Entertainment Comedy

Truly the voice of a generation, George Carlin gave the world some of the most hysterical and iconic comedy routines of the last 50 years. He perfected the art of making audiences double over with laughter while simultaneously making people wake up to the realities (and insanities) of life in the 20th century. Few people glimpsed the inner life of this beloved comedian, but his only child, Kelly, was there to see it all.

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.

Robert Altman - visionary director, hard-partying hedonist, eccentric family man, Hollywood legend - comes roaring to life in this rollicking cinematic biography, told in a chorus of voices that can only be called Altmanesque.

At the height of the McCarthy era, an experimental theater troupe set up shop in a bar near the University of Chicago. Via word-of-mouth, astonished crowds packed the ad-hoc venue to see its unscripted, interactive, consciousness-raising style. From this unlikely seed grew the Second City, the massively influential comedy theater troupe, and its offshoots - the Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, SNL, and a slew of others. Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv in this richly reported, scene-driven narrative.

In I'll Have What She's Having, entertainment journalist Erin Carlson tells the story of the real Nora Ephron and how she reinvented the romcom through her trio of instant classics. With a cast of famous faces including Reiner, Hanks, Ryan, and Crystal, Carlson takes listeners on a rollicking, revelatory trip to Ephron's New York City, where reality took a backseat to romance and Ephron - who always knew what she wanted and how she wanted it - ruled the set with an attention to detail that made her actors feel safe but sometimes exasperated crew members.

Steve Patterson's The Book of Letters I Didn't Know Where to Send is a collection of - wait for it - letters, written by award-winning stand-up comedian - you guessed it - Steve Patterson. The host of CBC Radio's The Debaters since 2007, Steve Patterson has become a household name, with more than 700,000 listeners tuning in each week. He has performed at several of the Just for Laughs prestigious televised galas, including one hosted by Steve Martin.

In Seven Dirty Words, journalist and cultural critic James Sullivan tells the story of Alternative America from the 1950s to the present, from the singular vantage point of George Carlin, the Catholic boy for whom nothing was sacred.

Al Franken, Giant of the Senate is a book about an unlikely campaign that had an even more improbable ending: the closest outcome in history and an unprecedented eight-month recount saga, which is pretty funny in retrospect. It's a book about what happens when the nation's foremost progressive satirist gets a chance to serve in the United States Senate and, defying the low expectations of the pundit class, actually turns out to be good at it.

From growing up in Los Angeles with movie star neighbors, bearing witness to the music scene in the 1960s and seeing the rise of comedy in the early 70s, to studying mime in Paris under the tutelage of Marcel Marceau to becoming a founding member of the seminal comedy troupe The Groundlings, it's no wonder that Lorne Michaels offered Laraine Newman a spot in the original cast of Saturday Night Live. There, Laraine was part of the show that changed TV - and comedy - forever.

Ever wonder which circles of Dante’s Inferno have the nicest accommodations? Where’s the best place to grab a bite to eat in the ancient Egyptian underworld? How does one dress like a local in the heavenly palace of Hinduism’s Lord Vishnu, or avoid the flesh-eating river serpents in the Klingon afterlife? What hidden treasures can be found off the beaten path in Hades, Valhalla, or TV’s The Good Place? Find answers to all those questions and more about the world(s) to come in this eternally entertaining book from Ken Jennings.

From Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold, the youngest comedy writers ever for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and masterminds behind the viral 2018 Yale graduation speech, comes a hilarious collection of short stories taking on coming-of-age, memes, sex, politics, relationships, and Goop, with satire, self-deprecation, and utter irreverence.

The popular actor and star of Airplane and The Naked Gun offers a zany account of his life and career, providing outrageous anecdotes about his four decades in show business, famous people, and more..

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 stand-up comedian of his generation. Star of stage and screen. Tireless supporter of charity. Runner. Political campaigner. Fashion icon. Human. There is no one quite like Eddie Izzard. This is the story of how a boy who wanted to become a professional footballer and win the lead in Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat found comedy.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Monty: His Part in My Victory, written and read by Spike Milligan. 'It's all over. Von Arnheim has surrendered, and he's very angry.' 'This could mean war....' The third volume of Spike Milligan's laugh-a-line account of life as a gunner in World War Two resumes on the eve of victory in North Africa.

Seth Grahame-Smith delivers the definitive, essential guide to making it through a horror movie in one piece. As hilarious as it is useful (if you’re trapped in a scary flick, that is), How to Survive a Horror Movie covers all the bases. Trapped in a haunted house? Check. Stalked by an evil doll? Check. Wandering aimlessly through the remains of the old world as a plague of zombies sweeps over the planet? Check.

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.

Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He’s a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies - in other words, a flack for cigarette companies, paid to promote their product on talk and news shows. The problem? He’s so good at his job, so effortlessly unethical, that he’s become a target for both anti-tobacco terrorists and for the FBI. In a country where half the people want to outlaw pleasure and the other want to sell you a disease, what will become of Nick Naylor?

For Cazzie David, the world is one big trap door leading to death and despair and social phobia. From shame spirals caused by hookups to panic attacks about being alive and everyone else having to be alive too, David chronicles her life’s most chaotic moments with wit, bleak humor, and a mega-dose of self-awareness. In No One Asked for This, David provides listeners with a singular but ultimately relatable tour through her mind, as she explores existential anxiety, family dynamics, and the utterly modern dilemma of having your breakup displayed on the Internet.

Once, when young Nasruddin was acting up in class by distracting his classmates with endless antics, jests, and stories, his irate teacher uttered a curse: ''Whatever you do or say, wherever you go or stay, whether it's night or day - people will only laugh at you.'' Now, eight centuries later, people everywhere are still laughing at the immortal Mullah Nasruddin, one of the world's most beloved folk characters.