Essays & Memoirs Audiobooks | Comedy

Adventures in Grocery Shopping: And other short stories from a cereal aisle aficionado.

Dan May (Author), Dan May (Narrator)

Audiobook

I Wouldn't Do That If I Were Me: Modern Blunders and Modest Triumphs (but Mostly Blunders)

The Wall Street Journal columnist and bestselling author of Little Victories takes a humorous and insightful look at life in the face of overwhelming societal change that we never anticipated-from the effects on parenthood, marriage, friendship, work, and play to all other aspects of the strange lives we find ourselves living. Like many of us, Jason Gay didn't see this coming: a reshaped world, on edge, often stuck at home, questioning everything, trying to navigate a digital landscape that changes how we think, parent, coach, and live. With a series of topical and interconnected personal pieces, Gay comically takes on this new state of being, looking for the optimism and joy in the face of discouragement. He embarks on a rowdy ride with his son to the Daytona 500, weeks before lockdown. He confides his hilariously banal texts with his wife. He allows his mom to kidnap the family cat. From the modest thrills of Little League parenting to reckoning with the impending death of a close friend, Gay's essays run the gamut of modern life and he approaches it all with humility, grace, and more than a few laughs.

Jason Gay (Author), Jason Gay (Narrator)

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Dawn in the Dooryard

Following his best-selling The Detective in the Dooryard, Tim Cotton brings a fresh set of keen observations to his new collection. Drawing upon more than thirty years as Maine police officer--and even longer as a born-and-bred Mainer--Cotton shares stories about life--in Maine and elsewhere--about his experiences, and about the people he's met along the way. With generous portions of wry Yankee wit and sage wisdom, this new collection will leave you laughing, crying, or maybe both at once.

Timothy Cotton (Author), Will Damron (Narrator)

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Haywire: The Best of Craig Brown

'The most screamingly funny living writer' Barry Humphries, Mail on Sunday From the bestselling and award-winning author of Ma'am Darling and One Two Three Four, a selection of Craig Brown's finest writing collected together for the first time. What is James Bond's middle name? How does Jacob Rees-Mogg's nanny set about cleaning him up in the morning? When did Piers Morgan introduce his special guest Kim Jong-Un as “the straight-talking boy from North Korea who grew up to become a global superstar”? All these important questions, and a great many more, are answered in Craig Brown's Haywire. Featuring handy household tips from Mary Berry (‘When eating a boiled egg be careful to remove the shell first, or it can be a little crunchy’) and historic admissions from Queen Elizabeth 1st to Oprah Winfrey concerning her mother's beheading (‘Thank you for having the courage to share that with us’), Haywire presents a survival guide to the 21st century. In one chapter, Brown writes about the influence of Blackpool on Sigmund Freud and Les Dawson. In another, he unearths the Historical Online Archive and discovers that the invention of the wheel in Mesopotamia in 4000 BC drew fierce criticism on social media. “My mate tried it, says it's total rubbish” wrote Brian from Sumeria. The acclaimed biographer of Princess Margaret and The Beatles delivers essays on such diverse figures as Ronald Searle, John Stonehouse, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Dawkins, Katie Price, Stanley Spencer, Harry and Meghan, Brian Epstein, Kenneth Williams, Ronald Reagan, Simon Dee and the Marx Brothers. With the full battery of the humourist's armoury – clerihews, tongue-twisters, whimsy, parody, farce, satire, social observation, nonsense – Brown skewers the passing fads and delusions of the contemporary world. ‘Our greatest living satirist’ Sunday Times ‘Exquisitely naughty and hilarious’ Guardian ‘Craig Brown’s humour will outlive his victims … his journalism is one of the few compensations for being British now’ Sunday Telegraph

Craig Brown, Kieran Hodgson (Author), Jan Ravens, Kieran Hodgson (Narrator)

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The World Record Book of Racist Stories

A new collection of hilarious, intergenerational anecdotes full of absurd detail about everyday experiences of racism from the New York Times bestselling authors of You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey, comedian Amber Ruffin and her sister Lacey. Families may not always see eye to eye; we get on each other's nerves, have different perspectives and lives-especially when we consider how we've grown up in different generations. But for the Ruffin family and many others, there has been one constant that connects them: racism hasn't gone anywhere. From her raucous musical numbers to turning upsetting news into laughs as the host of The Amber Ruffin Show or in her Late Night with Seth Meyers segments, Amber is no stranger to finding the funny wherever she looks. With equal parts heart and humor, she and her sister Lacey Lamar shared some of the eye-opening and outrageous experiences Lacey had faced in Nebraska in their first book. Now, the dynamic duo makes it clear-Lacey isn't the only one in the family with ridiculous encounters to share! Amber and Lacey have many more uproarious stories, both from their own lives and the entire Ruffin family. Recounting the wildest tales of racism from their parents, their siblings, and Amber's nieces and nephews, this intergenerational look at ludicrous (but all too believable) everyday racism as experienced across age, gender, and appearance will have you gasping with shock and laughter in turn. Validating for anyone who has first-hand experience, and revealing for anyone who doesn't, Amber and Lacey's next book helps us all find the absurdity in the pervasive frustrations of racism. Illuminating and packed with love and laughter, this is a must-read for just about everyone.

Amber Ruffin, Lacey Lamar (Author), Amber Ruffin, Lacey Lamar (Narrator)

Audiobook

Voyage Autour de ma Chambre

Un jeune officier mis aux arrêts après une affaire de duel nous raconte son Voyage Autour de Ma Chambre. Confiné à son imagination, Xavier de Maitre entreprend une aventure ironique, originale et décalée entre ses quatre murs. Sautant dans les tableaux, revisitant un souvenir, se jouant une scène romantique, plaidant ses valeurs contre la morale humaine, l'auteur se permet toutes les fantaisies pour échapper à la monotonie de sa condamnation. Publié pour la première fois en 1795, Voyage Autour de ma Chambre est un récit à l'humour et à la plumme très modernes pour leur époque. L'oeuvre a connu un regain de popularité lors de la pandémie de 2020, alors que les confinés de tous les coins du monde cherchaient des moyens de s'évader dans leur captivité.

Xavier De Maistre (Author), Jérôme Pilette (Narrator)

Audiobook

Delete That: (and Other Failed Attempts to Look Good Online)

A candid and irreverent look at the ridiculous ways we all try to make ourselves look better online-from a popular standup and internet comedian whose videos have been viewed over one billion times. "John is one of my top-three all-time favorite comedians, next to me and Foxworthy. Buy this book-you'll be glad you did."-Larry the Cable Guy John Crist wasn't always recognizable as "the guy from that hilarious video in the grocery store." Growing up part of a homeschool family of ten in rural Georgia with Mennonite grandparents and a high-school job at Chick-fil-A, he was an unlikely candidate for internet fame. Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, Crist passionately pursued his dream of stand-up comedy. In his first book, Crist offers heartfelt, laugh-out-loud observations on the absurd ways we all try to make ourselves look better online: like how we all post filtered pictures of our super healthy kale salads but somehow neglect to post about our 1 A.M. Uber Eats Big Mac. Or how quick we all are to post our "I Voted" sticker pictures but fail to post about the ways we vote with our dollars every day in ways that don't align with our loudly and publicly espoused values. With self-deprecating wit, Crist chronicles his meteoric rise as an online and stand-up comedian, but he doesn't gloss over the ways his own life choices did not align with his online image-a gap between perception and reality that eventually led to a stint in rehab. In Delete That, Crist takes responsibility for his actions, offers some reflections on how to do better, and encourages us all to stop capitulating to the fear of "But what will they think?!" Instead, this book offers a bold invitation to stop curating life and start living it . . . one Nickelback concert at a time.

John Crist (Author), John Crist (Narrator)

Audiobook

Rants from the Hill: On Packrats, Bobcats, Wildfires, Curmudgeons, a Drunken Mary Kay Lady, and Othe

Welcome to the land of wildfire, hypothermia, desiccation, and rattlers. The stark and inhospitable high-elevation landscape of Nevada’s Great Basin Desert may not be an obvious (or easy) place to settle down, but for self-professed desert rat Michael Branch it’s home. Of course, living in such an unforgiving landscape gives one many things to rant about. Fortunately for us, Branch—humorist, environmentalist, and author of Raising Wild—is a prodigious ranter. From bees hiving in the walls of his house to owls trying to eat his daughters’s cat—not to mention his eccentric neighbors—adventure, humor, and irreverence abound on Branch’s small slice of the world, which he lovingly calls Ranting Hill.

Michael P. Branch (Author), David Marantz (Narrator)

Audiobook

She's Nice Though: Essays on Being Bad at Being Good

A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY SUMMER READ • A NYLON MUST READ • A FORTUNE NEW BOOK TO READ IN AUGUST “And, at the center of it all, am I actually nice or am I just performing a role I think I’m expected to play?” Mia Mercado is a razor-sharp cultural critic and essayist known for her witty and hilarious dissections of the uncomfortable truths that rule our lives. In this thought-provoking collection of new essays, Mercado examines what it means to be “polite,” “agreeable,” and “nice.” She covers topics from the subtleties of the “Bad Bitch” and why women dominate the ASMR market, to what makes her dog an adorable little freak and how you know if you’re shy. This is a book about the unspoken trick mirror of our “good” intentions: the inherent performance of the social media apology, celebrating men when they do the bare minimum, and why we trust a Midwesterner to watch our stuff when we go pee. Throughout, she ponders her identity as an Asian woman and asks what “nice” even means—and why anyone would want to be it. With writing that is as precise as it is profound, and cultural references that range from trash reality television to the New York Times Sunday-morning crossword puzzle, Mercado uncovers weird, long-overdue truths about our frailties and failings. In the end, she sees them not as a source of shame but as a cause for celebration. Filled with revelations that range from the silly to the serious, She’s Nice Though offers a mind-bending glimpse into the illusions and delusions of contemporary life—and reveals who we *really* are when no one is watching.

Mia Mercado (Author), Natalie Naudus (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Parthenon on our roof: Adventures of an Anglo-Greek marriage

Alexandra, a product of Greek Fire. Born into the cradle of civilization. Weaned on the teachings of ancient Greek philosophers, thrilled by the bravery of Spartans and thousands of years of cultural heritage. Peter, her future husband, a tea-drinking, digestive-dunking product of British society. Working to make a living with no real ambitions or dreams. But then, he fell in love. Everything changed. At times hilarious, always embarrassing, Peter's story of how he became Greek enough to live with a Greek family includes a near-death experience on a mountain road, eccentric aunts, Greek bureaucracy, melting flip-flops, and the decision to demolish the much-loved family home, replacing it with a five-storey apartment block, complete with a Parthenon on the roof terrace. To cap it all, someone thought it a good idea to put Peter in charge of the rebuild project, despite not speaking a word of Greek. What could possibly go wrong?

Peter Barber (Author), Martyn Swain (Narrator)

Audiobook

No Shame: How to drop the guilt … from some who’s learned the f**king hard way

Brought to you by Penguin. Shame, shame we know your name Do we own it? Being a woman that is. Do we fuck! We live in fear of how we look, what we eat, how we age and what we do. Wow, it's 2022 and we're still churning out that same old shit. I've been told as you get older you care less. Fucking great. I can't wait to be menopausal with skunk-like grey track lines in my hair, saggier tits, and miserable as shit. I don't know about you, but I'd quite like to have that experience - the no-fucks-experience that is - now, before that all happens. To have the confidence to believe in who I am. It's a push we all have to make - whether it be in our confidence over our bodies, who we are as people, or what goes on inside our mind - and we all have to work at it. It's baby steps. So let's take it back to those tiny steps, because all mountains that are climbed don't happen without practice, perseverance, self-belief and a fuck ton of work. © Laura Belbin 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Laura Belbin (Author), Laura Belbin (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays

Brought to you by Penguin. Ten days after calling off her wedding, CJ Hauser went on an expedition to study the whooping crane. After a week wading through the gulf, she realised she had almost signed up to live somebody else's life. In this intimate, frank and funny memoir in essays, CJ Hauser lets go of 'how life was supposed to be' and goes looking for more honest ways of living. She kisses internet strangers, officiates a wedding, visits a fertility clinic. She reads Rebecca in the house her new boyfriend shared with his ex-wife and rewinds Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story to ask if you can ever have a fresh start with an old love. She writes about friends and lovers, grief and heartbreak, blood family and chosen family, and asks what more expansive definitions of love might offer us all. The Crane Wife is a book for anyone whose life doesn't look the way they thought it would; for anyone trying, if sometimes failing, to find joy in the unexpected. 'Outstanding' Roxane Gay 'Funny, exciting, vulnerable - truly visionary' Alexander Chee 'What a fantastic, original, funny and touching voice! C J Hauser is a wondrous writer. This book will give so much happiness.' CRESSIDA CONNOLLY, author of AFTER THE PARTY 'Brilliant and beautiful... An absolute must-read' FRANCES CHA, author of IF I HAD YOUR FACE 'Compassionate and funny and brave. CJ is a master story weaver. I was left wanting more, in the best way possible.' CHARLIE GILMOUR, author of FEATHERHOOD 'A thrillingly original deconstruction of desire and its many configurations' Publishers Weekly 'Bold and brilliant and psychologically exquisite, CJ Hauser is a deeply gifted and generous writer. THE CRANE WIFE is enthralling.' CHARLOTTE FOX WEBER, author of WHAT WE WANT © Christina Joyce Hauser 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Christina Joyce Hauser (Author), Cj Hauser (Narrator)

Audiobook

Essays & Memoirs Audiobooks in Comedy