Love Golden Globe Winner Hacks? 5 Badass Books You'll Love, Too!
If you haven’t yet watched this show I cannot recommend it highly enough! I love every single character on this show - from the top bill badasses (Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder) to the supporting cast (Poppy Liu, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Megan Stalter and more!). The show is about women supporting women (mostly), working in a male-dominated field (standup comedy), divorce revenge, mother-daughter relationships - believe me, this show has it all! It was well-deserving of its Golden Globe Award!
While we anxiously await Season 2, here are some great reads inspired by the show!
There has been much speculation that the character of Deborah Vance was loosely based on the life of Joan Rivers. Rivers was more than a legendary comedian; she was an icon and a role model to millions, a fearless pioneer who left a legacy of expanded opportunity when she died in 2014. Her life was a dramatic roller-coaster of triumphant highs and devastating lows: the suicide of her husband, her feud with Johnny Carson, her estrangement from her daughter, her many plastic surgeries, her ferocious ambition and her massive insecurities. But Rivers' career was also hugely significant in American cultural history, breaking down barriers for her gender and pushing the boundaries of truth-telling for women in public life.
A juicy, intimate biography of one of the greatest comedians ever-a performer whose sixty-year career was borne, simply, out of a desire to make people laugh so she could feel loved, “Last Girl Before The Freeway” delves into the inner workings of a woman who both reflected and redefined the world around her.
From live comedy to television and bestseller lists, women rule the comedy industry―and, as this fascinating oral history shows, they have fought long and hard to make their way to the top. In We Killed, Yael Kohen assembles America's most prominent comediennes―along with the writers, producers, and nightclub owners in their orbit―to piece together the rise of women in American comedy. Beginning with the emergence of Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers in the fifties and moving forward to the edgy intelligence of Elaine May and Lily Tomlin on to the tough-ass stand-ups who would take SNL by storm, Kohen chronicles the false starts, backslides, and triumphs of female comedians. With a chorus of more than one hundred creative voices, We Killed takes us backstage to tell the story of the revolution that brought us Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, and Chelsea Handler―and a world where women can be smart, attractive, sexually confident, and flat-out funny.
From female pop culture powerhouses dominating the entertainment landscape to memoirs from today’s most vocal feminist comediennes shooting up the bestseller lists, women in comedy have never been more influential.
Marking this cultural shift, The Girl in the Show provides an in-depth exploration of how comedy and feminism have grown hand in hand to give women a stronger voice in the ongoing fight for equality. From I Love Lucy to SNL to today’s rising cable and web-series stars, Anna Fields’ entertaining retrospective combines amusing and honest personal narratives with the historical, political, and cultural contexts of the feminist movement.
With interview subjects like Abbi Jacobson, Molly Shannon, Mo Collins, and Lizz Winstead among others—as well as actresses, stand-up comics, writers, producers, and female comedy troupes—Fields shares true stories of wit and heroism from some of our most treasured (and under-represented) artists. At its heart, The Girl in the Show captures the urgency of our continued struggle towards equality, allowing the reader to both revel in—and rebel against—our collective ideas of “women’s comedy.”
Is it possible to write a sidesplitting novel about the breakup of the perfect marriage? If the writer is Nora Ephron, the answer is a resounding yes. For in this inspired confection of adultery, revenge, group therapy, and pot roast, the creator of Sleepless in Seattle reminds us that comedy depends on anguish. The fact that this fiction story is not-so-loosely based on Ephron’s own divorce from journalist Carl Bernstein is just the metaphorical icing on the cake.
Seven months into her pregnancy, Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband, Mark, is in love with another woman. The fact that the other woman has "a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs " is no consolation. Food sometimes is, though, since Rachel writes cookbooks for a living. And in between trying to win Mark back and loudly wishing him dead, Ephron's irrepressible heroine offers some of her favorite recipes. Heartburn is a sinfully delicious novel, as soul-satisfying as mashed potatoes and as airy as a perfect soufflé.
Deborah Tannen's book takes on what is potentially the most fraught and passionate connection of women’s lives: the mother-daughter relationship.
It was Tannen who first showed us that men and women speak different languages. Mothers and daughters speak the same language–but still often misunderstand each other, as they struggle to find the right balance between closeness and independence. Both mothers and daughters want to be seen for who they are, but tend to see the other as falling short of who she should be. Each overestimates the other’s power and underestimates her own.
Why do daughters complain that their mothers always criticize, while mothers feel hurt that their daughters shut them out? Why do mothers and daughters critique each other on the Big Three–hair, clothes, and weight–while longing for approval and understanding? And why do they scrutinize each other for reflections of themselves?
Deborah Tannen answers these and many other questions as she explains why a remark that would be harmless coming from anyone else can cause an explosion when it comes from your mother or your daughter. She examines every aspect of this complex dynamic, from the dark side that can shadow a woman throughout her life, to technologies that are transforming mother-daughter communication. Most important, she helps mothers and daughters understand each other, the key to improving their relationship.
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