A Bad Idea I'm About to Do

Let’s face it: we all want a seat at the cool table, a great job, and loads of money. But most of us won’t be able to achieve this widely accepted, black-or-white, definition of winning, which makes us feel like failures, that we’re destined to a life of loserdom. That’s the conventional wisdom. It’s also crap, according to comedian and cult hero Chris Gethard, who knows a thing of two about losing. Failing is an art form, he argues; in fact, it’s the only the way we’re ever going to discover who we are, what we really want, and how to live the kind of life we only dreamed about.

Comedians Elis James and John Robins have captured the hearts and minds of a generation, and it's time those hearts and minds had a book. Elis and John met in 2005 performing stand-up comedy in a pub called The Yellow Kangaroo in Cardiff. They eyed each other suspiciously before Robins offered the limpest handshake in the history of the world. 'It was a power play,' says Robins. 'I may even have raised it for him to kiss.'

This is a story about madness. It all starts when journalist Jon Ronson is contacted by a leading neurologist. She and several colleagues have recently received a cryptically puzzling book in the mail, and Jon is challenged to solve the mystery behind it. As he searches for the answer, Jon soon finds himself, unexpectedly, on an utterly compelling and often unbelievable adventure into the world of madness.

Nowadays, the world is full of people trying to tell us things. So much so that we have taught our brains not to pay much attention. After all, click the mouse, tap the screen, flick the channel and it’s on to the next thing. But Dave Gorman thinks it’s time to have a closer look, to find out how much nonsense we tacitly accept. Suspicious adverts, baffling newspaper headlines, fake twitter, endless cat videos, insane TV shows where the presenters ask the same questions over and over.

Mostly true stories by the irrepressible star of the hit Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. There comes a time in every actress' life when she is faced with the prospect of writing a book. Ellie Kemper, the star of hit Netflix sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, first gained attention with a one-woman show, Feeling Sad/Mad, at the UCB Theatre in New York, founded by a comedy troupe that counted Amy Poehler, among others, in its ranks. Kemper's popularity exponentially grew with a regular role in the US version of The Office, followed by appearances in the highly successful Bridesmaids and 21 Jump Street.

Isy woke up one day in her late 20s to discover that the invisible deal she'd done with her best mates - that they'd prolong growing up for as long as possible - had all been in her head. Everyone around her is suddenly into mortgages, farmers' markets and nappies rather than the idea of running naked into the sea or getting hammered in Plymouth with 80-year-old men.

You're not imagining it. People are getting ruder. And this is a serious problem. The book that inspired the iTunes Top Ten podcast. Did you know that even one rude comment in a life-and-death situation can decrease a surgeon’s performance by as much as 50 percent? That we say we don’t want rude politicians, but we vote for them anyway? Or that rude language can sway a jury in a criminal case? Best-selling writer and broadcaster Danny Wallace (Yes Man, Awkward Situations for Men) is on a mission to understand where we have gone wrong.

Rob Delaney is a father, a husband, a comedian, a writer. He is the author of an endless stream of beautiful, insane jokes on Twitter. He is sober. He is sometimes brave. He speaks French. He has bungee-jumped off the Manhattan Bridge. He enjoys antagonizing political figures, powerful retailers and the Kardashians. He listens to metal while he works out. He broke into an abandoned mental hospital with his mother. He played Sir Lancelot in Camelot. He has battled depression. He is funny as s***. He cleans up well. He and Margaret Atwood have a thing going on Twitter.

Danny Wallace had been staying in. Far too much. Having been dumped by his girlfriend, he really wasn't doing the young, free and single thing very well. Instead he was avoiding people. Texting them instead of calling them. Calling them instead of meeting them. That is until one fateful date when a mystery man on a late-night bus told him to 'say yes more'. These three simple words changed Danny's life forever. Yes Man is the story of what happened when Danny decided to say YES to everything.

Danny Wallace is about to turn 30. Recently married and living in a smart new area of town, he's swapped pints down the pub for lattes and brunch. For the first time in his life, he's feeling, well...grown-up.