Essays & Memoirs Audiobooks | Comedy

Center, Center: A Funny, Sexy, Sad Almost-Memoir of a Boy in Ballet

"James Whiteside is an electrifying performer, an incredible athlete, and an artist, through and through. To know James is to love him; with Center Center, you are about to fall in love." -Jennifer Garner "A frank examination and celebration of queerness." -Good Morning America A daring, joyous, and inspiring memoir-in-essays from the American Ballet Theatre principal dancer-slash-drag queen-slash-pop star who's redefining what it means to be a man in ballet There's a mark on every stage around the world that signifies the center of its depth and width, called 'center center.' James Whiteside has dreamed of standing on that very mark as a principal dancer with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre ever since he was a twelve-year-old blown away by watching the company's spring gala. The GLAMOUR. The VIRTUOSITY. The RIPPED MEN IN TIGHTS! In this absurd and absurdist collection of essays, Whiteside tells us the story of how he got to be a primo ballerino-stopping along the way to muse about the tragically fated childhood pets who taught him how to feel, reminisce on ill-advised partying at summer dance camps, and imagine fantastical run-ins with Jesus on Grindr. Also in these pages are tales of the two alter egos he created to subvert the strict classical rigor of ballet: JbDubs, an out-and-proud pop musician, and Ühu Betch, an over-the-top drag queen named after Yoohoo chocolate milk. Center Center is an exuberant behind-the-scenes tour of Whiteside's triple life, both on- and offstage-a raunchy, curious, and unapologetic celebration of queerness, self-expression, friendship, sex, creativity, and pushing boundaries that will entertain you, shock you*, inspire you, embolden you . . . and maybe even make you cry. *THIS IS NOT A BOOK FOR CHILDREN.

James Whiteside (Author), James Whiteside (Narrator)

Audiobook

If You Lived Here You'd Be Famous by Now: True Stories from Calabasas

This program is read by the author. If You Lived Here You'd Be Famous by Now is an insider’s collection of funny and warmhearted stories about coming of age in the Los Angeles suburb famed for birthing the Kardashian-Jenners and the Bling Ring. For Via Bleidner, transferring to Calabasas High from the private Catholic school she’s attended since second grade is a culture shock, not to mention absolutely lonely. Suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar world of celebrities, affluenza, and McMansions, Via takes a page from Cameron Crowe and pretends she’s on a journalism assignment, taking notes on her classmates and jotting down bits of overheard gossip. Getting through high school in Calabasas is something else—from Kim Kardashian endorsing the students’ favorite hidden lunch spot, to the theater program hiring a famous dog to play Elle Woods' Chihuahua in its production of Legally Blonde, and Kanye trying to take control of your school to make it the very first YEEZY institution. But instead of floating through high school detached from her peers, Via finds that putting herself out there—for her writing, of course—just might have been exactly what she needed. She unexpectedly finds an eclectic group of friends to call her own, including a multi-multi-millionaire, a wild-card throwback intent on going viral, a former Disney actor, and a doughnut-dealing madman. With wit, candor, and sharp observations, twenty-one-year-old Via grounds the surreal glamour of Calabasas with reflections on her own coming-of-age, sharing her teenage misadventures as she struggles to fit in, faces crushing social pressure, and eventually makes her own way. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

Via Bleidner (Author), Via Bleidner (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light: Essays

The bestselling author of American Housewife and Southern Lady Code returns with a viciously funny, deeply felt collection of essays on friendship among grown-ass women. When Helen Ellis and her lifelong friends arrive for a reunion on the Redneck Riviera, they unpack more than their suitcases: stories of husbands and kids; lost parents and lost jobs; powdered onion dip and photographs you have to hold by the edges; dirty jokes and sunscreen with SPF higher than they hair-sprayed their bangs senior year; and a bad mammogram. It's a diagnosis that scares them, but could never break their bond. Because women pushing fifty won't be pushed around. In these twelve gloriously comic and moving essays, Helen Ellis dishes on married middle-age sex, sobs with a theater full of women as a psychic exorcises their sorrows, gets twenty shots of stomach bile to the neck to get rid of her double chin, and gathers up the courage to ask, 'Are you there, Menopause? It's Me, Helen.' A book that reads like the best cocktail party of your life, Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light is chockablock with fabulous characters: cat-lady plastic surgeons and waterpark Adonises; bridge ladies and poker players; platinum medallion fliers and Garage Sale Swindlers; forty-year-old divorcées; fifty-year-old new moms and still-young octogenarians. Alive with the sensational humor and ferocious love for her friends that won Helen Ellis legions of fans, this book has a raw vulnerability and an emotional generosity that takes this acclaimed author to a whole new level of accomplishment.

Helen Ellis (Author), Helen Ellis (Narrator)

Audiobook

The 2000s Made Me Gay: Essays on Pop Culture

This program is read by the author. From The Onion and Reductress contributor, this collection of essays is a hilarious nostalgic trip through beloved 2000s media, interweaving cultural criticism and personal narrative to examine how a very straight decade forged a very queer woman. 'Honest, funny, smart, and illuminating.” —Anna Drezen, co-head writer of SNL 'If you came of age at the intersection of Mean Girls and The L Word: Read this book.” —Sarah Pappalardo, editor in chief and co-founder of Reductress Today’s gay youth have dozens of queer peer heroes, both fictional and real, but former gay teenager Grace Perry did not have that luxury. Instead, she had to search for queerness in the (largely straight) teen cultural phenomena the aughts had to offer: in Lindsay Lohan’s fall from grace, Gossip Girl, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl,” country-era Taylor Swift, and Seth Cohen jumping on a coffee cart. And, for better or worse, these touch points shaped her adult identity. She came out on the other side like many millennials did: in her words, gay as hell. Throw on your Von Dutch hats and join Grace on a journey back through the pop culture moments of the aughts with The 2000s Made Me Gay, before the cataclysmic shift in LGBTQ representation and acceptance—a time not so long ago, which many seem to forget. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Griffin

Grace Perry (Author), Grace Perry (Narrator)

Audiobook

Passing Tales

From going on a not-so-ideal date to accidentally downing a carton of raw bacon, alongside attempts of dealing with dyslexia at the post office, Passing Tales is a collection of vignettes and short stories that exposes everyday life as a breeding ground for absurd encounters and hearty chuckles. Vignettes: 1: Maybe I Should Follow The Tracks 2: Just Another Day At The Post Office 3: Jesus Loves You 4: A Bike Ride Down Swanston's 5: Soviet Days 6: A (First World Problem) Horror Story 7: Men's Handkerchiefs Stories 8: The F.U. Burger 9: You're In Trouble 10: There's Another Me Out There

R.C. Waldun (Author), R.C. Waldun (Narrator)

Audiobook

Thanks for Waiting: The Joy (& Weirdness) of Being a Late Bloomer

An honest, witty, and insightful memoir about what happens when your coming-of-age comes later than expected "Thanks for Waiting is the loving, wise, cuttingly funny older sister we all need in book form."-Tara Schuster, author of Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies Doree Shafrir spent much of her twenties and thirties feeling out of sync with her peers. She was an intern at twenty-nine and met her husband on Tinder in her late thirties, after many of her friends had already gotten married, started families, and entered couples' counseling. After a long fertility struggle, she became a first-time mom at forty-one, joining Mommy & Me classes where most of the other moms were at least ten years younger. And while she was one of Gawker's early hires and one of the first editors at BuzzFeed, she didn't find professional fulfillment until she co-launched the successful self-care podcast Forever35-at forty. Now, in her debut memoir, Shafrir explores the enormous pressures we feel, especially as women, to hit particular milestones at certain times and how we can redefine what it means to be a late bloomer. She writes about everything from dating to infertility, to how friendships evolve as you get older, to why being pregnant at forty-one is unexpectedly freeing-all with the goal of appreciating the lives we've lived so far and the lives we still hope to live. Thanks for Waiting is about how achieving the milestones you thought were so important don't always happen on the time line you imagined. In a world of 30 Under 30 lists, this book is a welcome reminder that it's okay to live life at your own speed.

Doree Shafrir (Author), Doree Shafrir (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Wreckage of My Presence: Essays

'Magnificent.' —People Magazine The instant New York Times bestseller: Laugh-out-loud, deeply insightful, and emotion-filled essays from multitalented actress, comedian, podcaster, and writer Casey Wilson. Casey Wilson has a lot on her mind and she isn’t afraid to share. In this dazzling collection, each essay skillfully constructed and brimming with emotion, she shares her thoughts on the joys and vagaries of modern-day womanhood and motherhood, introduces the not-quite-typical family that made her who she is, and persuasively argues that lowbrow pop culture is the perfect lens through which to examine human nature. Whether she’s extolling the virtues of eating in bed, processing the humiliation over her father’s late in life perm, mourning her mother's passing, or revealing her patented method for keeping the mystery alive in a marriage, Casey is witty, candid, and full of poignant and funny surprises. Humorous dives into her obsessions and areas of personal expertise—self-help, nice guys, cool girls (not her) and how to receive visitors in the bath—are matched by touching meditations on female friendship, anger, grief, motherhood, and identity. Reading The Wreckage of My Presence is like spending time with a close friend—a deeply passionate, full-tilt, joyous, excessive, compulsive, shameless, hungry-for-it-all, loyal, cheerleading friend. A friend who is ready for any big feelings that come her way—and isn’t afraid to embrace them.

Casey Wilson (Author), Casey Wilson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Cheap Handyman: True (and Disastrous) Tales from a [Home Improvement Expert] Guy Who Should Know

This Old House meets #HomeImprovementFails in this collection of laugh-out-loud essays, perfect for fans of Nick Offerman, CarTalk, or The Red Green Show. "This book is all the fix-it you need for your hurt home improvement ego." —Harrison Scott Key, Thurber-prize winning author of The World's Largest Man Meet Brian Harris, a (mostly) retired, self-proclaimed jack of all trades with a penchant for DIY and inventive money-saving schemes. Armed with a soldering gun, his trusty nine-foot ladder, and of course the handyman's secret weapon—duct tape—Brian's projects start out as simple chores: trim a tree branch, stain the cedar siding on his home...but all too often they end in costly disaster. Sometimes he's trying to do the right thing, like the time he wrecked his pool while saving some baby ducks. Often, he channels his inner MacGyver: he once taped his hockey skate back together so he could finish his rec-league game, only to get suspended for falling on the referee when it broke (again). But usually he's just being, well, cheap! Like the time he inadvertently destroyed a $295 car key fob because he wouldn't pay the (outrageous) $10 fee to have the battery professionally replaced. In The Cheap Handyman, Brian anthologizes his hard-won wisdom, teaching us how (not) to cut down a tree, what to do if a stray cat has kittens in your HVAC system, three very incorrect uses for duct tape, the manifold hazards of pool maintenance, and more. Filled with unforgettable true stories from the everyday life of an average guy just trying to save a few bucks, The Cheap Handyman is a delightful tribute to anyone who has ever thought, "Sure! I can do that!"

B.S. Harris (Author), Edward Bauer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever

A New York Times bestseller One of the preeminent linguists of our time examines the realms of language that are considered shocking and taboo in order to understand what imbues curse words with such power--and why we love them so much. Profanity has always been a deliciously vibrant part of our lexicon, an integral part of being human. In fact, our ability to curse comes from a different part of the brain than other parts of speech--the urgency with which we say 'f&*k!' is instead related to the instinct that tells us to flee from danger. Language evolves with time, and so does what we consider profane or unspeakable. Nine Nasty Words is a rollicking examination of profanity, explored from every angle: historical, sociological, political, linguistic. In a particularly coarse moment, when the public discourse is shaped in part by once-shocking words, nothing could be timelier.

John Mcwhorter (Author), John Mcwhorter (Narrator)

Audiobook

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Laughter Is the Best Medicine: 101 Feel Good Stories

Chicken Soup for the Soul's first-ever humor collection, and the timing is perfect. This is storytelling at its funniest. If laughter is the best medicine, then this book is your prescription. Turn off the news and spend a few days not following current events. Instead, return to the basics-humanity's ability to laugh at itself. Maybe you should even do a news cleanse for a few days! Hide under the covers and read these stories instead. Or read a chapter a day, or a story a day for 101 days. These pages contain the antidote to whatever is troubling you. They will definitely put you in a good mood. No one is safe from our writers-from spouses to parents to children to colleagues and friends. And of course the funniest of all are the stories they tell about their own mishaps and those 'most embarrassing moments.' There's no holding anything back in these pages, so prepare for lots of good, clean (and not so clean) fun.

Amy Newmark (Author), Rebecca Gibel, Steve Marvel (Narrator)

Audiobook

You Look Tired: An Excruciatingly Honest Guide to New Parenthood

In the tradition of Ali Wong and Amy Schumer comes this whip-smart, spit-out-your-coffee funny guide for new parents-from popular blogger and columnist Jenny True. Plenty of "new parent" guides cover the basics of breastfeeding, bonding, sleep, and "getting back in shape." But nowhere is a guide that tells you, WTF is this squeeze bottle thing from the hospital? You Look Tired is a totally honest, tell-it-like-it-is guide for new moms who don't want any more advice. Writing as Jenny True on her "Excruciatingly Personal Mommy Blog" and in the "Dear Jenny" column on Romper, Jenny has been called the "postpartum feelings doula," as she doles out her unique mix of humor, rage, and encouragement (with a smidge of practical advice), including: - Birth Hurts: Prenatal yoga is a waste of time. - Jabba the Hutt Was Just Postpartum: It explains so much. - An Open Letter to People Who Say, "Looks like you have your hands full!" And much more!

Jenny True (Author), Erin Cottrell (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Awe Factor: How a Little Bit of Wonder Can Make a Big Difference in Your Life

Allen Klein (Author), Brian Troxell (Narrator)

Audiobook

Essays & Memoirs Audiobooks in Comedy