Featured on NPR’s Fresh Air last night, a book about the Smother’s Brothers that is not owned by most of the libraries we checked, despite strong pre-pub reviews.

The book rose from #4,970 on Amazon to #134.

Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” David Bianculli Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Touchstone – (2009-12-01) ISBN / EAN: 1439101167 / 9781439101162

A new Sedaris audio-only title will be released Nov. 24, called Live for Your Listening Pleasure. It consists of highlights from his latest tour; events in Denver, NYC, Durham, L.A. and Atlanta. Similar to his 2002 Live At Carnegie Hall audio, this is a standalone and will not be published as a book.

A clip is available at Entertainment Weekly ’s “Shelf Life” blog and another is on the publisher’s web site.

We can do them one better; Hachette Audio is making a limited number of copies available for readers of EarlyWord. To enter, just send an email to EarlyWord, with “Sedaris Live” in the subject line, by 11:59 p.m, this Friday, Nov. 13. Don’t forget to include your shipping address (no P.O. box numbers). EarlyWord will select winners at random. This is only open to librarians residing in the 50 states.

Libraries we checked do not have the audio on order and WorldCat shows it listed on just one library catalog.

By the way, at least one wholesaler annotation incorrectly describes this as the 2002 Carnegie Hall recording. It is all new material.

David Sedaris: Live For Your Listening Pleasure David Sedaris Retail Price: $17.98 Audio CD: Publisher: Hachette Audio – (2009-11-24)

Also downloadable from OverDrive

—–

And, how retro and how David Sedaris, it will also be available in vinyl (this from the company that held a funeral for the cassette format over a year ago).

Love how different the vinyl and the CD covers are.

David Sedaris: Live For Your Listening Pleasure David Sedaris Retail Price: $24.98 Audio Cassette: Publisher: Hachette Audio – (2010-01-05) ISBN / EAN: 160788447X / 9781607884477

A friend’s father had a heavy Russian accent, but had little tolerance for those who couldn’t understand him. If questioned about what he said, he’d just get angry and repeat it exactly, but louder, MUCH louder. Sending him on an errand could be dangerous. That was reinforced the time he proudly came home bearing a cake decorated with the words “Happy Boy’s Day.”

If only he’d lived to learn that he’s not alone. The new book Cake Wrecks, based on the inspired blog, shows he could have done worse.

You’re unlikely to get your hands on a copy, since holds are heavy in every library we checked. The NYT recently put together a slide show of prime examples and, of course, there’s also the blog.

If you’re looking for a readalike, try The Gallery of Regrettable Food. Amazingly, libraries are showing copies on the shelf.

The Gallery of Regrettable Food James Lileks Retail Price: $22.95 Hardcover: 192 pages Publisher: Crown – (2001-09-11) ISBN / EAN: 0609607820 / 9780609607824

-

Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong Jen Yates Retail Price: $12.99 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing – (2009-10-01) ISBN / EAN: 0740785370 / 9780740785375

Making the rounds of TV talk shows next week is David Alan Grier, known for his appearances on the TV sketch comedy series In Living Color, various roles on Broadway and in the movies, and host of Comedy Central’s Chocolate News, which ran for a single season.

The book was not reviewed prepub. The publisher description says,

Grier unabashedly muses on politics, culture, and race while recounting his own life story in this edgy, timeless, hilarious, and revelatory memoir and look at all things Barack.

Among other appearances, Grier is scheduled for The Today Show on Monday and The View on Tuesday.

Most libraries do not show the book or audio on order.

Barack Like Me: The Chocolate-Covered Truth David Alan Grier Retail Price: $24.99 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Touchstone – (2009-10-06) ISBN / EAN: 1439154929 / 9781439154922

Audio: Simon and Schuster Audio; 9780743597722; $29.99

David Cross, who was on the TV series, Arrested Development, appeared on the Daily Show last night to promote his book, I Drink for a Reason. As a result, it rose from #3,001 to #101 in Amazon sales rankings. Libraries are showing one to one reserves on modest orders.

You won’t learn much about the book from this interview. Publishers Weekly said that Cross is “one of the few comedians working today with an easily identifiable comic voice, and his authorial debut ensures that his voice is heard on every page. Mixing bitterness and absurdity, the result is often piercing sarcasm.”

-

I Drink for a Reason David Cross Retail Price: $23.99 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Grand Central Publishing – (2009-08-31) ISBN / EAN: 0446579483 / 9780446579483

-

Also in unabridged audio from Hachette:

• ISBN-13: 978-1600246487; 6 CD’s; $29.98

The audio is downloadable from OverDrive.

————-

Appearing on the show tonight is Christopher McDougall author of Born to Run, which has been widely reviewed in the consumer press and on the NYT Hardcover and Hardcover extended list since the end of May (it’s currently at #17). Libraries are showing heavy holds, as high as 230 on 30 copies.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen Christopher McDougall Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2009-05-05) ISBN / EAN: 0307266303 / 9780307266309

Also in unabridged audio from Random House:

• ISBN-13: 978-0739383728; unabridged; $39.95

Both book and audio are downloadable from OverDrive.

Can the world get enough of lolcats – those pictures of cats doing something cute with cheekily misspelled captions that are as ubiquitous on the web as cat hair in a cat lover’s house? There’s already one book, I Can Has Cheezburger, which is available in 167 libraries according to World Cat. And now a second book is coming in September: How to Take Over Teh Wurld: A LOLcat Guide 2 Winning.

This week, Time magazine features the company behind icanhascheezburger.com and over 20 other related sites. Perhaps we shouldn’t be giving it more attention; one librarian told us that EarlyWord was the first site she checked every day. After we mentioned icanhascheezburger.com, we were demoted to #2.

I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun Professor Happycat, icanhascheezburger.com Retail Price: $10.00 Paperback: 192 pages Publisher: Gotham – (2008-10-07) ISBN / EAN: 159240409X / 9781592404094

–

How to Take Over Teh Wurld: A LOLcat Guide 2 Winning Professor Happycat, icanhascheezburger.com Retail Price: $12.00 Paperback: 192 pages Publisher: Gotham – (2009-09-01) ISBN / EAN: 1592405169 / 9781592405169

Last year, we were treated to a scary book titled How Not to Look Old. After years of being told we could be “fabulous at any age,” this book dared to say that looking younger is necessary for “personal and financial survival…people who are better-looking, younger, and slimmer are more likely to get a job and keep it.”

Naturally, it was a best seller.

Now we have a book that takes a humorous approach to the issue, with a slightly different title; How Not to Act Old: 185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame by Pamela Redmond Satra.

It looks like it may be a best seller, too. It came out a few days ago and rose to #364 on Amazon today. The Wall Street Journal covered it on Friday; A Dose of Behavorial Botox.

One of the hottest tips?  The best way to get a young person to return your cellphone call is ” to hang up without leaving a message.”

The book cover is a visual lesson in itself, but there are also several online video lessons, such as this one:

Most libraries do not own the book.

How Not to Act Old: 185 Ways to Pass for Phat, Sick, Hot, Dope, Awesome, or at Least Not Totally Lame Pamela Redmond Satran Retail Price: $14.99 Paperback: 192 pages Publisher: Harper Paperbacks – (2009-08-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061771309 / 9780061771309

Making fun of the NYT wedding announcements? You gotta love the idea; and obviously many people agree. Weddings of the Times: A Parody was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered last night and quickly zoomed up to #147 (from #15,292) on Amazon, even though it is not due to be released for another week.

Libraries are not showing it on order.

Weddings of the Times: A Parody (Kasper Hauser Comedy Group) Dan Klein, Robert Baedeker, John Reichmuth, James Reichmuth Retail Price: $12.95 Paperback: 128 pages Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin – (2009-06-09) ISBN / EAN: 0312380917 / 9780312380915

I’m sorry; we are shocked, SHOCKED. Only ONE of the libraries we checked has ordered I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun!

If you’re not wasting at least part of your day on LOL Cats, then you must surrender your MLS immediately.

Maybe you missed the fact that the site is doing what all good Internets do eventually. Unable to resist the stature, the glamour, not to mention the money that only “old media” can confer, they deign to press themselves into the pages of a  book (EarlyWord reported that LOL Cats was going that route MONTHS ago, but, unfortunately, before there was an ISBN. We know, we know, a book is just not real until there’s an ISBN. We givez U a brek).

Consider yourself warned; the book comes out week after next and is already at #21 on Amazon’s list.

No audio or large type edition has yet been announced (where are you, Recorded Books?):

I Can Has Cheezburger?: A LOLcat Colleckshun 

Professor Happycat

• Paperback: $10; 192 pages
• Publisher: Gotham (October 7, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 159240409X
• ISBN-13: 978-1592404094

After a string of reviews, Anglo Files: a Field Guide to the British by Sarah Lyle is piling up holds in some areas (over 70 on 4 copies in one library).

Library purchasing was light, which is odd given the innate appeal of poking fun at the Brits. The PW review probably put buyers off, saying the author’s observations of the British are “neither overly perceptive nor interesting and much of her material is creakingly familiar.”

The consumer reviews have essentially agreed with that assessment, but less harshly. The most recent, in Sunday’s NYT BR says,

Throughout her frequently amusing account of living in England as a reporter for The New York Times, Ms. Lyall takes refuge in roomy generalizations that are hard to refute while at the same time being, at best, half true.

“Frequently amusing” applied to a book on life among the Brits may be all readers need to hear.

Tantor has just released an audio verison which is not yet on order in the libraries I checked.

The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British

 Sarah Lyall

• Hardcover: $24.95; 256 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton (August 18, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0393058468
• ISBN-13: 978-0393058468

The finalists for the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor (for books published in CY 2007) have been announced:

Larry Doyle for I Love You, Beth Cooper, HarperCollins

Judge Firoozeh Dumas (Laughing Without an Accent and Funny in Farsi) says,

Clearly Larry Doyle was not the BOMC (“Big Man on Campus” for those of you who have suppressed the Eighties.) Had Larry been cool, he could have never written I Love You, Beth Cooper, a hilarious yet painfully accurate account of high school in all its pimply glory.

Patricia Marx for Him He Him Again The End of Him, S&S

Judge Robert Kaplow (The Cat Who Killed Lillian Jackson Braun: A Parody, and Me and Orson Welles: A Novel, among others) says,

…the care and exactness of language itself elevates the story into something more artful than simply a comic novel. There is a real sense of a complicated and contradictory human being, and it infuses every page of the novel.

 

Simon Rich for Ant Farm, Random House

Judge Christopher Buckley says the book is notable “for its youth and freshness and impertinence,” and Jon Stewart, the 2006 winner, called the book “hilarious.”

The winner will be announced Oct. 6.

Previous winners are:

• 1997  Ian Frazier for Coyote vs. Acme
• 1999  The editorial staff of The Onion for Our Dumb Century
• 2001  David Sedaris for Me Talk Pretty One Day
• 2004  [prize became annual] Christopher Buckley for No Way to Treat a First Lady
• 2005  Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin and David Javerbaum for America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction.
• 2006  Alan Zweibel for The Other Shulman
• 2007  Joe Keenan for My Lucky Star

Not only is a movie of  Elizabeth Gilbert’s long-running betseller, Eat, Pray, Love, in the works, but also a movie of the parody.

The Hollywood Reporter announced yesterday that Warner Bros. has acquired rights to the forthcoming book Drink, Play, F@#K: A Jilted Man’s Quest for Nirvana in Dublin, Vegas and Bangkok.

The book is by Andrew Gottlieb, one of the creators of “Z Rock,” a satire to debut on IFC this month. It’s about a man who, seeking solace after his wife leaves him, drinks his way through Dublin, gambles through Las Vegas and, well, does the third activity in the title, through Bangkok. The book comes out in January.

Gilbert’s memoir is being developed by Paramount, starring Julia Roberts, It’s scheduled for release in 2010. No timeline was announced for the parody.

Drink, Play, F@#K: A Jilted Man’s Quest for Nirvana in Dublin, Vegas and Bangkok

Andrew Gottlieb

• Paperback: $12.95
• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat (January 13, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0802170528
• ISBN-13: 978-0802170521

Kansas City, MO, Public Library ends its ORDER UP! Tales from the Dining Room series of programs with an appearance tomorrow evening by the author of Waiter Rant. The series  ”celebrates the triumphs and trials of service industry employees (waiters, waitresses, and cohorts) as well as the people who love them.”

The book, which began as the blog WaiterRant.net, has received strong media attention, sending it to #43 on Amazon over the weekend (it’s now at #65). Libraries show light ordering and heavy reserves (12 to 1 in some areas). Most do not own the audio.

Wall Street Journal, 8/1.  ”Take Your Own Damn Order“

“acerbic, biting and often hilarious accounts of

life behind the scenes at the front of the house.”

Today Show, 7/31, ‘Waiter Rant’: How to avoid spit in your food

USA Today, 7/30/08, “Waiter leaves dining tips“

Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip — Confessions of a Cynical Waiter

by The Waiter

• Hardcover: $24.95
• Publisher: Ecco (July 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0061256684
• ISBN-13: 978-0061256684
• Add Book To Cart

We’ve noted the appearance of Goodnight Bush on bestseller lists, beginning in mid-June on the Indie and San Francisco Chronicle lists and on the current NYT Hardcover Advice and USA Today lists.

Last night, the book was featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Addressing the criticism that the book is a sacrilege to the beloved Goodnight Moon, co-author Golan replies, “I think people really understand there’s a real poignancy to many of those images, and that’s the way it was intended.”

Goodnight Bush: A Parody

Gan Golan and Erich Origen

• Hardcover: $14.99
• Publisher: Little, Brown, (May 27, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 031604041X
• ISBN-13: 9780316040419

Iranian-American humorist Firoozeh Dumas appeared on NPR’s Weekend Edition on Saturday to discuss her new book, Laughing Without an Accent. As a result, it rose to #117 on the Amazon rankings, and her first book, Funny in Farsi rose to #208.

Funny in Farsi appeared on the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Indie bestseller lists when it was published in paperback.

Reserves are building in several libraries.

Laughing Without an Accent

Firoozeh Dumas

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Villard (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0345499565
• ISBN-13: 978-0345499561

Funny in Farsi

Firoozeh Dumas

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Villard (April 29, 2008)
• ISBN-10: 0345499565
• ISBN-13: 978-0345499561