The Joker

An award-winning poet and compulsive joke teller shares a personal account that remembers the jokes that educated him about history, religion and family, from revelatory sex jokes that informed his adolescence and racial jokes that estranged his relatives to the jokes he has used to court and romance his wife.

News and Reviews

• 'Joker' Asks: Have You Heard The One About The Joke-Telling Poet?

Lizz Free Or Die

Essays

In a collection of autobiographical essays, The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead vividly recounts how she fought to find her own voice, both as a comedian and as a woman, and how humor became her most powerful weapon in confronting life's challenges.

News and Reviews

• Lizz Winstead: The Dictionary From A To Lizz
• How A 'Daily Show' Writer Grew Up Funny

Tiny Confessions

The Secret Thoughts of Dogs, Cats, and Everything

An artist and comedian presents his full-color portraits of house pets depicting their deepest, most secret inner thoughts as made popular on websites including Flavorwire, Laughing Squid, Fab.com and Etsy.

News and Reviews

• These Dogs, Cats And Robots Have A Few 'Tiny Confessions'

Attempting Normal

News and Reviews

• A Look Inside The Garage: A Q&A With Marc Maron
• Marc Maron: A Life Fueled By 'Panic And Dread'

Dad Is Fat

The comedian shares his misadventures as an unlikely father of five, including his formative years in a large Irish-Catholic family, his middle-of-the-night diaper-changing foibles and to his struggles to lull tyrannical tots to sleep.

News and Reviews

• 'Fat' Dad Jim Gaffigan On Kids, Comedy And Apartment Living

I Could Pee On This

And Other Poems By Cats

Francesco Marciuliano, author of the comic strip Sally Forth, gives voice to the thoughts and feelings of cats in this collection of poems attributed to felines.NPR Bestseller

News and Reviews

• A Cartoon Tribute To Cats, And The Poets Who Loved Them

Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls

A collection of essays by the humorist traces his offbeat travel experiences, which involve surreal encounters with everything from French dentistry and Australian kookaburras to Beijing squat toilets and a wilderness Costco in North Carolina.NPR Bestseller

News and Reviews

• 'Let's Explore': David Sedaris On His Public Private Life
• Owls, Yes, But Also Kookaburras And Dentists In Sedaris' Latest

We Learn Nothing

Essays and Cartoons

New York Times political cartoonist and writer Tim Kreider presents a collection of his most popular essays and drawings about life and government hypocrisy. We Learn Nothing asks big questions about human-sized problems: What if you survive a brush with death and it doesn't change you? Why do we fall in love with people we don't even like? How do you react when someone you've known for years unexpectedly changes genders?

News and Reviews

• April 8-14: Impeachment, Mourning, Sobriety And Soccer
• Librarian Nancy Pearl's Picks For The Omnivorous Reader

Everything Is Perfect When You're A Liar

With over 300,000 followers on Twitter and frequent retweets from heavy-hitting fans such as Diablo Cody and Kevin Nealon, one of the funniest voices ever to hit the Internet uses her trademark blend of biting wit and self-deprecation to find hilarity in everyday life.

News and Reviews

• How Twitter Star Kelly Oxford Makes Everything 'Perfect'

If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother

The Broadway actress and early-1990s cast member of Saturday Night Live shares parenting misadventures, from her poignant decision to adopt as a single woman to her efforts to explain the birds and the bees to her precocious 8-year-old.

News and Reviews

• 'It's Pat' Creator Muses On Motherhood And Family Life

Bossypants

The breakout star of Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock gives a humorous account of her life, as well as behind-the-scenes stories from her hit shows.NPR Bestseller

News and Reviews

• Tina Fey: '30 Rock' Star And Creator Moves On
• New In Paperback Jan. 9 - 15
• Tina Fey On Life, Motherhood, Writing And Comedy

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

The writer and actor best known for her role on The Office shares observations on everything from favorite male archetypes and her hatred of dieting to her relationship with her mother and the haphazard creative process of The Office's writers' room.NPR Bestseller

News and Reviews

• New In Paperback Sept. 17-23
• Mindy Kaling On Diets, High School And Other American Pastimes

F In Exams

The Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers

Humor writer Richard Benson collects hilariously wrong test answers.NPR Bestseller

News and Reviews

• NPR Bestsellers: Paperback Nonfiction, Week Of Aug. 4, 2011

How To Be A Woman

Piecing together common-sense observations with scenes from her own life, a major media personality in the U.K. sheds new light on feminism, discussing the reasons why female rights and empowerment are essential issues for both women and society itself.NPR Bestseller

News and Reviews

• From Puberty To Pop Culture: What It Means 'To Be A Woman'
• Not A Feminist? Caitlin Moran Asks, Why Not?
• Laughing Matters: Five Funny Books With Substance

How To Be Black

Drawn from more than 30 years of living and redefining blackness, an editor at The Onion presents this tongue-in-cheek guide to being black that pokes fun at the so-called experts, purists and racists who think they know what black people believe, do, stand for and like.

News and Reviews

• Talking About What It Means 'To Be Black'
• Baratunde Thurston Explains 'How To Be Black'
• Baratunde Thurston Explains 'How To Be Black'

I Hate Everyone... Starting With Me

The comedienne humorously lashes out at the people, places, and things she loathes, including ugly children, dating rituals, First Ladies, funerals, hypocrites, overrated historical figures, Hollywood, and lousy restaurants.

News and Reviews

• Joan Rivers Hates You, Herself and Everyone Else
• Joan Rivers Hates You, Herself And Everyone Else
• Joan Rivers Hates You, Herself And Everyone Else

America Again

Re-Becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't

The political satirist, comedian and host of The Colbert Report puts his signature humorous spin on health care, the economy and food, promising that this book will single-handedly fix an America that is broken and has lost its way.NPR Bestseller

News and Reviews

• Colbert: 'Re-Becoming' The Nation We Always Were

My Heart Is an Idiot

The author discusses his frequent failings at love, his many cross-country sojourns and the outrageous schemes he concocts. 30,000 first printing.

News and Reviews

• Great Reads In Store: Indie Booksellers Pick 2012's Best

Quite Enough Of Calvin Trillin

Forty Years Of Funny Stuff

A lighthearted collection of author-selected excerpts from his best-selling memoirs, satires and novels includes entries ranging from descriptions of untraditional holiday celebrations to observations about literary pop culture, in a volume that is complemented by a previously unseen piece.

News and Reviews

• New In Paperback Dec. 3-9
• An Anthology, And A Life, Full Of 'Funny Stuff'