Performance Memoir

In this program, listeners will find glamour and gaffes on and off the stage, clarifying snippets of queer theory, terrifyingly selfish bosses, sex, quick sex, KFC binges, group sex, the kind of honesty that banishes shame, glimmers of hope, blazes of ambition, tender sex, mad dashes in last night's heels plus a full face of make-up, and a rom-com love story for the ages. This is where the unspeakable becomes the celebrated. This is the diary of a drag queen - one dazzling, hilarious, true performance of a real, flawed, extraordinary life.

Anya Liftig grew up with a foot in two very different worlds: While her mother's upbringing was so rural that the other kids called her "holler rat," her father came from a comfortable, upper-middle-class Jewish family. Anya spent school years in affluent Connecticut and summers in the holler. Shaped by the experience, she would go on to win a scholarship to Yale and become an acclaimed artist, using provocative performances to explore the contradictions and unanswered questions of her life.

From the break-out star of BuzzFeed and the People's Choice Award-winning comedian comes a collection of hilariously anguished essays chronicling awful moments from his life so far, the humiliations of being an adult, and other little indignities. Matt Bellassai has no idea what he's doing. Well, to be fair, he did become semi-Internet famous by getting drunk at work, making him a socially-acceptable - nay - professional alcoholic. He's got some things figured out. But the rest is all just a terrible, disgusting mess.

I Don’t Want to Die Poor is an unforgettable and relatable examination about what it’s like leading a life that often feels out of your control. But in Michael’s voice that’s “as joyful as he is shrewd” (BuzzFeed), these razor-sharp essays will still manage to make you laugh and remind you that you’re not alone in this often intimidating journey.

Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.

The first memoir by beloved comedian, actor, and writer Brian Posehn, hilariously detailing what it's like to grow up as and remain a nerd, with a foreword by Patton Oswalt. Brian Posehn is a successful and instantly recognizable comedian, actor, and writer. He also happens to be a giant nerd. That's partly because he's been obsessed with such things as Dungeons and Dragons, comic books, and heavy metal since he was a child; the other part is because he fills out every bit of his six-foot-seven-inch frame.

This Is Not My Memoir tells the life story of André Gregory, iconic theatre director, writer, and actor. For the first time, Gregory shares memories from a life lived for art, including stories from the making of My Dinner with André. Taking on the dizzying, wondrous nature of a fever dream, This Is Not My Memoir includes fantastic and fantastical stories that take the listener from wartime Paris to golden-age Hollywood, from avant-garde theaters to monasteries in India.

Sie hat die Grenzen der Kunst gesprengt: sich gepeitscht, mit einer Glasscherbe ein Pentagramm in den Bauch geritzt, ein Messer in die Finger gerammt. Sie ist 2500 Kilometer auf der Chinesischen Mauer gegangen, zwölf Jahre in einem umgebauten Citroën-Bus durch die Welt gefahren und hat ein Jahr bei den Aborigines in Australien gelebt. Spätestens seit "The Artist is Present" - ihrer berühmten Performance 2010 im New Yorker Museum of Modern Art - gilt Marina Abramović in der ganzen Welt als Kultfigur.

Comedian Shawn Hitchins explores his irreverent nature in this debut collection of essays. Hitchins doesn’t shy away from his failures or celebrate his mild successes - he sacrifices them for an audience’s amusement. Nothing is sacred. His first major break-up, how his mother plotted the murder of the family cat, his difficult relationship with his father, becoming an unintentional spokesperson for all redheads, and many more.

Navigating racial identity, gender roles, workplace dynamics, and beauty standards, Mia Mercado's hilarious essay collection explores the contradictions of being a millennial woman, which usually means being kind of a weirdo.

K-von is the most famous half-Persian comedian in the world. Born and raised in America, he invites the listener along on a hilarious journey as he investigates the mysteries of his Middle Eastern roots - making fun of himself along the way. With clever use of character voices and sound effects, prepare to be charmed by his recollection of immigrant-family memories, "horror stories" from the road, and valuable cultural tips. Nothing is off limits.

Davy Rothbart is looking for love in all the wrong places. Constantly. He falls helplessly in love with pretty much every girl he meets - and rarely is the feeling reciprocated. Time after time, he hops in a car and tears across half of America with his heart on his sleeve. He’s continually coming up with outrageous schemes, which he always manages to pull off. Well, almost always. But even when things don’t work out, Rothbart finds meaning and humor in every moment.

Jeff Garlin has dedicated the filming of an entire season of Curb Your Enthusiasm to completely make over his lifestyle in two major ways—by lightening his physical and his ecological footprints. After many false starts, he believes that writing a book about the experiment is the only possible way to help him lose weight and go green.

How does time shape consciousness and consciousness, time? Do we live in time, or does time live in us? Uncommon Measure explores these questions from the perspective of a young Korean American who dedicated herself to perfecting her art until performance anxiety forced her to give up the dream of becoming a concert solo violinist. Anchoring her story in neuroscience and quantum physics, Natalie Hodges traces her own passage through difficult family dynamics, prejudice, and enormous personal expectations to come to terms with the meaning of a life reimagined.

In his first book, Improve Your Position, Michael Alexander – Color Commentator on UFC’s Fight Pass, and a very successful business leader – shares his incredible rags-to-prison-to-riches story. Written in an unapologetic, easy-to-listen style, its listeners will see how possible it is for them to improve their lives.

Renan Dal Zotto é um dos maiores nomes do vôlei brasileiro de todos os tempos. Campeão olímpico e criador do saque viagem, Renan atribui sua bem-sucedida trajetória no vôlei a seis princípios que sempre nortearam sua vida: paixão, treinamento, renúncia, ousadia, resiliência e planejamento. Mesclando momentos inesquecíveis de sua carreira com dramas pessoais que mudaram sua vida além de trazer depoimentos de antigos colegas, como Bernardinho e Bernard, as lições de Renan servirão de inspiração para todos aqueles que buscam a vitória e o alto desempenho.

Reordering the farting habits of humanity is a full-time chore, and Dr. Squeaks has traveled the globe studying and recording where the fart occurs. Many of the occasions are humorous, some serious, and a few are actually terrifying. You'll meet 40 farts of the world that he has recorded specifics on for your amusement, education, and enlightenment.

Not long ago it occurred to Carol Leifer that she had to stop telling one of her favorite stories – seeing The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium – because it dated her. But then she thought: what’s that about? “I see now that when you deny your age, you deny yourself,” she says, “and when you lie about your age, you become your inauthentic twin. But most importantly, when you lie about your age, they win. (And of course by ‘they,’ I mean the terrorists).”

C'est faire justice aux "Lettres de mon moulin" que de les donner à entendre au public adulte auquel elles étaient initialement destinées. C'est également réhabiliter Alphonse Daudet, conteur prodigieux et figure particulièrement attachante du XIXe siècle. Par l'habile procédé de la correspondance, Daudet dresse dans ces "Lettres" le tableau d'une terre luxuriante, source d'intarissables émerveillements pour une âme de poète.

"It's my belief that sanity lies in realizing that reality is not exactly what we had in mind," says Roy Blount, Jr. in this witty collection of essays. With humor that's wry, dry, and warm, he delights and provokes us by confronting the reality of American life compared to the way we thought it would be. With his characteristic drawl (or "oral resonance," as he calls it), he reflects on John Wayne, the federal deficit, women's underwear, and more.