Showing results by publisher "Phoenix Books" in Comedy & Humour

Introducing Sissy Hankshaw—an almost flawlessly beautiful small-town girl with big-time dreams—who hitchhikes her way into your heart, your hopes, and your sleeping bag. Along her travels, meet such unforgettable characters as Bonanza Jellybean and the smooth-riding cowgirls of Rubber Rose Ranch; the unfortunately named Chink, a lascivious guru of yams and yang; Julian, an asthmatic esthete and husband by disposition; and Dr. Robbins, a preventive psychiatrist and reality instructor.

Imagine this: When the stock market crashes on the Thursday before Easter, you — an ambitious, although ineffectual and not entirely ethical young broker — are convinced that you're facing the Weekend from Hell. Before the market reopens on Monday, you must scramble and scheme to cover your butt, but there's no way you can anticipate the baffling disappearance of a 300-pound psychic, the fall from grace of a born-again monkey, or the intrusion in your life of a tattooed stranger intent on blowing your mind and most of your fuses.

The place: New York. The time: the early 1980s. The scene: the red-hot comedy clubs, very late at night. The cast: five would-be stand-up comics, their egos, and their girls. The result: a downright hilarious novel about trying to be funny for fame, fortune, and fornication. This is Bill Maher's report from the front, a stageside table at the birth of the comedy boom. You'll laugh in all the right places.

In this seventh installment of the Jeeves series, the unflappable butler once again must apply his cleverness to rescue Bertie Wooster—this time from being arrested, lynched, and engaged by mistake! Chaos ensues when Aunt Dahlia demands that Bertie help dupe an antique dealer into selling her an 18th-century cow creamer. Complications grow as Bertie's pal Gussie Fink-Nottle is more interested in studying the effects of a full moon on the love life of newts rather than marrying Madeline Bassett.

For more than fifteen years Moe Moskowitz and the Punsters were the court jesters of National Public Radio, performing the funniest songs and nonsense that NPR has to offer. Here, Moe and the Punsters are joined by NPR's Bob Edwards, Alex Chadwick, Terry Gross, Cokie Roberts, Susan Stamberg, Robert Siegel, Carl Kasell, and Frank Tavares, among others. These are all those voices we know and love, but they're actually being funny and satirical and spontaneous!

Here are the excruciatingly funny adventures of Suzanne Vale — a young film star and drug addict — who survives a rehab clinic only to rejoin the equally harrowing world of Hollywood. Out there on the edge, despair flips into hilarity, and we're left laughing as Suzanne struggles to come to terms with her various fantasylands.

This laugh-out-loud memoir takes listeners backstage and inside the writers’ room of one of America’s best-loved shows. With more than 17 million viewers and more than 70 Emmy nominations—including two wins for best comedy—Everybody Loves Raymond reigned supreme in television comedy for almost a decade.

Stuart Cuno has decided to become good. Not believing in God, he invents his own methods, which include celibacy, chastity, and the abandonment of a promising academic career. Interfering friends and relations question his sincerity, his sanity, and his motives.

When Dave Barry goes mano a mano with the Information Superhighway, it's guaranteed to be a rip-roaring adventure. This self-proclaimed computer geek and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist starts with the motto, "Never read the instructions," and slides from there into the world of hardware, software, Windows 95, and the critical issue of RAM ("the bottom line is, if you're a guy, you cannot have enough RAM").

Warning: This isn't the real thing...it's funnier! "Gerber's affectionate, giggle-inducing send-up is one giant step toward restoring the somewhat debased art form known as 'parody,'" says Sean Kelly, former editor of National Lampoon. If you love Harry Potter - or if you have had enough of him! - you've gotta hear this.

Penniless and downtrodden at the loss of his wife and one of his daughters, Samuel Clemens turned to writing. The short stories and essays in Letters from the Earth find Clemens—under the pseudonym of Mark Twain—at perhaps his most quizzical and questioning state ever. Written as diary entries, Twain penned a series of letters from the point of view of a dejected angel on Earth who observes the many curious natures of man. These pieces, gathered by Twain's literary executor, feature sharp takes on the inconsistencies of Christianity and farcical criticisms of American life.

More than once, friends of Carl Reiner said, “You ought to write those things down.” And at the age of eighty, Carl finally did. In this funny and engaging memoir, Reiner recounts his show business life in short comic takes....

Since Dave Barry writes about weird things, you might be tempted to think he has a weird brain. He does, of course, but that's not the whole explanation: A lot of the things he writes about—exploding Pop-Tarts, for example—are real. Join Dave as he examines UFO thrill-seekers and Elvis-worshippers, runs for president, and plays Claptonesque guitar in the world's most literary band that includes Stephen King (The Rock-Bottom Remainders).

I'll Be There picks up after the tragic death of Bertie Barron, who has entrusted the care of her eight-year old daughter, Nina, to her best friend, the dazzling entertainer Cee Cee Bloom. But life in the Hollywood spotlight never prepared Cee Cee for this role: mother to a little girl she barely knows. Even on the couch of the Tonight show or preparing the biggest act of her career, Cee Cee tries to focus on Nina and her needs.

Without bothering to get approval from the President, the State Department, or even the FTC, Dave Barry's publishers sent him to Tokyo. You'd think they would have known better. Now the word is Barry has set back our diplomatic relations with the whole Pacific Rim by a couple of decades. Japanese culture, dining, sport, and industry all come under Barry's relentless scrutiny.

Has Jeeves finally lost his grip? Wealthy, scatterbrained Bertie Wooster—with the aid of his ever-faithful butler, Jeeves—attempts to romantically link dreamy, soulful Gussie Fink-Nottle with soppy, sweet Madeline Bassett. But as soon as Bertie takes Gussie and Madeline's love connection into his own hands, things go disastrously wrong! Fortunately, Jeeves steps in to set matters straight. But the characters must endure tangled layers of comedic complications before they reach the invariably clever and satisfying finale.

From basic training to World War II to the Gulf War, America's veterans share their funniest stories in this collection of Reader's Digest's popular "Humor in Uniform" column. Beneath the horror of war lies a rich tradition of comedy and satire, and these anecdotes have entertained fans for decades.

From the grand old man of comedy, George Burns to the up-to-the minute observations of today's everyman, Dave Barry, these great humorists share one thing in common: their very individual, often raucously funny perception of the world around them. Laugh and enjoy!

America's most beloved writer, Lilian Jackson Braun, author of twenty-four Cat Who... mysteries is now the subject of a mystery herself. In this spoof by one of her most ardent admirers, her beheaded body has been discovered in the men's room of a gay bar in Lower Manhattan. The police are baffled, and so it is up to Braun's eccentric writer friend, James Q. (Qafka), and his Siamese cats Ying-Ton and Poon-Tang to solve the ghastly mystery.

Recorded live at the Friar's Club in New York City, this collection of stand-up routines features some of the greatest American comedians at the height of their comic skills. Presented by Joey Adams—and with introductions by television legends Milton Berle and Phyllis Diller—this recording captures performances by Norm Crosby, Freddie Roman, Soupy Sales, and Henny Youngman. In this nostalgic, hysterical collection, you'll laugh all the way through hundreds of hilarious jokes, gags, and putdowns.