Amy's 'New Yorker' Essay is a Must-Read

If you weren't already looking forward to her memoir, this excerpt should do the trick. Amy Poehler's New Yorker essay called "Take Your Licks" is a brief look at the summer job she held when she was 17. With short sentences and a droll tone, Poehler gives us a peek into her time spent as a scooper and happy-birthday-performer at Chadwick's, an ice cream parlor in her Massachusetts town. Long before she was on Saturday Night Live or a leading lady on Parks and Recreation, Poehler was ringing the birthday gong for teenaged liars.

Her essay is great not only because we get more details about our favorite star — anything Poehler we tend to gobble up like a spoiled 5-year-old presented with an enormous sundae — but because it's an indication that her book's going to be so good. I have a feeling this "Take Your Licks" was taken right from the manuscript and serves as a wonderful teaser of what's to come.

In "Take Your Licks," Poehler talks about the satisfaction of knowing when to walk away from something, when to call it quits, when to move on to the next big thing. Even though here she's talking about leaving her hometown and Chadwick's for Boston College, we know that she's always had impeccable timing when it comes to saying goodbye; a skill that bodes particularly well for the ending of Parks and Rec.

Like Tina Fey's memoir Bossypants, it seems like Poehler's tome will look at the formative and often hilarious experiences that drove, or perhaps enabled, her to become the national treasure that she is today. But unlike Bossypants, the writing seems to be a bit more serious, in the best way possible.

As of late summer, HarperCollins says Poehler's book is still unnamed, but its release date is still set for fall 2014. It will show up on the Best Sellers list soon after, no doubt.