Showing results by publisher "Bloomsbury Publishing Plc" in Comedy & Humor

In 2011, comedian and podcaster Rosie Wilby was dumped by email...though she did feel a little better about it after correcting her ex’s spelling and punctuation. Obsessing about breakups ever since, she embarked on a quest to investigate, understand and conquer the psychology of heartbreak. This book is a love letter to her breakups, a celebration of what they have taught her peppered with anecdotes from illustrious friends and interviews with relationship therapists, scientists and sociologists about separating in the modern age of ghosting, breadcrumbing and conscious uncoupling.

Inspired by her viral BuzzFeed piece ‘37 Difficult Questions from My Mixed-Raced Son’, Mira Jacob responds to: her six-year-old, Zakir, who asks if the new president hates brown boys like him; uncomfortable relationship advice from her parents, who came to the United States from India one month into their arranged marriage; and increasingly fraught exchanges with her Trump-supporting in-laws. Jacob also investigates her own past, including how it felt to be a brown-skinned New Yorker on 9/11.

This is a story about a life lived in two halves. It’s about what happens when real life collides with the increasing absurdity of a world accessed through a screen. It’s about where we go when existential threats loom and the high stakes of reality that claim us back. It’s about living in world that contains both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy and justice in the universe and a deluge of evidence to the contrary.

Poverty and depravity wreak havoc on Hassan Omar’s family. Amid great hardship he decides to escape. The arrival of independence brings new upheavals as well as the betrayal of the promise of freedom. The new government, fearful of an exodus of its most able men, discourages young people from travelling abroad and refuses to release examination results. Deprived of a scholarship, Hassan travels to Nairobi to stay with a wealthy uncle, in the hope that he will release his mother’s rightful share of the family inheritance. 

Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and the micro-aggressions, she’s thrilled when Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events cause Nella to become Public Enemy Number One and Hazel, the Office Darling. Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: Leave Wagner. Now.

When lovelorn Annie McDee stumbles across a dirty painting in a junk shop while looking for a present for an unsuitable man, she has no idea what she has discovered. Soon she finds herself drawn unwillingly into the tumultuous London art world, populated by exiled Russian oligarchs, avaricious Sheikas, desperate auctioneers and unscrupulous dealers, all scheming to get their hands on her painting - a lost eighteenth-century masterpiece called ‘The Improbability of Love’. Delving into the painting’s past, Annie will uncover some of the darkest secrets of European history.

The hilarious trials and tribulations of stand-up comedian Paul Tonkinson as he attempts to beat the much lauded three-hour mark at the London Marathon. With a supporting cast of fellow comedians, this is a warmly written and wonderfully honest adventure-through-sport that will both entertain and inspire. Along the way, we are introduced to the characters helping Paul with his quest. Celebrity names such as Bryony Gordon, Russell Howard, Roisin Conaty and Vassos Alexander pop up with wit and wisdom....

Nell Barber, an expelled PhD candidate in biological science, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote, working alone to set a speed record for the detoxification of poisonous plants. Her mentor, Dr Joan Kallas, is the hero of Nell’s heart. Nell frequently finds herself standing in the doorway to Joan’s office despite herself, mesmerized by Joan’s elegance, success and spiritual force.  

An urgent and unforgettable collection of stories, Show Them a Good Time explores types - men and women, their assigned roles and meanings - in modern society. A young, broke Irish woman narrates her relationship with a successful comedian in New York; two hapless university students take to the stage in a bid to assert their autonomy; a school teacher makes her way through a series of dead-end dates, gamely searching for love or distraction as the world teeters towards ruin.

Journeying through wildly different weddings, visits to wedding planners, interviews with the much-married, those who have questioned their decision to marry and those who would never consider matrimony, this is an incisive, witty and moving look at marriage - as an achievement, a compromise, a selling-out, a practical solution. Tom Rasmussen examines what marriage means across the spectrum of sexuality and class, and what the future looks like for this most historic and universal of institutions. 

The seat of the Trelawney family for over 800 years, Trelawney Castle was once the jewel of the Cornish coast. Each successive Earl spent with abandon, turning the house and grounds into a sprawling, extravagant palimpsest of wings, turrets and follies. But recent generations have been better at spending than making money. Now living in isolated penury, unable to communicate with each other or the rest of the world, the family are running out of options. 

During his time as a broadcaster, Kevin Day has spoken to thousands of football fans. He has interviewed countless players and managers from across the generations and he has spent thousands of hours crossing the country on trains, planes, automobiles and coaches, watching football at all levels. This book is the result of that: a tale of being chased down a railway line at Cardiff, an account of interviewing George Best, a story of an 80-year-old lady getting her first Hull City tattoo - quite simply, a tale of football.

Welcome to America. On the East Coast, homes are being swallowed by the ocean; on the West Coast, California is engulfed with wildfire. But for one family, the impending environmental disaster is the least of their worries. Party girl Cat just impulse-purchased a snake; her pious brother Cooper is wrestling with a tic bite; and their mom Ottilie has resorted to cooking with crickets. Everyone is drinking too much – and the bugs seems to be disappearing. It seems as if it's anything but blue skies ahead...

Ferdinand Mount’s stinging satire plunges into the dubious world of London PR firms, the back rooms of Westminster and the campaign trail in Africa and America. We follow the hapless Dickie Pentecost, redundant diplomatic correspondent for a foundering national newspaper, together with his stern oncologist wife, Jane, and their daughters, Flo, an aspiring ballerina, and the quizzical teenager Lucy.

Running: Cheaper Than Therapy is a celebration of the pastime that always makes you feel better, covering every aspect of running life from jogging etiquette and the things we both love and hate about it, through to the weirdest and most wonderful marathons around the world. Also included are the funniest spectator signs ever, cool advice that could improve your PB and brilliantly insightful running philosophies.

This is a story about two marriages. Or is it? It begins with a wedding, held in the small San Francisco forest of Bottle Grove - bestowed by a wealthy patron for the public good, back when people did such things. Here is a cross section of lives, a stretch of urban green where ritzy guests, lustful teenagers, drunken revelers, and forest creatures all wait for the sun to go down. The girl in the corner slugging vodka from a cough-syrup bottle is Padgett - she’s keeping something secreted in the woods. 

A candid exploration of the state of outrage in our culture and how we can channel it back into the fights that matter, from presenter and DJ Ashley 'Dotty' Charles. Ours is a society where many exploit the outrage of others in order to gain power - and we all too quickly take the bait. But by shouting about everything, we are in fact creating a world where outrage is without consequence. There is still much to be outraged by in our final frontier, but in order to enact change and become more effective online, we must learn to channel our responses.

When the legendary comedian Barry Cryer died in January 2022, there was a vast outpouring of grief, appreciation and anecdotes – from the general public and fellow comics alike. Now, his son, Bob, is doing what Barry’s humility did not allow: revealing the story of the man behind the jokes. This book is an ode to both Barry’s incredible life and to the lessons he so generously imparted on the art of comedy during his sixty-year career.

Imagine setting up your own Sunday League football club and seeing it rise to the lofty heights of the Champions League, taking all the risky, rewarding, sometimes dodgy and increasingly big money decisions along the way. Comedian and financial idiot Kevin Day and football accountant and financial expert Kieran Maguire have imagined just that with all the humour and savage insight of their massively popular The Price of Football podcast.

Ayesha Scott has a perfect life. Home is an art-filled Cornish castle with her stratospherically wealthy titled husband and their beloved daughter. But behind every realised dream lurks an unexploded nightmare and in the course of one day Ayesha discovers that she will be penniless, homeless and powerless unless she can outwit the international mafia, infiltrate the world of high finance and make backstreet deals with the shadiest members of the art world.