Humor Essays

From Bustle columnist and host of None of My Business Sophia Benoit, this “charming and often laugh-out-loud funny” (Vogue) memoir-in-essays explores the ins and outs of modern womanhood—from finding feminism, the power of pop culture, and how to navigate life’s constant double...

What would happen if a shy introvert lived like a gregarious extrovert for one year? If she knowingly and willingly put herself in perilous social situations that she’d normally avoid at all costs? Writer Jessica Pan intends to find out. With the help of various extrovert mentors, Jessica sets up a series of personal challenges (talk to strangers, perform stand-up comedy, host a dinner party, travel alone, make friends on the road, and much, much worse) to explore whether living like an extrovert can teach her lessons that might improve the quality of her life.

#1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER WITH MORE THAN 8 MILLION COPIES SOLD Meet Elizabeth Zott: “a gifted research chemist, absurdly self-assured and immune to social convention” (The Washington Post) in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. From writer/director Cazzie David comes a series of acerbic, darkly funny essays about anxiety, social media, misanthropy, and growing up in a wildly eccentric family. For Cazzie David, the world is one big trap door leading to death and despair and social phobia...

WALL STREET JOURNAL, LOS ANGELES TIMES, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER Anyone—even you!—can learn how to harness the power of humor in business (and life), based on the popular class at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Don’t miss the authors’ TED Talk, “Why great leaders take...

“Wickedly funny and heartstoppingly vulnerable…every page twinkles with brilliance.” —Refinery29 Perfect for fans of Samantha Irby and Trick Mirror, a hilarious, whip-smart collection of personal essays exploring the intersection of queerness, pop culture, the internet, and identity...

In Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why, acclaimed satirist Alexandra Petri offers perfectly logical, reassuring reasons for everything that has happened in recent American politics that will in no way unsettle your worldview. In essays both new and adapted from her viral Washington Post columns, Petri reports that the Trump administration is as competent as it is uncorrupted, white supremacy has never been less rampant, and men have been silenced for too long. The "woman card" is a powerful card to play! Q-Anon makes perfect sense!

We’re All A Mess. It’s OK. From the #1 bestselling author of The Amy Binegar-Kimmes-Lyle Book of Failures comes another laugh-out-loud collection of real-life chaos, cringe, and comedy. If you’ve ever tripped over your own shoelace in front of your boss, brought home the wrong dog, or accidentally said “I love you” (to someone who wasn’t the waiter), you’ve found your people. Think Jenny Lawson meets Chicken Soup for the Soul—if the soup were spiked with sarcasm, dating disasters, and stories about mistaken identities, ER visits, and fractured... body parts. This hilarious, ...

There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, AND the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: NO CHARGE.

Author Scott Dikkers will tell you how to write jokes. He’s a master joke writer, founder of the world’s most popular humor site TheOnion.com, number one New York Times best-selling humor author, professional public speaker, and successful cartoonist. In this definitive joke-writing handbook, he'll teach you comedy writing and how to write a joke with a simple comedy-writing and joke-writing formula you can use right now to write your own jokes.

Step into Jenny Slate's wild imagination in this "magical" (Mindy Kaling), "delicious" (Amy Sedaris), and "poignant" (John Mulaney) New York Times bestseller about love, heartbreak, and being alive -- "this book is something new and wonderful" (George Saunders). You may "know" Jenny Slate from...

For more than 25 years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing.

This program is read by the author. From New York Times bestselling author, and Family Guy writer Gary Janetti comes Start Without Me, a collection of hilarious, laugh out loud, true life stories about the small moments that add up to a big life. Gary Janetti is bothered. By a lot of things. And...

“Rosa Harris has assembled a series of very thought-provoking apercus of her times and generation. They are all from different angles and none is ponderous or over-long. The result is a very pleasing, very easy, and often poignant, read.” – Conrad Black “Rosa Harris, national award-winning journalist, editor, talk show host and journalism professor, has crafted a collection of insightful, humorous and touching essays on the baby boomer generation that will leave you smiling, laughing and reminiscing on the times of your life. Baby boomers will see themselves in many of Rosa’s ...

Read by the author and available digitally for the first time From the star of No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain's New York Times-bestselling chronicle of travelling the world in search the globe's greatest culinary adventures "Bourdain shows himself to be one of the country's best food writers...

Don't be put off by the title. Death of A Shrinking Violet consists of 16 humorous, colorful essays which represent my many life experiences and my views on the eccentricities of life. From the person who has that inexplicable habit of going without a coat in the winter I just have to shake my head and wonder--"Where's Your Coat?" To the big-box stores where no one ever offers you help and robotic cleaning machines avoid patrons I say, --"Damn You Sam's Club--or Why Do We Buy in Bulk?" And haven't you ever wondered when someone is going to disrupt a wedding by jumping up when the minister ...

Scaachi Koul deploys her razor-sharp humor to share all the fears, outrages, and mortifying moments of her life. She learned from an early age what made her miserable, and for Scaachi anything can be cause for despair. Whether it’s a shopping trip gone awry; enduring awkward conversations with her bikini waxer; overcoming her fear of flying while vacationing halfway around the world; dealing with Internet trolls, or navigating the fears and anxieties of her parents.

A new collection from David Sedaris is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris has inspired hilarious pieces, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, about his attempts to learn French. His family is another inspiration. You Cant Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother who talks incessant...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Being successful is no laughing matter . . . unless the road there is littered with flops, fool’s errands, fizzles, and straight-up failures—from the New York Times bestselling co-author of Marriage Be Hard. “I’m so happy Kev failed, because these stories...

Are you sick of writing factual reports that put you and your audience asleep? Do you wish there were a way to write research that both informed and entertained like your favorite non-fiction books do? Do you need a laugh? Do you want to make your teacher laugh? Congratulations! You hold in your hands the key to facing the facts with fun. 51 Wacky We-search Reports will teach you how to hunt for the best facts and turn them into cartoons, parody performances, jokes, wacky poetry and much, much more. For students or teachers, this latest book from author and teacher Barry Lane will add ...