Short, Simple, No Spoilers
Any parent with a shred of a sense of humor will find this book to be a veritable hoot. Being narrated by Sam Jackson; priceless.
Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) rocks this mock bedtime story, capturing a hilarious range of emotions as the voice of a father struggling to get his child to sleep. Go the F**k to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland.
If you're unfamiliar w/David Sedaris, start with this or any of his books. He writes in a simple prose essay format with humor sprinkled throughout. Everyday familial situations become hilarious stories and I can only imagine his family dodging his calls and visits less they end up as foddor for his writing.
In this collection, he introduces his redneck brother, Rooster; the sly mother returns; his practical, pragmatic father weighs in; and we hear more about his rebellious sister and her unkempt, breezy lifestyle. Of course he shares insights on his relationship w/Hugh. You'll laugh throughout and even feel a little sad at how he can encapsulate moments of pure clarity at the unfairness of life. A must read if you enjoy humorous prose.
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
This is my first Sedaris book and chuckled throughout. The book isn't a straightforward novel, but a compilation of different events/periods in his life coupled with live performances. It's deeply reflective and humorous in a subtle manner. Highly recommend and can't wait to download his other titles.
David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. You can also listen to Sedaris in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
Haunt is a tripping-balls Los Angeles noir, where a mysterious dame drags you through a time-warping bizarro hall of mirrors. She's the girl of your dreams - too bad she's dead. Or, is she?
An awful poet, dumped by his girlfriend, roams through Italy, where he clearly doesn't belong; an oil delivery man falls in love with a clumsy woman and becomes even clumsier than she is; and a six-year-old and his father kill over 200 flies at a horse farm while the father wonders about life and death. Poor Advice and Other Stories, with its mix of the serious and the absurd, reveals Lou Gaglia's humor, imagination, and range.
Reginald, published in 1904, was the first of Saki's collections of short stories. The eponymous Reginald is an effete, cynical young man-about-town whose character is a vehicle for Saki's delicious biting wit satirizing Edwardian high society.
Donna Carver gives us a funny and interesting look at the trucking industry and the trucker's wild CB radio slang. She gets the ride of her life from the passenger seat of a "sure enough store-bought large car". She's stylin' and profilin', checking out the seat covers and watching the bushes for bears.
As a beauty editor of Denver's hot new High Life magazine, Danielle Starkey didn't have becoming a widow on her to-do list. Then nine months after her husband's death, she discovers he booked a vacation with another woman. Suddenly, Danielle sees Adam's death in a whole new light and has to get over it - for the second time. Hit with the truth when she least expects it, Danielle brings a fresh, funny, and honest approach to the grieving process as she struggles through online dating, stalking her dead husband's mistress, and, hopefully, finding the man of her dreams.
The thrilling saga of a suburban father and husband as he tries to reconcile his inner John Wayne with his outer Ward Cleaver. Excerpts are taken from Clement's blog, Confessions of a Suburban Cowboy, which can be located at confessionsofasuburbancowboy.com.
Imagine if Jackanory was set free from its childish shackles. What twisted, funny tales would it unleash upon the world? Each episode of Crackanory contains two 15-minute tales and is a master class in storytelling, combining some of the UK’s best comedy writers and performers.
Shoe store owner Roger Hudson has a chip on his shoulder the size of Mount Rushmore. Hiring real estate agent Sally Bright, the most annoyingly positive woman ever, probably isn't the smartest move - but she's the best. Her constantly bubbly nature gets under Roger's skin, but there's an even bigger problem. She's also getting into his heart. And don't even get him started on her dynamite legs.
Remember the stories your grandfather used to tell you about way back when? Remember laughing out loud as the stories got deeper? If you like to LOL, then this really is a book for you. Here you'll find some observations on life in general and people in particular, as seen through a collection of newspaper columns, presenting skewed, offbeat, semiserious, and sometimes amusing views of the world.
In A Vulgar Art, Ian Brodie uses a folkloristic approach to stand-up comedy, engaging the discipline's central method of studying interpersonal, artistic communication and performance. Because stand-up comedy is a rather broad category, people who study it often begin by relating it to something they recognize - "literature" or "theatre"; "editorial" or "morality" - and analyze it accordingly. A Vulgar Art begins with a more fundamental observation: Someone is standing in front of a group of people, talking to them directly, and trying to make them laugh.
Introducing Chris Ramsey: the critically acclaimed North East funny man people are calling the next big thing in comedy. He's a Celebrity Juice regular and star of Channel 4's Time Crashers and BBC2's Hebburn, 8 out of 10 Cats, Mock the Week and Live at the Apollo. Now Chris brings his sell-out, brand-new stand-up show to audio for the first time. Filmed to a packed home crowd in Newcastle, expect an electrifyingly hilarious performance.
Older, wiser, funnier and far closer to a full breakdown, Cruttenden certainly has an edge to him. Perhaps it’s from existing on the edges of things - the edges of London, the edge of middle age, the edge of middle class and the edge of greater fame. He has all the likeability of an arena comic but with something of the night about him.
Star of QI, Live at the Apollo and Have I Got News for You, German comedy ambassador Henning Wehn gives a hilarious outsider’s view on modern British life compared to his home country. Be it gently mocking this nation's obsession with the housing market or our tendency to laugh off personal failure, Henning is one of the funniest and most popular comedians around. And yes, there might be just the odd mention of the World Cup.
After reapplying the tiger face as Young Kenny for the hugely successful Phoenix Nights LIVE reunion in aid of Comic Relief, Justin Moorhouse has been back doing what he does best - touring to packed audiences across the UK with his hilarious new show. This hugely likeable and energetic comedian ponders those everyday gripes and grumbles, delivering big laughs to a rapt home crowd at The Lowry in Salford.
The Lafta funniest stand-up award winner of 2013 tackles everything borderline within the human psyche. Why is one person's offence another person's humour? PC may be his initials, but the relentless world he lives in definitely isn't. Why has tackling the preconceptions of political correctness become so offensive? Paul will tackle these areas with hard-hitting subjects like the fine art of attracting a woman, jokes cut from his TV appearances, homosexuality and nonexistent customer services.
Multiaward winning comedy star Russell Kane is at his hyperactive best as he rips through his brand new stand-up show. Recorded live in London’s theatre land at the Vaudeville Theatre, Essex-born comedy genius Russell hits the stage running as he comes to terms with how we are supposed to behave in a modern British society.
Depressed about the current state of his comedy career, Danny Lobell finds himself at the Social Security Office. Danny shares an amusing story about how he found some unexpected encouragement sitting next to him in the waiting room, for RISK! at the NerdMelt Showroom in Los Angeles, CA.
Public speaking can be terrifying. For David Nihill, the idea of standing in front of an audience was scarier than cliff jumping into a thorny pit of spiders and mothers-in-law. Without a parachute or advanced weaponry. Something had to change.
In what doesn't sound like the best plan ever, David decided to overcome his fears by pretending to be a comedian called "Irish Dave" for one full year, crashing as many comedy clubs, festivals, and shows as possible.
Alternating between personal anecdote, hilarious insight, and smart analysis, Luke Skywalker Can't Read contends that Barbarella is good for you, that monster movies are just romantic comedies with commitment issues, and that Dracula and Sherlock Holmes are total hipsters and, most shockingly, shows how virtually everyone in the Star Wars universe is functionally illiterate.
Modern Romance is a nonfiction book by the comedian Aziz Ansari and New York University sociologist Eric Klinenberg. For years, Ansari has been doing comedy on the absurdities of dating, recounting tales from both his own life and other people's. Eventually, the strangeness of modern dating was just too much to handle. He never understood why that girl did not respond to his perfectly crafted text message. He saw the bubbles indicating a response and then nothing.
Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV. She has seen both these dreams come true. At last, Tina Fey's story can be told....
For fans of Tina Fey and David Sedaris - Internet star Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, makes her literary debut. Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives - the ones we'd like to pretend never happened - are in fact the ones that define us. In Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor.
"I've experienced a whole lot the last few years and I have a lot to share. So I hope that you'll take a moment to sit back, relax and enjoy the words I've put together for you in this book. I think you'll find I've left no stone unturned, no door unopened, no window unbroken, no rug unvacuumed, no ivories untickled. What I'm saying is, let us begin, shall we?" (Ellen DeGeneres)
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences.
The star of Parks and Recreation and author of the New York Times best seller Paddle Your Own Canoe returns with a second book that humorously highlights 21 figures from our nation's history, from her inception to present day - Nick's personal pantheon of "great Americans".
In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who’s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children - everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers’ communication skills ("they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news"), to the eating habits of four-year-olds ("there is no difference between a four-year-old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor").
Stand-up comedian and author Jim Gaffigan has made his career rhapsodizing over the most treasured dishes of the American diet ("choking on bacon is like getting murdered by your lover") and decrying the worst offenders ("kale is the early morning of foods"). Fans flocked to his New York Times best-selling book Dad Is Fat to hear him riff on fatherhood but now, in his second book, he will give them what they really crave - his thoughts on all things culinary(ish).
David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. You can also listen to Sedaris in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
Wherever Chelsea Handler travels, one thing is certain: she always ends up in the land of the ridiculous. Now, in this uproarious collection, she sneaks her sharp wit through airport security and delivers her most absurd and hilarious stories ever.
Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) rocks this mock bedtime story, capturing a hilarious range of emotions as the voice of a father struggling to get his child to sleep. Go the F**k to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland.
Anyone who saw an episode of Saturday Night Live between 1999 and 2006 knows Rachel Dratch. She was hilarious! So what happened to her? After a misbegotten part as Jenna on the pilot of 30 Rock, Dratch was only getting offered roles as "Lesbians. Secretaries. Sometimes secretaries who are lesbians." Her career at a low point, Dratch suddenly had time for yoga, dog- sitting, learning Spanish - and dating. After all, what did a forty-something single woman living in New York have to lose?
In How to Be Right: the Art of Being Persuasively Correct, Gutfeld reveals the strategies that have helped him keep a steady job for almost three decades. From "Discard Your Outrage" and "Outcompassion Them" to "Find the Right's Obama" and "Use your Mom", Gutfeld gives listeners the tools they'll need to argue, influence, and convince their friends, family, and foes throughout the 2016 election cycle.
From the outrageously filthy and oddly innocent comedienne and star of the powerful 2015 film I Smile Back Sarah Silverman comes a memoir—her first book—that is at once shockingly personal, surprisingly poignant, and still pee-in-your-pants funny. If you like Sarah's television show The Sarah Silverman Program, or memoirs such as Chelsea Handler's Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea and Artie Lange's Too Fat to Fish, you'll love The Bedwetter.
Infused with her trademark saucy, sweet, and funny voice, Grace’s Guide is a tongue-in-cheek handbook for millennials, encompassing everything a young or new (or regular or old) adult needs to know, from surviving a breakup to recovering from a hangover. Read by the author in her inimitable style, Grace’s Guide features interactive elements and exclusive stories from Grace’s own misadventures - like losing her virginity solely because her date took her to a Macaroni Grill - and many other hilarious lessons she learned the hard way.
A compilation of funny, irreverently reverent stories on aligning with the Divine in daily life. For the passionately spiritual and bemusedly skeptical alike. Adapted from a popular column originally published as "San Francisco's Spiritual Examiner" at examiner.com. "What if God IS the story? What if the Divine is constantly igniting roadside flares to get our attention? What if there actually IS a Supreme Organizing Principle with a ribald and unbridled sense of humor? And what if we each have this ardent inner suitor who's writing us love letters every day that often go unopened?"
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below". At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old Devil to his nephew, Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man.
God Is Disappointed in You is for people who would like to read the Bible...if it would just cut to the chase. Stripped of its arcane language and interminable passages, every book of the Bible is condensed down to its core message, in no more than a few pages each. Written by Mark Russell with cartoons by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, God Is Disappointed in You is a frequently hilarious, often shocking, but always accurate retelling of the Bible, including the parts selectively left out by Sunday School teachers.
Public speaking can be terrifying. For David Nihill, the idea of standing in front of an audience was scarier than cliff jumping into a thorny pit of spiders and mothers-in-law. Without a parachute or advanced weaponry. Something had to change.
In what doesn't sound like the best plan ever, David decided to overcome his fears by pretending to be a comedian called "Irish Dave" for one full year, crashing as many comedy clubs, festivals, and shows as possible.
If one George Carlin audio is funny, then two are funnier and three must be funniest, right? That's our thinking behind this new collection. t's a HighBridge library of laugh-out-loud, award-winning recordings featuring George himself performing many of his best bits.
Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) rocks this mock bedtime story, capturing a hilarious range of emotions as the voice of a father struggling to get his child to sleep. Go the F**k to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland.
God Is Disappointed in You is for people who would like to read the Bible...if it would just cut to the chase. Stripped of its arcane language and interminable passages, every book of the Bible is condensed down to its core message, in no more than a few pages each. Written by Mark Russell with cartoons by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, God Is Disappointed in You is a frequently hilarious, often shocking, but always accurate retelling of the Bible, including the parts selectively left out by Sunday School teachers.
Emmy Award-winning actor Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, Malcom in the Middle) follows in the exasperated footsteps of Samuel L. Jackson, giving voice to the long-suffering father whose indifferent child will just not eat in this hilarious follow-up to Adam Mansbach's international best seller, Go the F--k to Sleep.
Queue up these hilarious real-life stories from the video clerking trenches. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll wash your hands. No rewinding required!
Master storyteller and satirist Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most in-demand commencement speakers of his time. For each occasion, Vonnegut’s words were unfailingly unique, insightful, and witty, and they stayed with audience members long after graduation. As edited by Dan Wakefield, this book reads like a narrative in the unique voice that made Vonnegut a hero to readers and listeners of all ages. At times hilarious, razor-sharp, freewheeling, and deeply serious, these reflections are ideal for anyone undergoing what Vonnegut would call their "long-delayed puberty ceremony".
Jenny Mollen is an actress and writer living in Los Angeles. She is also a wife, married to a famous guy (which is annoying only because he gets free shit and she doesn't). She doesn't want much from life. Just to be loved - by everybody: her parents, her dogs, her ex-boyfriends, her ex-boyfriends' dogs, her husband, her husband's ex-girlfriends, her husband's ex-girlfriend's new boyfriends, etc.
American writer Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain has given us some literary gems with Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and his travel adventures in 19th-century Europe and to Australia and New Zealand. In How to Tell a Story and Other Essays, Twain discusses the telling of stories, rather than providing more stories.
Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents features outrageous and uncensored profiles of the men in the White House - complete with hundreds of little-known, politically incorrect, and downright wacko facts.
You'd know Fred Stoller if you saw him. He has appeared on practically every great sitcom you've ever seen - Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends, and Murphy Brown just to name a few. But he has never been a regular on a series, always the guest star. He longs to find a showbiz home. Instead, he is a television foster child, shuttling from show to show in the vain hope that one will finally agree to keep him.
Screw Everyone is comedian Ophira Eisenberg's wisecracking account of how she spent most of her life saying "yes" to everything - and everyone - and how that attitude ultimately helped her overcome her phobia of commitment. Skeptical about long-term relationships, Eisenberg approached dating as a sort of research experiment from early on: She spent her twenties traveling from futon to futon and gathering data, figuring that one day she'd put it all together somehow and build her own perfect Frankenmate.
Downton Abbey has brought out the Anglophile in American fans of the hit TV series. But Anglophilia has a long history in America. Why are some native-born residents of our Shining City Upon a Hill, where All Men Are Created Equal, seduced by the fluting tones of manor-born privilege? At last, Anglophilia explained - in American, thank you.
Chris Gethard has often found himself in awkward situations most people, including you, probably would have safely avoided. The good news is now, thanks to this book, you can enjoy the painfully funny consequences of his unfortunate decisions at a safe distance. A Bad Idea I'm About to Do invites listeners to join Chris as he navigates an adolescence and adulthood mired in hilariously ill-fated nerdom, and to take comfort in the fact that - as his experiences often prove - things could always be much, much worse.
They love nothing better than sipping free-trade gourmet coffee, leafing through the Sunday New York Times, and listening to David Sedaris on NPR (ideally all at the same time). Apple products, indie music, food co-ops, and vintage T-shirts make them weak in the knees. They believe they're unique, yet somehow they're all exactly the same.
Mark Twain composed this short essay on the "art of lying" in 1885 for a meeting of the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford, Connecticut. In the essay, Twain laments the four ways in which men of America's Gilded Age employ man's "most faithful friend". The essay, Twain notes, was "offered for the thirty-dollar prize," but it "did not take the prize."
In Modern Manners, cultural guru P. J. O'Rourke provides the essential accessory for the truly contemporary man or woman - a rulebook for living in a world without rules. Traditionally, good manners were a means of becoming as bland and invisible as everyone else, and thus of avoiding calling attention to one's own awkwardness and stupidity.
Fred Stoller has played the annoying schnook in just about every sitcom you’ve seen on TV - Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Scrubs, Hannah Montana, My Name Is Earl - and was even a staff writer for Seinfeld, but he’s never found a solid gig. When it comes to Hollywood, it’s a case of always the bridesmaid and never the bride, except in his case he’s always the snarky waiter, the mopey cousin, or Man Number Two.
Actor Stephen Tobolowsky has appeared in over 200 movies and television shows. He has played everyone from Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day to Sandy Ryerson in Glee. He has amused thousands with his true stories on The Tobolowsky Files at Slashfilm.com and iTunes. Here he shares some homespun philosophy and more true stories that prove tales of sex, drugs, and rock and roll are often the most humiliating and almost always the most enjoyable.
P.J. O’Rourke began writing funny things in 1960s underground newspapers, became editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, then spent 20 years reporting for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic Monthly as the world’s only trouble spot humorist, going to wars, riots, rebellions, and other "Holidays in Hell” in more than 40 countries.
Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb in the 1970s was an easy life. Well, easy as long as you didn't have dyslexia or ADD, or were a Jew. And once you added gay into the mix, life became more difficult. So Todd Glass decided to hide the gay part, no matter how comic, tragic, or comically tragic the results. Now, Todd has written an open, honest, and hilarious memoir in an effort to help everyone - young and old, gay and straight - breathe a little more freely.
Motherhood is absolutely hilarious if you're not too exhausted to notice! These writings feature funny, blogging moms who chronicle motherhood from a uniquely contemporary perspective. From labor pains to potty disasters, weight gain, holiday mayhem, teen angst, empty nest syndrome, home renovations and even colonoscopy exams, See Mom Run is the perfect prescription for today's harried parents!