer, and director Nell Scovell worked behind the scenes of iconic TV shows, including The Simpsons, Late Night with David Letterman, Murphy Brown, NCIS, The Muppets, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, which she created and executive produced. In 2009, Scovell gave up her behind-the-scenes status when the David Letterman sex scandal broke.

Kenan Thompson is Saturday Night Live’s longest-ever-serving cast member and a star of such pioneering sketches as “Black Jeopardy” and is hugely beloved thanks to a tidal wave of nostalgic fans who grew up on early 2000s classics All That, Good Burger, and Kenan & Kel on Nickelodeon. He’s also a dad (to two girls) in his mid-40s living in suburbia, and whose universal, relatable, family-friendly humor has created unbelievable appeal and engagement from fans from middle America to coastal elites. Becoming a dad sucked the cool right out of him—and he's OK with that!

Kelly Williams Brown had 700 bad days. Her marriage collapsed, she broke three limbs in separate and unrelated incidents, her father was diagnosed with cancer, and she fell into a deep depression that ended in what could delicately be referred to as a “rest cure” at an inpatient facility. Before that, she had several very good years: She wrote a best-selling book, spoke at NASA, had a beautiful wedding, and inspired hundreds of thousands of readers to live as grown-ups in an often-screwed-up world, though these accomplishments mostly just made her feel fraudulent.