Biography Humor

“Here’s Johnny!” Probably everyone in America knows the phrase, whether they watched every episode of The Tonight Show or none because they had to go to bed early on school nights. From 1962 to 1992, Johnny Carson and his Tonight Show dominated the American consciousness. Henry Bushkin was Carson’s best friend and lawyer during that period, and his book is a tautly rendered and remarkably nuanced portrait of Carson, revealing not only how he truly was, but why.

With laugh-out-loud funny parenting observations, the New York Times best-selling author and award-winning comedian delivers a book that is perfect for anyone who has ever raised a child, been a child, or refuses to stop acting like one. Along with hilarious and poignant stories he has never shared before, this audiobook is sprinkled with poetry Jen wrote as she navigated the same rocky shores of new parenthood.

The stark and inhospitable high-elevation landscape of Nevada’s Great Basin Desert may not be an obvious (or easy) place to settle down, but for self-professed desert rat Michael Branch it’s home. Of course, living in such an unforgiving landscape gives one many things to rant about. Fortunately for us, Branch—humorist, environmentalist, and author of Raising Wild—is a prodigious ranter.

Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved.

Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the listener from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of "un-unhappiness". This uses a beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is.

Steve Martin met his good friend Adam Gopnik three decades ago, and in that time, Gopnik has always marveled at Martin’s ability to flourish in a wide variety of artforms: magic, comedy, art collecting, writing, and music. In So Many Steves: Afternoons with Steve Martin, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik creates a new type of profile: a year’s worth of conversations with Martin where Gopnik pulls back the curtain on his friend’s illustrious career.

Aparna Nancherla is a superstar comedian on the rise—a darling of Netflix and Comedy Central’s comedy special lineups, a headliner at comedy shows and music festivals, a frequenter of late night television and the subject of numerous profiles. She’s also a successful actor who has written a barrage of thoughtful essays published by the likes of the New York Times. If you ask her, though, she’s a total fraud. She’d hate to admit it, but no one does impostor syndrome quite like Aparna Nancherla.

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.

Comedian Jim Norton is dirty...really dirty...the kind of dirty that makes The Aristocrats look like a knock-knock joke. Fortunately for him, his kind of dirty humor has earned him the distinction of being third microphone on the immensely popular Opie & Anthony syndicated radio show. In Happy Endings, Jim brings his raw, hilarious, and offensively honest comedy to Audible® listeners.

Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of being Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain.

We have descriptors for many periods of life, but there is a period of profound change that many women face, often in their late 20s to early 40s, that does not yet have a name. Nell Frizzell is calling this period of flux “the panic years", and it is often characterized by a preoccupation with one major question: Should I have a baby? Frizzell uses personal stories from her own experiences in the panic years to illuminate the larger social and cultural trends and gives voice to the uncertainty, confusion, and urgency that tends to characterize this time of life.

From her Academy Award-nominated screenplays to her best-selling fiction and essays, Nora Ephron is one of America's most gifted, prolific, and versatile writers. In this classic collection of magazine articles, Ephron does what she does best: embrace American culture with love, cynicism, and unmatched wit. From tracking down the beginnings of the self-help movement to dressing down the fashion world's most powerful publication to capturing a glimpse of a legendary movie in the making, these timeless pieces tap into our enduring obsessions with celebrity, food, romance, clothes, entertainment, and sex.

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."

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of We Need to Talk About... Kevin Bridges.Aged 17, Kevin Bridges walked on stage for the first time and brought the house down. He only had a five-minute set but he discovered he really could earn a living from making people laugh.Kevin began life as a shy, nerve-ridden school-boy. Reaching his teens, he followed his true calling as the class clown.

In his compelling autobiography, Michael McIntyre reveals all. With deeply personal and captivating narration, Michael unveils his incredible journey: from his showbiz roots, to his appalling attempts to attract the opposite sex, to going from selling just one ticket at the Edinburgh Festival to half a million at his last tour. Written and narrated by Michael himself, Life and Laughing is the hilarious performance and life story from one of the country's most loved comics.

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.

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.

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.

If you can count on one thing from "Madea" Mabel Simmons, star of Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion, it's that she's got something to say. She's the beloved, hilarious, sharp-witted, pistol-packing grandmother who's watching out and speaking her mind. Now Madea is telling her own story, dishing her memoirs and hard-won, hilarious wisdom in her own inimitable voice (with a little help from her friend Tyler Perry).

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Just Tyrus returns in his inimitable style with deeper reminiscences on the life that shaped him and how he views the world we're living in. A rare voice of reason and authentic storyteller who never holds back, Tyrus picks up where he left off in Just Tyrus, delivering a series of gut-wrenching, heart-rending, and redemptive tales from his remarkable life and coupling them with no-nonsense insights on the hottest issues being discussed around the country.