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 David NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Cosmopolitan • Vulture • Parade If 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.

For fans of Hooked by Samantha X and In My Skin by Kate Holden. Leigh Hopkinson was the least likely person to become a stripper but after spending two decades naked, she realised it was her career - and her life. When Leigh Hopkinson was a university student in Christchurch she worked at a succession of low-paying jobs that paid the rent and fit in around her degree. None of them fit so well, however, as stripping. She figured it couldn't be that difficult - she was just going to dance on stage in front of a bunch of strangers. She'd show them a bit of skin, but the gig wasn't going to last that long. Or so she imagined. While stripping was harder than Leigh thought it would be, she hadn't counted on it being so exhilarating - or lucrative. So when she moved to Melbourne and needed to make a living, the lure of her old job was strong. The world of the strip club had become familiar, even reassuring, though some of the people she met during the course of her job didn't exactly give her faith in the future of humanity. Over the course of Leigh's career, she learnt a lot about other people and even more about herself, and the result is a story that delves into a world that not everyone visits but everyone finds fascinating.

After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the surrounding region in 2005, the city debated whether to press on with Mardi Gras or cancel the parades. Ultimately, they decided to proceed. New Orleans’s recovery certainly has resulted from a complex of factors, but the city’s unique cultural life—perhaps its greatest capital—has been instrumental in bringing the city back from the brink of extinction. Voicing a civic fervor, local writer Chris Rose spoke for the importance of Carnival when he argued to carry on with the celebration of Mardi Gras following Katrina: “We are still New Orleans. We are the soul of America. We embody the triumph of the human spirit. Hell, we ARE Mardi Gras." Since 2006, a number of new Mardi Gras practices have gained prominence. The new parade organizations or krewes, as they are called, interpret and revise the city’s Carnival traditions but bring innovative practices to Mardi Gras. The history of each parade reveals the convergence of race, class, age, and gender dynamics in these new Carnival organizations. Downtown Mardi Gras: New Carnival Practices in Post-Katrina New Orleans examines six unique, offbeat, Downtown celebrations. Using ethnography, folklore, cultural studies, and performance studies, the authors analyze new Mardi Gras’s connection to traditional Mardi Gras. The narrative of each krewe’s development is fascinating and unique, illustrating participants’ shared desire to contribute to New Orleans’s rich and vibrant culture.

MaxSec, the final solution for prison overcrowding in America, holds many surprises and unintended consequences. Reporter Jimmy Slade, in his quest to get the story of the century, seeks to be the first person in over fifty years to enter MaxSec and get back out alive. What he finds on this journey will change his life forever.

Contains small bits to full-scale stories and screenplays all stuffed into one giant suitcase. The view backwards and forward 20 years after leaving art school; Guys With Guns; Mark and Peter's wild ride from Indianapolis to Los Angeles; New York to LA road trip in the year 2001 before the towers went down; The Un-Produced X-Files scripts; and then some. Great airline reading. It is guaranteed to eliminate unwanted conversation with the fellow traveler sitting next to you!

Minnie Talbot is positive that her boyfriend Dom is about to spring a surprise proposal on her, so she has a surprise up her sleeve for him too. Only things didn’t quite work out the way she planned it. When poor Minnie discovers her day has turned into the crappiest one she has ever had and so much for it being the best. This story follows the hilarious antics of a modern working woman whilst finding out how she copes with disappointment. Only to take on a few favours and projects just to please other people, even if they don’t always appreciate her efforts. Until Minnie finally realises that the one person she can always rely on, is herself. So stay strong, tits out and carry on no matter what becomes her motto. If you enjoy a British comedy novel filled with plenty of cringe worthy laugh-out-loud scenes and the odd F-bomb thrown in for good measure, then this is the book for you.

A delicious, darkly comic work of new urban noir from an original new literary talent. Meet Virgil Strauss, a physically and emotionally unkempt yet somehow appealing tabloid photographer whose passion is bearing photographic witness--à la Weegee--to the obscene, malevolent and sanguine viscera of New York culture. To his disapppointment and defeat, The New York Graphic--the city's most renowned shock-based tabloid daily--has routinely rejected Virgil's work. But when Virgil and his friend Larry Onions rip off a local church, he gets the picture of a lifetime, a job at the Graphic, and a generous measure of trouble, leading to serious indiscretions that include (but aren't limited to): grave robbing, straining his neighbor's dog's feces for an inadvertently consumed diamond, widely circulating the work of a renowned "art terrorist," and being an FBI informant in a serial bombing case. Helping Virgil through his hard times is Marcy, HIV-positive porn-star girlfriend, whose wispy, hardened, tragic strength brings tenderness and humanity to Virgil's cold-blooded reality. New York Graphic is a winningly fresh contribution to the noir genre: alternately hilarious, vulgar, touching, seriously disturbed--and a delightfully heady reading.

Zen and the Art of Subration is a three-part masterwork arising from the author’s thirty-five-year journey to overcome cultural conditioning and achieve the ultimate transformation: living on light and oxygen. Ashoka Annamaya Ishaya shares an intimate look into how she discovered tantric and Taoist practices for cultivating immortality and integrated them into her life. She follows up this first-person account with a teaching guide distilling knowledge and practices aimed at readers on their own transformative path toward achieving your immortal jing cycle. Ishaya believes that if a critical mass of humans commit to the process of sustainable immortality, we can affect the evolution of our entire species. Ishaya pursues an illuminating range of questions: • Are we as a species destined to be enlightened? • Can we apply mindfulness skills to evolve our physiology? • How can our health-care system better support the maturation of our species? • Can we become an immortal species? The treatise concludes with a scholarly overview of noted prophets from varied traditions and times who have taught and fostered transformation of consciousness and sustainability of culture.