by Eli Grober

“Guaranteed, nonstop laughs (and only some sobbing).”—Emma Allen, humor and cartoon editor for The New Yorker
 
Part catharsis, part diagnosis, this uproarious collection from New Yorker and McSweeney’s satirist Eli Grober navigates our modern maelstrom. Nothing in this book will help—but a few good laughs won’t hurt. Probably.

There’s a lot going on, all the time. It may feel overwhelming. Don’t worry. It will all be over soon. Until then, This Won’t Help is here to guide you through the apocalypse—offering 100 modest proposals for how you, too, can bask in the End Times. With sharp, satirical essays, stories, correspondences, and more, humorist Eli Grober stares down a world raging with inaction, while corrupt politicians and the 1 percent maximize the profits of self-destruction. As if any of this will help!

Enjoy ineffective think pieces such as . . .

• We Can Still Avoid Climate Catastrophe If We Act Before the End of This Sentence Never Mind Too Late
• How to Walk 10,000 Steps a Day in Your Apartment
• I Firmly Believe in Your Right to Vote, So Long as You’re Voting for Me
• How I Saved Enough to Buy a House with My Parents’ Money
• I’m Being Censored, and You Can Read, Hear, and See Me Talk About It in the News, on the Radio, and on TV

Eli Grober’s biting, Swiftian prose spares no one—not 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. (However, 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 absurdity, hypocrisy, and dysfunction that surround us. But probably not!

★ A New Yorker Best Book of 2023

“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 won’t save our dying planet, but buying this book will at least ensure that you’ll 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 aren’t looking all that great right now, but while we’re still here we might as well try and make the best of it, and reading Eli Grober’s masterful satire in This Won’t Help is a good place to start—before it all ends.”—Chris Monks, editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
 
“If you’ve ever wished your anxieties had punch lines, this book is for you.”—Karen Chee, comedian and writer, Late Night with Seth Meyers
 
“This Won’t Help has all the hallmarks of what makes Eli Grober’s 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, you’re 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. Eli’s satire would be wasted on a sane society. He’s 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 jokes—which 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). Eli’s 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 are—and it’s 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 he’s dead wrong when he says This Won’t Help. I thought of at least four ways it helps, and if you find me, I’ll 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 Won’t Help is a veritable chef’s 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

“Grober’s 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