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"Brings the man and his comic genius into focus as never before. Drawing upon a mountain of original research--interviews with family and friends, court transcripts, unpublished journals, screenplay drafts--Scott Saul traces Pryor's rough journey to the heights of fame: from his heartbreaking childhood, his trials in the Army, and his apprentice days in Greenwich Village to his soul-searching interlude in Berkeley and his ascent in the New Hollywood...
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In this beautiful and poignant tribute to her late daughter, award-winning actress and "New York Times" bestselling author Carol Burnett presents a funny and moving memoir about mothering an extraordinary young woman through the struggles and triumphs of her life.
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"The story of Charlie Chaplin's years of self-imposed exile from the United States, when he had become a pariah during the 1950s Red Scare. While living abroad he made his last, and by general agreement, worst films, only to return home years later to a triumphant reception"--
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With heartfelt candor and her usual side-splitting bite, humorist, essayist, and blogger at bitchesgottaeat.com Samantha Irby captures powerful emotional truths while chronicling the disaster that has been her life. An ill-fated pilgrimage and romantic vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father's ashes, awkward sexual encounters, a Bachelorette application gone awry, and more-- sometimes you just have to laugh, even when your life is a...
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"Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol or sex: it was film. After moving to L.A., Oswalt became a huge film buff (or as he calls it, a sprocket fiend), absorbing classics, cult hits, and new releases at the New Beverly Cinema. Silver screen celluloid became Patton's life schoolbook, informing his notion of acting, writing, comedy, and relationships. Set in the nascent days of L.A.'s alternative...
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"If you think Joan Rivers said funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things ONSTAGE, wait 'til you read the funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things she said OFFSTAGE...things that will make you laugh out loud...and keep Melissa in therapy for the foreseeable future. The only thing my mother loved more than making people laugh was lying...or as she'd say, "embellishing." Her motto was: "Why let the truth ruin a good story?" This book contains some of...
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"Charlie Chaplin sang on a London stage for the first time at the age of five. Performing proved to be his salvation, providing a way out of a life of hardship and poverty. Success came early and made Chaplin one of the best loved people in the United States until the McCarthy witch hunts drove Chaplin from his adopted country. This is a moving portrait of a multi-talented man -- actor, director, writer, even music composer -- and the complicated...
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Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black. "He strutted around with a short perm, a Cosby-esque sweater, gold chains and a Kangol-telling jokes like Redd Fox, and giving advice like Jesse Jackson. You couldn't tell my father he was white. Believe me, I tried," writes Wolff. And so from early childhood on, her father began his crusade to make his white daughter down. Unfortunately,...
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"In a haze of vape smoke on a rare windy night in LA in the fall of 2016, Chelsea Handler daydreams about what life will be like with a woman in the White House. And then, Donald Trump happens. In a torpor of despair, she decides that she's had enough of the privileged bubble she's lived in--a bubble within a bubble--and that it's time to make some changes, both in her personal life and in the world at large. At home, she embarks on a 'Year of Self-Sufficiency'--learning...
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Amy Schumer, Emmy Award-winning comedian, actress, writer, and star, mines her past for stories about her teenage years, her family, relationship, and sex, and shares the experiences that have shaped who she is--a woman with the courage to bare her soul and stand up for what she believes in, all while making us laugh. Ranging from the raucous to the romantic, the heartfelt to the harrowing, this highly entertaining and universally appealing collection...
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David Spade is best known for his harsh "Hollywood" Minute Sketches on SNL, his starring roles in movies like Joe Dirt and Tommy Boy, and his seven-year stint as Dennis Finch on the series Just Shoot Me. Now, with a wit as dry as the weather in his home state of Arizona, the "comic brat extraordinaire" tells his story in Almost Interesting.
First Taking fans back to his childhood as a wannabe cool younger brother and
...74) Chris Rock
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"Elementary biography of comedian Chris Rock discussing his childhood, early career, and his rise as one of America's most famous comedians"--Provided by publisher.
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Laura Clery makes a living by sharing inappropriate comedy sketches with millions of strangers on the Internet. She writes songs about her anatomy, talks trash about her one-eyed rescue pug, and sexually harasses her husband, Stephen. And it pays the bills! Now, in her first-ever book, Laura recounts how she went from being a dangerously impulsive, broke, unemployable, suicidal, cocaine-addicted narcissist, crippled by fear and hopping from one toxic...
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"From "weird, scary, ingenious" (The New York Times) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, a brutally honest and hilariously frenetic memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of rigid belief systems--from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, to Suzuki violin training, to Richard Simmons, to 12-step programs. Maria Bamford is a comedian's comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place...
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Chronicles Wilson's meteoric rise through the Chitlin' Circuit of segregated nightclubs to his breakthrough on Johnny Carson's Tonight show to his hit variety show, on which he created such outrageous characters as the sassy Geraldine and flock-fleecing Reverend Leroy.
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"Comic and television star Tim Conway enjoyed enormous popular appeal, including a wide readership for his best-selling memoir, What's So Funny? In her own humorous, loving and surprising memoir, Tim's eldest child Kelly reveals that the Conway home life was as riotous and engaging as some of her father's best-known comedy sketches. Kelly Conway allows readers an intimate look at a supremely American childhood, from the studios of Television City...