Performing Arts

Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.

A cutting satire of race relations in the age of Trump and Black Lives Matter from the hugely popular comedian—one of ""The Original Kings of Comedy""—and author of the New York Times bestseller Black Man, White House. ""White people are always giving out ‘helpful’ advice, such as...

Richard Pryor journeys from his childhood in a family that worked in whore-houses and bars, through to his years in Hollywood - the money, the women, the drugs - and the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

The greats of comedy, when they were young and struggling, performing their great early routines.

The film, television, and comedy legend tells the hilarious and moving story of how tough love, and a sense of humor made him the man he is today By the tender age of five, Bernie Mac had found his calling: making others laugh. He has since become the star and cocreator of Fox’s hit sitcom The...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today From the creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News,” a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward...

Comedian Trevor Noah offers listeners a glimpse into his childhood during apartheid in South Africa in this award-winning memoir.

Scottie Price just started a new job and it's a real sausage fest. She's the only woman on a team filled with Brads and Chads. Expecting a bachelor pad atmosphere, she is quickly corrected when she finds out everyone is happily married.

The woman behind the icon known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, the undisputed Queen of Halloween, reveals her full story filled with intimate bombshells—told by the bombshell herself. On Good Friday in 1953, at only 18 months old, 25 miles from the nearest hospital in Manhattan, Kansas...

“The finest, most moving and powerful memoir I have ever read.”—MAYIM BIALIK Rising young comedian Moshe Kasher is lucky to be alive. He started using drugs when he was just 12. At that point, he had already been in psychoanlysis for 8 years. By the time he was 15, he had been in and out...

Steve Martin's riveting, mega-bestselling, beloved, and highly acclaimed memoir of a life, a vocation, and an era—named one of the ten best nonfiction titles of the year by Time and Entertainment Weekly. In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the...

Millions of viewers know and love Bob Saget from his role as the sweetly neurotic father on the smash hit Full House, and as the charming wisecracking host of America's Funniest Home Videos. And then there are the legions of fans who can't get enough of his scatological, out-of-his-mind stand-up...

From actor, comedian, writer, and host of the hit history podcast SNAFU, Ed Helms brings you an absurdly entertaining look at history’s biggest blunders. History contains a plethora of insane screwups—otherwise known as SNAFUs. Coined during World War I, SNAFU is an acronym that stands for...

Since his first performance at the legendary New York nightclub “Catch a Rising Star” as a 21-year-old college student in fall of 1975, Jerry Seinfeld has written his own material and saved everything....

In this side-splitting memoir, the former Saturday Night Live star recounts the hilarious adventures and unexpected joy of dating and becoming a mother when she least expected it-at the age of forty-four. Anyone who saw an episode of Saturday Night Live between 1999 and 2006 knows Rachel Dratch...

Robin Williams was a singularly innovative and beloved entertainer. He often came across as a man possessed, holding forth on culture and politics while mixing in personal revelations....

Outsider. Misfit. Criminal. Convict. . . . Movie star. Family man. Comedy legend. Joey Diaz has been called every name in the book (and then some). Now, for the first time, he shares the story of his unlikely rise to fame in his own words—with no punches pulled....

From the bestselling author of Kids in the Hall: One Dumb Guy, the definitive biography of John Candy—a heartwarming portrait of one of comedy's most beloved and enduring stars.

If it can happen in show business, it’s happened to Jon Cryer. Now he’s opening up for the first time and sharing his behind-the-scenes stories in a warmly endearing, sharply observed, and frankly funny look at life in Hollywood. In 1986, Jon Cryer won over America as Molly Ringwald’s...

Brought to you by Penguin. THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Packed with hard-won wisdoms and gentle truths, this is Miranda’s honest exploration of the lessons she has learned on her journey from illness to recovery. Hello to you, I am with news. I have a new book: I Haven’t Been Entirely...

The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual is a comprehensive guide to the UCB style of long form comedy improvisation....

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY From longtime New York Times and Vanity Fair writer David Margolick comes the first definitive biography of Sid Caesar: founding father of television comedy and icon to generations of Americans. “Whip smart. . . . A nuanced...

From Naptown to Tinseltown—legendary stand-up comedian and actor Mike Epps finally tells all in this outrageous, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir. Before starring in Def Comedy Jam and Showtime at the Apollo—before the sold-out comedy shows, Uncle Buck, and becoming his hero Richard Pryor...

The exercises in this book will get you off the couch and onto the stage, helping you develop the skills necessary to envision, and achieve, a successful career in comedy....

A hilarious and biting memoir from the actor, comedian and Saturday Night Live alumni David Spade. David Spade is best known for his harsh “Hollywood” Minute Sketches on SNL, his starring roles in movies like Joe Dirt and Tommy Boy, and his seven-year stint as Dennis Finch on the series Just...

The complete BBC Radio collection bringing together two full-cast dramatisations of Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently novels....

David Mitchell’s 2014 best seller Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse must really have made people think - because everything’s got worse....

James Acaster has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award five times and has appeared on prime-time TV shows....

History that doesn't suck: Smart, crude, and hilariously relevant to modern life. Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Too bad it's usually boring as sh*t. Enter The Captain, the ultimate storyteller who brings history to life (and to your life) in this hilarious, intelligent...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “John Cleese’s memoir is just about everything one would expect of its author—smart, thoughtful, provocative and above all funny. . . . A picture, if you will, of the artist as a young man.”—The Washington Post The legendary writer and performer of...

Rainn Wilson’s memoir about growing up geeky and finally finding his place in comedy, faith, and life. For nine seasons Rainn Wilson played Dwight Schrute, everyone's favorite work nemesis and beet farmer. Viewers of The Office fell in love with the character and grew to love the actor who...

My Christmas plans never include fake dating... or getting snowed in with my new boss who I ghosted after our first date. After heartbreak and a layoff, I become a marketing freelancer and swear off anything long-term. Then a dating app swipes me into Aaron Coleman, a gorgeous entrepreneur who checks every box... until he says he wants three kids someday. I ghost him, and a disastrous radio segment seals the deal. Until I walk into a job interview and he’s the one hiring. Now we’re working late, sharing ideas, and fake-dating to beta-test his holiday matchmaking app and visit his ...

This has proven to be the most significant book ever written on stand-up comedy. Since most of the chapters are about spoken word, it truly comes to life as an audiobook (eg. hearing punchlines before and after they’ve been reworded). It explains groundbreaking methods and theories that give you the tools to fast-track your stand-up to the next level and will permanently change the way you look at writing and performing comedy.

Look, I'm going to be honest with you right up front: hosting a nude dinner party is like regular hosting except everything that can go wrong will go wrong in the most mortifying ways possible, and you'll be completely naked while it happens. Nobody tells you this. All the nudist blogs make it sound like some zen enlightened experience where everyone's laughing and passing the quinoa salad and having deep conversations about body positivity. What they don't tell you is that someone's going to sit on your cat, the fondue is going to explode, and Susan Hasseltree is going to challenge ...

Bare, Bold, and Burned by the Sun What happens when a suburban Pacific Northwest woman takes off her clothes, keeps her humor intact, and accidentally learns more about herself than she planned? Meet Kristin Williams. She is thirty eight, mildly sunburned, emotionally curious, armed with very strong opinions about sunscreen, and completely done apologizing for having a body that exists in public. From desert lakes to European nude beaches to awkward car rides and backyard dinners, this book is a laugh out loud, first person journey through nude living, friendship, confidence, and the chaos ...

Let’s get one thing straight right away. This is not a seduction manual. This is not a manifesto. This is definitely not a cult thing, although my aunt asked and I respect the concern. This is just me, Kristin, thirty eight years old, living in the suburbs outside Seattle where it rains sideways and everyone owns at least one fleece they emotionally depend on, telling you that if you are naked around me, I am not going to scream, faint, call the cops, or suddenly act like I’ve never seen a human body before. I have. I own one. I live in it. Sometimes it creaks. If you are already naked ...

Welcome to the wild, wobbly, and gloriously unclothed world of Kristin Williams, suburban nudist, chaotic philosopher, and accidental butt battle champion. This is not your average self-help book. This is a half-memoir, half-guidebook, all-butt manifesto about living confidently, letting go of shame, and occasionally farting during moments of emotional vulnerability. Inside these unfiltered pages, you’ll find: – A fully sanctioned butt-off between two grown women, judged with lotion and tears – A bare-knuckle living room wrestling match that ends in a fart, a burp, and a broken truce ...

Unhinged Nudity is what happens when a perfectly functional adult removes her pants and accidentally becomes the calmest person in the room while everyone else loses their minds. Kristin Williams did not set out to shock anyone. She just wanted to be comfortable. What followed was a series of wildly inappropriate misunderstandings, nude social experiments, emotional meltdowns with no pockets, disastrous retreats, awkward travel moments, and one unforgettable hot tub incident that should have come with a warning label. This book is a collection of the top twelve most unhinged moments from ...

Boxing naked was never the plan. It just turned out to be the fastest way I stopped lying to myself. I thought I understood my body. I thought confidence came from looking strong. I thought experience would protect my ego. Then I took my clothes off, put on boxing gloves, and learned very quickly how wrong I was. This book is me telling you what actually happened, without polishing it, without turning it into a lesson poster, and without pretending any of it was graceful. It is funny, messy, uncomfortable, and honest in the way real growth usually is. Inside this book you will find: • ...

I am not writing this from a bunker. I am not wearing camouflage while typing by candlelight. I am sitting at a normal desk, drinking coffee that cost more than it should have, thinking about how fragile our routines really are. Most people do not wake up one morning and decide to become prepared. It usually starts with a moment. Sometimes it is a storm that lasts longer than expected. Sometimes it is a power outage that knocks out cell service and reminds you how dependent you are on invisible systems. Sometimes it is watching shelves go empty faster than logic can explain. For me, ...

Life’s too short for nonsense. This is not a self-help book. It’s a pub-level, brutally honest look at happiness - written for people who are tired of gurus, hacks, and being told to wake up at 5am and journal. The Beer Mat Guide to Happiness asks one simple question: Why are we so busy chasing things that clearly don’t work? Inside, you’ll find: Why “enough money” is a real thing (and how most people miss it) Why status, hustle, and productivity culture make you miserable What science actually says about happiness (without the smug tone) Why laughter, time, and decent people ...

What actually happens when people take their clothes off, and everything else stays exactly the same? This book follows Kristin Williams, a 38 year old woman living outside Seattle, through years of real experiences in clothing optional spaces. Nude beaches, resorts, travel, friendships, and confrontations become the setting for moments where boundaries are tested, consent is misunderstood, and comfort has to be claimed instead of explained. Nudity is not treated as a statement or a goal. It is simply the environment. What matters is how people behave when there is no fabric to soften ...

Titters galore as Frankie and his star guests entertain Frankie Howerd’s unique brand of witty drollery made him a master of comedy for over 40 years, from his radio debut on the BBC Variety Bandbox in 1946 to his appearances in Up Pompeii! and the Carry On films and his sell-out one-man...

Join us for fun and laughter as we grow up in the Heartland. This fun-filled collection comprises twenty fiction and non-fiction stories that capture the essence of growing up in the quaint small town of Hoxie, Kansas. Time seems to unfold at a gentle, unhurried pace. Each tale will immerse readers in everyday life, brimming with emotions—joy, nostalgia, and remembrance. Through these narratives, you will see that people crafted their own excitement and adventure in the close-knit community. Some stories evoke warmth and fond memories, while others tug at the heartstrings, revealing ...

A witty, body-positive exploration of nudity, cannabis, and self-acceptance, told through the experiences of a suburban Pacific Northwest woman who accidentally learns how to relax. Kristin Williams is thirty eight, lives outside Seattle, and has spent years navigating body image, relationships, and modern stress with humor, curiosity, and a growing commitment to comfort. When nudity and cannabis enter her life in unexpected ways, they become lenses through which she examines empathy, sexuality, friendship, and the relentless pressure to perform. This book blends laugh-out-loud storytelling...

Laugh-out-loud funny, wildly honest, and unexpectedly wise, this book is not about being naked, it is about being human when you have absolutely nowhere to hide. Kristin Williams, 38, suburban Seattle resident, world traveling nudist, former Subaru loyalist, current Volvo convert, and proud owner of a judgmental Persian cat named Donna, invites you into a world where confidence is built one awkward moment at a time. Clothes come off quickly. Insecurities take longer. And friendships get louder, messier, and somehow better. In Friends, Frenemies, and Full Body Confidence, Kristin navigates ...

Some people spiral. Some move on. Others run into the same problems in a different city and call it growth. Follow a handful of men and women who look functional on paper—but are deeply unprepared for the emotional messes they keep walking into. Breakups that don’t stay broken. Conversations no one wants to have. Friends who won’t let them forget how dysfunctional they really are. These aren’t love stories or romantic fantasy. They’re stories about real people trying to act normal while life quietly unravels. Which would be bad enough on its own. But then there’s Pickles. He ...

Stand-up Comedian and Humor Writer Scott Kerman releases his much anticipated third annual collection of humorous essays from his column, World According to Scott!, featured weekly in the Eagle Tribune newspaper. "Unfiltered and in-your-face funny, ‘The World According to Scott’ is a rat-a-tat take on life’s curveballs and consolations, its annoyances and joys, delivered with the quick, captivating pace of the standup comic that Scott has been. He takes the familiar and turns it inside-out, dissecting life’s daily routines with a devilish wit, a cocked eyebrow, and a tug at the ...

Let’s clear something up immediately. If you ever find yourself naked in the desert, you did not make one bad decision. You made a series of perfectly reasonable decisions that ended very poorly, all at once. The desert does not announce itself with drama. It does not scream. It does not rush you. It simply waits while you make assumptions, and then it charges interest on every one of them. This book exists because the desert is uniquely unforgiving, especially when you are nude, exposed, and suddenly very aware of how thin human skin actually is. The Desert Is Not Just “Hot Woods” ...

I never planned to write a book about being naked in the woods. If I’m being honest, I never planned on thinking this much about it either. But once the idea got into my head, it wouldn’t leave. Probably because it’s one of those uncomfortable questions nobody wants to ask. What happens when everything goes wrong at the worst possible time… and you have absolutely nothing on you? No gear. No phone. No knife. No clothes. No dignity. This book exists because disasters don’t wait for you to put pants on. Fires happen at night. Accidents happen in the shower. Storms hit while you’re...

A quiet suburban street outside Seattle. Perfect lawns. Watchful windows. One woman living naked. One neighbor named Regina who absolutely will not let that stand. Kristin Williams just wanted to drink her coffee in peace, nude, calm, and on her own property. Enter Regina, a hyper organized, control loving neighbor armed with binoculars, notebooks, signs about decency, and a deep belief that one woman’s body could single handedly destroy property values and Western civilization. What follows is a wildly escalating suburban cold war between Kristin and Regina that includes surveillance, ...

A nude beach. A blue towel. A red towel. One Democrat. One Republican. Zero clothes and absolutely no patience for shame. Kristin Williams arrives in Florida believing it is one of America’s last true naked havens, right up there with Hawaii and nowhere else. What she does not expect is to find herself near a real life nude church, preaching accidental sermons on the sand, confronting gawkers, losing her last bikini forever, and forming a deep, unlikely friendship with Trina Wax, a fiercely confident Republican with sun kissed skin and zero fear of being herself. What follows is not a ...

PRAISE FOR WORLD ACCORDING TO SCOTT The Book Series “By the fourth book, Scott Kerman isn’t just writing humor—he’s keeping a running record of how we live now. Observant, generous, and sharply funny, World According to Scott reads like a conversation you didn’t realize you needed, delivered by someone who notices everything and somehow makes it all hilarious.” — American Humor Quarterly “Unfiltered and in-your-face funny, The World According to Scott is a rat-a-tat take on life’s curveballs and consolations, its annoyances and joys, delivered with the quick, captivating ...

DO NOT take on a leadership role until you have listened to this! Buy this for your new boss and put it on their desk. An essential listen, self-help what not-to-do leadership book like no other. Following on from his publication of “Throwing Fruit at Drug Dealers”, Ian Dandleroar has matured from the inane and profane to practical advice for future leaders drawn from over 30 years of military and civilian flying.

Laugh a Little. Think a Lot. Repeat Daily. Life is strange. Profound. Occasionally ridiculous. This book knows that—and refuses to choose just one. Inside these pages you’ll find bite-sized quotes that are equal parts witty observation, gentle wisdom, and laugh-out-loud truth. The kind of lines that make you snort your coffee… then pause, reread, and think, Well. That hit a little too close to home. This isn’t a self-help book that tells you how to fix your life. It’s a companion that sits beside you and says, “Yes. This is weird. You’re doing fine.” Perfect for: Readers who...

Kristin Williams did not set out to become an expert in naked conflict. She just kept taking her clothes off and telling the truth at the same time. At 38, living outside Seattle with a Volvo full of towels and a Persian cat who has seen too much, Kristin has learned that nudity does not make people calmer, kinder, or more evolved. It just removes the hiding places. People still fight. They still flirt. They still get jealous, defensive, insecure, and weird. They just do it with their butts out. This book is a collection of true stories and hard earned lessons from nude beaches, hotel rooms...