An insightful collection of interviews about what it means to be human. This book, it turns out, helps explain W is TF.
A popular podcast gets the book treatment.
An accomplished and long-respected comedian, Maron is perhaps best known for his wildly popular eponymous podcast WTF with Marc Maron, which premiered in 2009. Throughout the podcast’s successful run, Maron has shown a unique knack for getting famous (and semifamous) people to talk. And talk. As they talk, his guests reveal amazing—and often previously unexplored—depths about their personal experiences. In the process, they also reveal a great deal about life in general, especially the many difficulties in navigating all the absurdity, drama, and tragicomedy. Maron did the majority of the work to get these words out there, as they are drawn from his podcast, but he strongly implies that the transcription was someone else’s job. It is unclear who made perhaps the most important decision of all: organizing these transcriptions by theme. The book coalesces around chapters about such timeless themes as family, sex, addiction, mortality, and success and failure. Many of Maron’s subjects are among his professional colleagues and friends—among dozens of others, Robin Williams, Judd Apatow, Amy Poehler, Jimmy Fallon, Garry Shandling, Kevin Hart, Cheech Marin, Sarah Silverman—but he has interviewed a wide range of people from other walks of life, including Terry Gross, Melissa Etheridge, David Sedaris, Paul Thomas Anderson, and even then-President Barack Obama. As readers will expect, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, but what is more surprising and refreshing is how many profound and powerful insights Maron manages to draw from his guests. Many of the most tragic situations come from the comedians, and some of the funnier moments come from those whose job is not necessarily to make people laugh.
An insightful collection of interviews about what it means to be human. This book, it turns out, helps explain W is TF.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-08888-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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