Family Humor

In his instant New York Times best-selling book Do You Mind If I Cancel?, Gary Janetti had us all in stitches as he recounted the pains and indignities of everyday life in the way only he can. Now, in Start Without Me, Janetti returns with a hilarious collection about how sometimes the things we most want to get done and over with are the ones that define us for a lifetime. Gary turns his acid tongue (and secretly beating heart) to the moments and times that have defined him, no matter how embarrassing or annoying they might be to admit.

When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is accosted by a petty thief on a London street, the consequences ripple across the lives of acquaintances and strangers alike. A marriage unravels after an illicit love affair is revealed through an errant cell phone message; a posh yet financially strapped interior designer meets a business partner who might prove too good to be true.

Attorney Jayne Larsen loves her stay-at-home husband. Eric is attentive and a great father to their daughter. He’s also unfailingly committed to their Wednesday date nights - but things have gotten too predictable. Enter Theo and Mia Winters, the effortlessly cool, attractive couple who are the center of everyone’s attention. They are blissfully happy and ready to share their secret for keeping things spicy. But there are rules. And breaking them has consequences.

Doug Parker is a widower at age 29, and in his quiet suburban town, that makes him something of a celebrity - the object of sympathy, curiosity, and, in some cases, unbridled desire. But Doug has other things on his mind. First there's his 16-year-old stepson, Russ - a once-sweet kid who now is getting into increasingly serious trouble on a daily basis. And then there are Doug's sisters.

The fiction debut of the New York Times best-selling author of My Fair Lazy. Told in the uproariously entertaining voice readers have come to expect from Jen Lancaster, If You Were Here follows Amish-zombie-teen- romance author Mia and her husband Mac (and their pets) through the alternately frustrating, exciting, terrifying - but always funny - process of buying and renovating their first home in the Chicago suburbs that John hughes's movies made famous.

Life is going pretty well for Raymond "Stick" Hart. He's happily married to the former Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Club assistant pro, the beauteous Cajun firecracker Dannie, raising his rambunctious son, Charlie, and getting by writing smart-mouthed greeting cards for 50 bucks a pop. Then, one disaster of a day, Stick's world does a 10-car pile-up. Luckily, Stick has a solution to all his problems. He'll qualify for the British Open.

Listeners get a chance to participate in James Patterson's wildly successful Middle School series in this interactive book featuring more than 80 hilarious anecdotes from dueling siblings Rafe and Georgia Khatchadorian - plus dozens of fun-filled activities!

If you could repeat one year of your life, what would you do differently? This heartwarming and hilarious novel features three best friends who get the chance to return to the year they turned 40, the year that altered all of their lives in ways big and small - and get the opportunity to change their future. But it doesn't take long for all three women to learn that reliving a life and making different decisions leads only to new problems and consequences and that the mistakes they made may in fact have been the best choices.

Despite its beauty, Newport is a place Cass Coventry would prefer to forget. But after a long absence, she’s back in town to celebrate her sister’s engagement—even if she’s marrying into the family that stole the Gilded Age Coventry mansion out from under them a decade ago. The moment Cass pulls up to the estate, she’s in for one surprise after another. The bride-to-be is hiding a big secret. Her eccentric mother has royal wedding aspirations. And when the date is set, a local gossip blog makes the families—and their famously complicated history—its new favorite subject.

Are you looking for a perfect present to please your little comedian? Welcome to one of the best books about jokes you’ll ever find. Congratulations for having such fantastic taste in books, by the way. The jokes in this book aren’t just any jokes. They are the best kind of jokes, and the best kind of jokes are the kind where a door is involved. That’s right! The jokes in this book are knock-knock jokes.

It’s 1963, two years since Barbara Feldman’s husband died. Raising two kids, she’s finally emerging from her cocoon of grief. Not yet a butterfly, but she’s anxious to spread her wings. Then one day her mother-in-law, Ruth, shows up on her doorstep with five suitcases, expecting a room of her own with a suitable mattress. Abrasive and stuck in her ways yet well meaning, Mother Ruth arrives without warning to help with the children. How can Barbara say no to a woman who is not only a widow herself but also a grieving mother?

Known for her sharp, witty and surreal view on everyday life, Lucy shares the unpredictable craziness of being a mum in this brilliant and laugh-out-loud 'mumoir'. Mums everywhere will recognise the madness of it all. Like when Lucy was hospitalised during her third trimester with chest pains but it turned out to be a burrito. Or when she was so tired at the park she forgot her own child's name.

Isidore Mazal is 11 years old, the youngest of six siblings living in a small French town. He doesn't quite fit in. Isidore has never skipped a grade or written a dissertation. But he notices things the others don't, and asks questions they fear to ask. So when tragedy strikes the Mazal family, Isidore is the only one to recognize how everyone is struggling with their grief, and perhaps the only one who can help them - if he doesn't run away from home first.

Mary Katherine Backstrom spends her days mending booboos, conquering the boogie man, comforting heartaches, laughing at knock-knock jokes, cooking pancakes, throwing baseballs, and mopping muddy floors. In other words she spends her days relishing in the beautiful, constant noise that is a life with children. In Mom Babble, Mary Katherine (MK) Backstrom, founder and personality behind the Mom Babble online community, offers up hope, humor, and spiritual inspiration to families in the trenches of parenthood.

A group of turkeys making fun of each other. What is it known as? What is large and decorative, riding down the street, with wheels that you will only see on Thanksgiving? Who would win a race between a turkey and a cornstalk? These brain teasers will challenge the wits of children of different age groups and we promise that adults will enjoy them as much as their kids will! A friendly warning for the parents to keep in mind: Don’t be surprised if your kids outsmart you!

When Mayer (nee Marty) Belkin fled small-town Georgia for Brooklyn nearly thirty years ago, he thought he'd left his wasted youth behind. Now he's a Talmud scholar married into one of the greatest rabbinical families in the world. But his mother's untimely death brings a shocking revelation: Mayer and his ne'er-do-well twin brother David aren't, in fact, Jewish. Traumatized and spiritually bereft, Mayer's only recourse is to convert to Judaism. But the earliest date he can get is a week from now. What are two estranged brothers to do in the interim?

A former prodigy who refuses to believe her best years are behind her and a young virtuoso searching for his passion both get an unlikely shot at their dreams in this sparkling debut about second chances, unexpected joys, and the miraculous power of music.

Dabei hätten es so schöne Ferien werden können: Anne und Georg sind bei ihrer Tante zu Besuch und Richard und Julius ganz in der Nähe in einem Landschulheim untergebracht. Da werden Richard und Julius auf einmal verdächtigt, im Schullandheim gestohlen zu haben. Die „Fünf Freunde“ machen sich auf die Suche nach den wahren Tätern und enttarnen mit Hilfe der Tante eine Fälscherbande, die im Schullandheim ihr Unwesen treibt.

Farrah "Digit" Higgins may be going to MIT in the fall, but this L.A. high school genius has left her geek self behind in another school district so she can blend in with the popular crowd at Santa Monica High and actually enjoy her senior year. But when Farrah, the daughter of a UCLA math professor, unknowingly cracks a terrorist group's number sequence, her laid-back senior year gets a lot more interesting. Soon she is personally investigating the case, on the run from terrorists, and faking her own kidnapping - all while trying to convince a young, hot FBI agent to take her seriously.

Samantha van Leer is a sophomore at Vassar College majoring in psychology with a minor in human development. She has four dogs: Alvin, Harvey, Dudley, and Oliver - for whom the prince in this story is named.