The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club

Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 0375760911
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “I’ve changed a bit since high school. Back then I said no to using and selling drugs. I washed on a normal basis and still had good credit.” Introducing Laurie Notaro, the leader of the Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club. Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends—and that’s before she even puts on a bra. For the past ten years, Notaro has been entertaining Phoenix newspaper readers with her wildly amusing autobiographical exploits and unique life experiences. She writes about a world of hourly-wage jobs that require absolutely no skills, a mother who hands down judgments more forcefully than anyone seated on the Supreme Court, horrific high school reunions, and hangovers that leave her surprised that she woke up in the first place. The misadventures of Laurie and her fellow Idiot Girls (“too cool to be in the Smart Group”) unfold in a world that everyone will recognize but no one has ever described so hilariously. She delivers the goods: life as we all know it.

The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club

Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 1588362434
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death

Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 081297574X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Laurie Notaro has an uncanny ability to attract insanity—and leave readers doubled over with laughter. Need proof? Check out The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death and try not to bust a gut. Join Notaro as she experiences the popular phenomenon of laser hair removal (because at least one of her chins should be stubble-free); bemoans the scourge of the Open Mouth Coughers on America’s airplanes and in similarly congested areas; welcomes the newest ex-con (yay, a sex offender!) to her neighborhood; and watches, against her own better judgment, every Discovery Health Channel special on parasites and tapeworms that has ever aired—resulting in an overwhelming fear that a worm the size of a python will soon come a-knocking on her back door. In Notaro’s world, strangers are stranger than fiction. One must always check the hotel bathroom for hobo hairs and consciously remember not to stare at old men with giant man-boobies. And then there are the lessons she has learned the hard way: Though it may seem like a good idea, it’s best not to hire a tweaked-out homeless guy to clean up your yard. The Plain Dealer says that Laurie Notaro is “a scream, the freak-magnet of a girlfriend you can’t wait to meet for a drink to hear her latest story.” With The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, Notaro proves she’s not only funny but resigned to the fact that you can’t look bad ass in a Prius. Don’t even try.

Autobiography of a Fat Bride

Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 037576092X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
The author of the New York Times bestseller The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club tackles her biggest challenge yet: grown-up life. In Autobiography of a Fat Bride, Laurie Notaro tries painfully to make the transition from all-night partyer and bar-stool regular to mortgagee with plumbing problems and no air-conditioning. Laurie finds grown-up life just as harrowing as her reckless youth, as she meets Mr. Right, moves in, settles down, and crosses the toe-stubbing threshold of matrimony. From her mother's grade-school warning to avoid kids in tie-dyed shirts because their hippie parents spent their food money on drugs and art supplies; to her night-before-the-wedding panic over whether her religion is the one where you step on the glass; to her unfortunate overpreparation for the mandatory drug-screening urine test at work; to her audition as a Playboy centerfold as research for a newspaper story, Autobiography of a Fat Bride has the same zits-and-all candor and outrageous humor that made Idiot Girls an instant cult phenomenon. In Autobiography of a Fat Bride, Laurie contemplates family, home improvement, and the horrible tyrannies of cosmetic saleswomen. She finds that life doesn't necessarily get any easier as you get older. But it does get funnier.

There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell

Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 0812975723
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
The first novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club is a rollicking tale of small-town peculiarity, dark secrets, and one extraordinary beauty pageant. When her husband is offered a post at a small university, Maye is only too happy to pack up and leave the relentless Phoenix heat for the lush green quietude of Spaulding, Washington. While she loves the odd little town, there is one thing she didn’t anticipate: just how heartbreaking it would be leaving her friends behind. And when you’re a childless thirtysomething freelance writer who works at home, making new friends can be quite a challenge. After a series of false starts nearly gets her exiled from town, Maye decides that her last chance to connect with her new neighbors is to enter the annual Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant, a kooky but dead-serious local tradition open to contestants of all ages and genders. Aided by a deranged former pageant queen with one eyebrow, Maye doesn’t just make a splash, she uncovers a sinister mystery that has haunted the town for decades. “[Laurie Notaro] may be the funniest writer in this solar system.”—The Miami Herald

We Thought You Would Be Prettier

Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 0812969014
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
She thought she’d have more time. Laurie Notaro figured she had at least a few good years left. But no–it’s happened. She has officially lost her marbles. From the kid at the pet-food store checkout line whose coif is so bizarre it makes her seethe “I’m going to kick his hair’s ass!” to the hapless Sears customer-service rep on the receiving end of her Campaign of Terror, no one is safe from Laurie’s wrath. Her cranky side seems to have eaten the rest of her–inner-thigh Chub Rub and all. And the results are breathtaking. Her riffs on e-mail spam (“With all of these irresistible offers served up to me on a plate, I WANT A PENIS NOW!!”), eBay (“There should be an eBay wading pool, where you can only bid on Precious Moments figurines and Avon products, that you have to make it through before jumping into the deep end”), and the perils of St. Patrick’s Day (“When I’m driving, the last thing I need is a herd of inebriates darting in and out of traffic like loaded chickens”) are the stuff of legend. And for Laurie, it’s all true.

The Potty Mouth at the Table

Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451659415
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
From the celebrated author best known for the Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club and described as “the funniest writer in the solar system” (The Miami Herald) comes a new laugh-out-loud collection of essays on rudeness. Pinterest. Foodies. Anne Frank’s underwear. New York Times bestselling author Laurie Notaro—rightfully hailed as “the funniest writer in the solar system” (The Miami Herald)—spares nothing and no one, least of all herself, in this uproarious new collection of essays on rudeness. With the sardonic, self-deprecating wit that makes us all feel a little better about ourselves for identifying with her, Laurie explores her recent misadventures and explains why it’s not her who is nuts, it’s them (and okay, sometimes it’s her too). Whether confessing that her obsession with buying fabric has reached junior hoarder status or mistaking a friend’s heinous tattoo as temporary, Laurie puts her unique spin—sometimes bizarre, always entertaining—on the many perils of modern living in a mannerless society. From shuddering at the graphic Harry Potter erotica conjured up at a writer’s group to lamenting the sudden ubiquity of quinoa (“It looks like larvae no matter how you cook it”), The Potty Mouth at the Table is whip-smart, unpredictable, and hilarious. In other words, irresistibly Laurie.

Mr. Funny Pants

Author: Michael Showalter
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 0446563609
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
I was at my wit's end. I'd had enough of this job, this life, and my relationship had broken up. Should I eat chocolate, or go to India, or fall in love? Then I had a revelation: Why not do all three, in that order? And so it was that I embarked on a journey that was segmented into three parts and was then made into a major motion picture. Later, I woke up on an airplane with a hole in my face and a really bad hangover. I was ushered brusquely off the plane by my parents who took me to a rehab where I tested positive for coke, classic coke, special k (the drug), Special K (the cereal), mushrooms, pepperoni, and Restless Leg Syndrome. It was there that I first began painting with my feet. But rewind...the year was 1914. I was just a young German soldier serving in the trenches while simultaneously trying to destroy an evil ring with some help from an elf, a troll, and a giant sorcerer, all while cooking every recipe out of a Julia Child cookbook. What I'm trying to say is that there was a secret code hidden in a painting and I was looking for it with this girl who had a tattoo of a dragon! Let me clarify, it was the 1930s and a bunch of us were migrating out of Oklahoma, and I was this teenage wizard/CIA operative, okay? And, um then I floated off into the meta-verse as a ball of invisible energy that had no outer edge... Ugh, okay. None of this is true. I'm just kind of a normal guy from New Jersey who moved to New York, got into comedy, wrote this book about trying to write this book, and then moved to Alaska, became the mayor of a small town, spent $30,000 on underwear, and now I'm going to rule the world!!!

Crossing the Horizon

Author: Laurie Notaro
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451659407
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
In 1927, three women, including the daughter of an earl, a former cigar girl-turned-society darling, and a beauty pageant contestant, all vie to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.

Elf Girl

Author: Rev Jen
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451631669
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Documents the author's rise from art school misfit to "patron saint of the uncool," irreverently describing her hosting of an "anti-slam" open-mike performance series where everyone gets top accolades and her work as an apartment Troll Museum curator.