Before & Laughter

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uk/landing-page/quercus/quercus-company-information/">The data controller is Quercus Editions Ltd. Everything in it will not be for everyone (certainly wasn't for me), but if you can find one or two things that inspire you, that might be good enough I reckon. Also PSA it is like a self help book/ autobiography- not just an autobiography like I thoughy it would be. Fake it – pretending to be a better person than being a bad person or indistinguishable to the casual observer.

Once again, I am quite a biased reviewer when it comes to authors I have a soft spot for; this notion is no less present when it comes to Jimmy Carr’s semi autobiographical self help book. This book tells the story of how Jimmy turned it around and got happy, through the redemptive power of dick jokes. Written to take advantage of the brief window between the end of lockdown and Jimmy getting cancelled for saying something unforgivable to Lorraine Kelly, this book is as timely as it is unnecessary.

At just 20, it's cheaper than Scientology, quicker than therapy, and significantly less boring than church. Here are three tips for when you are feeling depressed, courtesy of the great documentary filmmaker Ken Burns: Remember this won’t last. The distress or anxiety about a situation that can cause us grief; it's probably only 10% of what happens to us is an actual problem, the other 90% is how we respond to the problem. The unexpected bursts of laughter have turned me into the office jester, catching the eye of women who can't resist a man with a knack for unintentional comedy.

There are glimpses of Carr here as he touches on his relationship with his parents, shares the story of throwing in his corporate job at Shell to take a chance on comedy, offers a mea culpa for his ‘tax thing’, and speaks of his partner and child, but largely this is a book of advice on how to find your purpose and be true to yourself. This insight was something I hadn’t expected but am glad that I got it, as it made for a truly wonderful reading experience. In this fun book, Jimmy Carr tells a few stories of his life, but intersperses it with all the self-help advice and wisdom he’s learnt along the way. And for readers in the West Country: yes, there are pictures (actually, sorry, there are no pictures, but there’s a book about a hungry caterpillar you’ll love). Môže to byť super trebárs pre tínedžerov so zmyslom pre čierny humor, ale pre čitateľa od 17 rokov vyššie je to takpovediac cringe.It was personal without being overly invasive and inspiring without being overbearing, the kind of book that sparks a tiny fire to want to do a bit better in you. Some of his thoughts were interesting but a little too much time spent preaching making it a bit tedious.

I loathe self-help books, I judge people who read them to find solutions to their problems and I find them boring and utterly stupid, not that I have read many, or any. Mid way between an autobiography and a self help book, it offered a lighthearted perspective of the difficult parts of life. I can’t recommend the audiobook enough, as I was laughing so often I lost track of time and “like a teenager with a laptop, I was surprised at how far I’d come”. Before making the move to streaming, Jimmy was one of the bestselling acts in the comedy DVD market, selling over 2 million copies.I really loved the fact that this book wasn’t a standard autobiography; the mix between biography and self-help book was both strange and awesome, and to be honest, I wouldn’t expect anything other than strange and awesome from Jimmy Carr. I believe we’ve got two big adventures in life: the first is finding your purpose and the second is pursuing that purpose. Unlike other self-help books that I have read in the past, he doesn’t waffle, he just gives one piece of self-help advice after another with a bit of explanation why his advice might work. Too little depth, too little of Jimmy's life and too little of things that interested me personally lol.

I enjoyed the parts where he shares anecdotes from his career or talks about his life more than the self help stuff.

He was also the first UK comedian to sign a stand-up deal with streaming behemoth Netflix in 2015, releasing two specials on the platform, Funny Business (2016) and Best Of Ultimate Gold Greatest Hits (2018). The great thing about the audiobook is that Jimmy Carr is telling you jokes along with every really important snippet of self-help advice. It tells the story of Jimmy’s life – the transformation from white-collar corporate drone to fake-toothed donkey-laugh plastic-haired comedy mannequin – while also explaining how to turn your own life around and become the you you’ve always dreamt of being. Immense - after hearing Jimmy on The Diary of a CEO, I realised that he was a very intelligent guy and had a lot of share.