In this inspiring collection of essays, prize-winning writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century. Funny Weather brings together a career's worth of Laing writing about art and culture, examining their roles in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O'Keeffe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Wolfgang Tillmans, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, she celebrates art as a force of resistance and repair, an antidote to a frightening political moment. We're often told art can't change anything. Laing argues that it can. It can change how we see the world. It makes plain inequalities and it offers fertile new ways of living.

In the south of France, an elegant sportscar is speeding through the night, bearing a man, his daughter, and his best friend toward a fatal crash. As he drives, the "privileged man" justifies, in sustained monologue, his firm persuasion that willed destruction is the ultimate act of the poetic imagination.

Entertainment Weekly, "Fall's 20 Must-Reads" (2018)Essence, "Fall 2018 Guide to All Things Funny"Bustle, "18 New Nonfiction Books to Know in October 2018""Robinson offers deft cultural criticism and hilarious personal anecdotes that will make readers laugh, cringe, and cry. Everything may indeed be trash but writing like this reminds us that we're gonna make it through all the terrible things with honesty, laughter, and faith."--Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling authorNew York Times bestselling author and star of 2 Dope Queens Phoebe Robinson is back with a new, hilarious, and timely essay collection on gender, race, dating, and the dumpster fire that is our world.Written in her trademark unfiltered and witty style, Robinson's latest collection is a call to arms. Outfitted with on-point pop culture references, these essays tackle a wide range of topics: giving feminism a tough-love talk on intersectionality, telling society's beauty standards to kick rocks, and calling foul on our culture's obsession with work. Robinson also gets personal, exploring money problems she's hidden from her parents, how dating is mainly a warmed-over bowl of hot mess, and, definitely most important, meeting Bono not once, but twice. She's struggled with being a woman with a political mind and a woman with an ever-changing jeans size. She knows about trash because she sees it every day--and because she's seen roughly one hundred thousand hours of reality TV and zero hours of Schindler's List.With the intimate voice of a new best friend, Everything's Trash, But It's Okay is a candid perspective for a generation that has had the rug pulled out from under it too many times to count.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In these hilarious essays, the Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update co-anchor learns how to take a beating.“I always wanted to punch his face before I read this book. Now I just want to kick him in the balls.”—Larry DavidIf there’s one trait that makes someone well suited to comedy, it’s being able to take a punch—metaphorically and, occasionally, physically. From growing up in a family of firefighters on Staten Island to commuting three hours a day to high school and “seeing the sights” (like watching a Russian woman throw a stroller off the back of a ferry), to attending Harvard while Facebook was created, Jost shares how he has navigated the world like a slightly smarter Forrest Gump. You’ll also discover things about Jost that will surprise and confuse you, like how Jimmy Buffett saved his life, how Czech teenagers attacked him with potato salad, how an insect laid eggs inside his legs, and how he competed in a twenty-five-man match at WrestleMania (and almost won). You'll go behind the scenes at SNL and Weekend Update (where he's written some of the most memorable sketches and jokes of the past fifteen years). And you’ll experience the life of a touring stand-up comedian—from performing in rural college cafeterias at noon to opening for Dave Chappelle at Radio City Music Hall. For every accomplishment (hosting the Emmys), there is a setback (hosting the Emmys). And for every absurd moment (watching paramedics give CPR to a raccoon), there is an honest, emotional one (recounting his mother’s experience on the scene of the Twin Towers’ collapse on 9/11). Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy—with a face you can’t help but want to punch.

Hilarious, strange and moving in equal measure – a Japanese multi-million-copy smash hit about the struggles of a pair of young manzai stand-up comediansTokunaga is a young comedian struggling to make a name for himself when he is taken under the wing of Kamiya, who is either a crazy genius or perhaps just crazy. Kamiya's indestructible confidence inspires Tokunaga, but it also makes him doubt the limits of his own talent, and dedication to Manzai comedy.Spark is a story about art and friendship, about countless bizarre drunken conversations and how far it's acceptable to go for a laugh. A novel about comedy that's as moving and thoughtful as it is funny, it's already been a sensation in Japan.Naoki Matayoshi is a Japanese manzai comedian and author, who found fame performing as part of the popular comic duo Peace. Spark is his first novel and has been hugely successful in Japan since it was first published in 2016. It has won the Akutagawa Prize and was adapted for film, stage and TV – the hit series is available on Netflix UK.