Books — Self-Help Humor

Self-Help Humor

List price: $13.99
Author: Laura Jensen Walker

Do you often forget the words for common things, like "husband" or "bathtub"? Have you suddenly found sub-zero temperatures pleasant? Do you survive on chocolate supplements? Ask these questions of any woman who has been through menopause, is going through it, or is soon to hit it, and she'll say yes (and then, most likely, cry).

Laura Jensen Walker went into early menopause after her bout with cancer and can sympathize with other "mentalpause" sufferers and survivors. As in Thanks for the Mammogram!, she uses hilarious vignettes and a delightful mix of wit and wisdom to connect with her readers. With chapters about how "All Varicose Veins Lead to Rome" and "PMS Is a Picnic in the Park," this book helps women dealing with "mentalpause" and those around them gain a better understanding--and certainly a lighter attitude--about this passage of life.

Mentalpause . . . and Other Midlife Laughs will get readers laughing at themselves as they hear Laura lightheartedly describe her age spots, lament her sagging everything, and look anew at love after forty.

Similar Products:

The Last Lecture

List price: $21.95
Lowest new price: $6.00
Lowest used price: $0.01
Author: Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." --Randy Pausch

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
--Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

Questions for Randy Pausch

We were shy about barging in on Randy Pausch's valuable time to ask him a few questions about his expansion of his famous Last Lecture into the book by the same name, but he was gracious enough to take a moment to answer. (See Randy to the right with his kids, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.) As anyone who has watched the lecture or read the book will understand, the really crucial question is the last one, and we weren't surprised to learn that the "secret" to winning giant stuffed animals on the midway, like most anything else, is sheer persistence.

Amazon.com: I apologize for asking a question you must get far more often than you'd like, but how are you feeling?

Pausch: The tumors are not yet large enough to affect my health, so all the problems are related to the chemotherapy. I have neuropathy (numbness in fingers and toes), and varying degrees of GI discomfort, mild nausea, and fatigue. Occasionally I have an unusually bad reaction to a chemo infusion (last week, I spiked a 103 fever), but all of this is a small price to pay for walkin' around.

Amazon.com: Your lecture at Carnegie Mellon has reached millions of people, but even with the short time you apparently have, you wanted to write a book. What did you want to say in a book that you weren't able to say in the lecture?

Pausch: Well, the lecture was written quickly--in under a week. And it was time-limited. I had a great six-hour lecture I could give, but I suspect it would have been less popular at that length ;-).

A book allows me to cover many, many more stories from my life and the attendant lessons I hope my kids can take from them. Also, much of my lecture at Carnegie Mellon focused on the professional side of my life--my students, colleagues and career. The book is a far more personal look at my childhood dreams and all the lessons I've learned. Putting words on paper, I've found, was a better way for me to share all the yearnings I have regarding my wife, children and other loved ones. I knew I couldn't have gone into those subjects on stage without getting emotional.

Amazon.com: You talk about the importance--and the possibility!--of following your childhood dreams, and of keeping that childlike sense of wonder. But are there things you didn't learn until you were a grownup that helped you do that?

Pausch: That's a great question. I think the most important thing I learned as I grew older was that you can't get anywhere without help. That means people have to want to help you, and that begs the question: What kind of person do other people seem to want to help? That strikes me as a pretty good operational answer to the existential question: "What kind of person should you try to be?"

Amazon.com: One of the things that struck me most about your talk was how many other people you talked about. You made me want to meet them and work with them--and believe me, I wouldn't make much of a computer scientist. Do you think the people you've brought together will be your legacy as well?

Pausch: Like any teacher, my students are my biggest professional legacy. I'd like to think that the people I've crossed paths with have learned something from me, and I know I learned a great deal from them, for which I am very grateful. Certainly, I've dedicated a lot of my teaching to helping young folks realize how they need to be able to work with other people--especially other people who are very different from themselves.

Amazon.com: And last, the most important question: What's the secret for knocking down those milk bottles on the midway?

Pausch: Two-part answer:
1) long arms
2) discretionary income / persistence

Actually, I was never good at the milk bottles. I'm more of a ring toss and softball-in-milk-can guy, myself. More seriously, though, most people try these games once, don't win immediately, and then give up. I've won *lots* of midway stuffed animals, but I don't ever recall winning one on the very first try. Nor did I expect to. That's why I think midway games are a great metaphor for life.

Similar Products:

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

List price: $19.75
Lowest new price: $7.24
Lowest used price: $2.20
Author: Tucker Max

Tucker Max drinks to excess at inappropriate times, disregards social norms, indulges every whim, takes no responsibility for his actions, rebels against any authority, mocks idiots and posers, sleeps with more women than is safe or reasonable and generally just acts like an asshole. "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" contains everything the modern-day bounder that is Tucker Max has written since he started sharing his depraved reality with an audience of millions.

Similar Products:

Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner

List price: $25.95
Lowest new price: $11.00
Lowest used price: $13.90
Author: Jen Lancaster

In Such a Pretty Fat, Jen Lancaster learned how to come to terms with her body. In My Fair Lazy, she expanded her mind. Now the New York Times bestselling author gives herself—and her generation—a kick in the X, by facing her greatest challenge to date: acting her age.

Jen is finally ready to put away childish things (except her Barbie Styling Head, of course) and embrace the investment-making, mortgage-carrying, life-insurance-having adult she’s become. From getting a mammogram to volunteering at a halfway house, she tackles the grown-up activities she’s resisted for years, and with each rite of passage she completes, she’ll uncover a valuable—and probably humiliating—life lesson that will ease her path to full-fledged, if reluctant, adulthood.

Jenny Lawson, author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, interviews Jen Lancaster

Jenny Lawson: Your latest book is called Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult’s Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; or, Why It’s Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner. The title itself is longer than most chapters in my own book. Did you do this on purpose just to make me feel bad?

Jen Lancaster: Yes.

Lawson: How many angry ferrets could you fight off if you had too?

Lancaster: Trick question--see, I wouldn’t fight them off myself. Instead, I’d engage in a social media war with the angry ferrets and I’d mobilize fans to give them bad Yelp reviews and crash their Facebook pages and flood their email server. Then I’d be all, “Well, bless my buttons, I certainly can’t control the Internet! But who’s angry now, ferrets, huh? WHO’S ANGRY NOW?” (Substitute “angry ferrets” for “Ford dealership who wouldn’t give me a refund on a truck with a rolled-back odometer” and that’s how I spent one week last fall, after being inspired by one really phenomenal blogger’s “display of relevance.”) (Thank you--I got my money back!)

Lawson: Same question but with ambivalent ferrets.

Lancaster: I would badger said ferrets until they became angry and then refer them to question number two.

Lawson: You’ve written more entertaining memoirs than anyone I’ve ever met and yet you still come up with fascinating new stories. Do you intentionally do dangerously dumb-ass stuff in the hopes that it will create new material? Or is it possible that you’re just more fascinating than the average person? If so, how do the rest of us get that life?

Lancaster: I don’t like reading the same book in a different package (e.g., “Oh, noes, we maxed our credit card from shopping again!”), which is why I work hard to come up with an entirely new angle in each memoir. Also, when I engage in yearlong self-improvement projects, what I’ve learned tends to stick and I don’t make the same mistakes twice. Basically, I’ve no choice but to attempt dangerously dumb-ass stuff to create new material. Soon I’ll be wrestling gators to produce new stories, and then we’ll see how fascinating I am when I have a hook for a hand. Less so, probably.

Lawson: Which toe is your favorite and why?

Lancaster: That’s like asking me which of my children or my pets is my favorite! So the answer is whichever toe is my pit bull, Maisy. (Probably the pinky because it’s pugnacious and unyielding, exactly like Maisy.)

Lawson: What’s one thing you are most proud of writing?

Lancaster: I’m always the most proud of whatever I write next. My passion is coming up with entirely new material. For example, right now I’m working on a magical realism novel that involves mean girls, Whitesnake, and holes in the time/space continuum. (I’m so not kidding about this. Here I Go Again comes out next year.) It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written…until I start the next manuscript.

Lawson: Your life, home, and family and pets are fascinating and amazing. Why am I never invited over for Christmas?

Lancaster: Consider yourself invited. I hope you like holiday cheer because ever since we moved to the suburbs, the nihilist I married has morphed into Clark W. Griswold. He has a plaid vest that he wears without a hint of irony. It’s a little frightening.

Lawson: You come out with great books on such a regular basis. How do you do it? Why do you do it? (“Cash for drugs” is an acceptable answer here.)

Lancaster: Have you ever reported to eight bosses? (True story.) Have you fetched coffee for some asshole with a community college degree who thinks her time’s best spent instructing you on proper stapling techniques? (Also true.) Have you ever spent three hours in a pre-meeting meeting where you have to discuss everything that’s going to happen in the actual meeting, which is then followed by the postmortem meeting, where you compare and contrast the results of the pre-meeting meeting and the meeting meeting? (Sadly true again.) Have you ever had a conversation where, at the end of the day, you’ve got to break through the clutter to architect an apples-to-apples, client-centered core competency that’s cross-platformed, bleeding edge, and scalable, yet that will help streamline your go-to market strategy without sacrificing synergy or diversity for the win-win? (FML-worthy true.) That is why I do it.

Lawson: You’re a blogger and an author. Which is harder and why?

Lancaster: In discussing bloggers in your book, you say, “They know that you’re broken, and most of them are, too, so they just nod and make you go take Xanax and go to bed.” The thing is? I don’t consider myself broken. I consider myself arrogant and narcissistic and self-righteous and I not-so-secretly believe I’m smarter than the average bear…which is likely why I’m never invited to eat unicorn cake at blogging conventions. So I guess being an author is easier. (I do like Xanax, though, if that helps.)

Lawson: Who inspires your writing?

Lancaster: I read everything--blogs, books, magazines, newspapers, zines, ebooks, bulletin boards, etc. No matter the medium, I’m most inspired by two things--a defined voice and a solid story. If you can include both these traits in your work, then I’m a fan, whether you’re a New York Times bestseller, a self-publisher, or a LiveJournaler. Good writing is inspiring. Period.

Lawson: What’s the one line you won’t cross in your writing?

Lancaster: You’re never going to see the ladybits v-word in my books. Ever.

Lawson: Have you ever written anything you later regretted?

Lancaster: Not really, no. Sometimes I’ll pen things in the heat of the moment, but publishing entails so many rounds of edits that by the time the book’s ready to print, I’ve tweaked the material enough that I’m comfortable with all that’s included.

Lawson: On one of your book covers it says you learned Lucky Charms are not for dinner. On another it says you learned that Froot Loops are not for dinner. What exactly do you have against cereal? And will these books all have different covers, like when Reader’s Digest does four different covers so you have to collect them all? Also, is it too late for me to do that with my book too, because that’s pretty damn brilliant.

Lancaster: Hey, I love artificially sweetened and colored cereal. My lower GI tract is another story. You can only spend so many nights crying over your ring of fire before you learn that you can’t eat like a college student anymore.

As for the title change, one of those reflects what I planned to use before I saw my cover and the other came after. I was not about to put out a book where it said Lucky Charms and it showed Froot Loops. I’m still hearing from people about how the socks on Pretty in Plaid are argyle.

Also? If you were to do collector covers, I’d totally buy them all. Actually, I really love this--each one could be a different one of your taxidermied pets. YOU are the brilliant one. Get on that shit.

Lawson: What’s the one question I should have asked you?

Lancaster: Tastes great or less filling?

Lawson: Insert that question here.

Lancaster: Neither. I prefer Chardonnay.

Similar Products:

Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

List price: $17.75
Lowest used price: $1.78
Author: Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Handler is a woman on a mission. She's smart, sassy and not afraid to speak her mind. From an early age Chelsea knew exactly what she wanted and even in the trickiest of situations, she's never one to pass up an opportunity. Like the time she convinced her third-grade class she was shooting movies with Goldie Hawn on location in the Galapagos just to get them to like her, or when she spent the night in a women's prison, contemplating an affair with the inmate who killed her own sister. Chelsea it seems, has done it all, and a whole lot more...Any mishaps along the way just spur Chelsea on further. Whether she is being dry-humped by a sumo masseur, dumped by her Big Red experiment or kicked out of a London restaurant with her pants down, Chelsea is always armed with an unshakable disregard for rules and is incapable of leading a quiet life. "Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea" is an entertaining memoir-in-stories that will have you rolling around with laughter.

Similar Products:

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

List price: $19.95
Lowest new price: $1.40
Lowest used price: $0.01
Author: Mitch Albom

Plot Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him, as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here" Personal Details Collection Status In Collection Index 10 Read It Yes Links Amazon US Product Details LoC Classification PS3601.L335F59 2003 Dewey 813/.6

Part melodrama and part parable, Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories, all told about the same man: 83-year-old Eddie, the head maintenance person at Ruby Point Amusement Park. As the novel opens, readers are told that Eddie, unsuspecting, is only minutes away from death as he goes about his typical business at the park. Albom then traces Eddie's world through his tragic final moments, his funeral, and the ensuing days as friends clean out his apartment and adjust to life without him. In alternating sections, Albom flashes back to Eddie's birthdays, telling his life story as a kind of progress report over candles and cake each year. And in the third and last thread of the novel, Albom follows Eddie into heaven where the maintenance man sequentially encounters five pivotal figures from his life (a la A Christmas Carol). Each person has been waiting for him in heaven, and, as Albom reveals, each life (and death) was woven into Eddie's own in ways he never suspected. Each soul has a story to tell, a secret to reveal, and a lesson to share. Through them Eddie understands the meaning of his own life even as his arrival brings closure to theirs.

Albom takes a big risk with the novel; such a story can easily veer into the saccharine and preachy, and this one does in moments. But, for the most part, Albom's telling remains poignant and is occasionally profound. Even with its flaws, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a small, pure, and simple book that will find good company on a shelf next to It's A Wonderful Life. --Patrick O'Kelley

Features:

Condition: Used - Average

Similar Products:

Always Remember to Tip Your Ninja: And Other Maxims for the Clinically Absurd

List price: $2.99
Author: Jeremy Shipp

What is the secret of happiness?

Can the laws of attraction help you to cheat death?

What's the best way to get rich during the zombie apocalypse?

How do you fix your life with nothing but a spork and a DVD box set of “Charles in Charge”?

Why do you see evil clowns every time you close your eyes?

These are just some of the questions this book won't answer for you.

ALWAYS REMEMBER TO TIP YOUR NINJA contains 99 absurd maxims that will change your life forever, or at least make you chortle.

Here's a tasty sampling:

"The pen is mightier than the sword, if you know where to poke it."

"The best part about being in a pickle is eating your way out."

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. But leave the mimes outside in the cold where they belong."

Praise for Jeremy C. Shipp:

"I'm convinced Jeremy Shipp is a little bit crazy, in the best possible way."
--Jeff VanderMeer, author of City of Saints & Madmen

"Jeremy Shipp is a very good drug."
--John Skipp, author of The Emerald Burrito of Oz

"Two thumbs up!"
--Midwest Book Review

--

Jeremy C. Shipp is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of Cursed, Vacation, and Sheep and Wolves. Jeremy enjoys living in a moderately haunted Victorian farmhouse called Rose Cottage. He lives there with his wife, Lisa, a couple of pygmy tigers, and a legion of yard gnomes. The gnomes like him. The clowns living in his attic—not so much. His online home is www.jeremycshipp.com.

Similar Products:

The Ugly Truth (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Book 5)

List price: $13.95
Lowest new price: $5.44
Lowest used price: $1.99
Author: Jeff Kinney
Brand: Harry N. Abrams

Greg Heffley has always been in a hurry to grow up. But is getting older really all it’s cracked up to be?

Greg suddenly finds himself dealing with the pressures of boy-girl parties, increased responsibilities, and even the awkward changes that come with getting older—all without his best friend, Rowley, at his side. Can Greg make it through on his own? Or will he have to face the “ugly truth”?

Similar Products:

The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)

List price: $24.95
Lowest new price: $3.84
Lowest used price: $2.55
Author: Chris Hardwick

Nerd superstar Chris Hardwick offers his fellow "creative obsessives" crucial information needed to come out on top in the current Nerd uprising.

As a lifelong member of "The Nerd Herd," as he calls it, Chris Hardwick has learned all there is to know about Nerds. Developing a system, blog, and podcasts, Hardwick shares hard-earned wisdom about turning seeming weakness into world-dominating strengths in the hilarious self-help book, The Nerdist Way.

From keeping their heart rate below hummingbird levels to managing the avalanche of sadness that is their in-boxes; from becoming evil geniuses to attracting wealth by turning down work, Hardwick reveals the secrets that can help readers achieve their goals by tapping into their true nerdtastic selves.

Here Nerds will learn how to:

Become their own time cop
Tell panic attacks to go suck it
Use incremental fitness to ward off predators

A Nerd's brain is a laser-it's time they learn to point and fire!

Similar Products:

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

List price: $13.00
Lowest new price: $3.95
Lowest used price: $0.01
Author: Oliver W. Sacks

A major bestseller and already acclaimed as a science classic, this collection of 20 true tales of individuals stricken with astonishing neurological disorders has sold over 70,000 copies. (Pscyhology)

Features:

Condition: Used - Average

Similar Products:

Apparel & Accessories	Books	Classical Music	DVD	Electronics & Photo	Gourmet Food and Groceries	Health & Personal Care	Home & Garden	Industrial & Scientific	Kitchen
Popular Music	Musical Instruments	Outdoor Living	Computer Hardware	Computer Software	Sporting Goods	Tools	Toys and Games	VHS Video	Video Games