Humor Short

Now, available in audio for the first time, Side Effects is narrated by Woody Allen himself. A humor classic by one of the world’s funniest writers, Side Effects is a treat for Allen fans and those just discovering how gifted he is. In classics including "Remembering Needleman", "The Kugelmass Episode", "Confessions of a Burglar", and others, Allen discusses such subjects as the nature of relativity, the UFO menace, and the predicament of modern man.

In this darkly comic and surreal collection from celebrated author Alissa Nutting, misfit women scramble for agency in a series of uncanny circumstances. Throughout these breathtakingly creative 17 stories spread across time, space, and differing planes of reality, we encounter a host of women and girls in a wide range of unusual jobs. A space cargo deliverywoman enlists the help of her cybersex partner to release her mother from cryogenic prison.

From a comic mastermind comes this brilliant collection of stories. Three teenagers believe they are witches. A woman defaces a local billboard. A bored landlord tries to influence his son's best friend. A cul-de-sac WhatsApp group discusses eggs at length. A heavily pregnant woman finds a way to time travel and a girl discovers joy on a stolen bicycle. Each tale paints a life in miniature and offers an escape chute from the catastrophes of modern life.

John Updike's 21st novel, a bildungsroman, follows its hero, Owen Mackenzie, from his birth in the semi-rural Pennsylvania town of Willow to his retirement in the rather geriatric community of Haskells Crossing, Massachusetts. In between these two settlements comes Middle Falls, Connecticut, where Owen, an early computer programmer, founds with a partner, Ed Mervine, the successful firm of E-O Data, which is housed in an old gun factory on the Chunkaunkabaug River.

A crotchety nightwatchman in a whaling museum contemplates Neptune the stuffed sea lion, originally owned by P.T. Barnum. In his admiration for the kingly animal, he studies ventriloquism to give Neptune a voice. When a field trip comes through the museum, he has an unexpectedly meaningful exchange with a precocious, like-minded child...and Neptune.

The beloved author of Early Morning Riser (“The funniest novel of the year.”—The Washington Post) brings us twelve glittering stories of love—friendships formed at the airport bar, ex-husbands with benefits, mothers of suspiciously sweet teenagers, ill-advised trysts—in all its forms, both ridiculous and sublime.

Peter's earned his night off, and there's not a bloody chance he's covering Shelley's shift. He just needs to find some pals for the perfect cover story. Deek is going to be at the forefront of the outsider art movement and do Banksy proud. Davie loves tattoos, and his latest is going to be a masterpiece. Tam is one of the most creative minds in the galaxy (apparently), but creating parallel universes can cause problems. Everybody on Earth wakes up with their knees on backwards.

Inviting 25 former classmates to a reunion dinner, Isabel sees an opportunity to finally resolve age-old differences among her classmates. But when damaging secrets and long-held resentments surface, Isabel finds the path to true forgiveness runs along a very slippery slope.

In vignettes both comic and sexy, the owner of a coffee shop recalls the day his first wife seemed to achieve a moment of simple perfection, while she remembers the women's softball game during which she was stricken by the beauty of the shortstop. A young couple spends hours at the coffee shop fueling the idea of their fierce love. A professor of philosophy, stopping by for a cup of coffee, makes a valiant attempt to explain what he knows to be the inexplicable workings of the human heart.

For fans of Etgar Keret, a debut collection that fuses the humor of everyday life in Israel with technology's challenges and the latest discoveries about the human brain. At once compassionate, philosophical, and humorous, Jerusalem Beach is a foray into the human condition in all its contradictions. Through a series of snapshots of contemporary life in Israel, Gefen reveals a world that's a step from the familiar.

Lions, Komodo dragons, dogs, monkeys, and pheasants - all have shared spotlights and tabloid headlines with celebrities such as Sharon Stone, Thomas Edison, and David Hasselhoff. In this critically acclaimed collection, Lydia Millet hilariously tweaks these unholy communions to run a stake through the heart of our fascination with famous people and pop culture.

In Once Upon A More Enlightened Time, Garner tackles many demeaning, culturally biased viewpoints through his retelling of such well-known tales as "The Princess and the Pea" and "The Tortoise and the Hare". He has striven to fashion these bedtime stories into literature that is totally free from bias and purged from the influences of a flawed cultural past in hopes of freeing our social consciousness from these blights.

In a unique listening experience from the unforgettable writer and public speaker W.O. Mitchell, An Evening with W.O. Mitchell is a curated, abridged selection of nine remarkable pieces from Mitchell’s lifetime of public readings, read by the author himself. Featuring both a wide variety of recognizable characters from his novels as well as new, never-before-published work, the collection revives Mitchell’s distinctive voice and comedic perspective on universal subjects.

There's nothing worse than having to watch your sister marry your ex fiancé. Organized, event planner, Jaya Trudeaux is used to doing things by the book and never making waves. The only thing that can tie carefree, playboy, Alec Danthers down is a promise he made to his mother. Can Jaya put the lists down long enough to enjoy the ride that is Alec?

Available to listeners for the first time, Sucker’s Portfolio showcases a collection of seven never-before-published works from Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Short, sardonic, and dark, these six brief fiction stories and one non-fiction piece are consummate Vonnegut with piercing satire and an eye for life’s obscene inanity. Also available for the first time is an unfinished science-fiction short story, included in the appendix.

Es una sucesión perturbadora en la que la conciencia adquiere una dimensión real y los impulsos más secretos se presentan con toda su altanera desnudez: el amor conyugal, el amor por las letras, el amore de las madres, el platónico, el primer amor, el amor en la posmodernidad, el amor por el trabajo, y otros amores y desamores, inconfesables, condenados, acomodaticios que, unos más que otros, nos matan.

In his debut collection of short stories, Robert Sheehan disappears into characters, challenging the complacencies of everyday experience, often from entirely unexpected angles. Informed by the author’s peripatetic life, Disappearing Act reflects on the absurdity of human behaviour. Sheehan delves deep into his characters’ streams of self-talk and self-imposed delusions, exploring the dark impulses that lurk below the shiny surfaces of many outwardly normal lives.

When Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he described it as a “comic weekly.” And although it has become much more than that, it has remained true in its irreverent heart to the founder’s description, publishing the most illustrious literary humorists of the modern era. This anthology gathers together, for the first time, the funniest work of more than seventy New Yorker contributors.

Grammy Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album
Mirabelle, the "shopgirl" behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus, is slightly lost, off-kilter, and shy. But there's something about Mirabelle. Steve Martin reads this charming novella. Hear an interview with the author and browse more Martin.

Three short stories by Anton Chekhov including "The First-Class Passenger", "The Harmfulness of Tobacco", and "A Transgression".