Here are 100 books that Dangerously Funny fans have personally recommended if you like Dangerously Funny. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Louis V. Clark III Author Of How to Be an Indian in the 21st Century

From my list on understanding each other in a troubled world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin. Raised during the often troubled, often wonderful decade of the 1960s, I learned to stand up for what I thought was right. I joined forces with my beautiful wife during our high school years, and together, we ran away to build our own life aided by the Oneida principle of “looking ahead seven generations.” Encountering many obstacles along the way, including a poetry professor who said that what I wrote wasn’t poetry and a theater professor who said that if what I wrote was any good it was already being done. Still, I continue to write.

Louis' book list on understanding each other in a troubled world

Louis V. Clark III Why Louis loves this book

I loved this book because the author was able to share the racist encounters that she had to deal with and the racist encounters all minorities deal with at one time or another. This book puts a new intellectual perspective on those types of happenings. They also illustrated many racist encounters that are all too common and yet hard to believe. A must-read for all.

By Isabel Wilkerson ,

Why should I read it?

20 authors picked Caste as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE TIME NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR | #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Powerful and timely ... I cannot recommend it strongly enough" - Barack Obama

From one of America's most celebrated and insightful writers, the moving, eye-opening bestseller about what lies hidden under the surface of ordinary lives

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of Innocent Witnesses: Childhood Memories of World War II

Louis V. Clark III Author Of How to Be an Indian in the 21st Century

From my list on understanding each other in a troubled world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin. Raised during the often troubled, often wonderful decade of the 1960s, I learned to stand up for what I thought was right. I joined forces with my beautiful wife during our high school years, and together, we ran away to build our own life aided by the Oneida principle of “looking ahead seven generations.” Encountering many obstacles along the way, including a poetry professor who said that what I wrote wasn’t poetry and a theater professor who said that if what I wrote was any good it was already being done. Still, I continue to write.

Louis' book list on understanding each other in a troubled world

Louis V. Clark III Why Louis loves this book

Some stories are hard to digest, but a must-read for everyone who hopes to see a better tomorrow. This book tells about six European Jewish children who survived the holocaust. I found many things disturbing, but if we don’t know our history, we won’t be able to stand against the tide of human resentments that the world suffers over and over and over again.

By Marilyn Yalom , Ben Yalom (editor) ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Innocent Witnesses as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In a book that will touch hearts and minds, acclaimed cultural historian Marilyn Yalom presents firsthand accounts of six witnesses to war, each offering lasting memories of how childhood trauma transforms lives.

The violence of war leaves indelible marks, and memories last a lifetime for those who experienced this trauma as children. Marilyn Yalom experienced World War II from afar, safely protected in her home in Washington, DC. But over the course of her life, she came to be close friends with many less lucky, who grew up under bombardment across Europe-in France, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, England, Finland, Sweden, Norway,…


Book cover of The Ghost Road: Anishinaabe Responses to Indian Hating

Louis V. Clark III Author Of How to Be an Indian in the 21st Century

From my list on understanding each other in a troubled world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin. Raised during the often troubled, often wonderful decade of the 1960s, I learned to stand up for what I thought was right. I joined forces with my beautiful wife during our high school years, and together, we ran away to build our own life aided by the Oneida principle of “looking ahead seven generations.” Encountering many obstacles along the way, including a poetry professor who said that what I wrote wasn’t poetry and a theater professor who said that if what I wrote was any good it was already being done. Still, I continue to write.

Louis' book list on understanding each other in a troubled world

Louis V. Clark III Why Louis loves this book

This book gives a nice accounting of American Colonialism and their response to the People who inhabited this country prior to being discovered (sic). I was especially enlightened by the undertaking of explaining the Second Amendment from an understanding of the times and the people. Seeing how the three fears of the times no longer exist.

By Matthew L.M. Fletcher ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ghost Road as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Even before the Revolutionary War, American colonists feared and fought "merciless Indian savages," and through the following centuries, American law and policy have been molded by the relentless tradition of Indian-hating. From proportional representation and restrictions on the right to bear arms, to the break-up of tribal property rights and the destruction of Indian culture and family, the attacks on tribal governance and people continue and remain endemic. More than just a study of the progression of law, this book balances each chapter's history with the relating of a traditional Anishinaabe story or teaching, providing both context and a roadmap…


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Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…

Book cover of And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer

Louis V. Clark III Author Of How to Be an Indian in the 21st Century

From my list on understanding each other in a troubled world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was born on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin. Raised during the often troubled, often wonderful decade of the 1960s, I learned to stand up for what I thought was right. I joined forces with my beautiful wife during our high school years, and together, we ran away to build our own life aided by the Oneida principle of “looking ahead seven generations.” Encountering many obstacles along the way, including a poetry professor who said that what I wrote wasn’t poetry and a theater professor who said that if what I wrote was any good it was already being done. Still, I continue to write.

Louis' book list on understanding each other in a troubled world

Louis V. Clark III Why Louis loves this book

This was just a wonderful, very well-written story that moved my emotions. It is a love story between an old man and his grandson. It is a story we all may live someday as the old man disappears day by day. So much so that we all slowly face our inevitable sundowns and leave the world, giving only love and memories to those we leave behind.

By Fredrik Backman ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The tender and moving novella from the author of A Man Called Ove and Anxious People

'I read this beautifully imagined and moving novella in one sitting, utterly wowed, wanting to share it with everyone I know' Lisa Genova, New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice
_________

Grandpa and Noah are sitting on a bench in a square that keeps getting smaller every day.

As they wait together on the bench, they tell jokes and discuss their shared love of mathematics. Grandpa recalls what it was like to fall in love with his wife, what it was like to…


Book cover of Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

Joshua Womack Author Of You are not that funny: Stories from Cleveland Stand-Up

From my list on discipline, writing, and disciplined writing.

Why am I passionate about this?

The reason I’m so fascinated by stand-up and books on writing is because I have done both. For a brief time I was a comedian, and the lessons in creativity and writing I learned along the way helped me find the career of copywriting. I’m passionate about learning how great writers write, and more importantly, keep writing, even when they don’t feel like it. I like to be inspired with lessons I can bring with me to every Word doc I open up.

Joshua's book list on discipline, writing, and disciplined writing

Joshua Womack Why Joshua loves this book

One of the best books ever about stand-up.

Steve Martin talks about perfecting his craft and really gives comedians and fans of stand-up a front row seat to what goes into being a comedian. The grind on the way up, and performing in near-empty places, will make you empathize with Martin and all the comics who started just like him.

By Steve Martin ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Born Standing Up as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded on to the comedy scene. By 1978, he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written. At age ten, Martin…


Book cover of Troublemakers: Students' Rights and Racial Justice in the Long 1960s

Jonathan Zimmerman Author Of Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools

From my list on student activism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian at the University of Pennsylvania and an op-ed writer for numerous publications. I’m also a former Peace Corps volunteer and high school teacher. I’ve spent my adult life studying the ways that human beings imagine education, across space and time. Schools make citizens, but citizens also make schools. And we’re all different, so we disagree—inevitably and often profoundly—about the meaning and purpose of “school” itself. In a diverse nation, what should kids learn? And who should decide that? There are no single “right” answers, of course. I’m eager to hear yours.

Jonathan's book list on student activism

Jonathan Zimmerman Why Jonathan loves this book

We’re also indebted to young minority students for pioneering free-speech rights in our schools. Most of us still associate the struggle for student rights with antiwar activists like Mary Beth Tinker, whose armband protest against the Vietnam War led to the epochal Tinker v. Des Moines Supreme Court decision declaring that teachers and students don’t shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate. But before and after Tinker, Black and Chicano students challenged racist curricula, disciplinary policies, and more. Student rights are civil rights, and vice versa. We can’t—and shouldn’t—separate them.

By Kathryn Schumaker ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Troublemakers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A powerful history of student protests and student rights during the desegregation era
In the late 1960s, protests led by students roiled high schools across the country. As school desegregation finally took place on a wide scale, students of color were particularly vocal in contesting the racial discrimination they saw in school policies and practices. And yet, these young people had no legal right to express dissent at school. It was not until 1969 that the Supreme Court would recognize the First Amendment rights of students in the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines case.
A series of students' rights lawsuits…


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Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of Technologies of Freedom

Raphael Cohen-Almagor Author Of Confronting the Internet's Dark Side: Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free Highway

From my list on the internet's history, development, and challenges.

Why am I passionate about this?

Raphael Cohen-Almagor, DPhil, St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, is Professor of Politics, Olof Palme Visiting Professor, Lund University, Founding Director of the Middle East Study Centre, University of Hull, and Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Raphael taught, inter alia, at Oxford (UK), Jerusalem, Haifa (Israel), UCLA, Johns Hopkins (USA), and Nirma University (India). With more than 300 publications, Raphael has published extensively in the field of political philosophy, including Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance; Challenges to Democracy; The Right to Die with Dignity; The Scope of Tolerance; Confronting the Internet's Dark Side; Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism, and The Republic, Secularism and Security: France versus the Burqa and the Niqab.

Raphael's book list on the internet's history, development, and challenges

Raphael Cohen-Almagor Why Raphael loves this book

This is a classic. The book provides an early assessment of the impact of new communications tools on freedom of expression. Pool observed how electronic networks were emerging and transforming the nature of print, arguing that we need to learn how to live with technology and make the most of it. Electronic technologies, Pool envisaged, will become the dominant mode of communication. Pool further envisaged that electronic technology would allow a great degree of diversity, more knowledge, easier access, and freer speech. He provided a lucid and perceptive analysis of the relation of American law to technology and its regulation. Pool was concerned with the negative consequences of new technology and feared its excessive regulation. It is not computers but policy that threatens freedom, he warned. This seminal work encapsulates many of the questions we face today. The challenges Pool described came to life as the pressures on government to…

By Ithiel de Sola Pool ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Technologies of Freedom as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How can we preserve free speech in an electronic age? In a masterly synthesis of history, law, and technology, Ithiel de Sola Pool analyzes the confrontation between the regulators of the new communications technology and the First Amendment.


Book cover of Secrets: The CIA's War at Home

Seth Rosenfeld Author Of Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power

From my list on spies and radicals.

Why am I passionate about this?

Seth Rosenfeld is an independent investigative journalist and author of the New York Times best-seller Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power. As a staff reporter for The San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle, he specialized in using public records and won national honors including the George Polk Award. Subversives, based on thousands of pages of FBI records released to him as a result of several Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, won the PEN Center USA’s Literary Award for Research Nonfiction Prize, the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine Award, and other honors.

Seth's book list on spies and radicals

Seth Rosenfeld Why Seth loves this book

Starting with his experience as publisher of an anti-war newspaper in the 1970s, and relying on official records released under the Freedom of Information Act, Mackenzie reveals how the CIA used undercover operatives to sabotage the dissident press and developed a system of secrecy agreements and pre-publication review boards that spread throughout the federal government in efforts to silence former intelligence agents and other would-be whistle-blowers. This brilliant book is the last work by the late Mackenzie, who dedicated his life to defending the First Amendment. He was a long-time associate of the Bay Area’s Center for Investigative Reporting, which with his wife, Jane Hundertmark, completed it after his untimely death.

By Angus MacKenzie ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Secrets as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This eye-opening expose, the result of fifteen years of investigative work, uncovers the CIA's systematic efforts to suppress and censor information over several decades. An award-winning journalist, Angus Mackenzie waged and won a lawsuit against the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act and became a leading expert on questions concerning government censorship and domestic spying. In "Secrets", he reveals how federal agencies - including the Department of Defense, the executive branch, and the CIA - have monitored and controlled public access to information. Mackenzie lays bare the behind-the-scenes evolution of a policy of suppression, repression, spying, and harassment. Secrecy…


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Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of How to Save a Constitutional Democracy

Natasha Lindstaedt Author Of Democratic Decay and Authoritarian Resurgence

From my list on why the world is becoming more authoritarian.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a political science professor who has always been interested in authoritarian regimes, how they function, and how they control their citizens. In particular, I find it fascinating why citizens may genuinely adore and respect the (sometimes outrageous) autocrats that lead them, even though they rule with an iron fist. Additionally, the rise of authoritarianism in democracies also caught my attention. Terms like “slow-moving coups” and “insurrections” are being used when referring to democracies now. In some ways, this is shocking to me—but it’s motivated me to better understand how this happenedand the ways in which autocracies and democracies seem to be mimicking each other.

Natasha's book list on why the world is becoming more authoritarian

Natasha Lindstaedt Why Natasha loves this book

Legal scholars have offered a lot of insights into how democracies fall apart, but one of the more interesting books from constitutional scholars is How to Save a Constitutional Democracy. Using a case study of the US to illustrate, this book demonstrates how important constitutional design is in preventing democratic backsliding, as the book explains how would-be autocrats can take advantage of constitutions to flex their own power. And though the US constitution has often been heralded as a model document for new democracies to follow, somewhat surprisingly, it’s not ideal for maintaining a democracy; it actually suffers from two sins of being overly rigid on the one hand, and too vague in shaping the parameters of executive power on the other. This book is both a guide and a cautionary tale.

By Tom Ginsburg , Aziz Z Huq ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Save a Constitutional Democracy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Democracies are in danger. Around the world, a rising wave of populist leaders threatens to erode the core structures of democratic self-rule. In the United States, the tenure of Donald Trump has seemed decisive turning point for many. What kind of president intimidates jurors, calls the news media the "enemy of the American people," and seeks foreign assistance investigating domestic political rivals? Whatever one thinks of President Trump, many think the Constitution will safeguard us from lasting damage. But is that assumption justified? How to Save a Constitutional Democracy mounts an urgent argument that we can no longer afford to…


Book cover of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Book cover of Innocent Witnesses: Childhood Memories of World War II
Book cover of The Ghost Road: Anishinaabe Responses to Indian Hating

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5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the First Amendment, the White House, and capitalism?

The White House 87 books
Capitalism 231 books