Gushing Over Aisha Tyler’s ‘Self-Inflicted Wounds’

I have spent the better part of the last year subtly (okay not so subtly – there’s really nothing subtle about me) stalking the publication of a book. As a fan of Aisha Tyler’s podcast, Girl on Guy, how could I not be super excited about her new book, Self-Inflicted Wounds, which came out this week?

No really, I expect an answer.

For those of you not in the know, Tyler podcasts weekly, interviewing a wide range of well-known folks – mostly men (hence the name of the show) – from entertainment, culinary arts, science and the gaming industry.

She’s kind of a big nerd, and it’s completely awesome.

Towards the end of all of her podcasts, she does a segment called “self-inflicted wounds” where the guest tells a story of totally abject humiliation at their own hands. Sometimes they are drinking stories; sometimes they are more personal. Regardless, they are always either moving or hilarious or both.

Her new book is a whole collection of her own self-inflicted wounds, and I have been dying to read it since she started teasing it a few months back. As soon as it was out, I downloaded it on my Kobo and have been devouring it with every single subway ride and down moment.

It is, in a word, hilarious. Here are three of my favorite things so far – please excuse my bastardized version of notation. As I said, I’m reading it on an e-reader so there aren’t really page numbers.

On her mother:

On boobs:

On dads

I can’t put my finger on exactly why I think this book is so awesome.

Maybe it’s because I have been listening to her podcast for better part of the last two years? Maybe it’s because she is actually one of the funniest people I have ever put into my music-playing device? Maybe it’s because every time I listen to her podcast I chuckle a little bit because she talks really fast and gets super excited about incredibly nerdy things?

It could also be because she shamelessly loves a good cocktail and once sprained her eyeball staring at a computer for too long. (No really, go find that story on the podcast. It’s awesome.) I just really feel like she would understand the pain and horror that has been every trip I have taken up the stairs, every cocktail tray full of adult beverages that I have dropped, and every time a friend has interrupted me mid-story to say, “Rachael, take a breath.”

Regardless, you need to go out there and get this book. You will fall off your seat laughing. I have been reading it, as I mentioned, on an e-reader on public transportation and I snort and chuckle so much that I have had no less than three people ask me what I was reading.

Do you know how unusual that is? I live in New York. We do not make eye contact, let alone address, strangers on the subway. Doing so is like wearing a placard that says, “I’m not to be trusted.”

So trust me.

Go buy this book. Go get it out of the library. Go get the audiobook. DO SOMETHING SO YOU CAN READ IT RIGHT NOW.

Feature Image via Forbes and, ya know, the book