Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy

Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy by Ophira Eisenberg, 286 pages.

Everytime I listen to Ask Me Another on NPR on Saturday afternoon, I like it more. At first, it was just the show that was on after Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, but now I frequently look forward to hearing Eisenberg's fun and witty quiz show as well.
Eisenberg's memoir is an above average comedian memoir. I used to read memoirs by comedians and comedy writers assuming they would be funny. Usually they are, for a small portion of the book, and then they run dry. So now I read them hoping they will be funny, and they usually are for a short while, and then. . .
Ophira Eisenberg is pretty funny throughout her memoir, overall the book is funnier than it is raunchy; all the sex that is implied in the title comes across as fairly tame in the book itself. I enjoyed it and will continue to enjoy her radio show.
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Too Fat to Fish/ Artie Lange

Too Fat to Fish by Artie Lange biography, humor, entertainment, film and radio 336 pages

Those of you who have read a few of my blog posts must realize by now that I have a special place in my heart for the biographies of people in the entertainment industry, especially comedians. Artie Lange is a guy whose standup comedy has always impressed me and I figured that at a moment when I had nothing else to read, Lange's autobiography was worth a try. I was pleasantly surprised. Even though on television and on radio, Lange has always come across as a senseless buffoon, he is a pretty smart writer, and his narrative style is both engaging and entertaining.

The autobiography follows Lange through his childhood in New Jersey to his early career as a longshoreman who moonlit as a comic to his eventual work on Mad TV and the Howard Stern show. Oddly enough, the last of those, The Stern Show, which is what Lange is known best for, is the least mentioned in Lange's book. This surprised me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Lange's book was meant to cater to people who were fans of Artie as an individual, and anyone who wanted to hear more about the Stern show could read a book about that instead.

Lange is an extremely honest writer, which is important due to the fact that he is extremely forthcoming about his battle with drug addiction (a battle he is still fighting...on a related note, Lange, who tried to record the audiobook himself, was forced to stop recording because while reading the audiobook tracks, he suffered heroin withdrawals and had to be hospitalized). Artie's drug stories actually seem regretful, and although he talks about all the fun parts and the partying, there is definitely a sense of shame over what he's done. My only problem with these sections are Artie's tendency to apologize to people in his text. The phrase "I really am extremely sorry" and "I wanna take this moment to apologize to ___________" are far too common in this book.

For someone looking to check out an entertaining comedy memoir, Lange's is certainly at the top of my recommendation list. Yes, he's a little crude, but if you can't handle that level of crude, then chances are you probably don't read my blog posts anyway.

Eleven: a novel

Eleven: a novel by Mark Watson 302 pgs.

Chris Cotswold had a life changing tragedy but eventually picks himself up and moves to a new country and starts a new life as Xavier Ireland. Xavier seems like a good guy, he is the better half of a radio show duo who plays some music but is known for giving advice to callers. This book shows the relationship between events and people ala the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Xavier comes upon a situation but doesn't effectively intervene, this, in turn ripples through the community as people react to information and situations that exist because of this one event. A fun premise but more importantly, the characters are real and relate-able. The cover of this book mentions One Day by David Nicholls which almost convinced me NOT to check it out but I'm glad I did.

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