Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Amy Poehler is always in good company when associated with Tina Fey from their work on SNL, or with Nick Offerman from co-starring on Parks and Recreation. Now she has written a book that rivals Fey's Bossypants and  Offerman's Paddle Your Own Canoe for being one of the most entertaining memoirs I can recall reading.

Poehler begins Yes Please by complaining how hard it was to write a book, so she must be annoyed that Offerman wrote two (the second of which I'll read soon) in the time it took her to write this one. There's a chapter written by Seth Meyers, ostensibly to give Amy a break from writing, and passages by her parents recounting the day she was born. Then the chapter about working on Parks and Recreation has notes written by the show's co-creator, Michael Schur. All of these guest writers and more appear in the audiobook version, which I recommend just as highly as the hardcover. There's a running gag that it was recorded in a sound booth that Amy built herself inside Mount Rushmore.

Yes Please is mostly about Poehler's life, with some jokey essays and haikus sprinkled in. An interesting aspect of the print version (which makes it impossible for me to say "only listen to the audiobook") is the reproductions of real documents: things she wrote as a child, a presumably real report card, photographs, even a letter that Hillary Clinton wrote to Poehler's son Archie right after he was born. Most chapters include humor, but occasionally Poehler gets very personal, such as with the repercussions of an SNL sketch that offended Chris Cooper and his wife, to whom Poehler personally apologized. Near the end of the book, she describes the surrealism of balancing a humanitarian trip to Haiti with the planning of jokes for the Golden Globes via email.

This book may have been a struggle to write, but it was worth every bead of sweat. It turned out as truthful and funny as Poehler hoped.

Visit #AmySaysYesPlease for how to purchase and to participate in her social media campaign.