Anthony Jeselnik is not like other comedians: He’s created a dark onstage persona that gives him license to tell jokes about uncomfortable subjects with punchlines you never see coming.
The comic, who will be doing a series of shows in Southern California early next year, is also a reader. A social media clip of him discussing his 2024 best-of reading list reveals him to be a serious fan of diverse, excellent fiction. And he spent 2025 reading a new book a week and posting about it on Instagram. His choices are uniformly strong.
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“I like reading diverse stuff. And again, I go for the writing. The writing’s got to be great, and I’m as happy to read a love story about two lesbians as I am about a guy going up against a gang,” says Jeselnik on a Zoom call earlier this week.
“I’m pretty picky, but it doesn’t have to be just like guys killing each other,” he says, citing titles that span from S.A. Cosby’s crime novels to Yael van der Wouden’s “The Safekeep.” “It really comes down to the writing. If the writing is great, I will be interested, regardless of what the story is.”
That said, Jeselnik’s also interested in finding fiction he can recommend to male readers who might otherwise stick to legal thrillers and nonfiction titles.
“The publishing industry is geared toward women, and rightly so, they’re reading the books,” he says, “Sometimes it’s hard to find one for the guys. You know, the one that has a little darkness to it, which is what I’m always geared towards.”
That’s one of the reasons why Jeselnik decided to start his own book club, a monthly online community that will try to open up his audience to books they might not otherwise have considered. As with his 2025 book content, this new effort appeared to be motivated more by a desire to share good books rather than a well-crafted plan to monetize his picks.
“Hopefully, with this book club, I can kind of reel people in with older books, but then during the month, you know, through my Instagram and social media, say, ‘Hey, a book came out this week that you should check out,’” he says. “If you really are looking, there is good stuff out there.”
A fan of the crime writer Jim Thompson, Jeselnik tipped us off as to what his first pick might be when the official announcement goes out. “It’s not really a spoiler, but I’m recommending ‘The Getaway’ by Jim Thompson,” he says. “I don’t want to give someone homework. I want to give them something they’ll really enjoy.”
So read on not only for more about books, his thoughts on the Riyadh Comedy Festival controversy and his upcoming Southern California shows in Brea, Ontario and Irvine. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. You’re going to be in Southern California. Can you talk about those shows?
I will be on the road for a year, just doing comedy clubs, perfecting that act, taking it from 40 minutes to an hour by the end of the year. And then once I have that, like, bulletproof, then I go out and do the real tour. But I love doing comedy clubs. I just love that two shows a night, low ceilings, brick walls. That’s just the most fun for me. So I’ll do that until I get sick of it and then move on to theaters.
Q. You’re focused on doing standup, right? You’re not doing voiceover or things like that.
No, I don’t really have anything else. A lot of comedians get sick of doing stand-up all the time. And so acting is a nice break, voiceover is a nice break, writing on things is a nice break. I kind of have let all those things fall away. On my last tour, I was lucky enough to do things like Carnegie Hall and the Sydney Opera House. And it was so inspiring. The acting never really materialized for me. Not that I’ve really tried, but I realized I didn’t even want to audition. I just want to be working at standup as hard as I can.
Q. You have a unique comedy persona, and I imagine it might be hard for people to unplug you from your onstage character and plug you into whatever it is their script is about.
I always said, I want to play the [jerky] boyfriend of the main character’s love interest. You know, like the guy who, like, they’ve got to steal him away from that guy.
I don’t put the same level of passion and work into acting as I do in stand-up. Standup is such a fun art form in that you know exactly when you’re going on. You know exactly what you’re doing. I’m in total control. Sitting around a [film] set with hundreds of other people is not appealing to me.
Q. Do you think people focus on your stage persona because it’s so dark?
I think people are fascinated by the persona because they just want to know the real me: “Why are you like this? Why this persona?” And I just happened to find it, and I think that playing the villain is more fun than playing the hero.
I feel like I’ve struck gold, and I’m not going to leave this gold mine alone. People ask, “When are you going to do the [comedy special] hour where you talk about yourself?” Never. I think that’s boring. I like the idea of people buying a ticket and they get to see me play this character and the jokes come through the character. If I was just talking and being like, here are some jokes I wrote, it wouldn’t be as fun for the audience.
It’s not about the special that you put out at the end. It really is about the crowd in the room that I love the most. To borrow a wrestling term that I’m totally mispronouncing, “kayfabe,” you never break character. You never say, “We scripted this,” because it would ruin it for the audience. I always say if I could appear in a puff of smoke onstage and then disappear, I would do that.
The difference between seeing me in a room versus seeing me on a TV screen is 180 degrees. I mean, there’s so much tension when I’m in the room, when I’m standing there, filling that silence, living in the silence in between jokes that I think they’re there for that experience. I love seeing people comment, you know, “I saw the show. I was dying laughing with everyone around me, and I can’t remember any of the jokes.” Because they were just in that experience. That is, I think, the best possible show for me.
Q. You’ve said that you mainly go back to your hotel room after a show and read a book. Was that always the case with you?
No, I mean, in the beginning, you’re so grateful that anyone wants to see you, that anyone would buy you a shot. You would take that shot. I remember being on the road with Jeff Ross very early on, someone brought us shots of Jägermeister, and I was like, “Oh, [heck], this is the last thing in the world I wanna do.” And Jeff said, “I’m not doing that.” And it was an epiphany, “Oh, you’re allowed to say no.”
I’ve been sober now for three and a half years. I don’t want to drink or go out. Going back, getting into bed with a book has been like a lifesaver for me and helped me be able to get to sleep the next day, get to the gym and stay healthy on the road. Tours are a marathon. They really are that if you let the adrenaline carry you away, you’re just a shell of yourself by the end.
Q. At one point, you considered writing a novel, even started one, and then decided not to do that. I wonder if you’re going to stick with the decision.
I feel like every comic writes a book of essays, or their book about their life, and they’re often quickly out of print. I just think, what’s the point of checking that box? I love novels so much that the gap between my taste level and my talent level is so vast. It’s something that I have been toying with, but it might never see the light of day. It’s almost like an exercise. Like someone who paints in their garage sometimes, you know? It’s a way to chill out.
I’ve certainly worked on things, but I just keep going back to jokes. It’s what I truly love. And I feel like I’m the only one doing what I’m doing and there are a lot of people writing novels.
Q. I reached out to you to discuss this year’s books, but it’s worth mentioning that you had a great list last year, including making Kevin Barry’s “The Heart in Winter” your No. 1 pick.
It was just such a beautiful book. And I was proud that I was the only guy who had that at No. 1. You know, I thought there were great books that year, but that one was really big for me.
Q. So let’s talk about 2025’s picks.
I’ve got my top 10 list in front of me. My favorite one of this year is “Perfection” by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from the Italian. It’s an incredible book and one that you can read in one sitting.
Q. What’s another you want to mention?
“The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne” by Ron Currie is an incredible book. It was so funny. The characters were like from an HBO show. I hope they make that into, like, a miniseries or a movie because it was just so good.
Q. You read a lot of different types of books.
It bugs me when people say, “Oh, I only read nonfiction.” You know, my dad only reads John Grisham and, like, lawyer books, and they’re fine, but I would just get bored. I can’t read the same thing over and over again.
As you become more of a reader, you start to recognize authors. And you’re like, Oh, a new Ottessa Moshfegh book’s coming out. Like, I can’t wait to read that.
Q. Is that why you’re starting a book club?
I get so excited about literature. I think my goal of starting this book club next year is to try to get men involved in literature, so the publishing industry would try to focus more on that.
I love dark subject matter. I love a gut-punch ending. Those are always big for me. If a book can make me cry, I’m thrilled.
But people just don’t seem to care. A couple of years ago, I loved “Chain-Gang All-Stars” [by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah] and just talked about it on my podcast non-stop. I don’t know if I sold an extra copy for him or not.
And I always say the funniest book I’ve ever read in my life was Charlie Kaufman’s “Antkind.” And you would think that people who thought, “Oh, Anthony’s my favorite comedian,” would run out and buy that book. And that was not the case. They were just like, “It’s 700 pages; I’m not getting into it.” I don’t know how much my opinion matters.
I don’t want to share my opinion on, you know, society and kids these days. I would rather talk about books. I have a book club. So you can email questions to that, and I’m sure I’m going to get questions about the Riyadh Comedy Festival more than whatever book I picked that month, but you have to go through the books.
So anything I can do to help the cause, I will.
Books have always been important to me. You know, as a kid, I was a troublemaker until I learned how to read. I was in Montessori school and disrupting the class, and they would bring people in to read to me. They have volunteers on a rotating basis to read me books, and that just calmed me. Books are right there, and they don’t go away. I think if I can get people to make books cool again, then I will do my best.
Q. When does your book club begin?
January. I will have a video that’s like, here’s my first book, and here’s the email address, and maybe throughout the month on Instagram, I’ll talk about new books that I like, and then at the end of the month, answer anybody’s questions in a video, and just see how that works.
Most book clubs now buy the rights to the book, and then if the book is a hit, they make the movie. I’m not doing that. I have no idea how I make any money off of this. Maybe people just give me a shot and say, “I’m a fan of his. I would like to read more.”
You don’t have to be in every month. You can read the back of the book and say, “This isn’t for me,” and skip to the next month, but if it gets people reading and just thinking that you don’t have to read nonfiction. I think you get more empathy for people from literature than you ever do from reading a nonfiction book.
I have a real hard time reading nonfiction — that’s an audiobook situation always — whereas literature, I can get lost in the story and it[ feels meditative. I think sitting down and reading is the same as transcendental meditation. Your breathing slows, you just relax.
Q. You are open to audiobooks and other formats, too.
It’s OK to get your book on a Kindle; it’s OK to read an audiobook. There’s no snobbery here. Not everyone lives near a local bookstore. They’re important to support. I enjoy visiting them. But I think just reading is the important thing.
Do you ever read on a Kindle?
Q. Sometimes, yes.
The Kindle will say this chapter takes 15 minutes. And I’ll be reading and all of a sudden it’s like you’ve got 35 minutes to go. And I’m like, what happened? I’m not a dumb guy. Why are you making it look like I don’t know how to read? [laughs] But I always think that’s funny.
Q. And libraries and librarians are a great resource, too.
Librarians know everything. Librarians know what’s bad, and they will happily tell you, Do not read this. I love that you get radical honesty from librarians.
Q. Is there something that’s stuck with you from your reading this year?
One thing that stayed in my head all year was a novel I read called “The Slip” by Lucas Schaefer that didn’t really work for me, but for some reason or another, I thought about that book all year.
I read over 52 books this year. But I just kept thinking about that Lucas Schaefer book. That’s what interests me: You can read a book and not like it that much, and as long as you finish it, you might still be thinking about certain parts of it.
There are passages from “Anna Karenina” that I still think about, that I read, you know, 5 or 6 years ago. Now that I’m not doing the book a week, I think I’m going to try to go back into the Russian classics because those guys knew what they were doing. I mean, it was the last book I read last year was “Pale Fire” by Vladimir Nabokov, and I didn’t read anything that good this year. That was genius level.
Q. Earlier, you mentioned the Riyadh Comedy Festival, the Saudi Arabian event that drew lots of criticism. What’s your take on the event and the backlash toward those who performed?
I got offered the Riyadh Comedy Festival early. The first annual anything is always a red flag. And then Saudi Arabia, I was like, wow. And then the money: When you’re offered that much money, you have to ask yourself why. What is the money for? I said no immediately. I think my response was, “This is not how I want to die.” And I thought, good luck getting anyone to do this.
So when the poster comes out 6 months later, I was shocked that they got everyone. I think everyone’s surprised by one name more than all the others, but I think it just says more about the state of comedy and the state of capitalism. Nobody wants to leave anything on the table. I don’t know why I’m still surprised by these things, but I’m kind of outside the comedy community. I would guess that almost all of these people regret having done it. I’ll be surprised there’s another one, but it was shocking to me to see who took it.
It couldn’t have been a faster “no” for me.
Q. It almost seems as if you don’t take a big-money payout, you are seen as having failed. But not doing something because you think it’s the wrong thing for you to do is a win.
Exactly, being able to turn something down because you’ve been successful is a flex.
For more about tour dates and the book club, go to Anthony Jeselnik’s YouTube page.