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Erma Bombeck Reading List


Did you leave Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End laughing, reminiscing on your own household comedy hours or feeling an urge to fight for the Equal Rights Amendment? We’ve compiled a list of books in case you’re still wanting more daily life amusement, or if you’re curious about the feminist movement of the 1960s and ‘70s.

Bombeck Classics

I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression
The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?
Eat Less Cottage Cheese and More Ice Cream: Thoughts on Life from Erma Bombeck
I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise (Children Surviving Cancer)
When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It’s Time to Go Home
A Marriage Made in Heaven, or Too Tired for an Affair
Forever, Erma: Best Loved Writing from America’s Favorite Humorist

Comedic Memoirs

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Sons First Year by Anne Lamott
The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Memoir of Early Motherhood by Louise Erdrich
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling Housebroken: Admissions of an Untidy Life by Laurie Notaro
Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned” by Lena Dunham
Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat? True Stories and Confessions by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella

Fictional Life-Humor

Life’s a Beach by Claire Cook
Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty
Miss Julia Renews Her Vows by Ann B. Ross The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney Confessions of a Domestic Failure by Bunmi Laditan
Where’d You Go Bernadette by Marie Semple

Second-Wave Feminism 

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective

To learn more about the Playhouse production of Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End, visit the production detail page.

Barbara Chisholm in Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End. Photo by Mikki Schaffner.