Humor / Form / Essays

More Baths Less Talking: Notes from the Reading Life of a Celebrated Author Locked in Battle with Football, Family, and Time

by Nick Hornby

“Read what you enjoy, not what bores you,” Nick Hornby tells us. That simple, liberating, and indispensable directive animates each installment of the celebrated critic and author’s monthly column in the...

If You Didn't Bring Jerky, What Did I Just Eat: Misadventures in Hunting, Fishing, and the Wilds of Suburbia

by Bill Heavey

Whether he is accidentally cooking his brain with hand warmers or yanking his lure away from a trophy fish just before it takes the bait, Bill Heavey can do no right. For almost a decade, he has chronicled his...

Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About Thi

by P. J. O'Rourke

Now available from Grove Press, P. J. O'Rourke's classic, best-selling guided tour of the world's most desolate, dangerous, and desperate places. "Tired of making bad jokes" and believing that "the world outside...

Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics

by P. J. O'Rourke

In the tradition of his contemporary classic Parliament of Whores, the man who The Wall Street Journal calls "the funniest writer in America" is back with Eat the Rich, in which he takes on the global economy....

The CEO of the Sofa

by P. J. O'Rourke

New York Times best-selling author P. J. O'Rourke lobbed one-liners on the battlefields of the Gulf War, traded quips with communist rebels in the jungles of the Philippines, and went undercover at the Dome...

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

by P. J. O'Rourke

Readers may be shocked to discover that America's most provocative (and conservative) satirist, P. J. O'Rourke, was at one time a raving pinko, with scars on his formerly bleeding heart to prove it. In Age and...

Nerdy Thirty

by Wendy Townley

Feeling a little nerdy? Then you're in the right place. Nerdy Thirty is a collection of thirteen humorous essays that recount personal experiences from one woman's childhood, her painfully awkward teen years,...

Driving Like Crazy: Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-Bending, Celebrating America the Way It's Supposed To Be - With an Oi

by P. J. O'Rourke

Driving Like Crazy celebrates cars and author P. J. O’Rourke’s love for them, while chronicling the golden age of the automobile in America. O’Rourke takes us on a whirlwind tour of the world’s most...

Elvis Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself

by Lewis Grizzard

The 1950s were simple times to grow up. For Lewis Grizzard and his buddies, gallivanting meant hanging out at the local store, eating Zagnut candy bars and drinking "Big Orange bellywashers." About the worst...

Dirty Girls

by Gillian Telling

The Naked Truth Isn't Always Pretty.

A no-holds-barred look at the hilarious underbelly of what it means to be female, Dirty Girls lays bare the secrets of the fairer sex.

Women don't come from a different planet...

Now That's Funny!: Jokes and Stories from the Man Who Keeps America Laughing

by Andy Simmons

Every year, Reader’s Digest readers send in tens of thousands of jokes and funny anecdotes, in their quest for a $100 check and, as an extra benefit, eternal glory: to have their joke published in the world’s...

If It Weren't for the Laughter, Life Would Be a Scream Random Recollections and Amusing Musings on the Hidden Humor of Everyday

by Kathryn Olszonowicz

Synopsis: Anguish and strife can often fill our lives, but if we let ourselves dwell on the negative aspects, we fail to see all of the beauty and humor that is also an integral part of living. This collection...

Rock and Roll Cage Match: Music's Greatest Rivalries, Decided

by Sean Manning

Music defines us. To return the favor, we’ll stick up with zealous passion for the performers and bands that we love . . . and heap aspersions and ridicule upon people who dare to place their allegiances above...

Shiksa Goddess

by Wendy Wasserstein

Celebrated playwright and magnetic wit Wendy Wasserstein has been firmly rooted in New York’s cultural life since her childhood of Broadway matinees, but her appeal is universal. Shiksa Goddess collects thirty-five...

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Michigan

by Bathroom Readers' Hysterical Society

What do Yoopers and Trolls have in common? Not much to hear them tell it, but both types of Michigander appreciate great bathroom reading. And they’re proud to call Michigan home! Celebrate the state that...

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Minnesota

by Bathroom Readers' Hysterical Society

What’s not to love about the state that gave us the Pillsbury Doughboy? Oh, and Judy Garland, Bob Dylan, and Prince, too! Minnesota is a state with a rich history and a proud citizenship, and as Uncle John...

Dave Barry in Cyberspace

by Dave Barry

"RELENTLESSLY FUNNY . . . BARRY SHINES."

--People

A self-professed computer geek who actually does Windows 95, bestselling humorist Dave Barry takes us on a hilarious hard drive via the information superhighway--and...

Rejected: Tales of the Failed, Dumped, and Canceled

by Jon Friedman

Besides being born and dying, the most common human experience is being rejected–dissed, dumped on, or downsized–by lovers, parents, and employers. Now here’s a hilarious collection of rejection stories–and...

(Not that You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions

by Steve Almond

How does Steve Almond get himself into so much trouble? Could it be his incessant moralizing? His generally poor posture? The fact that he was raised by a pack of wolves? Frankly, we haven’t got a clue. What...

How to Stay Bitter Through the Happiest Times of Your Life

by Anita Liberty

“I had a lot of bad dates. But I wrote a lot of good poems.”

So maintains Anita Liberty, the caustically funny New York City performance artist who was going along happily healing her hurt by hating and humiliating...