Kicking Through the Ashes

Comedian Ritch Shydner is one of America's funniest and most enduring stand-up comics, a wry observer of life around him and a survivor of the 1980s comedy boom.

Besides becoming a comic's comic over the decades, he has starred on television's "Married With Children" and won awards for his writing as a member of the "Roseanne" staff. The book's introduction is by Bill Maher, host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."Dozens of photos and index In "Kicking Through the Ashes," Shydner collects all of his 1980s life experiences -- the good, the bad, and El Brookman's -- in one hard to put down memoir. He tells stories about Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Tim Allen, Carol Leifer, Richard Belzer, Johnny Carson, Andrew Dice Clay, Rodney Dangerfield, Tom Dreesen, Budd Friedman, Gilbert Gottfried, Bill Hicks, Sam Kinison, David Letterman, Bill Maher, Steve Martin, Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling, Rick Overton, Phyllis Diller, Kevin Rooney, Robin Williams, Richard Pryor and more But don't believe his publisher; consider what some of the world's funniest people think of Shydner: