Biography Humor

“Understated” and “tasteful” could never be applied to Annie, and that’s just fine with her. A colorful actress with a decades-long career in TV, film, and theater—including a recurring role on Seinfeld and a center-stage spot touring with The Moth—Annie offers her trademark unabashed takes on both everyday and typically taboo topics.

Bella Green is a Sunday-afternoon sex worker. Divorced dads, IT nerds, international students - she's here for the idiosyncrasies of human behaviour, for soothing the lonely. But really for the cash. From an entrepreneurial kid to a young woman trying to find herself (and desperate to stay out of call centres), Bella started sex work for the glamour and the taboo. Instead, she found her place in this surprisingly mundane and often entertaining industry, where the hierarchy is strict, the names are fake, and spare towels always come in handy.

In The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy shares stories about her family, her relationships, her career, good - and bad - sex, recounting the experiences that have shaped who she is today: from the riches to rags story of her childhood to her teenage quest for popularity (and boys) to becoming one of the most sought-after comedians on the planet and an outspoken advocate for women's rights.

Patient is a quirky, humorous, and occasionally poignant romp through the American health care system. After a seemingly mild case of COVID-19, the author finds himself hospitalized with acute renal failure. The connection to COVID-19 is tenuous at best, yet he is examined from head to toe with the ruthless efficiency that only a hospital with the latest technology can accomplish. Scans and tests of every possible type are conducted, eliminating the most dire of diagnoses.

Matt Rife is well aware that he’s both the most loved and the most controversial comic in America today. And honestly, he thinks that’s your problem. In his very first book, Matt reveals without apology everything that led him to becoming comedy’s biggest lightning rod before he reached thirty, in a story full of bold and hysterical takes on everything from Justin Bieber tramp stamps and rap battles with ex-cons to Matt’s battles with depression and his many brushes with failure before finally hitting it big.

As Viv Groskop knows from personal experience, everything that has ever happened to a person has already happened in the Russian classics: from not being sure what to do with your life (Anna Karenina) to being hopelessly in love with someone who doesn't love you back (Turgenev's A Month in the Country). In this sort of literary self-help memoir, Groskop mines these and other works, as well as the lives of their celebrated creators and her own experiences as a student of Russian, to answer the question, "How should you live your life?"

Doon Mackichan is best known for her comedy characters in the hugely popular Brass Eye, Smack the Pony and Toast of London - but throughout her career there are parts she's refused to take and roles she's been forced to play. The Feisty Feminist. The Hot Lesbian. The Desperate Cougar. In My Lady Parts, Doon shares her experience on stage, screen and in real life, examining how our culture still expects women to adhere to certain stereotypes - and punishes those who don't.

Comedian Tony Martin has strip-mined his often unremarkable life to tell sixteen small tales fraught with laughter and detail. Choosing to ignore his many dubious achievements in the world of Australian show business (Martin/Molloy, The Late Show, a short-lived but torrid affair with Sharon on Kath & Kim), New Zealand-born Martin instead recalls dozens of tiny life-changing moments that, frankly, could have happened to anybody.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Monty: His Part in My Victory, written and read by Spike Milligan. 'It's all over. Von Arnheim has surrendered, and he's very angry.' 'This could mean war....' The third volume of Spike Milligan's laugh-a-line account of life as a gunner in World War Two resumes on the eve of victory in North Africa.

The listener who has grown up in the South will swear that he knows each and every character in these tales - from the "Indian doctor" with the secret hemorrhoid cure to the bull who couldn't keep his "loins" out of reach of the youngster's BB gun; he'll identify with Bubba gigging for Giant Southern Frogs and with the curious cat that burned the cabin down; he'll remember high-school teammates like "Shorty" and "Speedy", as well as college fraternity brothers like "Snake" and "Stud". And he'll laugh while remembering.

Follow Nicole as she gives you a front-row seat to a Medevac deployment to Saudi Arabia. Meet her unit, military working dogs, local Saudis, and the good and bad that being away from home for your country encompasses. From preparing to leave, heading overseas, the transition home, and everything involved in each stage... From learning crochet to sprinting to bunkers during air attacks, this audiobook will leave you with a heightened sense of what a year away looks like, the sacrifices military members make, and the humor that gets us through it all.

Written in a distinctive voice and filled with personality, humor, and pathos, Fruit Punch is a memoir unlike any other, from a one-of-a-kind millennial talent. Growing up in Dallas, Texas, in the nineties and early 2000s, Kendra Allen had a complicated, loving, and intense family life filled with desire and community but also undercurrents of violence and turmoil. “We equate suffering to perseverance and misinterpret the weight of shame,” she writes.

Marion Winik is esteemed for bringing humor and wit to that most unavoidable of subjects: death. At last, Winik's critically acclaimed, cult favorites Glen Rock and Baltimore Book of the Dead have been carefully combined in their proper order, revealing more clearly than ever before the character hidden throughout these stories: Winik herself.

Chip Chinery's memoir is a look in front of and behind the curtain at what actually happened his first year as a full-time professional stand-up comedian during the ‘80s comedy boom. Chip kept a journal and snapped pictures at every gig. Some of the comics were or would become household names. Most would remain unsung. Then there was his 17-year-old opening act who would reach the pinnacle of stand-up fame and fortune.

For more than two decades, Gerry Dee has made audiences laugh, first as a hard-working stand-up comedian, and then as the star of his own CBC television program, Mr. D. Dee became a physical education teacher, thinking he would have it made: coaching, summers off and a good pension. But he found himself dreaming of a career in comedy, until one day, years later, he turned in his teaching certificate and picked up a microphone. He went on to become one of Canada’s top comics.

That's the message of this fresh and funny relationship book by beloved actress-comedian Loni Love. Full of down-to-earth advice on love, sex, and dating, Loni delivers answers to women's most pressing relationship questions along with plenty of hilarious been-there-done-that tales - from hooking up to breaking up to everything in between.

'At 28 years old, I found myself living at home, with my 73-year-old father. As a child, my father never minced words, and when I screwed up, he had a way of cutting right through the bullshit and pointing out exactly why I was being an idiot. When I moved back in I was still, for the most part, an idiot. But this time, I was smart enough to write down all the things he said to me…'

Ever since Johnny Carson first popularized the late-night talk show in 1962 with The Tonight Show, the 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. comedy time slot on network television has remained an indelible part of our national culture. More than six popular late-night shows air every night of the week, and with recent major shake-ups in the industry, late-night television has never been more relevant to our public consciousness than it is today.

Historians still agree about the date of Columbus' voyage. But did this European adventurer discover America? We now know that certain explorers from other parts of the globe set foot on American shores long before 1492: and that others may have done so. And "discovery" takes on a different meaning when the new land already has people living in it.

"Olifson's witty and self-deprecating essays perfectly capture the frantic race to grow up just a little bit before your kids do." (Gemma Baker, writer/producer and co-creator of Mom)