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NonfictionMemoirHumor

Lifeform

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

The work of award-winning actor and comedian Jenny Slate—whether her stand-up comedy, voice performances (Bob’s Burgers, The Great North), acting (Parks and Recreation, It Ends With Us), or beloved Marcel the Shell With Shoes On multimedia universe—leaves an indelible impression. Unsurprisingly, the prolific creator’s first memoir-in-essays, 2019’s Little Weirds, had the same effect thanks to its inventive language and poignant, poetic takes on her life thus far.

In Lifeform, Slate again beckons readers into her wonderfully idiosyncratic, colorfully kaleidoscopic mind as she recounts her latest adventures in five pivotal phases: Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby and Ongoing. Of course, fans know that despite Lifeform’s organizing principle, the author isn’t inclined to stick to prescribed formats or expectations. Instead, she dances through multifaceted, playful musings that tip over into surrealism, and dwells in quiet spaces alongside her insecurities and fears.

Fabulist inner monologues abound, as in “Stork Dream: Scroll,” wherein the mythical baby-deliverer embodies “how bizarre this experience is of making a lifeform while being a lifeform. I woke myself up laughing, and the laughter was like a string of bells being pulled from inside of me.” Slate tackles waking-hour concerns in her series of whimsical yet pointed “Letters to a Doctor.” In one, she expresses her frustration with traditional dinner-party seating: “Why would you split a couple up against their wills? It is already so incredibly hard to come together and become a couple.”

Intimate and vulnerable revelations simmer throughout, too, such as the bittersweet experience of watching her ailing grandmother and baby Ida “sip soup together, two beings with caretakers who make sure that they stay clean and can get the food into their mouths.” Birth and death, beginnings and ends, are on Slate’s mind (and in her dreams) as she assumes the new role of mother and ponders how she has changed as the phases of her life have unfurled. Fans old and new will revel in Lifeform’s self-effacing humor and imaginative writing style. It’s a delightful, memorable immersion in the lifeform that is Jenny Slate: “Mother/New Wife/Jenny/Wart-Gobbler Goblin/Bad Visual Artist/Fine Clown.”

Read our starred review of the audiobook of Lifeform.

In her new memoir, Lifeform, Jenny Slate beckons readers into her wonderfully idiosyncratic, colorfully kaleidoscopic mind as she recounts her latest adventures with signature whimsy.
NonfictionLifestylesHumor

The Good Enough Guide to Better Living

Review by Anna Christensen

When I was 18, I found myself living on my own and quickly discovered that I didn’t know how to do it. It was hunger that finally motivated me to seek help in the form of an adult figure I trusted: Martha Stewart. I gamely subscribed to her magazine, and in the intervening decades, what began as an attempt to receive simple instruction on how to cook myself a hamburger has metastasized into a person who is completely inflexible about leaving dishes in the sink, the laundry schedule and cleaning the upholstery.

This self is very stressed. She is also, in a suspicion I hold at the very edges of my consciousness, scary and unpleasant.

Upon first cracking the cover of Alison Throckmorton’s The Good Enough Guide to Better Living: Leave Your Dishes in the Sink, Serve Your Guests Leftovers, and Make the Most Out of Doing the Least at Home, it felt clear that I would simply have to take this funny little book as tongue in cheek, have a laugh and be done with it. It was best not to overexamine why the section on leaving the dishes to soak ad infinitum gave me a small muscle spasm.

Throckmorton’s great success with this book, through all the quippy humor and highly designed pages, is to hilariously reorient the home as the place where living happens. The dishes are dirty because you used them, and have remained dirty because your life is full—whether it is full of children, of friends or of Netflix is beside the point. The bedside table is cluttered with items because the bed is cozy, and having everything you need at arm’s length will allow you to stay there for as long as possible. When entertaining friends, who cares if the canapes are made with saltines if you’re having fun? Macaroni and cheese is an infinitely flexible dish; we wouldn’t eat fistfuls of carbs and shredded cheese if it wasn’t delicious.

I would not say that Throckmorton has made me a convert. But I will say that I let the dishes “soak” for two hours while I watched “The Buccaneers” under a blanket. That’s saying something.

The Good Enough Guide to Better Living cheerfully encourages us to let our houses look like people are living in them—dirty dishes and all.
NonfictionLifestylesHumor

Unbecoming a Lady

Review by Susannah Felts

Contrarian at heart that I am, Unbecoming a Lady: The Forgotten Sluts and Shrews Who Shaped America is very on-brand for me. Stories of turn-of-the-century gals who were anything but well-behaved—unashamed, unvirtuous, flagrant, selfish, transgressive, weird—and are mostly unsung today? Sign me up. Therese Oneill’s zippy narratives of drama queens, business broads, big mouths and brilliant harpies begin with Celesta Geyer, aka Dolly Dimples, “The World’s Most Beautiful Fat Lady,” who turned shame into game. Many of the dames here did the same, while others quietly (or loudly) pursued their schemes, passions and hijinks in real estate, entertainment, vice, fashion and much more. They are not always role models, but they are fascinating figures, and O’Neill has a blast telling their stories. “ ‘Resting Bitchface’ isn’t an insult if you do it so well men literally fold under the strength of it,” she writes of Poker Alice, a card shark and brothel keeper of the Wild West. Give this one to all your lady friends who give no Fs.

Unbecoming a Lady is a raucous ode to turn-of-the-century drama queens, business broads and bigmouths who were anything but well-behaved.
NonfictionPop CultureHumor

The History of Sketch Comedy

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

The prolific and hilarious Keegan-Michael Key—known for his work in “Key & Peele,” “Mad TV,” “Schmigadoon!” and as President Obama’s “anger translator”—shares his passion and enthusiasm for sketch comedy in the aptly titled The History of Sketch Comedy: A Journey Through the Art and Craft of Humor, co-authored with his wife, film producer Elle Key.

The book, based on their Webby Award-winning podcast, is a wonderful soup-to-nuts compendium of everything sketch. The authors trace its origins from ancient Greece to today’s comedians, and take readers around the U.S. and abroad as they consider influential American comedy schools and highlight the British comedians who are “courageous trailblazers who have influenced comedy around the world.”

Key also revisits his Detroit upbringing, detailing his comedy education in college and on various stages. Aspiring comedians will benefit from the book’s educational elements: With copious examples of (and scripts from) favorite sketches and shows, their creators analyze what, exactly, makes them so funny and memorable. Guest essays from stars like Ken Jeong, Carol Burnett, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tracy Morgan add to the fun, as do tangents about beloved colleagues like Jordan Peele and “one of the godfathers of modern sketch,” Bob Odenkirk. The History of Sketch Comedy is a highly informative and entertaining read that’s sure to inspire instant binge-watching and a groundswell of sketch-centric enthusiasm.

Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key’s History of Sketch Comedy is a wonderful soup-to-nuts compendium of everything sketch.
NonfictionHumorHistory

Alexandra Petri’s US History

Review by Amy Scribner

Imagine if Elizabeth Cady Stanton had been distracted from her suffrage efforts because she fell in love, Hallmark movie-style, with a local Seneca Falls man. Or if Emily Dickinson contacted tech support but could only communicate in her trademark poetic style. Or if the Gettysburg Address had been written by “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin.

Alexandra Petri has long entertained Washington Post readers with her absurdist columns on the latest political and pop culture news. In her dazzling book of historical humor, Alexandra Petri’s US History: Important American Documents (I Made Up), she shows again why legendary humor writer Dave Barry called her “the funniest person in Washington.” Petri’s seemingly effortless ability to reimagine American history in the most bizarre ways makes this one of the most entertaining books you’ll read this year.

In an essay titled “Why the National Parks Were Set Aside,” Petri records the reasons she assumes some of our most famous landmarks were preserved: “Yellowstone: GEYSER SQUIRTS HUGE AMOUNTS OF WATER INTO AIR WITHOUT WARNING. . . . Zion: Seems steep. . . . Grand Canyon: Big hole in the ground without proper signage. Leave it as it is.” And in “John and Abigail Adams Try Sexting,” Petri imagines the Founding Father and his wife writing a series of racy (for the 1700s) letters while he is in Paris. “I am attired in a woolen gown and a cap of a stiff linen material, as well as five petticoats, my bustle, and my customary stays. I was wearing stockings, but I am not wearing them any longer,” Abigail writes. “I hope that soon you shall be wearing merely four!” John replies.

Hot stuff!

Petri’s previous book of essays, the excellent Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why, focused on current topics such as QAnon conspiracies and the Trump administration. This new collection feels somewhat sweeter and gentler, albeit still side-splittingly funny. It’s a satirical salve at a time when we need humor more than ever.

Alexandra Petri’s seemingly effortless ability to reimagine American history in the most bizarre ways makes this one of the most entertaining books you’ll read this year.
NonfictionTravelHumorFood & Drink

Raw Dog

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Jamie Loftus is a comedian, podcaster, animator, Emmy-nominated TV writer and performance artist. She’s joined MENSA as a joke, has seen Shrek the Musical 10-plus times and, in 2017, ate a copy of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Now, with the release of Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, the prolific creator and debut author takes readers on a cross-country road trip that is by turns eye-opening and gut-clenching, hilarious and poignant, scatological and existential.

In the summer of 2021—aka “Hot Dog Summer”—Loftus, her boyfriend and their dog and cat left their home in Los Angeles and set off to eat and critique a ton of hot dogs. Along the way, she interrogates our national affection for the iconic tubed meat, noting that hot dogs are “high culture, they’re low culture, they’re sports food and they’re hangover food and they’re deeply American for reasons that few people can explain.”   

Loftus digs into those mixed messages with sharp wit and righteous anger. After all, hot dogs are served at festive events but have long been made in places rife with animal abuse and worker exploitation. And while they’re the gleaming centerpiece of the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, she explains that the celebrated competition is actually tainted by “jingoistic marketing” and entrenched sexism.

Raw Dog audiobook cover
Read our starred review of the ‘Raw Dog’ audiobook, narrated by author Jamie Loftus.

As for the hot dogs themselves, dozens of vendors are duly visited, sampled and reported on—from Costco and Home Depot to independent hot dog joints and even a few ballparks. She traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, “to get diarrhea at ten in the morning at all costs” and therefore ordered a hot dog topped with onion rings and Spaghetti-Os. In Baltimore, she “deep-throat[ed] a Maryland hot dog swaddled in deep-fried bologna,” and in Chicago, she reveled in a filet mignon steak dog. All this while pursuing with alacrity the answer to an urgent question: “Are the people on the Wienermobile fucking?”

Raw Dog is a wonderfully weird and wild mashup of history, social commentary, personal revelation and food journalism. The author’s passion for her work shines through as she makes a compelling case for more informed hot dog consumption while maintaining her love for the quintessential cookout food.

Comedian Jamie Loftus takes readers on a hot dog-sampling road trip that is by turns eye-opening and gut-clenching, hilarious and poignant, scatological and existential.
NonfictionHumorHistoryBiography

Edison’s Ghosts

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Geniuses seem to inhabit a world apart from mere mortals like us. But they don’t, as the irreverent and entertaining Edison’s Ghosts makes clear. Debut author and science writer Katie Spalding has mined history, biography and psychology to turn the cult of genius on its head, shining a sassy light on the idiosyncrasies of some of history’s greatest minds. People traditionally held up as geniuses, she demonstrates, still fit under the heading of “everyone is an idiot.” Although, “Maybe it’s just the apparent contrast between what we expect from these figures and what we get.”

Take Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for example, whom Spalding compares to a modern child star with an extremely pushy stage dad. After a childhood under his father’s thumb, Mozart turned out to be “kind of a handful.” Spalding unearths unusual bits of trivia about the musical prodigy, including the fact that Mozart apparently never outgrew a juvenile sense of bathroom humor, and that he believed babies should be fed on water. (Only two of his six children survived to adulthood.)

As for the title essay, “Thomas Edison’s Lesser-Known Invention: Dial-a-Ghost,” it turns out the prolific inventor had a formidable PR presence. “Basically, you can think of Edison as a sort of proto-Elon Musk,” Spalding writes. But unlike the Tesla, the rubber never met the road on Edison’s “Spirit Phone” for communicating with the dead. That didn’t keep Edison from claiming that the device would operate solely by scientific methods, however. And while he was ridiculed during his life for this idea, and biographers later claimed he couldn’t have been serious, Spalding unearthed a French version of a book of Edison’s writings that includes actual sketches for his design. 

Edison’s Ghosts can certainly be read from front to back, but you may find yourself so intrigued by some of the chapter titles that you decide to skip around. For what burgeoning philosopher can resist plunging right into “Confucius Was an Ugly Nerd With Low Self-Esteem”? Likewise, biology enthusiasts will hardly be able to resist turning first to “Charles Darwin: Glutton; Worm Dad; Murderer?”

Spalding includes chapters (and hilarious footnotes) about many other historical figures, including Leonardo da Vinci, Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie, Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Conan Doyle and Sigmund Freud. While the essays are tongue-in-cheek, they’re also well researched, informative and absolutely fun. Edison’s Ghosts will delight any science or history lover with a sense of humor.

Edison’s Ghosts will delight any science or history lover as it illuminates all the stupid things that famously smart people have done throughout history.
NonfictionMemoirHumorEssays

Quietly Hostile

Review by Jessica Wakeman

Every collection of Samantha Irby essays—this is her fourth, following 2020’s Wow, No Thank You.—is a masterclass in situating pitch-perfect comedy and deep sincerity side by side. Irby’s appeal, at least to this reader, has always been how she’s found humor in some of life’s most difficult experiences, including losing both parents when she was a teenager and living with chronic illness.

In Irby’s new book, Quietly Hostile, she’s still sharing her delightfully bizarre opinions—like in the essay “Dave Matthews’ Greatest Romantic Hits,” which ranks 14 of the musician’s tenderest songs in an attempt to convince people that her love for him is not a bit. Irby also hits readers right in the feels with essays about complicated families, like “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” about reconnecting with her older brother after 25 years. And as always, there are numerous gross-but-mostly-funny pieces about bodily fluids, including but not limited to diarrhea, peeing her pants and peeing on a sexual partner.

Quietly Hostile audiobook cover
Read our review of the audiobook, narrated by author Samantha Irby.

Yet Irby’s rising profile as a bestselling author and cult favorite television producer has had an impact on her Everywoman relatability. Quietly Hostile contains classic Irby humor, but her well-deserved success means the subjects she applies that humor to have irrevocably changed. For example, a handful of the essays are about writing for TV, including for Aidy Bryant’s Hulu comedy “Shrill” and HBO’s “Sex and the City” reboot. In this context, the otherwise on-brand diarrhea jokes (“During my interview I said ‘Can I give Carrie diarrhea?’ and I was hired immediately”) feel somewhat awkward. There is a dissonance between her self-deprecation and the reality that “Sex and the City” creator Michael Patrick King specifically reached out to Irby’s agent to ask if she’d be interested in writing for the new show.

This dissonance aside, Quietly Hostile is still very much worth a read. Irby is a truly hilarious writer and mines laughs from the wildest situations (even a trip to the emergency room for anaphylactic shock). And as a 40-something Black woman, a Midwesterner and a stepmother, she brings a unique and underrepresented perspective to the humor shelf of your local bookstore. This newest version of Irby’s unhinged yet subtly complex humor may not quite capture the magic of previous iterations, but she’s still someone who can (and did) write hundreds of words about what to do if you clog a public toilet—and you’ve got to admit, that’s pretty special.

Samantha Irby’s fourth essay collection plays the hits, offering readers a masterclass in situating pitch-perfect comedy and deep sincerity side by side.
NonfictionMemoirLGBTQ+Humor

Leg

Review by Alice Cary

When Greg Marshall and his childhood friend, Gretchen, ran for president and vice president of their high school class, they were something of an unconventional pair. Both were non-Mormons, making them a minority in Salt Lake City, Utah. Marshall had a pronounced limp and had yet to tell anyone he was gay, while Gretchen had a pacemaker “and a bone spur hanging off one foot like a sixth toe.” Marshall writes that their winning campaign strategy “was simple, and that was to make fun of ourselves.” Marshall takes that same winning approach in his stunning debut, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It. 

Marshall’s limp in his right leg caused weakness and spasms throughout his life and required surgeries from time to time. He had actually been diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 18 months—but his parents never disclosed this fact, telling him instead that he had “tight tendons” and encouraging their son and other four children to simply rely on the mantra, “NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP.” Marshall didn’t discover the true origin of his mobility limitations until 2014, by accident, when applying for health insurance. “Every day growing up was like an ABC Afterschool Special in which no lessons were learned, no wisdom gleaned,” he writes.

In different hands, this memoir might have become a tragic family story, overshadowed by a mother who was diagnosed with cancer and required decades of treatment for that and other conditions, and a kindhearted, dad-joking father who died from Lou Gehrig’s disease when Marshall was 22. Instead, Marshall has written a riotously funny book that will grab your attention and steal your heart from the very first page. His writing brings to mind early David Sedaris, with its bitingly funny caricatures and descriptions, bathed in blistering commentary, deep-seated opinions, wit, intellect and, above all else, fierce family love. Additionally, Marshall details several of his sexual experiences—not to be salacious but to illuminate his ongoing quest for identity and relationships, despite his long-standing fear of contracting HIV. “As a gay man and a person with a disability, I come out every day,” he writes.

The Marshalls’ lives are full of twists, turns and surprises that will leave readers yearning for more, and this memoir serves as a love letter to all of them, especially Marshall’s late father. Rare is the book that makes me both laugh out loud and shed actual tears, but Leg made me do both.

Bitingly funny and full of blistering commentary and fierce familial love, Greg Marshall's memoir is a winning debut.
RomanceNonfictionMystery & SuspenseFictionFeaturedChildren's & YAYASuspenseReligion & SpiritualityMysteryMemoirLGBTQ+HumorHistoryHistorical FictionContemporary RomanceBlack History

Top 10 books for June 2023

List by the editors of BookPage
STARRED REVIEW

Our top 10 books of June 2023

Our top picks for June include the latest from S.A. Cosby, Dominic Smith and Uzma Jalaluddin, plus the first major biography of Martin Luther King Jr. in decades.

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Book jacket image for Horse Barbie by Geena Rocero
LGBTQ

Geena Rocero was a trans pageant queen in the Philippines who became a successful model in the United States. As you’d expect, her life story is a completely engrossing whirlwind.

Read More »
Book jacket image for How to Stay Married by Harrison Scott Key
Family & Relationships

Humorist Harrison Scott Key’s memoir of the fallout following his wife’s affair offers plentiful food for thought about faith, humor, courage and love.

Read More »
Book jacket image for Imogen
Children's & YA

Bestselling author Becky Albertalli’s latest novel offers a gentle, hilarious and authentic look at figuring out who you are on your own timeline.

Read More »
Book jacket image for King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
Black History

Jonathan Eig’s monumental biography takes Martin Luther King Jr. down from his pedestal, revealing his flaws, needs, dreams, hopes and weariness.

Read More »
Book jacket image for Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See
Fiction

Lisa See’s spellbinding historical novel, inspired by the true story of a female physician, vividly depicts 15th-century China with artfully woven details, rich characters and descriptive language.

Read More »
Book jacket image for Leg by Greg Marshall
Humor

Bitingly funny and full of blistering commentary and fierce familial love, Greg Marshall’s memoir is a winning debut.

Read More »
Book jacket image for Mole Is Not Alone by Maya Tatsukawa
Children's

Sweet and cozy—much like the cream puffs Mole makes—Mole Is Not Alone lends itself well to both storytime read-alouds and quiet snuggles before bed.

Read More »
Book jacket image for Much Ado About Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin
Contemporary Romance

Uzma Jalaluddin’s Much Ado About Nada is a heartwarming, tender and utterly winning adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

Read More »
Book jacket image for Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith
Fiction

With Return to Valetto, Dominic Smith doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but he doesn’t need to: He is a master of his trade who has executed a flawless novel that satisfies on all counts.

Read More »
Book jacket image for The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane
Family Drama

Mary Beth Keane’s down-to-earth characters in Gillam are reminiscent of Anne Tyler’s wonderfully authentic Baltimore personalities.

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Red Dog Farm

Nathaniel Ian Miller

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Olafur Darri Olafsson’s deeply authentic performance breathes life into this emotionally rich tale, capturing both its stark beauty and its quiet heartbreak.
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FictionHistorical Fiction

Gabriele

Anne Berest, Claire Berest

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In Gabriele, Anne and Claire Berest limn the life of their great-grandmother, finding a cavalcade of romance and drama at the heart of the European art world. The result is a historical novel unlike any other.
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All Reviews
Our top picks for June include the latest from S.A. Cosby, Dominic Smith and Uzma Jalaluddin, plus the first major biography of Martin Luther King Jr. in decades.
NonfictionLifestylesLGBTQ+Humor

A Very Gay Book

Review by Susannah Felts

A heavy dose of humor is something I’ve been in need of these past few weeks, and what do you know: Like a gift from the publishing gods arrives A Very Gay Book: An Inaccurate Resource for Gay Scholars, a satirical take on history in which everything is really, really gay. 

Authors Jenson Titus and Nick Scheppard are Los Angeles-based comedians who also run a comedy design brand called Very Gay Paint, and I can only imagine they had the time of their lives dreaming up this beautiful absurdity. In their alternate universe, a feud between Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton caused the Great Recession, the Statue of Liberty was painted green by a queer man who lived within its torch and two lesbians invented Andy Warhol. Also gay: “wanting to be a good singer” and cakes that look like other things, such as a hamburger or a telephone.

My Gen Z teen often admiringly points out things that she finds “super gay,” and this hilarious project backs her up in a big, gay way. A big gay ray of sunshine, right here. (Sunshine = definitely gay.)

A Very Gay Book is a beautifully absurd satirical take on history in which everything is really, really gay.
NonfictionPop CultureHumor

The Theory of Everything Else

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

Humans are fascinated with weird and unusual phenomena—hence the popularity of books, magazines, television shows and podcasts focusing on “unexplained” subjects such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. 

In The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird, comedian and co-host of the “No Such Thing as a Fish” podcast Dan Schreiber takes peculiar theories about some of life’s greatest mysteries and spins them into nonstop hilarity. Many of the ideas presented here are so implausible—such as the hypothesis that time travelers sank the Titanic—that Schreiber starts with a disclaimer, a suggestion that readers should “let the ideas alter your universe for a few seconds . . . but for God’s sake, don’t believe in a single one of them.” In fact, he uses the word batshit over and over to describe these unconventional beliefs and bizarre encounters, while also demonstrating that investigating such baffling notions (whether to solve them, prove them or disprove them) is often what leads people to discover something closer to the truth.

Schreiber divides the book into three main sections that cover the importance of unconventional thought, scientific theories that have been “rejected” and eccentric beliefs that are woven throughout our daily lives. His research is extensive, covering all areas of the globe and a variety of cultures as he considers the possibility of a hollow Earth, the extinction of pubic lice, the chance that reptilian aliens walk among us and many more far-fetched and otherwise wacky notions. There are connections to famous people such as Ringo Starr (whose grandmother was known as “the voodoo queen of Liverpool”), tennis player Novak Djokovic (who believes there are ancient lost pyramids in Bosnia) and the British royal family (yes, Prince Philip harbored an interest in UFOs). Several scientists who made groundbreaking discoveries are included as well, since they also embraced unusual theories or beliefs.

Humorous illustrations are featured side by side with historic photographs, and each “batshit” story or theory is counterbalanced with a reality check of facts and statistics. As Schreiber sums up, “Whether we like it or not, many of these alternative thinkers have shaped the world we live in today.” The Theory of Everything Else is a wild, witty, entertaining ride into the funhouse of the unexplained and the unexplainable. Hop on and enjoy the trip.

The existence of ghosts, aliens and cryptids will seem like tame notions by the time you finish Dan Schreiber’s hilarious book about life’s greatest mysteries and most peculiar theories.
NonfictionHumor

The funniest nonfiction books of 2023 (so far)

List by Christy, Associate Editor
Funniest nonfiction books of 2023
STARRED REVIEW

June 13, 2023

The funniest nonfiction books of 2023 (so far)

These nine rollicking histories, memoirs and travelogues range from chuckle-inducing to wet-your-pants hilarious. Read in public at your own risk.

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NonfictionReligion & SpiritualityMemoirFamily & Relationships

How to Stay Married

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

In his third memoir, the hilarious and heartbreaking How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told, author Harrison Scott Key quips, “Men never talk about being betrayed. I want to. I feel I must. I have many deep convictions, and one of them is that suffering can and should be monetized.”

Key has done an excellent job thus far, with his debut The World’s Largest Man, winner of the 2016 Thurber Prize for American Humor, and 2018’s Congratulations, Who Are You Again? Fans know that his books are a potent mix of sharp, poignant and funny, thanks to the author’s penchant for openly talking about his baser instincts and his ability to take small, meaningful moments and extrapolate them out to large, cleverly expressed truths.

“Even if nobody bought it, even if my agent hated it, I had to get this mf-ing book out of my brain and my heart.” Read our interview with Harrison Scott Key.

In How to Stay Married, an onslaught of truths began with a devastating 2017 revelation: Lauren, Key’s wife since 2002, had been having an affair for five years. Her affair partner, called “Chad” in the book, was a married neighbor with a family that often spent time with Key’s own. The shock was deep and destabilizing, sending the author on an urgent journey of discovery (When did it go wrong? How did he miss the signs? How will their three daughters react? Should he buy a truck?) and a deep exploration of his Christian faith.

With wit and anger, humility and warmth, Key chronicles the myriad ways he has strived to understand how a couple with a lovely origin story could have grown so far apart. A chapter called “The Little Lawn Boy Learns His ABCs” is a tour de force of alphabetized self-examination (and, sometimes, self-flagellation), and a chapter by Lauren called “A Whore in Church” offers plain-spoken insight into the pain of her past and her choices in the present.

As the couple worked to figure out, together and separately, what the future might hold, Key found himself wondering, “What if, in some cosmically weird way, escaping a hard marriage is not how you change? What if staying married is?” How to Stay Married makes a strong case for that approach to romantic partnership, while offering plentiful food for thought about faith, humor, courage and love.

Humorist Harrison Scott Key’s memoir of the fallout following his wife’s affair offers plentiful food for thought about faith, humor, courage and love.
NonfictionMemoirLGBTQ+Humor

Leg

Review by Alice Cary

When Greg Marshall and his childhood friend, Gretchen, ran for president and vice president of their high school class, they were something of an unconventional pair. Both were non-Mormons, making them a minority in Salt Lake City, Utah. Marshall had a pronounced limp and had yet to tell anyone he was gay, while Gretchen had a pacemaker “and a bone spur hanging off one foot like a sixth toe.” Marshall writes that their winning campaign strategy “was simple, and that was to make fun of ourselves.” Marshall takes that same winning approach in his stunning debut, Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It. 

Marshall’s limp in his right leg caused weakness and spasms throughout his life and required surgeries from time to time. He had actually been diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 18 months—but his parents never disclosed this fact, telling him instead that he had “tight tendons” and encouraging their son and other four children to simply rely on the mantra, “NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP.” Marshall didn’t discover the true origin of his mobility limitations until 2014, by accident, when applying for health insurance. “Every day growing up was like an ABC Afterschool Special in which no lessons were learned, no wisdom gleaned,” he writes.

In different hands, this memoir might have become a tragic family story, overshadowed by a mother who was diagnosed with cancer and required decades of treatment for that and other conditions, and a kindhearted, dad-joking father who died from Lou Gehrig’s disease when Marshall was 22. Instead, Marshall has written a riotously funny book that will grab your attention and steal your heart from the very first page. His writing brings to mind early David Sedaris, with its bitingly funny caricatures and descriptions, bathed in blistering commentary, deep-seated opinions, wit, intellect and, above all else, fierce family love. Additionally, Marshall details several of his sexual experiences—not to be salacious but to illuminate his ongoing quest for identity and relationships, despite his long-standing fear of contracting HIV. “As a gay man and a person with a disability, I come out every day,” he writes.

The Marshalls’ lives are full of twists, turns and surprises that will leave readers yearning for more, and this memoir serves as a love letter to all of them, especially Marshall’s late father. Rare is the book that makes me both laugh out loud and shed actual tears, but Leg made me do both.

Bitingly funny and full of blistering commentary and fierce familial love, Greg Marshall's memoir is a winning debut.
NonfictionTravelLGBTQ+

Moby Dyke

Review by Catherine Hollis

Are lesbian bars endangered places? Down from a high of 206 bars recorded in 1987, there are currently only 20+ of these beloved, sticky, red-painted bars left in the U.S. Moby Dyke, the chronicle of Krista Burton’s obsessive quest to visit each of these remaining bars, offers readers a hilarious and affectionate investigation into the past and future of queer gathering spots.

Traveling from San Francisco to New York City, from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Mobile, Alabama, Burton visits both historic neighborhood bars and newer nightclubs, talking to owners and patrons about why they love these bars and who is welcome there. Virtually every bar Burton visited is lesbian-owned but welcomes everyone, including the full range of queer identities: trans men and women, nonbinary folks and the emerging generation of gender-diverse young queers. Burton also asks why so many gay bars for cisgender men continue to thrive as exclusive spaces, while lesbian bars thrive on inclusion.

An accomplished and very funny journalist, Burton is able to track serious issues around queer belonging in a fresh and lively voice. The personal narrative underlying her pursuit of lesbian bars—including her marriage to Davin, a trans man, and coming out to her conservative Mormon family—is as topical and good-humored as the interviews and reportage contained here. 

Burton’s road trip was also shaped by COVID-19, and her experiences reveal how the isolation of the pandemic stoked a real hunger for the joy of being with others in crowded, sweaty rooms, singing karaoke, partaking in dildo races and people-watching (after showing a vaccination card, of course). Even the details about the economics of Burton’s quest (such as how to fund a road trip on a book advance while still working a day job) offer a fascinating glimpse into the reality of a writer’s life. 

Burton’s portrait of the evolution of lesbian bars into communal spaces offers a timely and engaging snapshot of queer life in America.

Krista Burton’s obsessive quest to visit each lesbian bar in the U.S. offers a hilarious and affectionate investigation into the past and future of queer gathering spots.
NonfictionTravelHumorFood & Drink

Raw Dog

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

Jamie Loftus is a comedian, podcaster, animator, Emmy-nominated TV writer and performance artist. She’s joined MENSA as a joke, has seen Shrek the Musical 10-plus times and, in 2017, ate a copy of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.

Now, with the release of Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, the prolific creator and debut author takes readers on a cross-country road trip that is by turns eye-opening and gut-clenching, hilarious and poignant, scatological and existential.

In the summer of 2021—aka “Hot Dog Summer”—Loftus, her boyfriend and their dog and cat left their home in Los Angeles and set off to eat and critique a ton of hot dogs. Along the way, she interrogates our national affection for the iconic tubed meat, noting that hot dogs are “high culture, they’re low culture, they’re sports food and they’re hangover food and they’re deeply American for reasons that few people can explain.”   

Loftus digs into those mixed messages with sharp wit and righteous anger. After all, hot dogs are served at festive events but have long been made in places rife with animal abuse and worker exploitation. And while they’re the gleaming centerpiece of the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, she explains that the celebrated competition is actually tainted by “jingoistic marketing” and entrenched sexism.

Raw Dog audiobook cover
Read our starred review of the ‘Raw Dog’ audiobook, narrated by author Jamie Loftus.

As for the hot dogs themselves, dozens of vendors are duly visited, sampled and reported on—from Costco and Home Depot to independent hot dog joints and even a few ballparks. She traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, “to get diarrhea at ten in the morning at all costs” and therefore ordered a hot dog topped with onion rings and Spaghetti-Os. In Baltimore, she “deep-throat[ed] a Maryland hot dog swaddled in deep-fried bologna,” and in Chicago, she reveled in a filet mignon steak dog. All this while pursuing with alacrity the answer to an urgent question: “Are the people on the Wienermobile fucking?”

Raw Dog is a wonderfully weird and wild mashup of history, social commentary, personal revelation and food journalism. The author’s passion for her work shines through as she makes a compelling case for more informed hot dog consumption while maintaining her love for the quintessential cookout food.

Comedian Jamie Loftus takes readers on a hot dog-sampling road trip that is by turns eye-opening and gut-clenching, hilarious and poignant, scatological and existential.
NonfictionMemoirHumorEssays

Quietly Hostile

Review by Jessica Wakeman

Every collection of Samantha Irby essays—this is her fourth, following 2020’s Wow, No Thank You.—is a masterclass in situating pitch-perfect comedy and deep sincerity side by side. Irby’s appeal, at least to this reader, has always been how she’s found humor in some of life’s most difficult experiences, including losing both parents when she was a teenager and living with chronic illness.

In Irby’s new book, Quietly Hostile, she’s still sharing her delightfully bizarre opinions—like in the essay “Dave Matthews’ Greatest Romantic Hits,” which ranks 14 of the musician’s tenderest songs in an attempt to convince people that her love for him is not a bit. Irby also hits readers right in the feels with essays about complicated families, like “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” about reconnecting with her older brother after 25 years. And as always, there are numerous gross-but-mostly-funny pieces about bodily fluids, including but not limited to diarrhea, peeing her pants and peeing on a sexual partner.

Quietly Hostile audiobook cover
Read our review of the audiobook, narrated by author Samantha Irby.

Yet Irby’s rising profile as a bestselling author and cult favorite television producer has had an impact on her Everywoman relatability. Quietly Hostile contains classic Irby humor, but her well-deserved success means the subjects she applies that humor to have irrevocably changed. For example, a handful of the essays are about writing for TV, including for Aidy Bryant’s Hulu comedy “Shrill” and HBO’s “Sex and the City” reboot. In this context, the otherwise on-brand diarrhea jokes (“During my interview I said ‘Can I give Carrie diarrhea?’ and I was hired immediately”) feel somewhat awkward. There is a dissonance between her self-deprecation and the reality that “Sex and the City” creator Michael Patrick King specifically reached out to Irby’s agent to ask if she’d be interested in writing for the new show.

This dissonance aside, Quietly Hostile is still very much worth a read. Irby is a truly hilarious writer and mines laughs from the wildest situations (even a trip to the emergency room for anaphylactic shock). And as a 40-something Black woman, a Midwesterner and a stepmother, she brings a unique and underrepresented perspective to the humor shelf of your local bookstore. This newest version of Irby’s unhinged yet subtly complex humor may not quite capture the magic of previous iterations, but she’s still someone who can (and did) write hundreds of words about what to do if you clog a public toilet—and you’ve got to admit, that’s pretty special.

Samantha Irby’s fourth essay collection plays the hits, offering readers a masterclass in situating pitch-perfect comedy and deep sincerity side by side.
NonfictionHumorHistoryBiography

Edison’s Ghosts

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Geniuses seem to inhabit a world apart from mere mortals like us. But they don’t, as the irreverent and entertaining Edison’s Ghosts makes clear. Debut author and science writer Katie Spalding has mined history, biography and psychology to turn the cult of genius on its head, shining a sassy light on the idiosyncrasies of some of history’s greatest minds. People traditionally held up as geniuses, she demonstrates, still fit under the heading of “everyone is an idiot.” Although, “Maybe it’s just the apparent contrast between what we expect from these figures and what we get.”

Take Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for example, whom Spalding compares to a modern child star with an extremely pushy stage dad. After a childhood under his father’s thumb, Mozart turned out to be “kind of a handful.” Spalding unearths unusual bits of trivia about the musical prodigy, including the fact that Mozart apparently never outgrew a juvenile sense of bathroom humor, and that he believed babies should be fed on water. (Only two of his six children survived to adulthood.)

As for the title essay, “Thomas Edison’s Lesser-Known Invention: Dial-a-Ghost,” it turns out the prolific inventor had a formidable PR presence. “Basically, you can think of Edison as a sort of proto-Elon Musk,” Spalding writes. But unlike the Tesla, the rubber never met the road on Edison’s “Spirit Phone” for communicating with the dead. That didn’t keep Edison from claiming that the device would operate solely by scientific methods, however. And while he was ridiculed during his life for this idea, and biographers later claimed he couldn’t have been serious, Spalding unearthed a French version of a book of Edison’s writings that includes actual sketches for his design. 

Edison’s Ghosts can certainly be read from front to back, but you may find yourself so intrigued by some of the chapter titles that you decide to skip around. For what burgeoning philosopher can resist plunging right into “Confucius Was an Ugly Nerd With Low Self-Esteem”? Likewise, biology enthusiasts will hardly be able to resist turning first to “Charles Darwin: Glutton; Worm Dad; Murderer?”

Spalding includes chapters (and hilarious footnotes) about many other historical figures, including Leonardo da Vinci, Ada Lovelace, Marie Curie, Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Conan Doyle and Sigmund Freud. While the essays are tongue-in-cheek, they’re also well researched, informative and absolutely fun. Edison’s Ghosts will delight any science or history lover with a sense of humor.

Edison’s Ghosts will delight any science or history lover as it illuminates all the stupid things that famously smart people have done throughout history.

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