Funny Biography

The funny, sad and compelling diary kept by an overweight teenage girl that became the basis for the British television sensation of the same name available to stream on HULU. It's 1989 and Rae Earl is a fat, boy-mad 17-year-old girl, living in Stamford, Lincolnshire with her mum and their deaf...

"A rich inquiry into what it means to pay (and maintain) attention in a world increasingly permeated with distraction and interference.” —Publisher’s Weekly Combining expert storytelling with genuine self-scrutiny, Casey Schwartz details the decade she spend taking Adderall to help her pay...

Alan Zweibel started his comedy career selling jokes for seven dollars apiece to the last of the Borscht Belt standups. Then one night, despite bombing on stage, he caught the attention of Lorne Michaels and became one of the first writers at Saturday Night Live, where he penned classic material for Gilda Radner, John Belushi, and all of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. From SNL, he went on to have a hand in a series of landmark shows - from It’s Garry Shandling’s Show to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

An Esquire Best Book of 2022! Written with inside access, comprehensive research, and a down-to-earth perspective, Phasers on Stun! chronicles the entire history of Star Trek, revealing that its enduring place in pop culture is all thanks to innovative pivots and radical change. For over five...

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...

Culled from Bodett's syndicated radio show, these interconnected stories captures the essence of life in America--especially Homer, Alaska, the sort of place where the keys are left in the snowplow in case someone gets stuck after hours...

From Internet sensation Anna Akana comes a candid and poignant collection of essays about love, loss, and chasing adulthood. In 2007, Anna Akana lost her teen sister, Kristina, to suicide. In the months that followed, she realized that the one thing helping her process her grief and begin to...

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...

An indispensable, richly informative, and always entertaining sourcebook on Provence by the writer who has made the region his own. Though organized from A to Z, this is hardly a conventional work of reference. It is rather a selection of those aspects of Provence that Peter Mayle in almost...

From the acclaimed musician comes a tender, surprising, and often uproarious memoir about his dirt-poor southeast Texas boyhood. The only child of a hard-drinking father and a Holy Roller mother, Rodney Crowell was no stranger to bombast from an early age, whether knock-down-drag-outs at a local...

A language barrier is no match for love. Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early thirties, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier—a surprising turn of events for someone who didn’t have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love...

Dennis Miller is back, and he is Ranting Again in this hilarious compendium of wit, wisdom, and righteous outrage. This is good news for all of us who fume at the country's lack of common sense, and seethe at the absurdity of the daily headlines. Setting his sights higher and wider than ever...

Sometimes, we fall in love on mission trips even though we know we’ll break up when we get back. Sometimes, you have to shot block a friend’s prayer because she’s asking God to bless an obviously bad dating relationship. Sometimes, you think, “I wish I had a t-shirt that said ‘I direct...

From former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, a candid and humorous blueprint for finding optimism in troubling times IN THIS FRANK, OFTEN HILARIOUS COLLECTION OF TRUE STORIES, political trailblazer Andrew Yang examines America’s breakdown through the lens of his unexpected journey from...

A sharp, funny, and heartfelt memoir about fatherhood and the ups and downs of raising a family in modern America No one writes about family quite like Drew Magary. The GQ correspondent and Deadspin columnist’s stories about trying to raise a family have attracted millions of readers online...

A delightfully subversive essay collection from Laci Mosley, host of the award-winning “Scam Goddess” podcast, about the frauds, cons, and schemes that make up our world—and how the scammer mindset has affected her own upbringing, career, friendships, love life, and more. ​ From an early...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. The breakout book from "the funniest writer in America"--not to mention an official...

Make it easy on yourself - read John Updike in Large Print! * All Random House Large Print Editions are published in a 16-point type Golf is neither work nor play, John Updike tells us: "Golf is a trip." Golf has been the subject of many books and the province of many experts, but few have...

Comedian and musician Reggie Watts shares his story of growing up in Montana as a biracial oddball struggling to navigate life, girls, drugs, and his own identity in America’s heartland—and having a blast doing it. Reggie Watts is weird. But you knew that. Anyone who’s seen his...

Penguin Presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Rommel? 'Gunner Who?' written and read by Spike Milligan. 'Keep talking, Milligan. I think I can get you out on Mental Grounds.''That's how I got in, sir.''Didn't we all.' The second volume of Spike Milligan's legendary...