"Brilliant . . . The dean of American comic writers showcases his varied talents mocking the public and private lives of politicians, average citizens and himself."--"The Star-Ledger"
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Calvin Trillin has committed blatant acts of funniness all over the place--in "The New Yorker, " in one-man off-Broadway shows, in his "deadline poetry" for "The Nation, " in comic novels, and in what "USA Today" called "simply the funniest regular column in journalism." Now Trillin selects the best of his funny stuff and organizes it into topics like high finance ("My long-term investment strategy has been criticized as being entirely too dependent on Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes") and the literary life ("The average shelf life of a book is somewhere between milk and yogurt"). He addresses the horrors of witnessing a voodoo economics ceremony and the mystery of how his mother managed for thirty years to feed her family nothing but leftovers ("We have a team of anthropologists in there now looking for the original meal"). He even skewers deserving political figures in poetry. In this, the definitive collection of his humor, Calvin Trillin is prescient, insightful, and invariably hilarious.
"A literary treasure . . . There is only one Calvin Trillin, and if he didn't exist we would have to invent him."--"The Washington Times"
"Funny is to Trillin what drinking is to Uncle Jed in "Annie Get Your Gun"--it's what he does 'natur'lly.' He's also a lot more than funny. "Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin" is the twenty-eighth book he's published over not far short of a half-century, and their range of subjects is remarkable."--Jonathan Yardley, "The""Washington Post"
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"Trillin made his reputation over four decades as the author of 'U.S. Journal' in the "New Yorker" but he] is incapable of resisting the temptation of comedy. The jokes kept on welling up and Mr. Trillin made a parallel reputation as a writer of funny stuff."--"The Economist"
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"Wry, whip-smart, understated, and entertaining."--"The Miami Herald"

A scathingly funny reinterpretation of the Ten Commandments from the larger, louder half of world-famous magic duo Penn and Teller reveals an atheist's experience in the world: from performing on the Vegas strip with Siegfried and Roy to children and fatherhood to his ongoing dialogue with proselytizers of the Christian Right and the joys of sex while scuba-diving, Penn has an outrageous sense of humor and a brilliantly entertaining opinion on, well, anything you care to think of.

This one's for you, extraordinary ordinary women everywhere It's time for seriously hilarious girl-talk with "New York Times" bestselling author Lisa Scottoline. She's shared this collection of scenes from her real life, and she bets her life sounds a lot like yours . . . if you crave carbs, can't find jeans that fit, and still believe that these two things are unrelated. Pick up this book--you'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll swear off pantyhose. Here are some examples of Lisa's wit and wisdom:

"Everybody has their pornography, and mine is the real estate ads."

"We'll get universal health care before we get beauty salons open on Mondays, and that's backwards. Ask any woman if she'd rather have a haircut or a mammogram, and you'll see what I mean."

"Mothers are a natural force, and maybe an alternative source of fuel."

"Lately there's been talk about a religion that allows polygamy, so that a man can have as many wives as he pleases. Where is the religion that allows a woman to have as many husbands as she pleases?"

"I have never been in an accident, if you don't count my two marriages."

"My mother taught us that if you eat baked beans from a can that has dents, you'll die of botulism. This was before people injected botulism into their faces. Nowadays, the dented can will kill you, but you'll look young."

Inspired by her wildly popular column in "The Philadelphia Inquirer" entitled "Chick Wit," "Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog" is a book you'll have to put down--just to stop laughing.

Loads more laughs-from the man who put the funny in The Book of Bunny Suicides. Just when you were about to run out of lies to tell small children, the creator of the bestselling Bunny Suicides books is back with more wickedly funny falsehoods for the truly twisted. Each hilarious cartoon tells a tall tale guaranteed to trouble guileless minds and crack up the grown-ups. So, find yourself a wide-eyed youngster and ask: Did you know... * If you rub two redheaded kids together, you can make fire * Your dad's got one nipple and two belly buttons * If you drop a tooth in a glass of Coke, after a day it becomes a white butterfly * French people eat croissants and poo baguettes * If you cut a badger in half with an axe it turns into two chipmunks If Andy Riley believed in wearing pants, they'd be on fire right now! For the inner child and pathological liar in all of us, Loads More Lies is truly hysterical.

The prevaricating pros who helped students glide through seven years of college in "The CollegeHumor Guide to College" are back to show post-grads how to turn life into an "Easy A" by, well, faking it. From sounding like an MBA to bribing the ma?tre d' to acting sensitive post-sex, here is everything aspiring equivocators need to know to B.S. their way to success in the real world. As the authors remind readers: "The important thing isn't who you are; it's who other people think you are." With this poseur's bible in hand, a generation is poised to go forth and fake it.

DEVIL IN THE DETAILS announces Jennifer Traig as one of the most hilarious writers to emerge in recent years - and one of the strangest! Recalling the agony of growing up as an obsessive- compulsive religious fanatic, Traig fearlesslessly confesses the most peculiar behaviour - like scrubbing her hands for a full half-hour before meals, feeding her stuffed animals before herself and washing everything she owned because she thought it was contaminated by pork fumes! The result is a book so relentlessly funny and frank that it's totally refreshing.

JEREMY CLARKSON'S LATEST - AND MOST OUTRAGEOUS - TAKE ON THE WORLD CLARKSON'S BACK - AND THIS TIME HE'S PUTTING HIS FOOT DOWN From his first job as a travelling sales rep selling Paddington Bears to his latest wheeze as a gentleman farmer, Jeremy Clarkson's love of cars has just about kept him out of trouble. But in a persistently infuriating world, sometimes you have to race full-throttle at the speed-bumps. Because there's still plenty to get cross about, including: * Why nothing good ever came out of a meeting * Muesli's unmentionable side effects * Navigating London when every single road is being dug up at once * People who read online reviews of dishwashers * ****ing driverless cars Buckle up for a bumpy ride - you're holding the only book in history to require seatbelts . . . Praise for Jeremy Clarkson: Brilliant . . . Laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph 'Outrageously funny . . . Will have you in stitches' Time Out 'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening Standard

Ricky Tomlinson, author and entertainer, has worked in pubs and clubs up and down the country and seen more than his fair share of last orders. CHEERS . . . MY ARSE! is his hilarious collection of classic tales from the heart of publand. Featuring riotous stories that celebrate our best-loved hell raisers - Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole, Oliver Reed and Richard Burton, to name a few - and the escapades of modern-day drinking heroes (like the Gallagher brothers and Johnny Vegas), this is the perfect book for anyone who's ever had one too many . . .

Many authors have traveled and explored the out-of-doors, both in life and then in their books, proving themselves stalwart, audacious, even heroic; Andrew Farkas is not among them. He is brave enough to admit that the outdoors isn't for him. Instead, in these essays Farkas reports on his bold explorations of a very different territory: the in-of-doors, the waiting rooms, kitchens, malls, bars, theaters, roadside motel rooms, and other places that feature temperature control, protection from rampaging predators, and a higher degree of comfort than can be found outside. Farkas discovers that, just as the mannered and wonderfully (gloriously) artificial indoors influences us greatly, our lives are also controlled much more by fiction than by anything "real." So come in out of the weather (it's always terrible) and join the Great Indoorsman on his adventures, where he makes fun of pretty much everything, most of all himself.

In her first-ever (sort of) memoir, the beloved actor and YouTube sensation gets personal about everything from mental health to drunken debaucheries with this "brave, behind-the-webcam look at self-discovery" (Kirkus Reviews). As an only child raised in a town of less than 8,000 people and without a Starbucks in sight, Meghan Rienks has always been pretty good at entertaining herself. Then one day-cue the dramatic voiceover-her life changed forever. In 2010, Meghan was diagnosed with mononucleosis. Mono is basically just a really bad case of the flu, right? Wrong. To a party crazed sixteen-year-old, mono is social suicide. More than anything, it's just plain boring. So, Meghan opened up her MacBook, used the webcam for something other than a bad Andy Warhol-style photobooth session, and recorded her first YouTube video. Since then, Meghan has shared the ups and downs of her life with the internet, documenting her teenage years for the whole world to see. Now that she's (mostly) through her awkward stage, Meghan's here to tell you that it gets better. You're not alone in the thoughts you think. Sometimes a bad hair day feels worse than a punch in the gut and asking a boy out seems about as difficult as achieving that perfect dewy glow. But despite what you've been told, your problems are not unique, and somebody else has felt the way you feel right at this very moment. You're not special. But you're also not alone on the bumpy road to adulthood.

No poems can live long or please that are written by water-drinkers. Horace, Roman poet I like [champagne] because it always tastes as though my foot is asleep. Art Buchwald In Wine Froth, Washington Post wine columnist Dick Rosano celebrates 8,000 years of wine-stained history with this droll, profound, bizarre, hilarious, charming, and totally entertaining collection of wine quotes, anecdotes, and trivia. Here s another sample: Richard Nixon knew his wines, and which were being served at White House dinner functions. He instructed the serving staff to hide the labels of certain bottles, and that he was to be poured the best of them, and particular guests were to get the other stuff. Also included in this richly illustrated little book are scores of tips to help make wine a little easier to enjoy, such as: adding kosher salt to your bucket of ice will chill wine faster. Merlot is French for little blackbird"

Bury My Heart at Chuck E. Cheese’s is a powerful and compelling collection of Tiffany Midge’s musings on life, politics, and identity as a Native woman in America. Artfully blending sly humor, social commentary, and meditations on love and loss, Midge weaves short, standalone musings into a memoir that stares down colonialism while chastising hipsters for abusing pumpkin spice. She explains why she doesn’t like pussy hats, mercilessly dismantles pretendians, and confesses her own struggles with white-bread privilege. Midge ponders Standing Rock, feminism, and a tweeting president, all while exploring her own complex identity and the loss of her mother. Employing humor as an act of resistance, these slices of life and matchless takes on urban-indigenous identity disrupt the colonial narrative and provide commentary on popular culture, media, feminism, and the complications of identity, race, and politics.  

I'll Mature When I'm Dead is the New York Times bestseller from "the funniest man in America" (New York Times). Let Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist and nationally unrecognized voice of maturity Dave Barry make the journey to adulthood a little easier-and a lot funnier. Not everyone has to be dragged kicking and screaming through adulthood. Dave Barry will help through this process-with his hilarious takes on parenting, changing self-image, the battle of the sexes, technology, health care, celebrityhood, and even vampires!

As any retail or service worker will tell you, customers can be irrational, demanding, abusive, and brain-scramblingly, mind-bendingly strange. They can also be kind, thoughtful, funny, and full of pathos. Something about the often-fraught interaction between customer and worker, with the dividing line of the counter between them, loosens inhibitions, and has a kind of hot-house effect on eccentricity. In I Can't Remember the Title But the Cover is Blue, veteran bookseller Elias Greig collects the best, worst and downright weirdest customer encounters from his years working as a Sydney bookseller. From ill-behaved children to nostalgic seniors and everything in between, this hilarious and unpredictable book is the perfect gift for anyone who's ever been on the wrong side of a counter.

Beneath California's scenic landscape lies a strange and dark side, full of spine-tingling tales and frightful imagery. Creepy California: Strange and Gothic Tales from the Golden State explores the disturbing and macabre stories of unexplained deaths, intentional live burials, true crimes, and ghosts who haunt the Pacific Coast. This spooky collection includes the extraordinarily odd, like the account of a coroner, who "borrowed" the stylish clothes of one dead man and even sold the corpse's head to a doctor for scientific research, and the paranormal, like the tale of a haunted, two-story house in San Francisco that was moved across town in an effort to dislodge its ghostly tenants. The attempt failed, and the San Francisco Chronicle commented that "the neighborhood has been kept in a constant dread and torment by unearthly groans, mysterious lights, and agonized shrieks emanating from their dread habitation." An intriguing and frightful look at the disturbing side of the state, Creepy California promises to send chills down your spine and keep you looking over your shoulder.

Before the Civil War, a network of secret routes and safe houses crisscrossed the Midwest to help African Americans travel north to escape slavery. Although many slaves were able to escape to the safety of Canada, others met untimely deaths on the treacherous journey-and some of these unfortunates still linger, unable to rest in peace. In Hauntings of the Underground Railroad: Ghosts of the Midwest, Jane Simon Ammeson investigates unforgettable and chilling tales of these restless ghosts that still walk the night. This unique collection includes true and gruesome stories, like the story of a lost toddler who wanders the woods near the Story Inn, eternally searching for the mother torn from him by slave hunters, or the tale of the Hannah House, where an overturned oil lamp sparked a fire that trapped slaves hiding in the basement and burned them alive. Brave visitors who visit the house, which is now a bed and breakfast, claim they can still hear voices moaning and crying from the basement. Ammeson also includes incredible true stories of daring escapes and close calls on the Underground Railroad. A fascinating and spine-tingling glimpse into our past, Hauntings of the Underground Railroad will keep you up all night.

Beneath California's scenic landscape lies a strange and dark side, full of spine-tingling tales and frightful imagery. Creepy California: Strange and Gothic Tales from the Golden State explores the disturbing and macabre stories of unexplained deaths, intentional live burials, true crimes, and ghosts who haunt the Pacific Coast. This spooky collection includes the extraordinarily odd, like the account of a coroner, who "borrowed" the stylish clothes of one dead man and even sold the corpse's head to a doctor for scientific research, and the paranormal, like the tale of a haunted, two-story house in San Francisco that was moved across town in an effort to dislodge its ghostly tenants. The attempt failed, and the San Francisco Chronicle commented that "the neighborhood has been kept in a constant dread and torment by unearthly groans, mysterious lights, and agonized shrieks emanating from their dread habitation." An intriguing and frightful look at the disturbing side of the state, Creepy California promises to send chills down your spine and keep you looking over your shoulder.

Grandma - You're the Best! is a glorious collection of more than 300 quotes celebrating grandmothers and grannies everywhere. Grandmas have deservedly attracted thousands of amazing quotes, thoughts and observations and this unique anthology features contributions from the deeply philosophical to the wonderfully humorous, and is the perfect present to say thank you for all your grandma's love, kindness and compassion. With witty and wonderful quotes from the stars of stage, screen and literature, the worlds of music, comedy and politics, Grandma - You're the Best! makes for a delightful book and gift.

Nasty, Brutish, and Short is a collection of irreverent essays about life overseas. The author no longer has to hold his tongue about his experiences-which means it's payback time. He now speaks his mind about all the strange people and places he has encountered around the world over the last twenty years. And he takes the reader on a funny and endearing jaunt to a dozen countries, from England to Egypt, and Afghanistan to Haiti, answering crucial questions like Why are Pakistani driving ranges so dangerous? And, How long can Bulgarians actually hold a grudge? Unlike other foreign travel books, the author isn't just passing through. He has lived in these dangerous and difficult places, often for years at a time. He knows their people, streets, and customs like the back of his hand. It was part of his job. Sometimes his life depended on it.

'The English aristocrat John 'Mad Jack' Mytton died a bloated, paralysed and penniless debtor in prison. His premature demise was partly due to injuries sustained while setting fire to his own night-shirt to try to cure hiccups. Just before the horribly burned Mytton slumped into unconsciousness he said, "Well, the hiccups is gone, by God."' An 18th-century French scholar attributed the British talent for eccentricity to a 'mixture of fogs, beef and beer...aggravated by the tedium of the English Sunday'. Whatever the reason, the British Isles do seem to have thrown up more than their fair share of magnificent oddballs, the finest of which are profiled in this fast, funny celebration of over 200 aristocrats, inventors, artists and the just plain weird... * Dr Samuel Johnson is said to have shaved off all of his bodily hair, just to see how long it would take to grow back * Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire, once related an experience he had at Westminster: 'I had a horrid nightmare. I dreamed I was making a speech in the House of Lords, and woke up to find I actually was.' * Percy Bysshe Shelley once tied a cat to a kite in a thunder storm to see if it would be electrocuted