2011 comedy autobiography boss
Tina Fey, thank you for making awkward the new awesome! (Also, thank you for making my treadmill workouts not as boring!)
Title:Bossypants
Author:Tina Fey
Publication Date: January 1,
Category: (Non-Fiction) Autobiography / Memoir / Humor
Introduction
Before Liz Lemon, before &#;Weekend Update,&#; before &#;Sarah Palin,&#; Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.
She has seen both these dreams come true.
Discussion
So my first recommendation is that you get the audiobook version of Bossypants, which is narrated by Tina Fey herself and is twice as funny as the book version! I listened to the entire audiobook during my half-marathon training runs, and it made my life soooo much better.
I&#;m not naturally witty/funny, so I&#;m always in awe of people who are. Tina Fey is one of those people. I don&#;t usually watch SNL or know that many comedians in general, and the only thing I knew about Tina Fey was that she imitated Sarah Palin back in the day, but this book made me want to get to know her more. Fey speaks of her life experiences, beginning from awkward childhood all the way up until her first pregnancy&#; and she just makes everything sound so interesting! She doesn&#;t try to hard to be funny&#; she just IS. From her finding her first job to her relationships (which are slightly less terrible than usual but still more interesting because Tina Fey just presents them better), to her vacationing with her husband and her becoming The Boss, Tina Fey&#;s awkward and humorous tone shines through without fail. This collection of memories seems to work better when I listen to it vs. when I read it, since the prior makes me feel like I&#;m listening to a very talkative friend blabber on, and the latter makes me feel like I&#;m reading a book with no plot. But Tina Fey is
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STEVE JOBS
In , Steve Jobs asked former TIME Magazine editor and prolific biographer Walter Isaacson to write his biography. Isaacson &#; who has previously profiled such icons as Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Kissinger &#; thought the request not only presumptuous but also odd for a man of Jobs&#;s age. What he didn&#;t know was that Jobs had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had starkly brushed up against his mortality. Over the next few years, Isaacson ended up having over 40 interviews and conversations with Jobs, from which he gleaned the backbone for Steve Jobs, his highly anticipated biography &#; perhaps an expected pick for my omnibus of the year&#;s best biographers and memoirs, yet very much a deserving one, not merely because Jobs was a personal hero who shaped my own intellectual and creative development, but also because beneath the story of Jobs as an individual lies a broader story about the meat of innovation and creativity at large.
He was not a model boss or human being, tidily packaged for emulation. Driven by demons, he could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and passions and products were all interrelated, just as Apple&#;s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is thus both instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.&#;
Sample the book through Isaacson&#;s conversation with Charlie Rose and Nick Bilton&#;s excellent one-on-one interview with the author.
For a complementary read, see I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Wor autobiographical comedy book by Tina Fey Bossypants is an autobiographicalcomedy book written by the American comedian Tina Fey. The book topped The New York Times Best Seller list, and stayed there for five weeks upon its release. As of November , the book has sold over million copies since its debut, according to Nielsen BookScan. Additionally, Fey's Grammy nominated narration of the audiobook has sold over , copies on A paperback reprint edition was released in January , from Reagan Arthur Books, an imprint of Little, Brown. The front cover features hand model and actor Joe Rosario. In , the prospect of a Tina Fey book was reportedly the subject of a bidding war among publishers, which led to an advance of $6 million. As part of her deal with Little, Brown & Co., a gift was made to the New York-based Books for Kids Foundation. Bossypants received greatly positive reviews. According to Book Marks, the book received a "positive" consensus, based on thirteen critic reviews: four "rave", three "positive", five "mixed", and one "pan".The BookScore assessed it an aggregated critic score of out of 10 from an accumulation of American and British press. Janet Maslin for The New York Times calls Bossypants "a spiky blend of humor, introspection, critical thinking and Nora Ephron-isms for a new generation."Katie Roiphe for Slate is favorable toward the humor in Bossypants, especially how Fey wields jokes as a personal display of power. The book was also praised by Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote, "any concern that Fey, like so many before her, has been ruined by fame is quickly dispelled by Bossypants, a book that reminds you why Fey has succeeded where so many have failed — because she is precise, professional and hilariou
Bossypants
So what's to love about "Bossypants," besides everything? For starters, how Tina just tells it (and by "it," I mean everything from working at SNL to impersonating Sarah Palin) like it is. She's got a fierce feminist streak in her, but it's a feminism that exhibits itself in her trademark no-bullshit kind of way. It's more or less the message of, "I will be who I want to be and I do not care if you like it". Oh, and she's quick to call other women out for being catty — while, at the same time, being the first to admit she's played that card plenty of times in her own past.
And that, perhaps, is what makes Tina Fey so gosh darn likable. She IS us, right down to admitting her faults. You have to laugh reading chapters like "Amazing, Gorgeous, Not Like That" (in which Tina breaks down what a photo shoot is REALLY like) because you think, "YES! That is exactly what I thought it'd be like!" What I loved most about this book is Tina's voice can be heard through the whole thing. That's not an easy thing for an author to do, but you feel as though Tina is reading these stories to you (fan girl I am, I still want the audio version so, you know, Tina actually CAN read these stories to me!)
Personal highlights:
• The chapter on her dad, "That's Don Fey" ("How can I give [my daughter] what Don Fey gave me? The gift of anxiety. The fear of getting in trouble. The knowledge that while you are loved, you are not above the law.")
• Her chapters on being very very skinny and being a little bit fat— brilliant essays on women and weight shared in a way I think only she could nail.
• She has a girl crush on Amy Poehler and a work crush on Alec Baldwin (whom she gives way too Bossypants
Background
Reception