Comedy Essays

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. “Hilariously raw, relatable, and—dare I even say—sexy.”—Jessi Klein When it comes to shame...

An Almost Unbelievable Story of a Mother's Unconditional Love and What It Can Teach Us.This story, which tells of Kaye O'Bara's devotion to her comatose daughter, Edwarda, transcends our own experiences of love. It reminds us to look within and see where we can give unconditionally...

A collection of hilarious essays about how food became one man’s obsession and coping mechanism, and how it came to rule—and sometimes ruin—his relationships, from the Cobra Kai actor, stand-up comic, and host of Food Network’s Raid the Fridge “When most people say they have an...

A NOTE FROM JEN LANCASTER:"To whom the fat rolls…I'm tired of books where a self-loathing heroine is teased to the point where she starves herself skinny in hopes of a fabulous new life. And I hate the message that women can't possibly be happy until we all fit into our skinny jeans. I...

"In the beginning we were happy. And we were always excessive. So in the beginning we were happy to excess." With these opening lines Sean Wilsey takes us on an exhilarating tour of life in the strangest, wealthiest, and most grandiose of families. Sean's blond-bombshell mother (one of the...

“Whatever you have read or heard about me through articles or gossip, forget it. I am nothing like that Warren Beatty. I am nothing like what you have read.” —Warren Beatty Warren Beatty guarded his privacy even before he became a movie star, when he burst onto the screen in 1961 as the...

Ruskin Bond’s simple characters, living amidst the lush forests of the Himalayan foothills, are remarkable for their quiet heroism, courage and grace, and age-old values of honesty and fidelity. Residents of nondescript villages and towns, they lead lives that are touched by natural beauty as...

*A NEW YORK TIMES HUMOR BESTSELLER* By the author of I Like You Just the Way I Am and a frequent Chelsea contributor, an outrageous collection of personal stories about motherhood, responsibility, and other potential disasters Jenny Mollen is a writer and actress living in New York. Until two...

With three straight #1 bestsellers and more than 4 million copies of his books in print, the most powerful traditional force in the American media now takes off his gloves in the ongoing struggle for America’s heart and soul. Bill O’Reilly is the very embodiment of the idea of a Culture...

A brilliant, life-affirming, and hilarious memoir from a “genius” (The New York Times) and master storyteller. With illustrations by Jason Polan. The seven years between the birth of Etgar Keret’s son and the death of his father were good years, though still full of reasons to worry. Lev...

Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show and one of today's most hilarious comedians and insightful social critics, pens a brilliant account of how she discovered her comedic voice. In this collection of autobiographical essays, Winstead vividly recounts how she fought to find her own voice...

In Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why, acclaimed satirist Alexandra Petri offers perfectly logical, reassuring reasons for everything that has happened in recent American politics that will in no way unsettle your worldview. In essays both new and adapted from her viral Washington Post columns, Petri reports that the Trump administration is as competent as it is uncorrupted, white supremacy has never been less rampant, and men have been silenced for too long. The "woman card" is a powerful card to play! Q-Anon makes perfect sense!

An intimate memoir portraying a life spent trying to describe the indescribable—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of The Hours and Day Go ahead. Try using language to slit the skin of mortality to see what’s on the other side. At the age of three, Michael Cunningham began obsessively...

From the writer whose New York Magazine piece "I Was Caroline Calloway" broke the internet comes a fresh, incisive, laugh-out-loud funny memoir-in-essays about the frenzied journey to adulthood. Natalie Beach became an internet sensation when her essay on her toxic friendship with Instagram...

Hailed as "astonishingly powerful" by The New York Times, and "written perfectly" by The Washington Post, Joe Klein's #1 bestseller, Primary Colors, was the most-talked-about political novel of the past century. Now acclaimed journalist and author Joe Klein returns with another brilliant and...

A collection of short stories from The Big Garage on Clear Shot chronicles the offbeat lives of the colorful inhabitants of The End of the Road, a small town in Alaska...

"A decidedly skewed, hilarious collection of life reflections and colorful storytelling." — Kirkus Reviews An endlessly entertaining collection of wayward autobiographical tales about a search for a richer life thwarted at every turn by beagles, bureaucrats, and ill-advised love affairs The...

Are men afraid of smart, successful women? Why did feminism fizzle? Why are so many of today's women freezing their faces and emotions in an orgy of plasticity? Is "having it all" just a cruel hoax? In this witty and wide-ranging book, Maureen Dowd looks at the state of the sexual union, raising...

For almost a decade, beloved storyteller E. Lynn Harris has welcomed you into his family with his passionate, warm and trail-blazing novels. Now, he invites you into the most intimate world ever--his own. Since his first book Invisible Life was published in the early 1990s, New York Times...

“I was raised Lutheran: Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Lutheran. But as an adult I tried everything: Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Rock ‘n’ Roll Slackers 4 Jesus, Actors for Yahweh. Then I said, ‘Screw it’ and became a drunk and a slut. Well, a Lutheran slut–I slept with...