Local bestsellers for the week ended June 1
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Atria Books
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Berkley
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Knopf
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Doubleday
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Mariner Books
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Little, Brown and Company
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Ballantine Books
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Pamela Dorman Books
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
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Crown
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Mel Robbins
Hay House LL
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3.
Penguin Press
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Penguin Press
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W. W. Norton & Company
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Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster
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Scribner
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The Dial Press
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Random House
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John Green
Crash Course Books
PAPERBACK FICTION
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Ecco
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Berkley
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Riverhead Books
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Berkley
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Harper Perennial
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Vintage
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Harper Perennial
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Transit Books
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Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster
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Random House Trade Paperbacks
PAPERBACK NONFICTION
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Vintage
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Crown
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Harper Perennial
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Michael Finkel
Vintage
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Vintage
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Haymarket Books
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Knopf
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Milkweed Editions
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Matt Kracht
Chronicle Book
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TarcherPerigee
The New England Indie Bestseller List, as brought to you by IndieBound and NEIBA, for the week ended Sunday, June 1, 2025. Based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the New England Independent Booksellers Association and IndieBound. For an independent bookstore near you, visit
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New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Joe List interview: Comedian on tour, special, where to buy tickets
Vivid Seats is the New York Post's official ticketing partner. We may receive revenue from this partnership for sharing this content and/or when you make a purchase. Featured pricing is subject to change. Around 35 minutes into his new special, Joe List pitches a brilliant loophole for how you can get a complex drink made just how you like at Starbucks. The wily comedian's suggestion is simple: glance at your phone, act frazzled and tell the barista the beverage you're ordering is for your boss. 'I don't have a boss but this way they can be annoyed by the person I made up,' he quips. Advertisement This clever idea doesn't get the biggest laughs of List's hour, which he's dubbed 'Small Ball.' In fact, far from it. However, the bit is a perfect encapsulation of the Boston native's singular brand of neurotic comedy. He obsesses over minute details and finds the funny in oft-overlooked situations like the origin of Mountain Dew, Ben Affleck tipping a waitress at a poker table and proper stroller etiquette. And, while putting out a punchline-heavy special and touring the country might be more than enough for most comics, List double dipped this past year and just completed his feature film directorial debut 'Tom Dustin: Portrait of a Comedian.' The self-reflexive documentary follows his funny yet flawed comic friend, the titular Tom Dustin, who settled in Key West, FL, but can't help but wonder what would have happened had he taken a chance on New York. Rather than acting as a fly on the wall, List inserts himself in the narrative and avoids cliché by painting a nuanced warts-and-all picture of an entertainer and friend deserving of more recognition. That's not to mention, it's also very funny. Advertisement So, like List, we wanted go deeper. Our team took a magnifying glass to the oft-overlooked parts of the accomplished comic's oeuvre — his 'Last Comic Standing' past, marriage to fellow comedian Sarah Tollemache, parenting a one-year-old, narrative film works — and found out more about the man. Here's our conversation with comedian, writer, director, actor, podcaster and sometimes difficult Starbucks customer Joe List. Joe, we loved 'Small Ball.' What makes the new hour so special to you? Every time I finish a special, I can't believe that I did it again. You know, you're doing an hour on stage and you're like 'how am I going to write material again? I'm not going to have this much stuff.' Advertisement And then you kind of do it. So it feels like a miracle every time. I feel like this one is better than the last one based on audience reactions. Plus, it 's the first one I've done that wasn't filmed in New York at The Village Underground and it's the first time I've cut together two different nights in two different venues. So it's a lot of firsts for me. I think it's very good. I could be wrong. Is there a meaning behind the title 'Small Ball'? I was opening for Louis C.K. nine years ago and we did the L.A. Forum, which is a huge 16,000-seat venue. I didn't really know him at the time. Then, we all got on a private jet and he was like 'what a night, that was the best show.' F—ing Joe List playing small ball at the L.A. Forum.' I'm a big baseball guy, and I just liked the metaphor of drawing a walk and bunting a guy over because you see so many specials that have a crane shot and it's in a stadium or an arena or the guy comes up to the stage and there's sort of a big act out, which is fine for whoever's doing it. Advertisement But for me, I'm in a club talking about my d—, and ['Small Ball'] just felt like apt name. It's just here 'I am standing here. I'm not going to move around a lot, but I'm going to get the job done. It's not going to be too flashy.' You have a lot of material out in the ether. Four hourlong YouTube specials and half hours on Netflix and Comedy Central. Where would you tell fans to start that haven't consumed all of your work? You don't have to see the other specials to get them but 'I Hate Myself' just hit 10 million views. That was the first hour I did on YouTube and people really responded. Well, maybe that's the first one. I would tell people to go there and just watch them in order, if you can, for fun. But all of them I think are are strong and good. Obviously, I think they're good, I put them out. How would you describe your comedic voice at this point in your career? I don't know. I never think of comedy in that way or those terms. Whatever I think is funny in that moment is what I do. But I've had many bits through the years about how people think I'm a smart guy or educated but I'm not. I barely graduated high school and I'm not a nerd. People really think of me as this nerdy guy. The number one comment I get after shows is that audience members didn't think I was tall. I'm very tall, 6'2 and 180 pounds like an athlete, but I've had crooked teeth and glasses most of my life and a bad jawline. People think that I'm into sci-fi and I've never read a 'Harry Potter.' I'm horrible at math, I've never seen Lord of the Rings, I don't play chess, and I got laid a good amount. I have no formal education whatsoever. I went to zero college. The other thing is I like foreign films, but I also am obsessed with hockey. So, you know, I'm a complex guy. Advertisement Will you be doing new material on your upcoming tour? I'm in this weird area where I have about 45 minutes of new material and 40 of it is pretty good but still getting there. There's a lot of stuff that ends with me being like, 'alright, that's how that ends now.' And it's filthy. I just did an hour at the Wilbur Theater and afterwards, my mother was like 'you're vulgar now.' There's a lot of sex and marriage stuff. A lot of going to the doctor stuff. The other day I was in the bathroom stall and the guy next to me yelled 'f— you' to his bowel movement. So I'm doing a bit about that. I'm not maturing at all. Why did you want to make a doc about your friend? Advertisement Tom (Dustin) is always so compelling and funny, and I just thought it would work well. I wanted people to see him and know who he was because I have there are so many great comedians that don't live in New York or L.A. or just haven't really made much of an attempt to be known but they're great. It always bothers me that comedy fans are like, 'well, if he was any good, I would have heard of this guy' and I'm like 'well, you've never heard of 98% of the comedians' and there's a lot of great ones out there. And I thought our friendship would be compelling, too. Plus, he kills iguanas. He runs a club. The movie became much more than I anticipated. I really thought it was going to be Tom drinking, smoking and telling stories. Then it ended up being more about mental health than our relationship and the meaning of success. Advertisement Will you be making more documentaries like this? Patrick Holbert, who produced, edited and shot the movie with me, was saying this could be a series but a part of me feels like Tom would be hurt if we did another one. I am trying to make a documentary now about SkankFest and Luis J. Gomez would be a big part of that. We'd make it abot his life and the festival. You've also made a lot of great absurd and observational shorts. Do you have more narrative stuff in the works as well? Advertisement Raanan Hirschberg and I just had a meeting over Zoom. We're trying to write a sex comedy and I'm acting in some shorts. I'm always trying to make something. It becomes a little more difficult with a baby and a podcast. Podcasts always get in the way. It's nonsense. You and your wife Sarah roasted each other on Comedy Central. Was that a cathartic experience or did it open old wounds? To pull back the curtain on that roast, we wrote together. We worked on all the jokes together and with the aforementioned Tom Dustin. He wrote about 70% of the jokes. He's got a good mean streak and is obviously a brilliant writer. So we wanted to go over all the jokes because you never want to be surprised in a roast. You don't want to find out something about yourself at a roast. We went over what we were cool with and both of us were pretty good about letting the other 'have at it' since there's not a lot there for us to pick at. It's not like my wife cheated on me or vice versa. It's more 'he's got crooked teeth, she was a stripper.' So it was fun and there were no hard feelings whatsoever. People were like 'you must not have gotten laid for a year, you guys must have almost broken up' but it's like 'no, no, no.' We each knew what the other was going to say. Do you have any parenting advice for comedians that are planning on having children? Make sure you have a good, supportive wife. Just know that it'll be okay and you'll sleep at some other point. For me, I think comedy helps me because I was such a drunk lunatic for all of my twenties. My wife and I always laugh because everything feels easier now because we don't drink. All the baby challenges are much less difficult than getting on a cross-country flight, two hours after you finish drinking. That's what I would say. Get get sober, get a good life partner. Any great 'Last Comic Standing' stories? I did it in 2010 when Craig Robinson was hosting and Greg Giraldo, Natasha Leggero and Andy Kindler were on the show. I got edited out that year. Anyway, there was a long dead spot when we were waiting to roll camera and Craig Robinson reminded us 'everybody remember to see my movie 'Hot Tub Time Machine' and Greg Giraldo said 'what's it about?' That was great. Then, the second time I auditioned, I made it on. Norm MacDonald was the judge and was just so nice to me all the way through. He tweeted out, 'there's five great comedians and one of them is Joe List' or something like that. I have it somewhere. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Want to see List live? He'll be at New Jersey's Stress Factory Comedy Club from Nov. 6-8. Joe List tour schedule 2025 A complete calendar of all the venues you can see List at — including dates and links to buy tickets — on his upcoming tour can be found below. Comedians on tour in 2025 Typically at the end of stories we like to recommend artists similar to the subjects covered above. However, this time, we let Joe List take the reins. Here are his favorite working comics that he thinks you ought to see live. I love Maddie Weiner. She blows me away. I think she's going to be huge. She's like my favorite right now. Just works her a– off and is so young. Daniel Simonsen is another one. He's Norwegian and has such beautifully honest, dark stuff. Sam Morril, of course. My opener Luke Mones. It's always weird when people who started after you become your favorite comedians. And Colin Quinn, I always love to see. Who else is on the road? Check out our umm list of all the biggest comedians on tour in 2025 to find the show for you.
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
Local bestsellers for the week ended June 1
3. Atria Books 4. Berkley 5. Knopf 6. Doubleday 7. Mariner Books 8 Little, Brown and Company 9. Ballantine Books 10. Pamela Dorman Books HARDCOVER NONFICTION 1. Crown Advertisement 2. Mel Robbins Hay House LL C Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 3. Penguin Press 4. Penguin Press 5. W. W. Norton & Company 6. Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster 7. Scribner 8. The Dial Press Advertisement 9. Random House 10. John Green Crash Course Books PAPERBACK FICTION 1. Ecco 2. Berkley 3. Riverhead Books 4. Berkley 5. Harper Perennial 6. Vintage 7. Harper Perennial 8. Transit Books 9. Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster 10. Random House Trade Paperbacks PAPERBACK NONFICTION 1. Vintage 2. Crown 3. Harper Perennial 4. Michael Finkel Vintage 5. Vintage 6. Haymarket Books Advertisement 7. Knopf 8. Milkweed Editions 9. Matt Kracht Chronicle Book 10. TarcherPerigee The New England Indie Bestseller List, as brought to you by IndieBound and NEIBA, for the week ended Sunday, June 1, 2025. Based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the New England Independent Booksellers Association and IndieBound. For an independent bookstore near you, visit
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Mel Robbins's ‘let them' theory is changing lives. These 6 magic words changed hers.
'Let them' is the two-word phrase that Mel Robbins made famous when she wrote a book encouraging people to take control of their own lives by relinquishing judgment of (and from) others. Your friends didn't invite you to dinner? Let them. The car driver in front of you is going too slow? Let them. Your coworker is stepping on your toes at work? Let them — and spend your time doing something productive rather than worrying about it. It's a mantra that's struck a chord with millions around the world, propelling Robbins to household name status in the process. But there's a different phrase Robbins herself uses in her own day-to-day life: What if it all works out? Those are 'six magic words that change everything,' the 56-year-old author and podcast host tells me during a conversation for Yahoo Life's Unapologetically series, where we're set to discuss aging and reinvention. Robbins appears to have a positive outlook on both those things, but it wasn't always this way, and it didn't come overnight. 'Nothing that I teach or that I share online or in the podcast or in books or anywhere came from positive motivation. … I don't know what it is, but I am negatively motivated,' she admits. 'I literally had to learn everything the hard way. I had to just about lose everything that mattered to me. I had to get so sick of my own shit that I was like, There's got to be an easier way.' If you're unfamiliar with Robbins's lore — as I was before accidentally attending the New York stop of her 'Let Them: The Tour' — it's important to know the former lawyer's work in self-help began when she needed it most. At 41 years old, she found herself in massive debt, unhappy in her marriage and abusing alcohol, all while raising three young kids. She struggled with negative thinking until she decided to flip the script. 'If you're going to torture yourself by constantly considering the negative, you owe it to yourself to force yourself to consider the positive,' says Robbins of the six-word question. 'It is magical for anxiety. It's magical for procrastination. It's magical for perfectionism. It's magical for overthinking. It stops you from stopping yourself … and it has absolutely changed my life.' So does she believe in being older and wiser? Not really. But establishing honesty with herself and with others has helped. Here's what she has to say about it. When you recognize that almost everything that you believe was planted in your brain by parents or society or friends or the media, you also have this other epiphany: If my brain was taught to believe this, maybe I should get serious about teaching my brain to believe things that make me feel good instead of making me believe things that don't. That to me is kind of the biggest insight, that you don't have a choice over what's happened in the past and what brought you to where you are right now in this moment. … But you always have a choice from this moment on [in terms of] what you do next and what you say to yourself about the things that have happened. And that is a life-changing realization. That's not just positive thinking bulls***, because I don't think you just say positive things and the world's problems go away. What I'm talking about is intentionally encoding in your mind patterns of thinking that lift you up and make you more optimistic and resilient, which better equips you to deal with the very real issues, problems, challenges and opportunities that you're facing. They don't make things disappear. Your mindset has the power to armor you up in a way so that you're stronger and better equipped at facing what life throws your way. Reinvention in my life has been constant. And reinvention happens in different ways. You can be forced to reinvent yourself because you get fired or you can't pay your bills or you let yourself go and you can't climb a flight of stairs without hyperventilating or you realize you have been in a string of relationships with people that treat you like garbage. … So there are the moments where life forces your hand. For me, it was more an accumulation of things that were not working in my life, an accumulation of a way of going through life that didn't feel good and it finally just boiled over, and I'm like, I have to change, I'm not happy. … When you realize that, like, Wow, I've been depressed for 40 years. I'm kind of tired of feeling that way, that's the only realization that you need to go, There must be a better way. Of the 8 billion people on this planet, someone must have figured out how to go from where I am and what I feel to feeling a little better. And if someone else has done it, then maybe I can take those steps too. I think about life as if we are all on one big, long walk together. You start at mile marker zero, and you end wherever it ends. On the road of life, there are always going to be people that are slightly in front of you and people that are behind you, and not because of age. I think your mile markers mark the time here, but where people are on the road of life in relation to you has to do with whether or not they've gone through something. If you have the kind of mindset where you could learn anything from anyone, there are things that you've gone through that I haven't gone through yet, you're a couple steps ahead of me. And if I have an open mind and open energy, and I'm willing to lean into life and be interested in other people, there are things that you would teach me because you've gone through them and I haven't. The same is true with me. Just because I'm older doesn't mean I necessarily know more. I've certainly made more mistakes, but I look at everybody as somebody that you can learn from, and I personally feel like you are best equipped to help the person you used to be. Oh my god, no. I was a liar, I was a cheater, I was a people pleaser. I would do anything to make you like me. I would pretend I liked the same music you liked. What's interesting is I don't think it naturally comes with age either. I think a lot of people that say they know who they are in their 50s are lying. I think you can figure out who you are at any age if you actually start saying what you really feel and telling the truth and saying, 'I don't know but I can find out' or 'I've never experienced that' or 'I disagree with you.' … I think you can have that realization at 30, you can have it at 25 — but there's so much social pressure. Well, I always find it very jarring that when I was in my 30s, Betty White was on The Golden Girls. She was my age [now]. … I thought 50 would be time to get retired, time to start looking old, time to be irrelevant to society because, you know, it's about the 20-year-old celebrities and we're like the old mayors getting thrown out into the corral. No. It's actually the opposite. I feel like the longer you live, the more you know who you are and who you're not. And that's a very freeing thing. There is this massive kind of leveling up or self-awareness that we all have about the benefits and the importance of taking care of ourselves and understanding that just because you get older doesn't mean you're getting frail or ugly or unwanted or undeserving. … What's exciting about being 50 is that, given the world that we live in, there is so much amazing information about how to make the most of your life, whatever that means for you, no matter what age you are. I think one of the reasons why people are so inspired by what I'm doing is it happened late in life. It's not like I was a public figure in my 20s and then did multiple reinventions and now I'm hosting a podcast — and there's nothing wrong with that. But literally, I'm a woman who has been married 30 years, I've raised three children, I have experienced bankruptcy, depression, anxiety, postpartum depression, the ups and downs. And I have never thought about whether or not I need to be good-looking or better-looking. In fact, our content does better the worse I look because I look like myself I don't give a s*** what I look like. I really don't. … The obsession with beauty is both something that has been shoved at women and something we've allowed ourselves to be consumed by. And it is very liberating to understand that there is power in allowing yourself to be seen first by yourself and then by the world around you. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't look nice at work or dress up for an interview or dress the part. It doesn't mean you shouldn't pull yourself together because it makes you feel more confident. You should absolutely do those things. But it is liberating. Oh, 25 maybe. Although I was really f***ed up when I was 25, so maybe I don't want to go back to that age. I mean, that was pre-therapy, pre-getting the anxiety and childhood trauma under control, pre-diagnosis of ADHD. It's such a cliché, but I think age is more about energy and attitude. There have been periods of my life when I was a lot younger — I was in my mid-30s, for example — and I felt old and life felt heavy and I felt trapped or stuck or just did not know who I was, you know what I mean? So I do think it's really about the energy that you bring to life and the attitude that you have about life. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
