Download or read book Ten Dead Comedians written by Fred Van Lente and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fred Van Lente’s brilliant debut is both a savagely funny homage to the Golden Age of Mystery and a thoroughly contemporary show-business satire. As the story opens, nine comedians of various acclaim are summoned to the island retreat of legendary Hollywood funnyman Dustin Walker. The group includes a former late-night TV host, a washed-up improv instructor, a ridiculously wealthy “blue collar” comic, and a past-her-prime Vegas icon. All nine arrive via boat to find that every building on the island is completely deserted. Marooned without cell phone service or wifi signals, they soon find themselves being murdered one by one. But who is doing the killing, and why? A darkly clever take on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and other classics of the genre, Ten Dead Comedians is a marvel of literary ventriloquism, with hilarious comic monologues in the voice of every suspect. It’s also an ingeniously plotted puzzler with a twist you’ll never see coming!

Download or read book The Ten Commandments of Comedy written by Gene Perret and published by Linden Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning comedy writers and performers may think funny can't be taught, but legendary comedy writer Gene Perret, winner of three Emmy Awards, tells otherwise in this guide to what makes a good joke work. Outlining the 10 commandments of comedy, the unbreakable rules that every gag must follow in order to be funny, this book liberates readers and allows them to immediately begin writing better and funnier comedy material. By following Perret's commandments, readers will better understand how to write jokes that connect with audiences and discover why unsuccessful material isn't working and how it can be fixed. From the First Commandment (""Thou Shalt Surprise"") to the Tenth (""Thou Shalt Be Clever""), this work stands as a fast guide to the essentials of humor that is perfect for business presenters, after-dinner speakers, professional comedians, and anyone who wants to be funny.

Download or read book The Misfortune of Marion Palm written by Emily Culliton and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2017 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wildly entertaining debut about a Brooklyn Heights wife and mother who has embezzled a small fortune from her children's private school and makes a run for it, leaving behind her trust fund poet husband, his maybe-secret lover, her two daughters, and a school board who will do anything to find her. Marion Palm prefers not to think of herself as a thief but rather "a woman who embezzles." Over the years she has managed to steal $180,000 from her daughters' private school, money that has paid for European vacations, a Sub-Zero refrigerator, and perpetually unused state-of-the-art exercise equipment. But, now, when the school faces an audit, Marion pulls piles of rubber-banded cash from their basement hiding places and flees, leaving her family to grapple with the baffled detectives, the irate school board, and the mother-shaped hole in their house. Told from the points of view of Nathan, Marion's husband, heir to a long-diminished family fortune; Ginny, Marion's teenage daughter who falls helplessly in love at the slightest provocation; Jane, Marion's youngest who is obsessed with a missing person of her own; and Marion herself, on the lam--and hiding in plain sight.

Download or read book Poking a Dead Frog written by Mike Sacks and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR Amy Poehler, Mel Brooks, Adam McKay, George Saunders, Bill Hader, Patton Oswalt, and many more take us deep inside the mysterious world of comedy in this fascinating, laugh-out-loud-funny book. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories—from a day in the writers’ room at The Onion to why a sketch does or doesn’t make it onto Saturday Night Live to how the BBC nearly erased the entire first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Poking a Dead Frog is a must-read for comedy buffs, writers and pop culture junkies alike.

Download or read book Old Jewish Comedians written by Drew Friedman and published by Fantagraphics Books. This book was released on 2006-10-18 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive collection of portraiture of comedians born before 1930 includes the famous (Milton Berle, Groucho Marx, Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks, Jack Benny), the not-so-famous (Benny Rubin, Shelly Berman) and the largely unknown (Al Kelly, Menasha Skulnik). The Reuben Award-winning Friedman presents a thorough visual history of these greatest Borscht-Belt comedians.

Download or read book Thatcher Stole My Trousers written by Alexei Sayle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Enlightening ... Funny, smart, original and provocative ... It is hard to imagine the stalwarts of Mock the Week recognising the Druze militia leader Walid Jumblatt in a London cinema' NEW STATESMAN 'Few standups have come close to capturing a fraction of this creative energy in a book ... Alexei Sayle is an exception' GUARDIAN "What I brought to comedy was an authentic working-class voice plus a threat of genuine violence - nobody in Monty Python looked like a hard case who'd kick your head in." In 1971, comedians on the working men's club circuit imagined that they would be free to continue telling their tired, racist, misogynistic gags forever. But their nemesis, a nineteen-year-old Marxist art student, was slowly coming to meet them... 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.

Download or read book Buzz Books 2017 Spring Summer written by and published by Publishers Lunch. This book was released on 2017-01-13 with total page 798 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tenth edition of Buzz Books captures the excitement of Winter Institute and takes it much further: start off a year of new reading discoveries: excerpts from 40 talked about Buzz Books due to be published in the months ahead. Be among the first to get a taste of new fiction from major bestselling authors including Dennis Lehane, Nora Roberts, The Rosie Project author Graeme Simsion, Karen Dionne, I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You author Courtney Maum’s anticipated follow-up, and Don Winslow’s latest thriller. The new Buzz Books shines a light on 15 promising debuts. Memoirist (Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight) Alexandra Fuller’s first fiction joins Laurel Davis Huber’s fictionalized account of The Velveteen Rabbit’s author. Literary reimaginings include Sarah Schmidt looking through the eyes of Lizzie Borden’s troubled sister and Sarah Shoemaker writing from the vantage point of Charlotte Bronte’s Mr. Rochester. Award-winning journalist Omar El Akaad describes the “second” American Civil War in a novel set in 2074. Other debuts span an inspiring range, from dystopian to utopian, from a Norse trilogy about Norway’s first king to a scattered family from Palestine. Among our always fascinating nonfiction, novelist Richard Ford remembers his parents in a memoir; Roxane Gay’s long-awaited Hunger follows her bestselling Bad Feminist; and Kate Moore’s Radium Girls is an expose of pioneering working women, who were poisoned by radium paint in the 1920s. Start reading the bestsellers and big discoveries of tomorrow right now, and then share the bounty: anyone can download this free edition of Buzz Books at all major ebookstores or at buzz.publishersmarketplace.com. For still more pre-publication samples, check out Buzz Books 2017: Young Adult Spring/Summer, also available now, for excerpts from the some of the best of publishing’s hottest genre.

Download or read book The Show Won t Go On written by Jeff Abraham and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has never been a show business book quite like The Show Won't Go On, the first comprehensive study of a bizarre phenomenon: performers who died onstage. From the comedy magician who dropped dead on live television to the amateur thespian who expired during a play called The Art of Murder, the book is a celebration of lives both famous and obscure, as well as a dramatic and accurate recounting of events leading to the moments they died "doing what they loved." The Show Won't Go On covers almost every genre of entertainment and is full of unearthed anecdotes, exclusive interviews, colorful characters, and ironic twists. With dozens of heart-stopping stories, it's the perfect book to dip into on any page.

Download or read book The Comic Book History of Animation True Toon Tales of the Most Iconic Characters Artists and Styles written by Fred Van Lente and published by IDW Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-21 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the team behind The Comic Book History of Comics comes the perfect companion piece telling the story of the triumphs and tragedies of the filmmakers and beloved animated characters of the past century and a half—essential for hardcore fans of the medium and noobies alike! It's all here, from Aardman to Zoetrope, Disney to Miyazaki, Hanna-Barbera to Pixar, and everything in-between! Begin in the early 1900s with J. Stuart Blackton and the first American cartoon, Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur, and Felix the Cat! Find out about Margaret Winkler, the most powerful person in early animation, and Walt Disney, who revolutionizes cartoons with sound and color! Discover how Fleischer Studios teaches us to sing "Boop-boop-a-doop" and eat our spinach, and how Warner Bros' Looney Toons rivaled Disney's Silly Symphonies! Plus, icons of animation including Hanna-Barbera, Huckleberry Hound, The Flintstones, and Ruby-Spears; the Plastic Age of toy-based TV shows including G.I. Joe, Transformers, and He-Man; and the new Golden Age of TV animation launched by The Simpsons! And go abroad to France with Émile Cohl's dynamic doodles in Fantasmagorie; to Japan, where the Imperial Navy debuts the first full-length anime as propaganda, Divine Sea Warriors, and Osamu Tezuka conquers TV as he conquered manga; and to Argentina, which beat out Snow White for the first feature length animated movie by two decades! And finally, Jurassic Park and the computer animation revolution! Post-Little Mermaid Disney, Pixar, and Studio Ghibli conquer the world! If you’ve ever wanted to know more about the history of animation but were afraid to ask, this book is especially for you!

Download or read book The End Times Comedy Show written by Thor Ramsey and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Los Angeles, circa 1998, Sam Seitz is a mildly successful comedian with five Tonight Show appearances who is actively trying to lose his religion so that he might “pursue the mindless goal of becoming famous for the sake of fame, without hindrance, setting aside the truth that so easily besets” him. Coming from a family of the most famous evangelicals in the country, apostatizing is no small task. After all, his family has been called “the Kennedys of the evangelical world.” For the first time in his life he feels like unbelief is within reach, until he notices that Jesus is following him. Literally. Not to mention the demons he starts seeing, but they might be with the drug dealer who happens to be his stripper girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend. And let’s not leave out the night God tells him in a dream that he only has twenty-four hours to live. Thus begins his quest to find a way to reverse this proclamation, but hopefully one that doesn’t involve repentance, since he’s trying to deconvert and all. The End Times Comedy Show is a satire of the evangelical landscape that is filled with kindness, faith, and warmth for its characters. Blending magical realism and dark humor, Ramsey takes the theological subject of “crucified with Christ” to parabolic and hilarious extremes, all while avoiding heresy.

Download or read book Dead Crowd written by Dan Barton and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002-05-14 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When private investigator Biff Kincaid falls under police suspicion for the murder of a comedy club owner who owes him money, he decides to investigate the crime himself.

Download or read book Seriously Funny written by Gerald Nachman and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2009-08-26 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The comedians of the 1950s and 1960s were a totally different breed of relevant, revolutionary performer from any that came before or after, comics whose humor did much more than pry guffaws out of audiences. Gerald Nachman presents the stories of the groundbreaking comedy stars of those years, each one a cultural harbinger: • Mort Sahl, of a new political cynicism • Lenny Bruce, of the sexual, drug, and language revolution • Dick Gregory, of racial unrest • Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge, of racial harmony • Phyllis Diller, of housewifely complaint • Mike Nichols & Elaine May and Woody Allen, of self-analytical angst and a rearrangement of male-female relations • Stan Freberg and Bob Newhart, of encroaching, pervasive pop media manipulation and, in the case of Bob Elliott & Ray Goulding, of the banalities of broadcasting • Mel Brooks, of the Yiddishization of American comedy • Sid Caesar, of a new awareness of the satirical possibilities of television • Joan Rivers, of the obsessive craving for celebrity gossip and of a latent bitchy sensibility • Tom Lehrer, of the inane, hypocritical, mawkishly sentimental nature of hallowed American folkways and, in the case of the Smothers Brothers, of overly revered folk songs and folklore • Steve Allen, of the late-night talk show as a force in American comedy • David Frye and Vaughn Meader, of the merger of showbiz and politics and, along with Will Jordan, of stretching the boundaries of mimicry • Shelley Berman, of a generation of obsessively self-confessional humor • Jonathan Winters and Jean Shepherd, of the daring new free-form improvisational comedy and of a sardonically updated view of Midwestern archetypes • Ernie Kovacs, of surreal visual effects and the unbounded vistas of video Taken together, they made up the faculty of a new school of vigorous, socially aware satire, a vibrant group of voices that reigned from approximately 1953 to 1965. Nachman shines a flashlight into the corners of these comedians’ chaotic and often troubled lives, illuminating their genius as well as their demons, damaged souls, and desperate drive. His exhaustive research and intimate interviews reveal characters that are intriguing and all too human, full of rich stories, confessions, regrets, and traumas. Seriously Funny is at once a dazzling cultural history and a joyous celebration of an extraordinary era in American comedy.

Download or read book Never Sleep written by Fred Van Lente and published by Blackstone Publishing. This book was released on 2023-03-28 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Civil War–era historical novel featuring the first female agents in the Pinkerton National Police Agency, who work to foil an assassination attempt on President Lincoln’s life. The year is 1861, the eve of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration. For Kate Warn, the first female private detective in American history, the only assignment tougher than exposing a conspiracy to assassinate the new president is training her new mentee, Hattie MacLaughlin, in the art of detection. The two women’s mission to save the president takes them from the granges of rural Maryland to the heart of secessionist high society, and sets them on a collision course that could alter the course of history. When Kate’s cover is blown, Hattie must choose between saving her new friend, and her country. Based on a true story.

Download or read book The Con Artist written by Fred Van Lente and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This illustrated mystery will appeal to comic book fans and anyone who appreciates an unconventional whodunit. Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, seeking sanctuary with other fans and creators—and maybe to reunite with his ex—but when his rival is found murdered, he becomes the prime suspect. To clear his name, Mike will have to navigate every corner of the con, from zombie obstacle courses and cosplay flash mobs to intrusive fans and obsessive collectors, in the process unraveling a dark secret behind one of the industry’s most legendary creators.

Download or read book Halo Evolutions written by Various and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrilling short story collection featuring Jeff VanderMeer, Karen Traviss, and Eric Nylund—part of the expanded universe based on the New York Times bestselling video game series Halo! When humanity expanded beyond the safety of Earth to new stars and horizons, it never dreamed what dangers would be encounter there. When the theocratic alien juggernaut known as the Covenant declared war upon the fragile human empire, millions of lives were lost—but millions of heroes also rose to the challenge. In such a far-reaching conflict, not many tales of the brave have a chance to become legend. This collection of eleven stories dives into the depths of the vast Halo universe, not only from the perspective of those who fought and died to save humanity, but also from those who vowed to wipe it out of existence.

Download or read book July Buzz Books Monthly written by and published by Publishers Lunch. This book was released on 2017-06-05 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You'll find exclusive excerpts of seven beach-worthy titles due for publication during the month of July in this sampler—after our extensive preview of well over 100 new books of interest coming to market in the month ahead. Then turn to new fiction from bestselling authors. Thrillers dominate our excerpts this month, with The Last Hack, the new Jack Parlabane thriller from one of the smartest minds in crime fiction, Christopher Brookmyre as well as literary thriller Fierce Kingdom by Barnes & Noble Discover Award-winner Gin Phillips. Riley Sager’s debut, Final Girls, is a gripping psychological thriller. The Life She Was Given by Ellen Wiseman, while not a thriller, is an intense novel about the devastating power of family secrets—beginning in the poignant, lurid world of a Depression-era traveling circus and coming full circle in the transformative 1950s. On the lighter side is Rachel Khong’s funny, touching debut Goodbye, Vitamin. Our nonfiction excerpt is In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire Journalist Peter Hellman details the notorious, legendary Rudy Kurniawan, a 20-something Indonesian immigrant who burst onto the rarified scene of ultrafine wines in 2002 and then crashed and burned. Rounding out the sampler is a young adult sci-fi/fantasy, Dream Me by Kathyrn Berla. Buzz Books Monthlies are your first and best place to turn for a real insider's taste of what to read next, and what the book world will be talking about next month. We hope you enjoy the monthly Buzz Books—and keep an eye out for August Buzz Books available in early July. Passionate readers have relied on our twice-a-year Buzz Books to sample and discover new books from big authors and breakout talents through exclusive and substantial pre-publication excerpts. You can read more than 50 excerpts from the hottest books appearing this fall and winter right now. Also, watch for our second annual Buzz Books Romance, devoted to this popular genre (available July 12).

Download or read book Paperbacks from Hell written by Grady Hendrix and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires comes a nostalgic and unflinchingly funny celebration of the horror fiction boom of the 1970s and ’80s. Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dressed skeletons, evil dolls, and knife-wielding killer crabs! Read shocking plot summaries that invoke devil worship, satanic children, and haunted real estate! Horror author and vintage paperback book collector Grady Hendrix offers killer commentary and witty insight on these trashy thrillers that tried so hard to be the next Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby. Complete with story summaries and artist and author profiles, this unforgettable volume dishes on familiar authors like V. C. Andrews and R. L. Stine, plus many more who’ve faded into obscurity. Also included are recommendations for which of these forgotten treasures are well worth your reading time and which should stay buried.