Language Humor

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...

For readers of Shark Heart and Hollow Kingdom, a funny, magical, and tender novel following a lonely, conflict-averse man whose sudden ability to understand animals sends him on a wild romp around NYC, and ultimately helps him discover his own voice. Strolling through Central Park on a blind...

A master class in the art of persuasion, as taught by professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill, newly revised and updated. The time-tested secrets taught in this book include Cicero's three-step strategy for moving an audience to action, and Honest Abe's Shameless Trick for...

An out-of-work actor accepts the role of a lifetime—sitting soundlessly in a lecture theater, zipped into a large leather bag—to aid a professor’s psychological experiment. What could possibly go wrong? In Luke Kennard’s audacious new novel, a penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a...

Harness the power of silence and let your presence speak volumes. Words matter but your body language speaks loud and clear without them. It’s what you’re not saying out loud that matters most. Before you open your mouth, your microexpressions, posture, gestures, and even the tilt of your...

There are dirty jokes, and then there are jokes so depraved, so awful, so disturbed that even the raunchiest comic wouldn’t dare tell them. These are those jokes. These are the filthiest jokes ever told. This book is full of jokes that use the most taboo subjects – disgusting bodily functions, shockingly illicit sex, revolting acts with animals -- to make the reader simultaneously laugh and cringe. But this book goes beyond sharing jokes so filthy that no reputable person would be caught reading it. Professional comedians teach you tricks and techniques to write, deliver, and land a ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Award-winning actor Alan Alda tells the fascinating story of his quest to learn how to communicate better, and to teach others to do the same. With his trademark humor and candor, he explores how to develop empathy as the key factor. “Invaluable.”—Deborah...

Not only do Southerners talk slowly, but sometimes the whole language is hard to understand. No one realizes that more than Memphis belle Leelee Satterfield. Watching her tackle life and love in Vermont was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to antics, charades, mischief, and romance. Now that she’s back in Memphis, and starting a new relationship with Peter, the Yankee chef from her New England inn, you’d think she’d sit back and enjoy her newly crafted life back home in Dixie. But that just wouldn’t be as much fun.

Gothic romance at its most unhinged—now without the Victorian sentence structure from hell. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the moors, revenge, and toxic romance, zero Victorian torture. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff are obsessed with each other in the most destructive way possible—think soulmates if soulmates were also each other's worst enemies. They grew up together on the ...

From the celebrated twenty-nine-year-old author of the everywhere-heralded short-story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (“How I wish these were my own words, instead of the breakneck demon writer Karen Russell’s . . . Run for your life. This girl is on fire”—Los...

''A must read! If you want to get your Cajun on, you’ve got to read John Gravois’ fabulous little book,'' says Ken Wells, ex-Wall Street Journal writer and Page One editor, and author of Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou' and the Cajun classic coming-of-age novel, 'Meely LaBauve. "It’s fun, factual and full of history, Cajun idioms and their pronunciations. This authentic son of the bayou does a huge service in compact form by helping to illuminate a culture that remains Even if you don't speak a word of French now, with this Berlitz phrase book parody you’ll be able to answer, ...

"A burst of delight on every page!" Mignon Fogarty, host of the Grammar Girl podcast Did you know that an "astronaut" is literally a "star sailor," that a thesaurus is, in fact, a "treasure trove" of words, and that someone who is "sinister" is actually just "left-handed"? Have you ever wondered...

Abridged for audio. Read by the author, Clive James. With fascinating essays on towering figures from Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Wittgenstein, Cultural Amnesia is one of the crowning achievements in Clive James's illustrious career as a critic...

This is a compilation of true, often humorous stories and serious observations about the lives and customs of Appalachians from the old days to modern times. Topics include mountain customs and traditions with forays into herbal remedies, moonshining, religion and language, along with the difficulties of being absorbed into cultures outside of the hills. A few of the forty-four chapters include: Aunt Berthy and the Fires of Hell, Enlightenment Comes to the Mountains, Old Time Religion in Appalachia, Uncle Bryant: Mountain Medicine Man, Appalachian Medicine Chest, Catfish in a Log, ...

Hey, y’all. Welcome to the South! Viral sensation and TikToker Landon Bryant (@LandonTalks) presents his tongue-in-cheek “anthropological dive” into the food, fashion, linguistics, culture, holidays, and traditions of the American South. “Let’s discuss . . .” These two words began...

With his trademark humor and flair, bestselling linguist John McWhorter busts the myths and shares the history of the most controversial language topic of our times: pronouns The nature of language is to shift and evolve—but every so often, a new usage creates a whole lot of consternation...

Dreyer’s English meets Schott’s Original Miscellany in this delicious tour of the lesser-known wonders of the language world, perfect for language lovers, word nerds, and the incurably curious. A delightful rollick through language unlike any you’ve ever experienced. As the inventor of the...

Jane Austen's legendary romance—minus the part where you have to Google every third word. What's a Sweary Classic? The complete original story—same plot, same characters, same emotional devastation—just translated into modern, hilarious, sweary language that doesn't require a literature degree to understand. Think: all the Regency drama, zero Victorian torture. Elizabeth Bennet has ninety-nine problems and they're all related to her mother's unhinged obsession with marrying off five daughters before they die penniless and alone. Enter: Mr. Darcy, the new rich guy in town who's so ...

As the main spoken language of the Jews for more than a thousand years, Yiddish has had plenty to lament, plenty to conceal. Its phrases and expressions paint a comprehensive picture of the mind-set that enabled the Jews of Europe to survive persecution: they never stopped kvetching about God...

Before you say a word, the room has already taken a reading on you. The only question is whether you can take a reading back. Most people walk into rooms broadcasting accidental signals — crossed arms that read as guarded, upward inflections that read as uncertain, hidden hands that read as untrustworthy — and pick up almost nothing of what's coming back at them. They blame the audience instead of the instrument. Convenient. Also expensive. Here's what nobody admits: charisma isn't a personality trait. It's two trainable signal sets — warmth and competence — and the skill of reading...