B.J. Novak, star of “The Office”, signing copies of One More Thing
3/12/14 7:00 PM
BookPeople
North Lamar Avenue. Austin, TX.
About the Author
Novak was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Linda (née Manaly) and author William Novak. He attended Brown middle school and Newton South High School. Novak’s family is Jewish. His father co-edited The Big Book of Jewish Humor, and has ghostwritten memoirs for Nancy Reagan, Lee Iacocca, and others; his parents also established a Jewish matchmaking service. Novak has two younger brothers, Jesse, a composer, and Lev, a recent graduate of Tufts University. He attended Newton South High School with future Office costar John Krasinski, and they graduated in 1997. Novak attended Harvard University, where he was a member of the Harvard Lampoon and the Hasty Pudding Club. He majored in English and Spanish literature and wrote his honors thesis on the films of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In addition to the Lampoon, he occasionally staged and performed in a variety show called The B.J. Show with fellow Harvard student B. J. Averell.
Novak was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Linda (née Manaly) and author William Novak. He attended Brown middle school and Newton South High School. Novak’s family is Jewish. His father co-edited The Big Book of Jewish Humor, and has ghostwritten memoirs for Nancy Reagan, Lee Iacocca, and others; his parents also established a Jewish matchmaking service. Novak has two younger brothers, Jesse, a composer, and Lev, a recent graduate of Tufts University. He attended Newton South High School with future Office costar John Krasinski, and they graduated in 1997. Novak attended Harvard University, where he was a member of the Harvard Lampoon and the Hasty Pudding Club. He majored in English and Spanish literature and wrote his honors thesis on the films of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In addition to the Lampoon, he occasionally staged and performed in a variety show called The B.J. Show with fellow Harvard student B. J. Averell.
Novak graduated from Harvard University in 2001. Afterward he moved to Los Angeles, California and began working in clubs as a comedian. His first live stand-up performance took place on October 10, 2001, at the Hollywood Youth Hostel. He was named one of Variety’s “Ten Comedians To Watch” in 2003.
Novak was a writer for the short-lived The WB sitcom Raising Dad.He has also performed on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Novak’s television acting career began on MTV’s Punk’d. He was the lead accomplice to Ashton Kutcher on the show’s second season in 2003, and has played pranks on Hilary Duff, Rachael Leigh Cook, Usher, and Mýa.
After hearing Novak’s opening joke at a comedy club, executive producer Greg Daniels immediately decided to include Novak in his upcoming project: a U.S. version of the hit British series The Office. Novak was cast as Ryan Howard, becoming the first cast member. On July 21, 2010, news reports indicated Novak had signed a contract to remain with the show for its seventh and eighth seasons; under the new terms, he would be made a full executive producer midway through Season 7 and also direct two episodes of the show, as well as becoming the latest cast member to also have a deal with NBC to develop other shows. In a June 2009 interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Novak spoke about sharing the success of The Office with his Newton South High School classmate John Krasinski:
Sometimes when this feels too good to be true, I think that if this were all a dream, that would be what should have tipped me off. I’d wake up saying, “I was in this incredible TV show and it was a big hit and the star was John Krasinski from high school. Isn’t that weird?”
In addition to his television credits, Novak has appeared in the films Unaccompanied Minors, Reign Over Me, Knocked Up and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. He will appear in the upcoming films Saving Mr. Banks and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
On April 11, 2013, Knopf announced it had signed a seven-figure, two-book deal with Novak, with the first book slated to be a fictional collection of “Woody Allen”-like stories.
Book Description
B.J. Novak’s One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut collection that signals the arrival of a welcome new voice in American fiction.
Across a dazzling range of subjects, themes, tones, and narrative voices, Novak’s assured prose and expansive imagination introduce readers to people, places, and premises that are hilarious, insightful, provocative, and moving-often at the same time.
In One More Thing, a boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes – only to discover that claiming the winnings may unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins – turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A school principal unveils a bold plan to permanently abolish arithmetic. An acclaimed ambulance driver seeks the courage to follow his heart and throw it all away to be a singer-songwriter. Author John Grisham contemplates a monumental typo. A new arrival in heaven, overwhelmed by infinite options, procrastinates over his long-ago promise to visit his grandmother. We meet a vengeance-minded hare, obsessed with scoring a rematch against the tortoise who ruined his life; and post-college friends who debate how to stage an intervention in the era of Facebook. We learn why wearing a red t-shirt every day is the key to finding love; how February got its name; and why the stock market is sometimes just…down.
Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, from the deeply familiar to the intoxicatingly imaginative, One More Thing finds its heart in the most human of phenomena: love, fear, family, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element that might make a person complete. The stories in this collection are like nothing else, but they have one thing in common: they share the playful humor, deep heart, inquisitive mind, and altogether electrifying spirit of a writer with a fierce devotion to the entertainment of the reader.B.J. Novak’s One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut collection that signals the arrival of a welcome new voice in American fiction.
Across a dazzling range of subjects, themes, tones, and narrative voices, Novak’s assured prose and expansive imagination introduce readers to people, places, and premises that are hilarious, insightful, provocative, and moving-often at the same time.
In One More Thing, a boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes – only to discover that claiming the winnings may unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins – turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A school principal unveils a bold plan to permanently abolish arithmetic. An acclaimed ambulance driver seeks the courage to follow his heart and throw it all away to be a singer-songwriter. Author John Grisham contemplates a monumental typo. A new arrival in heaven, overwhelmed by infinite options, procrastinates over his long-ago promise to visit his grandmother. We meet a vengeance-minded hare, obsessed with scoring a rematch against the tortoise who ruined his life; and post-college friends who debate how to stage an intervention in the era of Facebook. We learn why wearing a red t-shirt every day is the key to finding love; how February got its name; and why the stock market is sometimes just…down.
Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, from the deeply familiar to the intoxicatingly imaginative, One More Thing finds its heart in the most human of phenomena: love, fear, family, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element that might make a person complete. The stories in this collection are like nothing else, but they have one thing in common: they share the playful humor, deep heart, inquisitive mind, and altogether electrifying spirit of a writer with a fierce devotion to the entertainment of the reader.
You can order his book here on Amazon.
