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....
As a prisoner of war, Andrew Jackson walked several miles barefoot across state lines while suffering from smallpox and a serious head wound received when he refused to polish the boots of the soldiers who had taken him captive. He was thirteen years old. A few decades later, he became the first popularly elected president and served the nation, pausing briefly only to beat a would-be assassin with a cane to within an inch of his life.
"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)
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.
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.
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").
Dustin Ybarra performing comedy on bad jobs, money, and fast food live at Go Bananas on September 15, 2012.
There is nothing more wonderful than a mother's love. There is also nothing more annoying. Who else can proudly insist that you're perfect while simultaneously making you question every career, fashion, and relationship decision you have ever made?
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.
Never one to shy away from the uproarious, challenging, and remarkable moments that make up life, this exceptionally candid book will have listeners wincing with recognition, nodding their heads in solidarity, and laughing out loud. Written with Amy's signature candor, she reflects on her often raucous childhood antics, her hard won and incomparable rise to comedic stardom, and the courage it takes to approach the world with astounding honesty every single day.
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".
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.
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).
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?
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.
Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them? Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother.
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.
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.
In the first of three essays included in this audiobook, Bill Bryson decides to move his wife and kids back to his homeland, the United States, after nearly two decades in Britain. But not before taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. The result is a hilarious social commentary.
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?"
There is nothing more wonderful than a mother's love. There is also nothing more annoying. Who else can proudly insist that you're perfect while simultaneously making you question every career, fashion, and relationship decision you have ever made?
Your future is...limited! Wait, we mean...limiting...No, hold on...limitless. Sometimes your first steps into the "real world" send you falling flat on your face. It's natural to be optimistic about new experiences, but most of us set ourselves up only to be let down every time. And disappointment hurts like a $%&*#. News flash: You don't have to be an Einstein to survive adult life. You don't even have to abandon your standards to get what you want. All you have to do is keep your expectations realistic.
Judd Apatow, the comedic mastermind behind films like Knocked Up, Funny People, and most recently Trainwreck, starts his book of interviews by telling us why his obsession over comedy never faltered during the course of his life. He grew up watching comedic greats like Steve Martin and George Carlin, and their talent inspired a love affair for comedy that only grew as time went on.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
[Contains explicit content] This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
[Contains explicit content] This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
What makes you quake in your boots? In this episode of Limelight, comedienne Aparna Nancherla travels around the country to visit comedians discussing their greatest fears.
Acclaimed comic Mark Watson performs his latest work, Flaws, live in concert. Mark has appeared on Mock the Week, Live at the Apollo and Have I Got News for You.
[Contains explicit content] Comedian Jen Kirkman's mother had a sign in her kitchen that said "Kissin' don't last, Cookin' do." Hear how that sign and all it represented affected Jen's romantic life, in a funny and touching story she told on Don't Tell My Mother! in Los Angeles. Plus, Jen is our special guest in studio! She and Dan Savage talk about love, lust (particularly for that hot 1970's look), and what it's like to grow up horny in a religious household.
"Coleshanger people are pretty bad," said Uncle Edward. "They won't cross water after sunset. And they have to be in bed by midnight, otherwise they think that they'll be turned into baboons and apes. They also worship the flea." Written in 1952, Coleshanger is a humorous, whimsical, and charming recount of English village life in the early part of the last century, a tale waiting 70 years to be heard but still very much the story of us today.
Damini is a teenage girl accidentally assigned to Hell. As one can guess, she wants out. To get reassigned to Paradise, she needs to unlock her mysterious past. A boy named Tuck is very much alive and willing to help her in exchange for his own ethereal answers. As the pair travel around the world to cut through the red tape of Hell's bureaucracy, they befriend an odd collection of demons and creatures. Focused on their own quest, they step right into Satan's plan for retirement...if he can just survive long enough to get there.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
This just in from The Onion, America's finest news source.
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.
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".
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!
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.
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.
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.
As a woman used to traveling and living the high life in Bangkok, Leanne Shirtliffe recognized the constant fodder for humor while pregnant with twins in Asia's sin city. But in spite of deep-fried bug cuisine and nurses who cover newborn bassinets with plastic wrap, Shirtliffe manages to keep her babies alive for a year with help from a Coca-Cola deliveryman, several waitresses, and a bra factory. Then she and her husband return home to the isolation of North American suburbia.
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.
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.
I Probably Shouldn't Have Done That chronicles the series of vast, at times incomprehensible, mistakes that Jules makes in an attempt to get over her first "serious" boyfriend. It follows her through drunken nights, drunker nights, bad dates, worse dates, encounters with her ex, and a very few glistening moments of hope and self-realization. It is a thoroughly sad break-up story, an occasionally naive love story, and a comical train wreck throughout.
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.
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.
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.
Beth Lisick started out as a homecoming princess with a Crisco-aided tan and a bad perm. And then everything changed. Plunging headlong into America's deepest subcultures, while keeping both feet firmly planted in her parents' Leave It to Beaver values, Lisick makes her adult home on the fringe of mainstream culture and finds it rich with paradox and humor. Fans of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell will relish Lisick's scathingly funny, smart, very real take on the effluvia of daily living.
When Bonnie Grayduck relocates from sunny Santa Cruz California to the small town of Lake Woebegotten, Minnesota, to live with her estranged father, chief of the local two-man police department, she thinks she's leaving her troubles behind. But she soon becomes fascinated by another student - the brooding, beautiful Edwin Scullen, whose reclusive family hides a terrible secret. (Psst: they're actually vampires. But they're the kind who don't eat people, so it's okay.)
Chances are you've been there before: On an awkward first date where you find yourself stuck playing 20 questions with a person who has broccoli stuck in their teeth, or the one who shows up so on-the-rocks wasted that they end up passed out in their bowl of clam chowder before the main course arrives. All My Friends Are Engaged is a collection of dating disaster stories, packed with witty and relatable answers to the age-old annoying question of "Why are you still single?"
This hilarious, whip-smart collection of essays from a top writer and producer of Six Feet Under crisscrosses from the highly personal (conflating her own loss of virginity and the Kobe Bryant accusations), to the political (what she has in common with Monica and Chandra), to the outrageously Los Angelean (why women wear huge diamonds and what they must do to get them). Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants is a genre-defying combination of personal essay and memoir, or a hilarious, unruly and unapologetic evaluation of society, religion, sex, love, and - best of all - Jill Soloway.