Kevin Smith Popular Books
Kevin Smith Biography & Facts
Kevin Patrick Smith (born August 2, 1970) is an American director, producer, writer, and actor. He came to prominence with the low-budget comedy buddy film Clerks (1994), which he wrote, directed, co-produced, and acted in as the character Silent Bob of stoner duo Jay and Silent Bob, characters who also appeared in Smith's later films Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), Clerks II (2006), Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019), and Clerks III (2022) which are set primarily in his home state of New Jersey. While not strictly sequential, the films have crossover plot elements, character references, and a shared canon known as the "View Askewniverse", named after Smith's production company View Askew Productions, which he co-founded with Scott Mosier. Since 2011, Smith has mostly made horror films, including Red State (2011) and the comedy horror films Tusk (2014) and Yoga Hosers (2016), two in a planned series of three such films set in Canada dubbed the True North trilogy. He has served as a director-for-hire for material he did not write, including the buddy cop action comedy Cop Out (2010) and various television series episodes, creating Masters of the Universe: Revelation in 2021. Smith owns Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey, a comic book store which became the setting for the reality television show Comic Book Men (2012–2018). He hosts the film review TV show Spoilers. As a podcaster, Smith cohosts several shows on his SModcast Podcast Network, including SModcast, Fatman Beyond, and the live show Hollywood Babble-On. He is known for participating in long, humorous Q&A sessions that are often filmed for DVD release, beginning with An Evening with Kevin Smith. Early life Kevin Patrick Smith was born on August 2, 1970, in Red Bank, New Jersey, the son of Grace (née Schultz), a homemaker, and Donald E. Smith (1936–2003), a postal worker. He has two siblings: an older sister, Virginia, and an older brother, Donald Jr. He was raised in a Catholic household in the nearby clamming town of Highlands. Smith's childhood was scheduled around his father's late shifts at the post office. His father grew to despise his job, which greatly influenced Smith, who remembers his father finding it difficult on some days to get up and go to work. Smith vowed never to work at something that he did not enjoy. Smith attended Henry Hudson Regional High School, where he was a B and C student, videotaped basketball games, and produced Saturday Night Live-style sketch comedy. An overweight teen, he developed into a comedic observer of life to socialize with friends and girls. After high school, Smith attended The New School in New York City, but did not graduate. Smith met Jason Mewes while working at a youth center; they became friends after discovering a mutual interest in comic books. Career As a filmmaker On his 21st birthday, Smith saw Richard Linklater's comedy Slacker. Impressed that Linklater set and shot the film in his hometown of Austin, Texas rather than on a soundstage in a major city, Smith was inspired to become a filmmaker, and to set films where he lived. He has said, "It was the movie that got me off my ass; it was the movie that lit a fire under me, the movie that made me think, 'Hey, I could be a filmmaker.' And I had never seen a movie like that before ever in my life." He assembled a library of independent filmmakers like Linklater, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and Hal Hartley to draw from. Smith attended Vancouver Film School for four months, where he met longtime collaborators Scott Mosier and Dave Klein. Unlike them, Smith left halfway through the course, figuring he knew enough to proceed and wanting to save money for his first film. Smith moved back to New Jersey and got his old job back at a convenience store in Leonardo. He decided to set his film, Clerks, at the store, borrowing the a-day-in-the-life structure from the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing. Smith maxed out more than a dozen credit cards, and sold his much-treasured comic book collection, to raise $27,575 to make the film, while saving money by casting friends and acquaintances in most roles. Clerks was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994, where it won the Filmmaker's Trophy. At a restaurant following the screening, Miramax executive Harvey Weinstein invited Smith to join him at his table, where he offered to buy the film. In May 1994, it went to the Cannes International Film Festival, where it won both the Prix de la Jeunesse and the International Critics' Week Prize. Released in October 1994 in two cities, the film went on to play in 50 markets, never playing on more than 50 screens at any given time. Despite the limited release, it was a critical and financial success, earning $3.1 million. Initially, the film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA for sexually graphic language. Miramax hired Alan Dershowitz to sue the MPAA. At an appeals screening, a jury of members of the National Association of Theatre Owners reversed the MPAA's decision, and the film was given an R rating. The movie had a profound effect on the independent film community. According to producer and author John Pierson, it is considered one of the two most influential film debuts in the 1990s, along with The Brothers McMullen. Smith's second film, Mallrats, Jason Lee's debut as a leading man, did not fare as well as expected. It received a critical drubbing and earned only $2.2 million at the box office despite playing on more than 500 screens. Mallrats was more successful in the home video market. Widely hailed as Smith's best film, 1997's Chasing Amy marked what Quentin Tarantino called "a quantum leap forward" for Smith. Starring Mallrats alumni Jason Lee, Joey Lauren Adams and Ben Affleck, the $250,000 film earned $12 million at the box office, wound up on a number of critics' year-end best lists, and won two Independent Spirit Awards (for Screenplay and Supporting Actor for Lee). The film received some criticism from members of the lesbian community, who felt that it reinforced the perception that lesbians merely need to find the right man. Smith, whose brother Donald is gay, found this accusation frustrating, as he has endeavored to be a pro-LGBT filmmaker, believing that sexuality is more fluid, with social taboos, not sexual desire, preventing more people from expressing bisexuality. Smith's fourth film, Dogma (1999), featured an all-star cast and was mired in controversy. A religious-themed comedy that starred a post-Good Will Hunting Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, as well as Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, George Carlin, Alan Rickman, Linda Fiorentino, and Lee and Mewes, it was criticized by the Catholic League. The film debuted at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, out of competition. Released on 800 screens in November 1999, the $10 million film earned $30 million. Smith then focused the spotlight on the two characters who had appeared in suppor.... Discover the Kevin Smith popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Kevin Smith books.
Best Seller Kevin Smith Books of 2024
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Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 11
Maxim JakubowskiThis superb annual anthology of the year’s most outstanding short crime fiction published in the UK is now well into its second decade. Jakubowski has succeeded, once again, in une...
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The Best of the Best American Poetry
David Lehman & Harold BloomEvery year since 1988 a major poet has selected seventyfive poems for publication in The Best American Poetry. The series has quickly grown in both sales and prestige, as poetry it...
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Maskerade Volume 1
Kevin Smith, Andy McElfresh & John SprengelmeyerThis comics collection marks the debut of legendary director Kevin Smith’s Secret Stash Press imprint with an exciting and gritty vigilante story.Felicia Dance is hiding in plain s...
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The Devil Himself
Peter FarrisFor Fans of Brian Panowich and Ron Rash. Southern Noir at its finest, The Devil Himself, sizzles with pageburning suspense and bewitching characters. Deep in the forest o...
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The Mimosa Tree Mystery
Ovidia YuLONGLISTED FOR THE CWA HISTORICAL DAGGER'Simply glorious. Every nook and cranny of 1930s Singapore is brought richly to life' CATRIONA MCPHERSON 'Charming' RHYS BOWEN'One of the mo...
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Having it So Good
Peter HennessyWinner of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing, Peter Hennessy's Having it So Good: Britain in the Fifties captures Britain in an extraordinary decade, emerging from the shadow o...
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Quick Stops
Kevin Smith, Jeremy Simser, Phillip Hester & Ande ParksBefore there was a Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC Extended Universe, or Harry Potterverse; There was Kevin Smith’s Askewniversea series of interconnected films featuring a cast of c...
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Kotki
Kevin Roland SmithThis is a story based on domestic animals who lived in a European village and belonged to my wife and myself. Everything in the story was real even the wicked witch although her ...
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A Day On The Pond
Kevin Roland SmithA little yellow duck is hungry and looks for its breakfast. While it is searching for something to eat, it meets some of its friends and asks them to help it find something tasty t...
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Fearless
Doug Pederson & Dan PompeiHow does an underdog become a champion? One of the most innovative, gutsy, and dynamic head coaches in the NFL reveals the strategies behind building the Eagles team that shocked t...
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All the Smoke
Matt Barnes & Stephen JacksonAn indepth and fresh celebration of the awardwinning, “unapologetic, authentic, and at times unfiltered” (The Sacramento Bee) sports podcast All the Smoke hosted by NBA champions M...
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Nothing Ever Just Disappears
Diarmuid HesterAn exploration of artistic freedom, survival, and the hidden places of the imagination, including James Baldwin in Provence, Josephine Baker in Paris, Kevin Killian in San Francisc...
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Silent Comedy
Paul MertonOn the surface it may seem slightly surprising that a master of verbal humour should also be a devotee of silent comedy, but Paul Merton is completely passionate about the early da...
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The Little Demon
Fyodor Sologub & Ronald WilksA dark classic of Russia's silver age, this blackly funny novel recounts a schoolteacher's descent into sadism, arson and murder.Mad, lascivious, sadistic and ridiculous, the provi...
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Critical Thinking Essentials
Captain Kevin M. SmithIn our modern landscape of largescale complex systems, we need to think critically to solve problems. Applied critical thinking exercises reason, which becomes our most important r...
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The Life of Lee
Lee EvansLee Evans is one of the bestloved comedians in the country; a Hollywood star able to sell out arenas in the blink of eye. But he was not always such a roaring success. The Life of ...
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The Best American Poetry 2020
David LehmanThe 2020 edition of contemporary American poetry returns, guest edited by Paisley Rekdal, the awardwinning poet and author of Nightingale, proving that this is “a ‘best’ anthology ...
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Intuitions
Karl Kevin SmithIntuitions Book of Poems is a book that took four years to write. I wrote this book after my mother passed. I hadn't done any writing in twentytwo years. Once I started writing I w...
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The Paper Bark Tree Mystery
Ovidia YuSHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA SAPERE BOOKS HISTORICAL DAGGER'Simply glorious. Every nook and cranny of 1930s Singapore is brought richly to life' CATRIONA MCPHERSON 'Charming' RHYS BOWEN...
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Trying to Float
Nicolaia Rips“Hysterically droll, touching, elegant, and wisea comingofage story from someone who possibly came of age before her parents” (Patricia Marx, New Yorker writer and bestselling auth...
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Ponti
Sharlene TeoAn awardwinning novel about the value of friendships in presentday Singaporea “stirring debut…relatable yet unsettling [that] smartly captures earnest teenage myopathy through a tu...
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When Kids Kill
Jonathan PaulJonathan Paul goes behind the sensationalist headlines of 'child killers' to investigate why these crimes happen. He examines child homicide in today's violent, confusing world and...
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Kevin Smith - The Bionic Man Vol. 1
Kevin SmithWe Can Rebuild Him! Steve Austin is back and acclaimed filmmaker Kevin Smith unleashes his highoctane vision in this new series from Dynamite. Smith unleashes The Bionic Man into t...
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Green Arrow by Kevin Smith
Kevin Smith, Phil Hester & Ande ParksWriter/director Kevin Smith (CLERKS, CHASING AMY, DOGMA) delivers the aweinspiring tale that resurrected Oliver Queen, DC Comics� original Green Arrow! Stunningly rendered by artis...
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Sunset Song
Lewis Grassic GibbonWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALI SMITHYoung Chris Guthrie lives a brutal life in the harsh landscape of northern Scotland, torn between her passion for the land, duty to her family and ...
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The Vaccine Court
Wayne RohdeA hard look at the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the families desperately trying to navigate their way through it.The Vaccine Court looks at the mysterious and o...
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The Best American Poetry 2019
David Lehman & Major JacksonThe 2019 edition of The Best American Poetry“one of the mainstays of the poetry publication world” (Academy of American Poets)now guest edited by Major Jackson, awardwinning poet a...
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The Wait Is Over
John Kreiser & Neil SmithAfter an over 50year drought, the New York Rangers defeated the Vancouver Canucks in a dramatic sevengame series to capture the Stanley Cup in 1994. For this reason and countless m...
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The Cannonball Tree Mystery
Ovidia Yu'One of Singapore's finest living authors' South China Morning Post'Simply glorious. Every nook and cranny of 1930s Singapore is brought richly to life' CATRIONA MCPHERSON'Charming...
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An Askew View 2
John Kenneth MuirIn the year 2002, An Askew View: The Films of Kevin Smith was the first book to gaze at the cinema of one of New Jersey's favorite sons, the independent and controversial auteur of...
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Fit Men Cook
Kevin CurryThe fitness influencer and creator of the #1 bestselling Food & Drink app, FitMenCook, shares 100 easy, quick meal prep recipes that will save you time, money, and inches on yo...
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Australia According To Hoges
Paul HoganStories and yarns about my favourite bits of Down UnderPaul Hogan's ancestors were a couple of Irish blowins who arrived in the colony of New South Wales by boat, with a little ass...
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New and Selected Poems
David LehmanA major collection of poems from one of our most accomplished poets, the prominent man of letters behind The Best American Poetry series.Drawing from a wealth of material produced ...