Funny Biography

A New York Times Bestseller "Funny, subversive, and able to excavate such brutally honest sentences that you find yourself nodding your head in wonder and recognition." —Lin-Manuel Miranda, composer and lyricist of In the Heights and Hamilton: An American Musical Are you a sensible...

Do you have strong feelings about the word “irregardless”? Have you ever tried to define the word “is”? Brimming with intelligence and personality, this vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made is a must-read for word mavens. Many of us take dictionaries for granted...

Drawing on a lifetime of sniffing petrol fumes, Lights Out, Full Throttle stands large over the landscape of Formula One and takes the temperature of the good, the bad and the ugly of the petrolhead’s paradise. Johnny Herbert and Damon Hill between them competed in 261 Grands Prix, amassing...

The best-selling author of BRINGING UP BÉBÉ investigates life in her forties, and wonders whether her mind will ever catch up with her face. When Pamela Druckerman turns 40, waiters start calling her "Madame," and she detects a disturbing new message in mens' gazes: I would sleep with her, but...

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 (twenty-six 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...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A memoir in essays about so many things—growing up in an abusive cult, coming of age as a lesbian in the military, forced out by homophobia, living on the margins as a working class woman and what it’s like to grow into the person you are meant to be...

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...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the People’s Choice Award winner for Favorite YouTube Star and host of NBC’s A Little Late with Lilly Singh comes the definitive guide to being a bawse: a person who exudes confidence, hustles relentlessly, and smiles genuinely because he or she has...

In his second book, Adam Carolla—author of New York Times bestseller In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks and chart-topping podcaster—reveals all the stories behind how he came to be the angry middle-aged man he is today. Funnyman Adam Carolla is known for two things: hilarious rants about...

Decades before The Daily Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour proved there was a place on television for no-holds-barred political comedy with a decidedly antiauthoritarian point of view. In this explosive, revealing history of the show, veteran entertainment journalist David Bianculli tells the fascinating story of its three-year network run---and the cultural impact that's still being felt today.

Abridged CDs * 4 CDs, 5 hours “Denis Leary snarls as naturally as most actors smile,†says one critic of the writer and comic. In Why We Suck, Leary snarls to brilliant effect. With his patented highspeed ranting and killer comic instinct, Denis Leary has become a beloved antihero...

You’ve almost certainly laughed at Scovell’s jokes—you just didn’t know it until now. Just the Funny Parts is a juicy and scathingly funny insider look at how pop culture gets made. For more than thirty years, writer, producer and director Nell Scovell worked behind the scenes of iconic...

A 2016 Grammy nominee for Best Spoken Word Album Dick Cavett is back, sharing his reflections and reminiscences about Hollywood legends, American cultural icons, and the absurdities of everyday life In Brief Encounters, the legendary talk show host Dick Cavett introduces us to the fascinating...

Paul Theroux's first collection of essays and articles devoted entirely to travel writing, FRESH AIR FIEND touches down on five continents and floats through most seas in between to deliver a literary adventure of the first order, with the incomparable Paul Theroux as a guide. From the crisp...

Everyone tells you marriage is hard, but no one tells you what to do about it. At age thirty-four, Jo Piazza got her romantic-comedy ending when she met the man of her dreams on a boat in the Galápagos Islands and was engaged three months later. But before long, Jo found herself riddled with...

Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory. From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Remember when presidents spoke in complete sentences instead of in unhinged tweets? David Litt does. In his comic, coming-of-age memoir, he takes us back to the Obama years – and charts a path forward in the age of Trump. More than any other presidency, Barack...

From a Deadpool 2 fan favorite comes a “hilarious, raw” (Rolling Stone) memoir about love, sex, parenthood, work, substance abuse, and everything else that makes life wonderful and/or horrible. Rob Delaney is a comedy superstar. But if you’re ever watched him steal scenes as Peter in...

Once again, the poet casts her spell as she resumes one of the greatest personal narratives of our time. In this continuation, Angelou relates how she joins a "colony" of Black American expatriates in Ghana--only to discover no one ever goes home again...

This is a memoir as wry, funny, moving and vivid as its inimitable subject himself. This audiobook, read by the author, will be a joy for both lifelong fans and for a whole new generation. John Cooper Clarke is a phenomenon: Poet Laureate of Punk, rock star, fashion icon, TV and radio presenter...