Biography Humor

Writer, actor, and director Desiree Akhavan shares the stories she was told to shut up about—hilarious, horny, heartbreaking tales of a life in pursuit of art, love, and a better haircut.

At eighteen, Paul Mountain pissed on his academic scholarship to the University of Minnesota and fled to Boulder, Colorado without money, family or prospects. In a cramped one-bedroom apartment with two other dudes, Paul's life was youth unbridled, impulsive, and without remorse. Within a year, Paul finds himself in a tiny cabin with his new girlfriend in a Rocky Mountain ghost town, convinced he can write his way out of poverty before buying his first legal drink. He was wrong. He was wrong about a great many things.

By the tender age of five, Bernie Mac had found his calling: making others laugh. He has since become the star and cocreator of Fox’s hit sitcom The Bernie Mac Show; a stand-up legend; and a hit movie star in Head of State and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. Now, this amazing comedian delves deep down inside to retell the poignant and hilarious story of his childhood and the people who helped shape him into the comedian - and the strong and self-reliant man - he is today.

Fans of the #1 bests eller Sh*t My Dad Says will recognize the always patient voice of Justin Halpern's dad as it crackles through this hysterical new audiobook. The story begins when Justin announces that he's decided to propose to his girlfriend. "You've been dating her for four years," his dad replies. "It ain't like you found a parallel fucking universe."

Picking up where her successful autobiography Enter Talking left off, Joan Rivers delivers a searing and funny account—as only she can—of private tragedy, a public fall from grace, and triumph against all odds. In Still Talking, Joan opens up about her rise to the top, dishes on fellow celebrities, and recounts the end of her treasured friendship with mentor Johnny Carson. Still Talking details Joan's courageous battle with life's obstacles and how she overcame the terrible circumstances that plagued her, surviving it all through laughter.

First published in 1961, this is the autobiography of Harpo Marx, the silent comedian of The Marx Brothers fame. Always silent on the stage and screen, Harpo speaks for the first time and shares the story of his remarkable life with humor, intelligence, and love. A truly gifted musician, brilliant comic, and wonderful person, Harpo comes alive in Harpo Speaks.

New York Times best-selling author, comedian, and actor Patton Oswalt shares his entertaining memoir about coming of age as a performer and writer in the late '90s while obsessively watching classic films at the legendary New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakeable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol, or sex. It was film.

For many families, the holiday season is—in a word—unhinged. In no family is that more true than in Danny Pellegrino’s, beloved podcast host of Everything Iconic and bestselling author. Inappropriately improvised monologues at the children's Christmas pageant, presents that land someone in the emergency room, or just sitting on the absolute roller coaster that is a Hallmark movie marathon, the holidays are a strange and magical time in the Pellegrino household. And nobody knows this better than Danny.

Discussion Materials gives the listener an honest look at Wall Street from someone in the trenches. After graduating from Columbia Business School, Bill Keenan joined Deutsche Bank's investment banking division as an associate where despotic superiors (and the blinking red light of his BlackBerry) instilled low-level terror on an hourly basis. You'll join him in his cubicle on the 44th floor of 60 Wall Street as he scrambles to ensure floating bar charts are the correct shade of orange and all numbers are left-aligned, but whatever you do, don't ask him what any of it means.

Hello! I’m Brian Limond, aka Limmy. You might know me from Limmy’s Show. Or you might not know me at all. Don’t worry if you don’t. They asked me to write a book about mental health, because I sometimes talk about my mental health in tweets and interviews, like suicidal thoughts and anxiety, and what I’ve done to try to deal with it. I said to them, oh, I don’t know if I could fill a whole book with just that. But how’s about I write a general autobiography type of thing, and all the mental health stuff will naturally appear along the way?

The world of comedy and comedians of the last five decades. By the man the New York Times calls "a comic institution himself", the only comedian (26 years in stand-up) to have made Elie Wiesel laugh, as well as having appeared on The Tonight Show (140 times, second only to Bob Hope, but who's counting). From the director of TV comedy series Mad About You, Seinfeld, Friends, Weeds, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

What does it mean to be Jew(ish) in 2020? Caught between tradition and modernity, between a Jewish family and a non-Jewish son, Matt Greene ponders the big questions concerning identity, religion, family and Seinfeld. When his son was born to a non-Jewish mother, Matt began to consider the upbringing he'd put behind him - the sense of not belonging, the forbidden foods, the holidays that felt more like punishments.

For more than 40 years—whether writing for Richard Pryor and Saturday Night Live or performing stand-up to sold-out crowds around the country—Paul Mooney has been provocative, incisive...and absolutely hilarious. His comedy has always been indisputably real and raw, reflecting race issues in America, and this fascinating, fearless new memoir continues that unapologetically candid tradition.

What is life for Giles and Mary outside the willow-patterned cocoon? Giles is a countryman who relishes solitude. His wife, Mary, thrives in company and enjoys frequent escapes to London. After 30 years in a marriage of opposites, Giles and Mary have adapted to a life of domestic misunderstandings within comical misadventures.

From the hilarious, oft-irresponsible travel enthusiast Auguste Gravel comes the first installment of travel stories that will make you shoot milk out of your nose and then shock you back into your seat with the next paragraph. On the Lam is about leaving your comfort zone and stepping into a world of travel and the unknown. It's a funny audiobook that provides advice for new or experienced travelers of any age.

In the great tradition of the American almanac, The Areas of My Expertise is a brilliant and hilarious compendium of handy reference tables, fascinating trivia, and sage wisdom on all topics large and small. Although best sellers such as Poor Richard's Almanack and The Book of Lists were certainly valuable, they also were largely true.

As the youngest of four in a tight-knit Jamaican family, Cooper cut her teeth in the mean cornfields of suburban Maryland. Soon she became a charmingly neurotic woman trying to break her worst patterns and reclaim her linen closet. From an early obsession with hair bands to her struggle to escape the immigrant-to-basic-bitch pipeline to her use of the Internet as a marriage counselor (after being fired by two real ones) and the curse of her TED Talk vibe, Cooper invites us to share in her triumphs and humiliations as she tries (and fails) to balance her own dreams with the American dream.

The British comedian of Nigerian heritage and co-executive producer and writer of the CBS hit series Bob Hearts Abishola chronicles her odyssey to get to America and break into Hollywood in this lively and humorous memoir.

Dive headfirst into the urban symphony of "Smelling the Taste of Sound", a riveting memoir of a newly diagnosed, neurodivergent trainee lawyer. Her sensory issues are compounded by the sirens that punctuate the daily grind of a tough, inner-city law firm. Amidst encounters with eccentric characters and surreal personalities, our protagonist navigates the chaos and unorthodox office dynamics with comical observations and resilience.

In 2008, Kevin Matthews, a well-known ABC and CBS radio personality in Chicago, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Broken Mary is Matthews' story of his early years in radio and stand-up comedy, his successful career, his struggle with MS, his awakening to the dignity of women, and, importantly, his chance encounter with a broken statue of Mary left next to a dumpster and all that happened as a result.