A Comedian's Prayer Book

Author: Frank Skinner
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 1529368979
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 54

Book Description
A Comedian's Prayer Book. The title is a worry, isn't it?... God is a tough audience as far as audible response is concerned, but at least you don't have to explain the references. In this collection of prayers, much-loved comedian, broadcaster and radio host Frank Skinner has tried to retain the bare candour of the rehearsal-room improvisation - to show what faith feels like, from the inside - but infused it with all the production values required to make it a passable public entertainment. In it are his convictions, his questions, his fears, his doubts, his elations - all presented in an eavesdropper-friendly form. Hell, Judgement, atheism, money, faith and the X-Men all feature: it's a bit like reading the Bible, except you only get one side of the conversation, and all the jokes are left in.

Frank Skinner on the Road

Author: Frank Skinner
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0099458039
Category : Comedians
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Book Description
Frank Skinner's adventures on tour are by turns funny and moving as he meditates on growing older, the terrors and joys of trying to make a live audience laugh night after night and on the nature of comedy itself. This work describes his experience of going back on the road and doing stand-up again, after many years spent working on television.

Frank Skinner Autobiography

Author: Frank Skinner
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1409065243
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Book Description
A hilarious autobiography from one of Britain's funniest and most successful comedians. Born Chris Collins in 1957, Frank Skinner he grew up in the West Midlands where he inherited his father's passion for football - and alcohol. Expelled from school at 16, Frank had been nurturing a serious drink problem from the age of 14, but managed to go teetotal in 1987. Along with personal revelations, it helped turn his life around. His first television appearance in 1988 was met with raucous laughter from the audience - and 131 complaints, including one from cabinet minister Edwina Currie. He met fellow comedian David Baddiel in 1990, and the two went on to share a flat throughout the early 90s and to create the hit TV series Fantasy Football League. Winner of the prestigious Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival, Skinner's comedy is a groundbreaking mix of laddish and philosophical humour, one which has helped shape the British comedy scene ever since. From The Frank Skinner Show to co-writing the football's-coming-home classic Three Lions, his career has never been boring. Here, for the first time, Frank candidly tells us of the highs and lows of his fascinating life.

Skinner

Author: Charlie Huston
Publisher: Mulholland Books
ISBN: 031620241X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
Skinner founded his career in "asset protection" on fear. To touch anyone under his protection was to invite destruction. A savagely effective methodology, until Skinner's CIA handlers began to fear him as much as his enemies did and banished him to the hinterlands of the intelligence community. Now, an ornate and evolving cyber-terrorist attack is about to end that long exile. His asset is Jae, a roboticist with a gift for seeing the underlying systems violently shaping a new era of global guerrilla warfare. At the root of it all is a young boy, the innocent seed of a plot grown in the slums of Mumbai. Brought to flower, that plot will tip the balance of world power in a perilous new direction. A combination of Le Carre spycraft with Stephenson techno-philosophy from the novelist hailed by the Washington Post as "the voice of twenty-first century crime fiction," Skinner is Charlie Huston's masterpiece -- a new kind of thriller for a new kind of world.

Science And Human Behavior

Author: B.F Skinner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476716153
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Book Description
The psychology classic—a detailed study of scientific theories of human nature and the possible ways in which human behavior can be predicted and controlled—from one of the most influential behaviorists of the twentieth century and the author of Walden Two. “This is an important book, exceptionally well written, and logically consistent with the basic premise of the unitary nature of science. Many students of society and culture would take violent issue with most of the things that Skinner has to say, but even those who disagree most will find this a stimulating book.” —Samuel M. Strong, The American Journal of Sociology “This is a remarkable book—remarkable in that it presents a strong, consistent, and all but exhaustive case for a natural science of human behavior…It ought to be…valuable for those whose preferences lie with, as well as those whose preferences stand against, a behavioristic approach to human activity.” —Harry Prosch, Ethics

How to Enjoy Poetry

Author: Frank Skinner
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1529412978
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 30

Book Description
'Someone recently said to me, in reference to my poetry podcast, that you'd think poetry would be more popular than ever, in the twenty-first century, because people don't have a lot of time and 'novels are often quite big while poems are often quite small'. I referred them to Doctor Who's Tardis.' Frank Skinner wants you to read more poetry. Wait, wait - don't stop reading. Whether you're a frequent poetry reader or haven't read any since sixth form, Frank's infectious passion for language, rhythm and metre will win you over and provide you with the basic tools you need to tackle any poem. In this short, easy-to-digest and delightful book, Frank guides us through the twists and turns of 'Pad, pad' by Stevie Smith, a short, seemingly simple poem that contains multitudes of meaning and a deceptive depth of emotion. Revel in the mastery of Stevie Smith's choice of words, consider the eternal mystery of the speaker of the poem and be moved by rhyming couplets like you never have before. Give it a go. You never know, you might even enjoy it.

Things to Do Instead of Killing Yourself

Author: Tara Booth
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788894895407
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

Trust Me, I'm Dr. Ozzy

Author: Ozzy Osbourne
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1455503347
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Book Description
Wondering if science could explain how he survived his 40-year avalanche of drugs and alcohol, Ozzy Osbourne became one of a handful of people in the world to have his entire DNA mapped in 2010. It was a highly complex, $65,000 process, but the results were conclusive: Ozzy is a genetic anomaly. The "Full Ozzy Genome" contained variants that scientists had never before encountered and the findings were presented at the prestigious TEDMED Conference in San Diego-making headlines around the world. The procedure was in part sponsored by The Sunday Times of London, which had already caused an international fururoe by appointing Ozzy Osbourne its star health advice columnist. The newpaper argued that Ozzy's mutliple near-death experiences, 40-year history of drug abuse, and extreme hypocondria qualified him more than any other for the job. The column was an overnight hit, being quickly picked up by Rolling Stone to give it a global audience of millions. In Trust Me, I'm Dr. Ozzy, Ozzy answers reader's questions with his outrageous wit and surprising wisdom, digging deep into his past to tell the memoir-style survival stories never published before-and offer guidance that no sane human being should follow. Part humor, part memoir, and part bad advice, Trust Me, I'm Dr. Ozzy will include some of the best material from his published columns, answers to celebrities' medical questions, charts, sidebars, and more.

Rivers

Author: Michael Farris Smith
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451699441
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 368

Book Description
For fans of Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx, “a wonderfully cinematic story” (The Washington Post) set in the post-Katrina South after violent storms have decimated the region. It had been raining for weeks. Maybe months. He had forgotten the last day that it hadn’t rained, when the storms gave way to the pale blue of the Gulf sky, when the birds flew and the clouds were white and sunshine glistened across the drenched land. The Gulf Coast has been brought to its knees. Years of catastrophic hurricanes have so punished and depleted the region that the government has drawn a new boundary ninety miles north of the coastline. Life below the Line offers no services, no electricity, and no resources, and those who stay behind live by their own rules—including Cohen, whose wife and unborn child were killed during an evacuation attempt. He buried them on family land and never left. But after he is ambushed and his home is ransacked, Cohen is forced to flee. On the road north, he is captured by Aggie, a fanatical, snake-handling preacher who has a colony of captives and dangerous visions of repopulating the barren region. Now Cohen is faced with a decision: continue to the Line alone, or try to shepherd the madman’s prisoners across the unforgiving land with the biggest hurricane yet bearing down—and Cohen harboring a secret that poses the greatest threat of all. Eerily prophetic in its depiction of a Southern landscape ravaged by extreme weather, Rivers is a masterful tale of survival and redemption in a world where the next devastating storm is never far behind.“This is the kind of book that lifts you up with its mesmerizing language then pulls you under like a riptide” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Author: Gene Odom
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0767910273
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Book Description
The first complete, unvarnished history of Southern rock’s legendary and most popular band, from its members’ hardscrabble boyhoods in Jacksonville, Florida and their rise to worldwide fame to the tragic plane crash that killed the founder and the band’s rise again from the ashes. In the summer of 1964 Jacksonville, Florida teenager Ronnie Van Zant and some of his friends hatched the idea of forming a band to play covers of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds and the country and blues-rock music they had grown to love. Naming their band after Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher at Robert E. Lee Senior High School who constantly badgered the long-haired aspiring musicians to get haircuts, they were soon playing gigs at parties, and bars throughout the South. During the next decade Lynyrd Skynyrd grew into the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful of the rock bands to emerge from the South since the Allman Brothers. Their hits “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama” became classics. Then, at the height of its popularlity in 1977, the band was struck with tragedy --a plane crash that killed Ronnie Van Zant and two other band members. Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock is an intimate chronicle of the band from its earliest days through the plane crash and its aftermath, to its rebirth and current status as an enduring cult favorite. From his behind-the-scenes perspective as Ronnie Van Zant’s lifelong friend and frequent member of the band’s entourage who was also aboard the plane on that fateful flight, Gene Odom reveals the unique synthesis of blues/country rock and songwriting talent, relentless drive, rebellious Southern swagger and down-to-earth sensibility that brought the band together and made it a defining and hugely popular Southern rock band -- as well as the destructive forces that tore it apart. Illustrated throughout with rare photos, Odom traces the band’s rise to fame and shares personal stories that bring to life the band’s journey. For the fans who have purchased a cumulative 35 million copies of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s albums and continue to pack concerts today, Lynyrd Skynyrd is a celebration of an immortal American band.