James Acaster Audiobooks

Guide to Quitting Social Media, self-help sent up by one of stand-up's great inventors

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Who is James Acaster?

James Acaster, born in 1985, is an English comedian, presenter, podcaster and actor, and one of the most garlanded stand-ups of his generation: a record-breaking five nominations for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, five Chortle Awards and festival honours from Melbourne to New Zealand. He began as a drummer in Kettering bands before turning to stand-up in 2008, and his style is unmistakable – fictional characters, elaborate callback jokes, offbeat observation and stories that arc across a whole show.

The four-part Netflix special Repertoire and the award-winning Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999 sealed the reputation; the food podcast Off Menu, co-hosted with Ed Gamble, made him ubiquitous. He is also a writer of substance: Classic Scrapes, Perfect Sound Whatever and Guide to Quitting Social Media have all been Sunday Times bestsellers.

James Acaster in audiobooks

James Acaster’s Guide to Quitting Social Media is his book in our catalogue, and it is a parody of the self-help genre – which matters, because the internet is full of earnest versions and only this one comes with Acaster’s particular machinery of invention. His comedy is built from fictional characters, running jokes and long-arc storytelling, and the book imports those techniques wholesale.

Audio is the right format for it. Acaster’s comedy lives in delivery – the aggrieved precision, the escalating commitment to a ridiculous premise – and a listener gets the material as it is meant to sound. For UK listeners who know him from Off Menu or the panel shows, this is the concentrated version. Approach it as comedy wearing self-help’s clothes, not the reverse.