This Won't Help: Modest Proposals for a More Enjoyable Apocalypse

(Hardback)

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Theres a lot going on, all the time. It may feel overwhelming. Dont worry. It will end. This Wont Help is here for you in the meantimewith 100 short, sharp, satirical essays that skewer a world raging with inaction, while maximizing the profits of self-destruction. As if that would help!

Eli Grobers biting, Swiftian prose spares no onenot the megalomaniacal billionaire fleeing Earth for a better life on unlivable Mars, not an extremely online family living completely off-grid, not even a fossil-fuel lobbyist insisting we all stop using straws. (Eli does spare a kind thought for the supremely intelligent readers with the good sense to buy this book.) Maybe, just maybe, descending through the inferno of our environmental, economic, and political landscape will help us find real solutions to the hypocrisy and dysfunction that surrounds us. But probably not.

Reviews

"ANew YorkerBest Book of 2023
2023ForewordINDIES Gold Winner

"This collection of short humorous fiction addresses how to, if not thrive, at least hang in there while the world burns. (The key: laughing at these incisive pieces of satire.)" -- The New Yorker
"Guaranteed, nonstop laughs (and only some sobbing). At this point, ditching plastic straws probably wont save our dying planet, but buying this book will at least ensure that youll be laughing as the world burns. Worse comes to worst, you can roll up the pages and make yourself some paper straws." -- Emma Allen, humor and cartoon editor for The New Yorker
"An absolutely hilarious collection. Things arent looking all that great right now, but while were still here we might as well try and make the best of it, and reading Eli Grobers masterful satire in This Wont Help is a good place to startbefore it all ends." -- Chris Monks, editor of McSweeneys Internet Tendency
"If youve ever wished your anxieties had punch lines, this book is for you." -- Karen Chee, comedian and writer, Late Night with Seth Meyers
"This Wont Help has all the hallmarks of what makes Eli Grobers writing great: incisive cultural commentary, scathing political satire, and tender moments of sneaky sweetness. For anyone feeling fear about the future or angst about the present, this collection of hilarious essays is a welcome salve. If you like laughing, youre gonna LOVE this book!" -- Mitra Jouhari, comedian, actress, and writer
"Eli Grober is one of the very funniest writers." -- Liana Finck, New Yorker cartoonist
"I rarely physically laugh at anything, and this had me going. Elis satire would be wasted on a sane society. Hes the perfect fiddler for the burning city on a hill." -- Dennard Dayle, author of Everything Abridged
"Confronting a world overcome by injustice and disaster, Eli Grober has rolled up his sleeves and written very silly jokeswhich keenly, nimbly, hilariously encapsulate our ridiculous resistance to making things better." -- Betsy Morais, managing editor, Columbia Journalism Review
"When the state of the world is so uncomfortable or devastating that the impulse is to look away, Eli makes me want to sit and stare (and also laugh until I cry). Elis ability to break down cultural absurdities to their most elemental forms, his incisive wit and his delightful turns of phrase hold us in a place where we can understand things for what they truly areand its only in this place that we can navigate a path through to the other side." -- Zoe Si, illustrator, cartoonist, and Pulitzer Prize finalist
"Eli is an insightful and hilarious writer, and this book made me laugh, but hes dead wrong when he says This Wont Help. I thought of at least four ways it helps, and if you find me, Ill tell you." -- Zach Cherry, improv comedian and actor, Severance
"Eli Grober has written approximately a million essays and they are all funny and thoughtful and somehow comforting! The debate of quality versus quantity is over. Eli Grober does BOTH." -- Jo Firestone, comedian, actress, and writer
"This Wont Help is a veritable chefs kiss of biting, of-the-moment satire. This book may not save the world, but then again . . . maybe it will" -- Sarah Pappalardo, editor, Reductress
"Eli manages to address the biggest, scariest issues of the day without wallowing in hopelessness or using despair as a cheap substitute for a punchline. A ton of fun, and a masterful display of joke writing." -- Luke Burns and James Folta, editors, A Newsletter of Humorous Writing
"Few humorists can successfully grapple with the end of all life on Earth. Thankfully, Eli Grober is up to the task. This book may not save us, but it will make the giant hydrothermal vent tubeworms view us a little more kindly." -- Michael Gerber, editor, The American Bystander
"Grobers wit is a force of nature that keeps readers engaged and entertained throughout. The topics covered are nuanced, and Grober makes surprisingly insightful points about the state of current affairs." -- Harvard Crimson

Author Bio

Eli Grober is an American satirist. He is a longtime humor contributor to The New Yorker and McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and has authored some of their most-read humor pieces. He writes the weekly satirical newsletter Here's Something, and he is a former staff writer for The Tonight Show.