Discover the Best Books Written by Kliph Nesteroff

Kliph Nesteroff is a best-selling author regarded for his vast knowledge of show business. Vice Magazine called him "The Human Encyclopedia of Comedy," and Los Angeles Magazine profiled him as "The King of Comedy Lore." The New York Times has deemed some of his theories "provocative," while Vanity Fair calls his work "essential." Nesteroff was included on LA Weekly's Best of Los Angeles list in 2016 and was dubbed the "premier popular historian of comedy" by the New York Times in 2021.

After eight years as a stand-up comedian, Nesteroff became a frequent contributor to WFMU and a national, on-air contributor for CBC Radio One. For several years he moderated Classic Television Showbiz, a website devoted to classic show business and comedians. The A.V. Club referred to Nesteroff as their "favorite pop culture historian." He is perhaps best known for his several appearances on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast and his five appearances on WTF with Marc Maron. Maron was the executive producer of Nesteroff's limited-series Earwolf podcast Classic Showbiz.

In the year 2022, Nesteroff appeared in the Judd Apatow documentary George Carlin's American Dream on HBO, W. Kamau Bell's We Need to Talk About Cosby on Showtime, Kevin Hart's Right to Offend on A&E, and The Dark Side of Comedy on Vice TV. He currently serves as a consultant on Rob Reiner's forthcoming documentary about Albert Brooks.

Nesteroff is from South Slocan, British Columbia. He was expelled from high school for giving a speech exposing "salacious dirty laundry" about the teachers, and within a year, he moved to Toronto to take a sitcom writing class. Grove Press released Nesteroff's first book, The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy, on November 3, 2015, to uniformly positive reviews. It was selected as a book of the year by several papers, including LA Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, and the National Post.

Merrill Markoe wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "I thought I knew a lot about the history of American comedy. But this book located gaps in my knowledge I never knew were there and filled them with jaw-dropping anecdotes that made my eyes spin in different directions. For comedy completists and comedians alike, this book is a real treat." The Washington Post said of Nesteroff, "He writes with insider perception but never seems to be either whitewashing or trashing any of this outrageous cast. 

Like a biblical epic, The Comedians seems to have a cast of thousands. One act barely somersaults offstage before Nesteroff leads on the next. The anecdotes are memorable and often hilarious ... With his encyclopedic knowledge, talent for vivid anecdotes, and tireless gusto, he drives this busload of rowdy clowns into the 21st century." The Onion's AV Club stated, "Nesteroff is intent on giving the beautiful losers of comedy their due. The Comedians [is] an astonishingly assured and compulsively readable exploration of an impossibly vast topic." The New York Times book review said, "The way he traces ... the evolution of comedy is fascinating ... Through his elegiac attention, these forgotten comedians become almost romantic figures, the stars of a secret history of laughter."