Hi!
Happy sweater season, Receipters. I wish upon you as many Fall-themed things as your lil heart can handle. Don’t let the haters drag you down, life is hard, enjoy the damn pumpkin spice Doritos or whatever!!
Speaking of delightful, every person on this memoir and essay list is insanely talented in so many ways and I genuflect at the altar of their weird, weird brains. Weird brains are the best! I love when the weird brains share their experience with the world and you’re like, ohhh yeah. That’s good shit. Here are a few great examples.
Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford
Quick Plot Summary:
Comedian Maria Bamford discusses her OCD and chronic self-help group joining
My Review:
Maria Bamford has always been one of my favorite comedians. There’s simply NO ONE like her in terms of stone cold weirdness and full-send insanity. Which if you know me, is my favorite genre of anything!! If you’re like, who? Please watch Lady Dynamite. Or any of her stand up specials.
A self-proclaimed over-sharer, in this book Bamford recounts her history of OCD, mental health struggles and chronic self-help group joining in a way that is both hilarious and vulnerable. I enjoyed this immensely. Even the cover cracks me up.
“But feeling ashamed and not telling anyone about it has NEVER HELPED. My hope is that by telling people about all this stuff, maybe others will relate. And then I won’t feel alone? And yes, of course, I’ll call my psychiatric nurse, Matt. Though he just changed insurances and I need to find somebody else. And Scott will call his therapist and his psychiatrist. And yes, we will call Deda and Jim from our Recovering Couples Anonymous meeting we’ve been attending and they will laugh. Deda will say, “Are you trying to scare each other?” Yes, yes we are! We thought it might help! And yes, twelve-steppers, we are “WORKING THE STEPS of the program,” you sanctimonious church basement carps! We are on step four, if you must know.”
I’m Just a Person by Tig Notaro
Quick Plot Summary:
Tig Notaro talks about her VERY eventful 2012
My Review:
Okay, you know when I said Maria was one of my favorites? Well, Tig is my #1 favorite comedian of all time. This book was about her most difficult year, which was also what put her on the path to stardom. In 2012 she faced her mom’s death, c. diff, and a breast cancer diagnosis - all in the span of a couple weeks. If you don’t feel like reading the whole book - which you should! - please at least listen to her album “Live”. It’s a once in a lifetime thing, even in the recording you can *feel* the energy in the room (“Hello, I have cancer” is how she opens in her usual deadpan.) This books expands on that year of her life and the consequences. It’s written in her usual deadpan style and I especially loved listening to her read it in audiobook format. Vulnerable and inspiring.
PS - please also watch One Mississippi which is a fictionalized show version that covers the same topics. It’s freaking brilliant!!! I’m also obsessed with her wife Stephanie Allyne who stars in it with her.
“Technically, I was probably not what you would call lucky. But it sure felt right to call myself the luckiest unlucky person alive.”
Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
Quick Plot Summary:
Hilarious essays by Samantha Irby on topics like adjusting to the Midwest, living with tummy troubles, and aspiring to be an evil step-mom.
My Review:
From the JUMP this is one is uproarious. It’s starts with a bang with the faux- lifestyle article “Into the Gross” which had me rolling. I also loved “Hello, 911?” where she dreams up some nightmare scenarios like “Hello, 911? My friend just left me a voice mail.” Honestly, every essay is great. Funny and relatable to the maxxx. You also very much need to check out her hilarious Substack where she recaps Judge Mathis episodes.
“I’m forty now, and the hilarious thing about being forty is this: I don’t know anything. Before you try to convince me otherwise or try to make me feel better, you should know that I know that YOU’RE forty and trying to reassure yourself that YOU know something. You don’t!”
Broken by Jenny Lawson
Quick Plot Summary:
A hilarious book about depression and anxiety
My Review:
I’ve listened to a couple of Jenny Lawson books and liked them all. This one is funny and goofy and honestly very informative about mental health struggles. Lawson has a very particular voice and I enjoy her audiobooks. She has a zany, ten thoughts a minute run-on sentence to the max ADHD motor-mouth quality that I dig. She also has a very lovely Substack with (very impressive) once a week drawings and musings.
“It’s weird because we often try to present our fake, shiny, happy selves to others and make sure we’re not wearing too-obvious pajamas at the grocery store, but really, who wants to see that level of fraud? No one. What we really want is to know we’re not alone in our terribleness. We want to appreciate the failure that makes us perfectly us and wonderfully relatable to every other person out there who is also pretending that they have their shit together and didn’t just eat that onion ring that fell on the floor. Human foibles are what make us us, and the art of mortification is what brings us all together.”
That’s all bye!! If you have a favorite humor memoir, please put in in the comments!