Christmas Day here in the Valley was complete with extremely high winds and torrential rainfall. Not a nice day at all. But now that it's Boxing Day, it's pretty balmy. Jo and I had a nice day yesterday, considering the weather, an excellent turkey dinner and basically a relaxing, peaceful day.
Jo bought me a couple of books for Xmas so I guess it's a perfect time to highlight some of the books I got in December. I'll start with the two that Jo gave me.
New Books - December 2023.
"Authors Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key build on the popularity of their 2022 Webby Award – winning podcast and delve deeper into the world of sketch, helped along with new essays created expressly for the book by comedy greats.
The History of Sketch Comedy will appeal to all kinds of comedy fans as well as fans of Keegan-Michael Key, whether they know him from his Emmy and Peabody-winning work on Key & Peele; his roles in Fargo , The Prom , Schmigadoon! , The Bubble , and the upcoming Wonka ; voiceover work in The Lion King ; or as President Barack Obama's anger translator, Luther.With epic personal tangents and hilarious asides, the Keys take you on an illuminating journey through all facets of comedy from the stock characters of commedia del arte in the 16th century, to the rise of vaudeville and burlesque, the golden age of television comedy, the influence of the most well-known comedy schools, and the ascension of comedy films and TV specials—all the way through to a look at the future of sketch on social media platforms. Along the way, we hear tales of Keegan's childhood, his comedy influences, and the vicissitudes of his career path. As the New York Times said in its review of their podcast, "this comedy nerd history is filtered through memoir, with Key relating stories of his budding fandom, training and rise from improv comic to television sketch artist."
Part memoir, part masterclass, and hilariously embellished with priceless commentary, The History of Sketch Comedy highlights the essential building blocks of sketch comedy while interweaving Keegan's personal career journey and the influence of his comedy heroes. The text is complemented by original art by Elle Key and exclusive essays compiled from conversations with influential performers, sketch writers, and uber comedy fans including Mel Brooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, John Oliver, Tracy Morgan, Carol Burnett, Jim Carrey, Jordan Peele, and many more. This book is as entertaining as it is enlightening—a must-read for fans of comedy and all who aspire to comic greatness."
"Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Well, he would be perfectly normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the world of the dead.
There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard: the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer; a gravestone entrance to a desert that leads to the city of ghouls; friendship with a witch, and so much more.
But it is in the land of the living that real danger lurks, for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod's family."
"Just as the Signalman stood and faced the void in Agents of Dreamland, so it falls to Ptolema, a chess piece in her agency’s world-spanning game, to unravel what has become tangled and unknowable.
Something strange is happening on the shores of New England. Something stranger still is happening to the world itself, chaos unleashed, rational explanation slipped loose from the moorings of the known. Two rival agencies stare across the Void at one another. Two sisters, the deadly, sickened products of experiments going back decades, desperately evade their hunters.
An invisible war rages at the fringes of our world, with unimaginable consequences and Lovecraftian horrors that ripple centuries into the future."
"Fugitive Rachel Nolander is a newcomer to the city of Dogsland, where the rich throw parties and the poor just do whatever they can to scrape by. Supported by her brother Djoss, she hides out in their squalid apartment, living in fear that someday, someone will find out that she is the child of a demon. Corporal Jona Lord Joni is a demon's child too, but instead of living in fear, he keeps his secret and goes about his life as a cocky, self-assured man of the law. The first book in the Dogsland Trilogy, Never Knew Another is the story of how these two outcasts meet."
"In public life, Dr. Winthrop Bell of Halifax was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As MI6 secret agent A12, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy in 1919 Berlin. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for WWII, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, and to prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts. Nevertheless, his intelligence sabotaged the Nazis in ways only now revealed. Bell became a spy once again in the face of WWII. In 1939, he was the first to crack Hitler’s deadliest secret code: the Holocaust. At that time, the führer was a popular politician who said he wanted peace. Could anyone believe Bell’s shocking warning? Fighting an epic intelligence war from Ukraine, Russia and Poland to France, Germany, Canada and Washington, DC, A12 was the real-life 007, waging a single-handed fight against madmen bent on destroying the world. Without Bell’s astounding courage, the Nazis might just have won the war."
"Meet the Bertie, Betsy, their children, Brutus and Bunny, along with their beloved grandma Old Lady Blunder, and their pet ostrich, Cedric. An ostrich is not a sensible pet, but then the Blunders are not sensible people. This family of upper-class twits lives in a crumbling country house named Blunder Hall. When their home comes under threat, they must embark on a series of comic misadventures to save it."
"One woman.
One mission.
One chance to save the world.
It's 1952, and the world as we know it is gone. A meteorite has destroyed Washington DC, triggering extinction-level global warming.
To save humanity, the world unites to form the International Aerospace Coalition. Its mission: to colonize first the Moon, then Mars.
Elma York, World War Two pilot and mathematician, dreams of becoming an astronaut - but prejudice has kept her grounded.
Now nothing - and no man - will stop her from reaching for the stars."
I got a few others but they are mostly continuations of series I'm already enjoying. I hope these books give you some reading ideas for 2024. Happy Boxing Day.
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