Showing results by publisher "HarperAudio" in Comedy & Humour

Tim Bowden has been writing and sharing his stories with the public since the early '60s in his home state of Tasmania. This quirky and eclectic series of recollections and anecdotes is Tim at his best, with a wry view on life, his own personal stories, and some amusing moments from his life as a reporter and broadcaster. A must for Tim Bowden fans.

Jameela Green only has one wish. To see her memoir on the New York Times bestseller list. When her dream doesn’t come true, she seeks spiritual guidance at her local mosque. New imam and recent immigrant Ibrahim Sultan is appalled by Jameela’s shallowness, but agrees to assist her on one condition: that she perform a good deed.

In in his debut book for adults, Jeffery Self invites listeners into his world, taking them through the usual foibles of gay adolescence, amplified in the vast wasteland of the American South and the odd characters who peopled it, from shoddy community theater productions to underage drinking with Broadway stars, from downtown comedy rooms to adventure-filled bedrooms.

Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America. Easy to learn, but impossible to master, it’s no wonder that nearly 5 million people nationwide have picked up their paddles and taken to the court. But people aren’t just dabbling in this up-and-coming activity, they are obsessed; some hit the court as many as five, six, even seven times a week. As Vanity Fair put it, pickleball has “won over everyone, from Leonardo DiCaprio to your grandparents.”

You may know Jimmy Failla as the best dressed man in cable news. A force multiplier of positive energy on the radio who sounds like he gets paid in Tequila and Tide Pods. But he’s also a former New York City Taxi Driver who’s spent countless hours conversing with people from all over this planet and several planets you’ve never heard of. It’s those chats with hobbits, hookers, and time travelers that fill The Cancel Culture Dictionary with the unique perspective and savage self-awareness we need to escape the outrage era society is stuck in.

Bill Bryson meets Thomas Frank in this deeply insightful, unexpectedly hilarious story of how politicians hijacked American democracy and how we can take it back.

That's right: Serge and Coleman do spring break!It's been a long time coming, but they're at the party now - and you¹ll never look at a Frisbee the same way again. But trouble is brewing. After years of quiet, a legendary Miami kingpin from the anything-goes '80s is suddenly back in the news, along with one of the state's most psychotic homicidal monsters, every bit as criminally insane as Serge - except without the morals. And the mysteries continue to mount....

A hilariously funny, touching, and revelatory book from one of America's preeminent humorist. In his plays, his screenplays, and his writing for The New Yorker and Premiere, Paul Rudnick has established himself as a comic master whose talents transcend genre. Now, in I Shudder, he trains his wickedly perceptive eye on everything from his New Jersey family to Hollywood to demented alcoholic Broadway stars waving swords.

Aida Rodriguez has, to put it mildly, lived a whirlwind life. Her rags-to-riches story is mind-blowing: She was kidnapped as a child by her mother in the Dominican Republic and brought to the US. She was later kidnapped again by her grandmother and uncle and moved from New York to Florida. As an adult, she ended a difficult marriage and endured homelessness with her children in Los Angeles. But through it all she never lost her sense of humor.

Mister Monkey - a screwball children's musical about a playfully larcenous pet chimpanzee - is the kind of family favorite that survives far past its prime. Margot, who plays the chimp's lawyer, knows the production is dreadful and bemoans the failure of her acting career. She's settled into the drudgery of playing a humiliating part - until the day she receives a mysterious letter from an anonymous admirer and later, in the middle of a performance, has a shocking encounter with Adam, the 12-year-old who plays the title role.

Like Kofi Annan, Larry Miller is one of the most irresistible comic personalities working today. Known for years as an actor, writer, comedian, and sexual pioneer, he's gained a new following as a cultural commentator and frequent guest on political shows. Now, in Spoiled Rotten America, he fixes his gaze on what's funny about our daily lives; which includes, roughly speaking, everything.

Every day is like Christmas for Caroline, a young, blond editor at Presents, the shopping magazine. On Christmas Eve, the ghost of Caroline's dead roommate, Carly, returns to warn that three more spirits are coming. Caroline begins a trip to Christmases past, present, and future, but though she has nine closets, she doesn't have a thing to wear.

Aisha Tyler, comedian, actress, cohost of CBS's The Talk, star of Archer, and creator of the top-ranked podcast Girl on Guy, serves up a spectacular collection of her own self-inflicted wounds. From almost setting herself on fire, to vomiting on a boy she liked, to getting drunk and sleeping through the SATs, to going into crushing debt to pay for college and then throwing away her degree to become a comedian, Aisha's life has been a series of spectacularly epic fails. And she's got the scars to prove it. Literally.

We could all learn a thing or two about living in balance from our friends in the plant and animal kingdom. Take, for example, the jellyfish, one of the most energy-efficient animals in the world, moving through the ocean by contracting and relaxing, with frequent breaks in between. Or the avocado tree, which can credit its existence to a mutually beneficial relationship with the prehistoric sloth, followed by some hungry, hungry humans and the advent of agriculture.

Michael Krasny has been telling Jewish jokes since his bar mitzvah, and it’s been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He certainly states his case in this wise, enlightening, and hilarious book that not only collects the best of Jewish humor passed down from generation to generation, but explains the cultural expressions and anxieties behind the laughs.

Let’s face it: we all want a seat at the cool table, a great job, and loads of money. But most of us won’t be able to achieve this widely accepted, black-or-white, definition of winning, which makes us feel like failures, that we’re destined to a life of loserdom. That’s the conventional wisdom. It’s also crap, according to comedian and cult hero Chris Gethard, who knows a thing of two about losing. Failing is an art form, he argues; in fact, it’s the only the way we’re ever going to discover who we are, what we really want, and how to live the kind of life we only dreamed about.

Written in intimate, gleefully TMI prose, Knocking Myself Up is the irreverent account of Tea’s route to parenthood—with a group of ride-or-die friends, a generous drag queen, and a whole lot of can-do pluck. Along the way she falls in love with a wholesome genderqueer a decade her junior, attempts biohacking herself a baby with black market fertility meds (and magicking herself an offspring with witch-enchanted honey), learns her eggs are busted, and enters the Fertility Industrial Complex in order to carry her younger lover’s baby.

In President Me, Carolla shares his vision for a different, better America free from big issues like big government down to small problems like hotel alarm clock placement. Running on an anti-narcissism platform, President Carolla calls for a return to the values of an earlier time when stew and casserole were on every dinner table and there were no “service dogs” on airplanes. President Me hits right at the heart of what makes our country really annoying, and offers a plan to make all of our lives, but mostly Adam’s, much better.

Flula Borg's fascination with America and its "peoples" have warmed hearts nationwide. A frequent guest of Conan O’Brien, the German-born actor and multi-talented entertainer (think Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat crossed with Billy Eichner) fell in love with the United States upon his first visit as a young boy. Throughout his career, he has succeeded in regaling audiences with stories from his outlandish travel exploits while paying homage to his German upbringing, culminating in a personality that is supercharged and charmingly wholesome.

Many moons ago, a new paper company named Dunder Mifflin opens in Scranton. On Halloween, just before midnight, one of its founders, the cringey yet lovable Ichabod Dunder, leaves on a sales call and never returns. The next morning, a Dunder Mifflin box is returned to the office. Inside is Ichabod Dunder’s head. So goes the legend of Headless Salesman, the lost soul who haunts Scranton every October 31st, a chilling whisper of that’s what she said jokes echoing down the streets. This Halloween, the ghost returns to hallowed ground.