Comedy Economics

Includes a new introduction written and read by Irvine Welsh When Chef Anthony Bourdain wrote "Don't Eat Before You Read This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes on behind the kitchen door. In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded the appetizer into a deliciously...

"If a martian landed in America and set out to determine the nation's official state religion, he would have to conclude it is liberalism, while Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law. Many Americans are outraged by liberal hostility to traditional religion. But as Ann Coulter reveals in...

In this sharp, funny and empowering guide, journalist Chris Kohler takes you through the rigged carnival of modern life, where the games are broken, the prizes are fake and somehow you're paying $28 to park near the entrance. From loyalty schemes to late fees, gift cards to sneaky supermarkets...

"A wild success." — Publishers Weekly "A surefire hit." —Library Journal STARRED review "A brilliant star turn." —Andrew O’Hagan A riotous and revealing story of Hollywood’s most spectacular flops and how they ended careers, bankrupted studios and changed film history. "Failure...

Fast Food Nation - the groundbreaking work of investigation and cultural history that has changed the way America thinks about the way it eats - and spent nearly four months on the New York Times bestseller list - now available on cassette! Are we what we eat? To a degree both engrossing and...

"This is a damn marriage manual disguised as a comedy special. A Trojan Swiffer, if you will." —Lenard "Charlamagne Tha God" McKelvey From veteran comedian, husband, and "great dad" Jordan Carlos comes a hilarious and helpful account of what it really takes, as a straight man, to keep your...

As a co-founder of The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, Chris Hillman is arguably the primary architect of what’s come to be known as country rock. He went on to record and perform in various configurations, including as a member of Stephen Stills’s Manassas and as a co-founder of The...

Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang brilliantly debunked many of the predominant myths of neoclassical economics. Now, in an entertaining and accessible primer, he explains how the global economy actually works - in real-world terms. Writing with irreverent wit, a deep knowledge of history and a disregard for conventional economic pieties, Chang offers insights that will never be found in the textbooks.

From the author of the eye-opening and controversial essay on poverty that was read by millions comes the real-life Nickel and Dimed, and Linda Tirado explains what it’s like to be working poor in America, and why poor people make the decisions they do. We in America have certain ideas of what...

Executives from The Second City—the world’s premier comedy theater and school of improvisation—reveal improvisational techniques that can help any organization develop innovators, encourage adaptable leaders, and build transformational businesses. For more than fifty years, The Second City...

In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and...

It used to be pretty easy to distinguish between the bourgeois world of capitalism and the bohemian counterculture. The bourgeois worked for corporations, wore gray, and went to church. The bohemians were artists and intellectuals. Bohemians championed the values of the liberated 1960s; the...

In this deliciously noir novel from the creator of HBO's Bored to Death, idiosyncratic private detective Happy Doll embarks on a quest to help a dying friend in a sun-blinded Los Angeles as "quirky, edgy, charming, funny and serious" as its protagonist (Lee Child). Happy Doll is a charming, if...

Sampath Chawla was born in a time of drought that ended with a vengeance the night of his birth. All signs being auspicious, the villagers triumphantly assured Sampath's proud parents that their son was destined for greatness. Twenty years of failure later, that unfortunately does not appear to...

Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, ER, Cheers, Law & Order, Will & Grace…Here is the funny, splashy, irresistible insiders’ account of the greatest era in television history -- told by the actors, writers, directors, producers, and the network executives who made it happen…and watched it all fall...

America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past thirty years American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal’s achievements. Now, the tide may be...

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE NATIONAL BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PEOPLE AND USA TODAY A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He’s a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies–in other words, a flack for cigarette companies...

A sharp, funny examination of fame in the digital era and what makes our hunger for it equally alluring and embarrassing—from the podcasters behind Who? Weekly “I Want to Be Famous takes you on a Regal Cinemas rollercoaster pre-show ride through the history of celebrity, then pulls gems of...

The riotously funny second novel by the New York Times bestselling author of Everyone Here Is Lying, Shari Lapena, that explores what happens when art collides with commerce. Will Thorne is a stalled poet, married to Judy, a wildly successful celebrity economist. Pressured by a starving fellow...

With three straight #1 bestsellers and more than 4 million copies of his books in print, the most powerful traditional force in the American media now takes off his gloves in the ongoing struggle for America’s heart and soul. Bill O’Reilly is the very embodiment of the idea of a Culture...