Humor Essays

What would happen if a shy introvert lived like a gregarious extrovert for one year? If she knowingly and willingly put herself in perilous social situations that she’d normally avoid at all costs? Writer Jessica Pan intends to find out. With the help of various extrovert mentors, Jessica sets up a series of personal challenges (talk to strangers, perform stand-up comedy, host a dinner party, travel alone, make friends on the road, and much, much worse) to explore whether living like an extrovert can teach her lessons that might improve the quality of her life.

Tom Papa is a little worried about you. You seem stressed, overworked, and, frankly, a little mixed up. Everyone is fighting an overwhelming feeling that things are getting worse, that we should be doing more, that we're not good enough. Well, life isn't perfect. There have always been problems, and there always will be. You can fight for the things you believe in, you can work really, really hard, but you shouldn't lose track of the fact that while you're doing all that, life is flying by at lightning-fast speed.

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials.

“Rosa Harris has assembled a series of very thought-provoking apercus of her times and generation. They are all from different angles and none is ponderous or over-long. The result is a very pleasing, very easy, and often poignant, read.” – Conrad Black “Rosa Harris, national award-winning journalist, editor, talk show host and journalism professor, has crafted a collection of insightful, humorous and touching essays on the baby boomer generation that will leave you smiling, laughing and reminiscing on the times of your life. Baby boomers will see themselves in many of Rosa’s ...

Presley Fry is not amused. She’s been an assistant at the Late Night Show for way too long, she’s adopted a “business casual” approach to dating to save herself from the embarrassment of seeking genuine connection, and she’s content to let her gregarious roommate, Isabelle, orchestrate her entire social life. Not completely disillusioned, Presley is enamored with the world of stand-up comedy. The joy she finds in discovering up-and-coming comedians is enough for now.

You may "know" Jenny Slate from her Netflix special, Stage Fright, as the creator of Marcel the Shell, or as the star of Obvious Child. But you don't really know Jenny Slate until you get bonked on the head by her absolutely singular writing style. To see the world through Jenny's eyes is to see it as though for the first time, shimmering with strangeness and possibility.

Lane Moore is a rare performer who is as impressive onstage - whether hosting her iconic show Tinder Live or being the enigmatic front woman of It Was Romance - as she is on the page, as both a former writer for The Onion and an award-winning sex and relationships editor for Cosmopolitan. But her story has had its obstacles, including being her own parent, living in her car as a teenager, and moving to New York City to pursue her dreams. Through it all, she looked to movies, TV, and music as the family and support systems she never had.

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.

You know those people who always seem calm, organized, and emotionally stable? Yeah. This book is not about them. Welcome to the unfiltered confessions of someone who has spent a lifetime pretending to be normal—and failing spectacularly. From turning therapy into stand-up comedy, to surviving public meltdowns in Costco, to attempting yoga while emotionally unwell and allergic to spandex, this is your backstage pass to one person’s absurd journey through modern life. Equal parts chaos and charm, this book doesn’t teach you how to fix your life. It just lets you laugh so hard you ...

In his second collection of humorous essays, comedian, Greg Scarnici recounts some of his shocking and scandalous experiences over twenty-five seasons on New York’s Fire Island. From tea dances in Fire Island Pines to drag competitions in Cherry Grove, Scarnici paints a picture of what a typical summer on the island of misfit boys is like. Highlights include being crowned the Worst Drag Queen in Cherry Grove, getting innocently lured to a "sex dungeon" that was actually a 3X4 garden shed, and riding the ferry as his alter ego, Levonia, every Fourth of July with two hundred other drag ...

For decades we've been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F*ck positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let's be honest, shit is f*cked, and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn't sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is - a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is his antidote to the coddling, let's-all-feel-good mind-set that has infected modern society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

Prickly, wry, resistant to change yet ruthlessly honest and deeply empathetic, Olive Kitteridge is “a compelling life force” (San Francisco Chronicle). The New Yorker has said that Elizabeth Strout “animates the ordinary with an astonishing force”, and she has never done so more clearly than in this book, where the iconic Olive struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine.

The follow-up to Caitlin Moran's breakout hit, How to Be a Woman - a hilarious collection of award-winning columns, available to American listeners for the first time ever.

Why are Spaniards so close (in every sense of the word) to their families? How do they handle work, parties, and naps so well? What is the source of their surprising love of sport? Is religion still so influential in Spain? Why do the Spanish love to gossip so much? What are the secrets of Cervantes' language? What is happening to the Catalans? Why is there such a passion for Spanish gastronomy nowadays? These and other questions are answered in this book through amusing anecdotes and real-life experiences

A burnt-out media executive. A chance to leave it all behind. Can she take that leap into the unknown, or is she doomed to fail? Alison was stuck going nowhere. Her shiny career had well and truly lost its lustre, despite the money her TV bosses were offering. Nothing would make up for the sacrifices she’d made these past fifteen years. When she spotted an opportunity for her other half Down Under, could she leave behind a well-paid job and all that was familiar to up sticks? When the restoration on the couple's dream home became unaffordable, they were off once again, crisscrossing the ...

A collection of 17 wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. The short stories are surprising, intelligent, heartwarming, and, for the millions and millions of Tom Hanks fans, an absolute must-have!

When the author was born, his mother did the unthinkable. She gave him a girl’s name—Stacey. But Stacey’s name was just the first hurdle he’d face in his uphill climb from birth to manhood. He also had to deal with an entitled older brother, the hodgepodge of different men his mother was involved with, and the nomadic lifestyle he was forced to endure for five years. And to top it all off, his mother couldn’t cook a decent meal to save her life. Trailer Trash, With a Girl’s Name is Stacey Roberts’ lighthearted, often hilarious account of growing up in an unstable household ...

It's like a stand-up comedy special in written format. Part-humor, part-anecdote, part-observation, One Odd Cat: Strange Adventures in Strangeness is a trippy journey along the offbeat logic of a casual, lifelong philosopher. If you drew a Venn diagram with three circles, one for wit, one for wisdom, and one for weird, this book would be dead center... but somehow still off-kilter. One Odd Cat: Strange Adventures in Strangeness takes readers along for the ride through the eccentric observations of Larry Nocella. This collection of true bizarre adventures includes dozens of observations, ...

When Hurricane Helene roared ashore, it didn’t just take houses, cars, and power lines—it took normalcy, leaving an entire community to pick up the pieces. When Life Gives You Floods, Bring the Ham is a raw, heartfelt, and unexpectedly humorous account of surviving the storm, losing nearly everything, and discovering what truly matters in the aftermath. Through vivid storytelling, this book blends memoir, humor, and resilience, offering a deeply personal yet universally relatable journey of displacement, devastation, and the small moments of joy that keep us going. From evacuating at ...

What If is an essay about the power of daydreaming, and why you should never, ever, ever, become a writer. James J. Caterino is the author of Jordan Rose and the Tomb of Resurrection, The Anti-Matter Girl, Dreams, True Stories, To Meghan, I Want to Believe, Ghost Stories, Pop Star, Time Travel Stories, The Girl from the Stars, and much more.