#WRITING 'I'M CRYING' WITH ALAN WAS CATHARTIC!?!??! REALLY!??!!??

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Wasn't expecting a random interview with Eric to be published today (the day before "House of the Rising Sun" day mind you...) aND I WASN'T EXPECTING THERE TO BE UNFILTERED PRICE-BURDON CONTENT!?!?!??!!??

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could you make a post about all the books from comedians you own/have ordered and which are your favorites I want to buy all of them but don't know where to start ++++++++ would love to know if you know of a way to order a signed copy of David's book if I don't live in the UK

you know, in a stroke of what may be relevant information, i'm actually an editorial director by day and even used to be a literary agent here in nyc — none of which is obvious on account of my billion rushed typos and...just...general existence :) (i promise i'm supremely carefully handed in my editing!!! and have a lot of resources, at my job hahahahaha oh god maybe i shouldn't have mentioned this!!!) — but i'm really no book critic and have no idea how my tastes stack up against what a lot of you are looking for. i'm happy to share some of my general, poorly articulated internet thoughts but it may be more worth checking out goodreads or talking with others who have more experience with autobiographies (which a majority of these types of books are)!

to begin with a disclaimer, one of my friends texted me recently, "why do you only watch sad movies?" i love sad films, sad music, i love to cry, catharsis, sentimentality which is always a little self-indulgent. it's a bit ironic, because this is a comedy blog and you guys know me as someone who loves to find things to laugh about and i fill my life with so much silliness through his huge, life-long hobby, but, all the same, that is only one side of me, i guess. i'm saying this now because you're about to hear me talk briefly about a few somewhat-to-incredibly sad books and be like "oh i didn't know this what i was getting into" 😅

books i do recommend:

just ignore him by alan davies — this isn't a book review but i am self-conscious about just how i describe this book, because it's so sensitive and i carry a lot of respect for alan. at the time of publication, alan actually didn't want any of the press to know and/or discuss the most tragic elements of the book, so readers wouldn't be influenced in any direction before confronting it themselves. (it's okay to talk about now of course, and anyone should know there are major trigger warnings for death, child abuse, sexual abuse, and pedophilia.) it is a sad book about his earliest years: the complexities and nuances of male power and manipulation, of unimaginable loneliness, of a lost child. alan said it wasn't cathartic to write���that is was indeed very painful—but the vulnerability, the commitment to shirking himself of the painful silence he endured for most of his life, is exceptionally moving. alan's writing can be quite thorough, even flowery, in creating vivid places and images, so so much of the heaviness feels piercing and even disturbing. if you read other comedians' books, a decent majority of them are written in the style of standup or, say, a ted talk — with performance in mind, specific structures and beats that mimic how they'd tell these stories on stage. i would argue this is quite different to that, that while the writing is in a style and structure that benefits being read aloud this is a very different alan to alan the performer. and, very honestly, i'm really not an audiobook person, not to mention listening is a wholly different experience to reading — but the audiobook for this is phenomenal: alan narrates and, while of course it's his story so he'll tell it best, he is a very gentle, thoughtful storyteller. this will be you by chapter 4:

moab is my washpot + fry chronicles by stephen fry — the first and second of his three autobiographies covering some of the most sensational times (stephen is willing to admit) of his childhood and teen years + his rise to fame through the cambridge footlights. these are good reads for 1) stephen fry fans duh and 2) people who can enjoy the inspiration of auden, waugh, wilde, wodehouse, quintessential english writers who inform the foundation of stephen's relationship with literature and appreciation. stephen is painfully honest — and often sorry for it, apologising for what he perceives to be his shortcomings — and you can't help but feel, even early on in the first book, that his view of his own world is somehow even more subjective than everyone else's views of their own worlds. maybe it's because he's so judgmental, maybe it's his oscillating mental health, maybe it's the shocking thrust with which he was confronted with the wideness of the world...i'm not sure, but stephen's life through stephen's eyes is so very stephen-y. i think that's why we love him‚ though i can see some people loathing the less admirable sides of him, which he does show, so don't read this if you want to maintain some image of him that helps you cope or keeps you perfectly entertained. if you're not british, the fry chronicles is an especially good read to scratch some of your anglophilic interests (lotsss of namedropping and backstage chat)!

delicacy: a memoir about cake and death by katy wix — one of my recent faves and another book that isn't thoroughly funny. told in 21 vignettes either centered around or vaguely related to cake, katy talks about her school life, grief and loss, self-esteem and body image, misogyny — in ways that are just...matter of fact...opposed to lessons learned or things she's working on through therapy. she's accepted a lot, but she's also afflicted by a lot to this day; she's capably honest about where her reality stands. for this reason, it can be a bleak and certainly very raw read. i listened to the audiobook for this one, which was nice, but i much recommend the actual written book as the vignettes are in different formats (short story prose, letters, email exchanges) that often anchor time and place, intention, even the little peeks of light of comedy. katy's writing is very lovely, both my heart and mind were touched.

back story by david mitchell — a mildly vulnerable, moderately insightful, and quite humorous exploration of david's up-and-coming years. i really appreciate the premise — due a bad back and sciatica, he begins taking very long walks every day, and these walks trigger memories and anecdotes as he passes certain places — that really doesn't come off as a gimmick. it's a very easy read (or listen) and what i'd consider an uncomplicated, unproblematic bio, but it would be difficult to enjoy if you're only a casual fan of david mitchell or only like him in his most recent dad years, as it was written in his peep show heyday and is so much about those years of his life, his relationship with robert webb, etc. a good intro-to-the-genre book and the very first britcom book i read way back in 2010!

i also really enjoy graham norton's books — especially for the goss, but he's a great writer and his debut fiction novel got quite good reviews! — and tim key's books of poetry, though you really need to be a fan of tim key to read tim key :')

books i do not recommend:

before & laughter by jimmy carr — this book is much less of an autobiography (details are scant and anecdotes are few; it's cute when he refers to karoline as "my girl") and much more a collection of 1) jimmy's interpretation of contemporary comedy and what it means to be a comedian, and 2) how that journey, and his evolving attitudes, shaped him + became advice he would offer to others. this is why he calls the book adjacent to self help & motivational speaking. i don't think it teaches you anything new about him — literally or as a writer — so i don't recommend reading it, though the audiobook (where he's truly performing the writing like a ted talk) is an easy listen. a lot of people will not understand that jimmy is overwhelmingly sincere in regards to all of the topics and personal philosophies the jimmy nearing 50 espouses. he's someone with very studied, thorough personal philosophies (if you've seen him on podcasts talking about his life and career then you'll know just what i mean) and he explains them deftly, but they can feel a bit...how should i say this...flat to people who have heard a lot of it before, in hollywood movies or from their own parents or wherever. he didn't write this just for another stream of income — he is passionate about these conversations and that counts for something. overall i already knew a bit about the guy and didn't need this.

my shit life so far by frankie boyle — i have never read one of frankie's fiction novels (crime is really not my thing, so someone needs to let me know if richard osman's book series is a smash because i'm only going to check them out if i'm convinced to), but as a long-time fan of his, knowing how much of a wordsmith he is, and how intentional he is in everything he says, i was surprised by how dull i found this. his shit life was just that — uninteresting, meandering. his anecdotes may have worked better aloud than on paper, but they didn't grab me. you learn a bit about his young adulthood, but like jimmy he's intensely private and i could feel that distance between us even while reading an autobiography. it didn't work for me, super sad about it :(

can everyone please calm down? by mae martin — instead of criticising this book, i'd rather just make a disclaimer or two. if you are already engaged in queer discourses and dialogues, you are not going to learn very much from this book. both the descriptive writing and presentation of research is "accessible" to the point i'd call it more adjacent to YA than adult literature; if you prefer more creative, complicated, and/or signature writing styles, this book is not for you. if you are a big fan of mae martin and would appreciate an overview of their journey on the identity spectrum (going so far as to even rejecting it, in some capacities) in one place, then this may be convenient — but even then, at this point, it's somewhat outdated. imo a well-intention skip.

phil wang and tom allen are two more i think don't convince me with their writing, but i'm still making my ways through a couple of books and could probably talk more about this later!

i have never made this kind of non-fiction bio a priority on my long reading list, so i still have a lot of exploring and catching up to do, but i'm finding that i do prefer the books that explore the events of comedian's past as well as those that walk the reader through experiences in the comedy & tv industries. there are a lot of books about mental health and identity, which may be more of what many of you are looking for (sara pascoe, fern brady, jon richardson, and more).

okaY PHEW SORRY i always type too much 😒

first, as for david mitchell's new book, you can order it signed from waterstones as they ship to the usa — and it's currently half off!!!!! if you want to buy it unsigned from a usa retailer amazon is cheapest and target & bookshop are the cheapest non-amazon options :) an audiobook is coming out as well, so i do believe i will be able to add that to googledrive before too long, but no guarantees on a good time frame!

you can go here to download any of the ebooks & audiobooks i have on my googledrive!

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spektor anon writing back: I have a lot of favorite eps that i dont watch often cus theyre too intense or i want to give them my full attention, so the ones i return to usually are to idly listen to while formatting reports or doing artwork that is essentially mindless (I watched a significant chunk of MASH while doing inking on a very detailed 24ish page comic) idk what logic motivates what eps i tend to rewatch. Usually I like to return to ones that I feel have a lot of good monologues, conversations, or pranks. good character moments. ensemble eps. tbh thats most of them tho? I suppose anything with Flagg or Sidney I will return to again and again cus they're so goddamn funny

"carry on, hawkeye" is rlly good but has a later season equivalent that I like to rewatch a lot for a lot of reasons, although I know I just said that I sometimes avoid more intense ones: Bless You Hawkeye. obviously a flagship moment for Alan Alda's acting and for Sidney's character on the show, and a precursor to a lot of the conflicts and themes of GFA but the big thing for me that makes it comforting is just seeing everyone take Hawk's issue very seriously, prioritizing it and trying to be very proactive about it. part of the draw of mash is that they pretty much are always falling apart and never seem to have the capacity to take care of eachother the way they should- they lack resources, theyre in a constant state of life-or-death-overwork, they are flawed people: I don't think its a mistake that that level of care is lacking often, but its rlly comforting to see everyone willing and able to pretty much set aside all other responsibilities and just exclusively focus on someones needs for once. Shout out in particular to that moment in Potter's office when everyone crowds around him and physically holds him up- it looks like a renaissance painting and it made me cry like a little bitch when i first saw it. I think everyone wants that a little bit- to be given support like that when they all apart. I cant watch it while doing other things but ill put it on if im sick or feeling rlly low cus its cathartic. Other big ones off the top of my head that I rewatch casually for me are: -the bus (an all time favorite have a lot of thoughts on it) -An eye for a tooth (bj, hawk, and margaret <3) -rally around the flagg (i love it when flagg thinks ppl are communists) -Are you now margaret (flagg again! pranks! I like the idea that margaret had friends whose politics were less odiously "hooray america" than hers- maybe they can all reconnect and re-radicalize her after the war. Also shout out to a reckoning with how serious sa stuff is re: margaret. I cried in anger seeing it, it was very satisfying that the narrative framing took it seriously for once. since then ive cooled off and can just enjoy ppl protecting margaret. shout out to klinger in particular hes a real one and i like the closet bit) -run for the money (rlly good ep for everyone but of course charles in particular. rlly nice to see him in that light) -i forget the name but the ep when trap boxes ("HAWKeYe THIS GUY PUNCHeS JeePS")

idk the big recurring thing seems to be Mulcahey and Margaret spotlight episodes and anything with sidney and flagg.

hi spektor anon!!! i'm sorry it took me so long to answer 😭

flagg and sidney episodes are also ones i return to pretty frequently, but i feel like i need to be in a certain mood to watch a flagg episode (idk why lol)

bless you hawkeye is SUCH a fascinating choice to me because it's one of the episodes i tend to avoid due to how intense it is. the way you describe it is so sweet though, it is a really kind episode in that regard, the way they're all concerned about hawkeye is very comforting (and he deserves it lol)

those are all really great episodes too! run for the money is especially fun to me, i love a mulcahy-centric episode (especially when it gives him a good conflict. not necessarily true for run for the money specifically but for others)