Following his hugely acclaimed TV come-back, Comedy Vehicle, Lee finds himself spent and in search of ideas for a new Edinburgh show. On a long walk across London, he endures a coffee shop humiliation involving a loyalty card, which suggests itself as a comedy routine about everyday life that anyone could enjoy. Later that month, thanks to Jeremy Clarkson's jokes about Gordon Brown's blindness and the appearance of a well-meaning young comedian in a pear cider advert, a show is born.

Featuring a transcript of the show fully annotated with footnotes, the If You Prefer A Milder Comedian EP confirms Stewart Lee as the most original, daring and brilliant comedian of his generation.

'Stewart Lee is a true original.' Observer

'I've always though of Stewart Lee's comedy as doing the opposite of what really good comedy should do.' Toby Young, BBC Radio 4
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Experience how it feels to be the subject of a blasphemy prosecution! Find out why 'wool' is a funny word! See how jokes work, their inner mechanisms revealed, before your astonished face!
In 2001, after over a decade in the business, Stewart Lee quit stand-up, disillusioned and drained, and went off to direct a loss-making opera about Jerry Springer. How I Escaped My Certain Fate details his return to live performance, and the journey that took him from an early retirement to his position as the most critically acclaimed stand-up in Britain.

Here is Stewart Lee's own account of his remarkable comeback, told through transcripts of the three legendary full-length shows that sealed his reputation. Astonishingly frank and detailed in-depth notes reveal the inspiration and inner workings of his act. With unprecedented access to a leading comedian's creative process, this book tell us just what it was like to write these shows, develop the performance and take them on tour. How I Escaped My Certain Fate is everything we have come to expect from Stewart Lee: fiercely intelligent, unsparingly honest and very funny.
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My first novel, released in June 2001 by Fourth Estate.
From the back of the book:
"The Perfect Fool" charts the progress of a collection of misfits, spread across the wide open spaces of Arizona & the narrow streets of South London, all unwittingly caught up in a quest for the Holy Grail.
Mr Lewis believes he was once an astronaut; Sid & Danny's Dire Straits covers band isn't exactly filling the pubs of Streatham; Tracy travels between Las Vegas & the Mexican border, fleeing the suspicion that she's a serial killer; Bob, a Native American clown, no longer finds anything funny; Luther, and acid casualty 60s rock star, has long since forgotten the most basic chord shapes; and Peter Rugg lost a cigarette down the back of a Portobello Road sofa thirty years ago and is still looking for it.

These seemingly unrelated individuals eventually collide in the deserts of the American South West, where they form an uneasy silence. Stewart Lee's first novel combines an eclectic range of characters and cultures with an instinctive comic touch."
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In the 1980s, the charts overflowed with what felt to many like the most boring pop music ever made - and the underground exploded.
The post-punk scene was a diverse collection of bands brought together by independent releases and aided by reportage in fanzines and airplay by John Peel.

This is the first time this era of music has been analysed in such depth, exploring the loose confederation of noisenik outfits including Three Johns, The Membranes, The Ex, Wedding Present, A Witness, Bogshed and Big Flame.

This book features an introduction by Stewart Lee
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Since it was founded in 1982, The Wire magazine has covered a vast range of alternative, experimental, underground and non-mainstream music. Now some of that knowledge has been distilled into The Wire Primers: a comprehensive guide to the core recordings of some of the most visionary and inspiring, subversive and radical musicians on the planet, past and present.
Each chapter surveys the musical universe of a particular artist, group or genre by way of a contextualizing introduction and a thumbnail guide to the most essential recordings.

A massive and eclectic range of music is celebrated and demystified, from rock mavericks such as Captain Beefheart and The Fall; the funk of James Brown and Fela Kuti; the future jazz of Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman; and the experimental compositions of John Cage and Morton Feldman. Genres surveyed and explained include P-funk, musique concrète, turntablism, Brazilian Tropicália, avant metal and dubstep.
The Wire Primers is a vital guide to contemporary sounds, providing an accessible entry point for any reader wanting to dig below the surface of mainstream music.
Stewart Lee has written a chapter on The Fall for this book.
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Ben Moor's stories mix the magical with the everyday in a world just to the left of ours.

In Coelacanth, the sport of competitive tree climbing is the background to a romantic comedy with dangerous edges.
Along the way we meet imaginary flatmates, underground Compliment Clubs and deeply oblivious fish. Not Everything is Significant is the story of a biographer with writer's block who is sent a diary for the following year. But it's already been filled in - by him.
Should he follow his destiny or fight it? Finally, A Supercollider for the Family is a sci-fi conspiracy thriller weepie about particle physics, tightrope walking and the truly important things in life.

Originally written for stage performance, all three pieces are laced with wit and bursting with imagination.
Very human, very funny and a little strange, these are stories that take you away from the mundane and open your eyes to the beautiful and the bizarre.
Stew wrote the intro for this brilliant book of Ben Moor monologues

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The Flash is a book put together to raise funds for Amnesty International.

There are 100 stories from 100 different writers.

Stewart has a short story in this collection

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Stewart has a short story in this book of short fiction inspired by the group THE FALL


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Stewart has a poem in this collection of poems by comedians, 'That Which Is Not Said'.
The idea behind this book was to give comics a blank remit - submit whatever they please - and this is the most interesting aspect, to see what comics will come up with given complete freedom.

So the content is varied, from poignant verse to puerile ditties, and what we're left with is a hilarious but tender tome; the perfect joke book.

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I have a short story in this collection of comedians' prose.

The poem version is better, but was changed to prose by the publishers, and can be found for free on this site.

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I have a short piece, West From Walpi, in this anthology of writing about hitch-hiking.

A literary road movie to take you on a trip of a lifetime, featuring a collection of hitch-hiking tales from around the world by over 90 contributors, including pieces from Alastair Campbell, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Max Hastings, George Monbiot, Lembit Opik, Jeremy Vine, Jenny Jones and Mike Leigh.

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The Lee And Herring's Fist Of Fun cash-in book is a classic of the genre, now fetching vastly inflated prices.

It has been scanned and uploaded here, or you can try to buy it here

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