How I Escaped My Certain Fate

Stewart Lee is one of the country's most respected comedians, a tireless generator of new material and the inspiration for 'national treasure' Ricky Gervais, which is the cue for the start of this part-memoir/part-show transcript. During a lull in performing stand-up, in which he co-wrote Jerry Springer: the Opera, he went to see Ricky Gervais and felt an unfamiliar jealousy. This was his thing. He soon returned to the stage.

This book documents that time, from post-Jerry Springer illness and depression to the three shows that cemented his reputation as the comedian for his generation (Stand-Up Comedian, 90s Comedian, 41st Best Stand-Up Ever), from tour diaries, to the genesis for ideas to his life behind the scenes while putting together the shows.

As an added bonus you get transcripts of each show, so you can deconstruct and absorb Lee's unique slow pacing and appreciate the way jokes build through familiarity, misdirection and repetition. As an added bonus to the added bonus, the transcripts are lovingly footnoted with the stories behind jokes, tour anecdotes, bibliographic material and asides.

This is a comedic book about comedy, perhaps the finest book ever put together about stand-up comedy, and certainly the funniest book you will read all year.

Ricky Gervais should be quaking in his flanimal pyjamas at the publication of the works of a true mastermind, and possibly the funniest person in the country.