Popular Comedy

This smart and witty collection of opinions, observations, and anecdotes covers a broad range of personal topics. Kathie Lee Gifford's stories are often funny, sometimes heartfelt, and always compelling - think Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck meets Carol Burnett.

No subject is off-limits: talking to her kids about sex, being married to Frank Gifford, embarrassing professional gaffes, run-ins with celebrities (of which there are many), the harsh and funny realities of aging.

In A Vulgar Art, Ian Brodie uses a folkloristic approach to stand-up comedy, engaging the discipline's central method of studying interpersonal, artistic communication and performance. Because stand-up comedy is a rather broad category, people who study it often begin by relating it to something they recognize - "literature" or "theatre"; "editorial" or "morality" - and analyze it accordingly. A Vulgar Art begins with a more fundamental observation: Someone is standing in front of a group of people, talking to them directly, and trying to make them laugh.

Here's an irreverent and hilarious reference guide to all the people, ideas, and institutions that pollute our lives. Because you don't have to be old to be grumpy. Read by the stars of Channel 4's Green Wing.

Bougies are the new name for the hip middle class. Bougies Rule! is a satirical look at this group of people who dress up their dogs, speak endlessly of exotic vacation destinations and pepper their conversation with expressions like, "nuance," "feng shui," and "serious cinema."

A fictional account of a future woman president's tenure, this funny satire imagines a president who stops war, gets rid of the IRS, and then gets down to work on handling illiteracy, illegal drug abuse, and other social ills. She has an attitude, and she's determined. Maybe you'll find some ideas that could be put into use today.