-
Mirth of a Nation
- Audio Companion, Fellow Traveler, and Friend for Life (Unabridged Selections)
- Narrated by: Tony Roberts, Susie Essman
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $17.09
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
A salvo of hilarity from that loose canon of American humor that Mirth of a Nation editor Michael J. Rosen has culled from some 1200 pages of brilliantly original works by our best contemporary humorists. This action-packed compilation of highlights (FYI, we have no intention of mentioning "the funnybone" and how this audio is sure to tickle it) includes Bobbie Ann Mason's stint at the La Bamba hotline, David Rakoff's insights on families, Andy Borowitz's memoir of Emily Dickinson (basically, she was a drunken jerk), and Michael Feldman's helpful (re)locating of the Midwest.
Performed by Tony Roberts, Susie Essman, with guest performances by Stephen Collins, Michael Feldman, Cynthia Kaplan, Martha Plimpton, David Rakoff, M. Sweeney Lawless, Sandra Tsing Loh, and Mark O'Donnell.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Me Talk Pretty One Day
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. You can also listen to Sedaris in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
-
-
Subtly Funny Musings on Life Experiences
- By FanB14 on 09-03-12
By: David Sedaris
-
Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
-
-
Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
-
Calypso
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And it's as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
-
-
Excellent, as always
- By Ruthie on 05-31-18
By: David Sedaris
-
Rhett & Link's Book of Mythicality
- A Field Guide to Curiosity, Creativity, and Tomfoolery
- By: Rhett McLaughlin, Link Neal
- Narrated by: Link Neal, Rhett McLaughlin
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From YouTube superstars and creators of Good Mythical Morning comes the ultimate guide to living a "mythical" life, featuring stories from their lifelong friendship as well as tips for laughing more, learning more, and never taking yourself too seriously.
-
-
Great as a companion to actual book.
- By Jollymon on 10-20-17
By: Rhett McLaughlin, and others
-
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences.
-
-
Devout Fan Disappointed
- By FanB14 on 05-07-13
By: David Sedaris
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
-
-
Don't Start with this One
- By Elvie on 04-28-16
By: David Sedaris
-
Me Talk Pretty One Day
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. You can also listen to Sedaris in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
-
-
Subtly Funny Musings on Life Experiences
- By FanB14 on 09-03-12
By: David Sedaris
-
Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
-
-
Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
-
Calypso
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And it's as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
-
-
Excellent, as always
- By Ruthie on 05-31-18
By: David Sedaris
-
Rhett & Link's Book of Mythicality
- A Field Guide to Curiosity, Creativity, and Tomfoolery
- By: Rhett McLaughlin, Link Neal
- Narrated by: Link Neal, Rhett McLaughlin
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From YouTube superstars and creators of Good Mythical Morning comes the ultimate guide to living a "mythical" life, featuring stories from their lifelong friendship as well as tips for laughing more, learning more, and never taking yourself too seriously.
-
-
Great as a companion to actual book.
- By Jollymon on 10-20-17
By: Rhett McLaughlin, and others
-
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences.
-
-
Devout Fan Disappointed
- By FanB14 on 05-07-13
By: David Sedaris
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
-
-
Don't Start with this One
- By Elvie on 04-28-16
By: David Sedaris
-
Holidays on Ice
- Featuring Six New Stories
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favorites as the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); and what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow").
-
-
Best When In SantaLand
- By Dave on 12-06-11
By: David Sedaris
-
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
- By: George Carlin
- Narrated by: George Carlin
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following his two New York Times best sellers, Brain Droppings and Napalm & Silly Putty, comes George Carlin's third audiobook, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, a riotous journey through the mind of one of America's premiere comic observers.
-
-
I nice pragmatic view of life.
- By Aaron on 10-19-04
By: George Carlin
-
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
- A Memoir
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century, 1951, in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, in the middle of the largest generation in American history, the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, his is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero.
-
-
Fun, but not for squeamish
- By David on 11-30-06
By: Bill Bryson
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
Vacationland
- True Stories from Painful Beaches
- By: John Hodgman
- Narrated by: John Hodgman
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John Hodgman - New York Times best-selling author, semifamous personality, deranged millionaire, increasingly elderly husband, father, and human of Earth - has written a memoir about his cursed travels through two wildernesses: from the woods of his home in Massachusetts, birthplace of rage, to his exile on the coast of Maine, so-called Vacationland, home to the most painful beaches on Earth.
-
-
Not your typical coming of age story
- By Tiffany Pearce on 11-02-17
By: John Hodgman
-
Keep Moving
- And Other Tips and Truths About Aging
- By: Dick Van Dyke
- Narrated by: Dick Van Dyke
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With a fun and folksy way of addressing its audience, Keep Moving serves as an instruction audiobook on how to embrace old age with a positive attitude. The chapters are filled with exclusive personal anecdotes that explore various themes on aging: how to adapt to the physical and social changes, deal with loss of friends and loved ones, stay current, fall in love again, and "keep moving" every day like there's no tomorrow.
-
-
Disappointed with aspects of this audiobook.
- By vasilios on 11-08-15
By: Dick Van Dyke
-
I'm a Stranger Here Myself
- Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After living in Britain for two decades, Bill Bryson recently moved back to the United States with his English wife and four children. They were greeted by a new and improved America that boasts microwave pancakes, 24-hour dental-floss hotlines, and the staunch conviction that ice is not a luxury item. Delivering the brilliant comic musings that are a Bryson hallmark, I'm a Stranger Here Myself recounts his sometimes disconcerting reunion with the land of his birth.
-
-
Enjoyable
- By Cather on 12-22-06
By: Bill Bryson
-
Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
- A Novel
- By: Kathleen Rooney
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's the last day of 1984, and 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish is about to take a walk. As she traverses a grittier Manhattan, a city anxious after an attack by a still-at-large subway vigilante, she encounters bartenders, bodega clerks, chauffeurs, security guards, bohemians, criminals, children, parents, and parents to be in surprising moments of generosity and grace. While she strolls Lillian recalls a long and eventful life that included a brief reign as the highest paid advertising woman in America - a career cut short by marriage, motherhood, divorce, and a breakdown.
-
-
Lillian takes a stroll down memory lane!
- By Iris Pereyra on 01-29-17
By: Kathleen Rooney
-
I Miss You When I Blink
- Essays
- By: Mary Laura Philpott
- Narrated by: Mary Laura Philpott
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed essayist and bookseller Mary Laura Philpott presents a charmingly relatable and wise memoir in essays about what happened after she checked off all the boxes on her successful life’s to-do list and realized she might need to reinvent the list - and herself.
-
-
Good for 30 somethings
- By beach lover on 07-30-19
-
Tibetan Peach Pie
- A True Account of an Imaginative Life
- By: Tom Robbins
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Internationally best-selling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins delivers the long-awaited tale of his wild life and times, both at home and around the globe. The grandchild of Baptist preachers, Robbins would become over the course of half a century a poet-interruptus, an air force weatherman, a radio DJ, an art-critic-turned-psychedelic-journeyman, a world-famous novelist, and a counter-culture hero, leading a life as unlikely, magical, and bizarre as those of his quixotic characters.
-
-
This isn't a book, it's a complete experience
- By David Shear on 05-31-14
By: Tom Robbins
-
Fraud
- By: David Rakoff
- Narrated by: David Rakoff
- Length: 4 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wry and the heartfelt join in David Rakoff's prose to resurrect that most neglected of literary virtues: wit. As he finds himself in all the far-flung hinterlands of our culture, this fish out of water winds up satirizing himself more than his subject matter, to hilarious effect.
-
-
A View Off Skew
- By Mark on 08-16-03
By: David Rakoff
-
Half Empty
- Essays
- By: David Rakoff
- Narrated by: David Rakoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times best-selling author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you’ll never be disappointed. In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) audiobook, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny, gosh everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won’t come true.
-
-
A Good Friend I Never Met
- By Rodney on 08-14-12
By: David Rakoff
Critic reviews
"The audio medium is probably the best way to absorb this collection....Valuable and well-performed." (Publishers Weekly)
Related to this topic
-
There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
- By: Paula Poundstone
- Narrated by: Paula Poundstone
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What do the lives of Lincoln, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, and other historical figures have in common with Paula Poundstone? In the hands of this wryly observant and self-deprecating comedian, the answer is outrageously funny and unexpectedly touching. Poundstone compares her crazy life to theirs, as she holds forth on her children, her career, and the time in her life when it appeared she would lose them both.
-
-
More!
- By Evelyn on 02-11-07
By: Paula Poundstone
-
Andy Rooney
- 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit
- By: Andy Rooney
- Narrated by: J. Paul Guimont
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chairs. Neat people. Ugliness. War. Over six decades of intrepid reporting and elegant essays, Andy Rooney has proven a shrewd cultural analyst. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit brings together the best of more than a half-century of work (including long-out-of-print pieces from his early years) in an unforgettable celebration of one of America’s funniest men. Like Mark Twain, Finley Peter Dunne (Mister Dooley) and Will Rogers, Andy Rooney is a classic chronicler of America, a writer for the ages.
-
-
A good style
- By Denise L. Holtz on 11-04-16
By: Andy Rooney
-
Stories I'd Tell in Bars
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
-
-
self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
-
I Regret Nothing
- A Memoir
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all - sometimes with disastrous results...Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another. After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is - yikes! - middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day.
-
-
The Smug Is Strong With This One
- By T. Filowitz on 05-24-15
By: Jen Lancaster
-
The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
-
-
Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say
- By: Paula Poundstone
- Narrated by: Paula Poundstone
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What do the lives of Lincoln, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, and other historical figures have in common with Paula Poundstone? In the hands of this wryly observant and self-deprecating comedian, the answer is outrageously funny and unexpectedly touching. Poundstone compares her crazy life to theirs, as she holds forth on her children, her career, and the time in her life when it appeared she would lose them both.
-
-
More!
- By Evelyn on 02-11-07
By: Paula Poundstone
-
Andy Rooney
- 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit
- By: Andy Rooney
- Narrated by: J. Paul Guimont
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Chairs. Neat people. Ugliness. War. Over six decades of intrepid reporting and elegant essays, Andy Rooney has proven a shrewd cultural analyst. Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit brings together the best of more than a half-century of work (including long-out-of-print pieces from his early years) in an unforgettable celebration of one of America’s funniest men. Like Mark Twain, Finley Peter Dunne (Mister Dooley) and Will Rogers, Andy Rooney is a classic chronicler of America, a writer for the ages.
-
-
A good style
- By Denise L. Holtz on 11-04-16
By: Andy Rooney
-
Stories I'd Tell in Bars
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
-
-
self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
-
I Regret Nothing
- A Memoir
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all - sometimes with disastrous results...Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another. After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is - yikes! - middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day.
-
-
The Smug Is Strong With This One
- By T. Filowitz on 05-24-15
By: Jen Lancaster
-
The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
-
-
Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
-
This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
-
-
Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
-
Laughing Without an Accent
- Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad
- By: Firoozeh Dumas
- Narrated by: Firoozeh Dumas
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the best-selling memoir Funny in Farsi, Firoozeh Dumas recounted her adventures growing up Iranian American in Southern California. Now she again mines her rich Persian heritage in Laughing Without an Accent, sharing stories both tender and humorous on being a citizen of the world, on her well-meaning family, and on amusing cultural conundrums, all told with insights into the universality of the human condition. (Hint: It may have to do with brushing and flossing daily.)
-
-
Sigh
- By Sara on 01-29-14
By: Firoozeh Dumas
-
The Partly Cloudy Patriot
- By: Sarah Vowell
- Narrated by: Sarah Vowell, Conan O'Brien, Seth Green, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German Filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration. The result is an engrossing audiobook, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.
-
-
One of the best surprises on AUDIBLE.COM!!
- By Doggy Bird on 04-14-04
By: Sarah Vowell
-
Paris to the Moon
- By: Adam Gopnik
- Narrated by: Adam Gopnik
- Length: 4 hrs and 44 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-lined boulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking façades around every corner: in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured the American imagination for as long as there have been Americans.
-
-
Wish this wasn't abridged!!
- By Sarah D. on 03-25-17
By: Adam Gopnik
-
I Hate Everyone, Except You
- By: Clinton Kelly
- Narrated by: Clinton Kelly
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clinton Kelly is probably best known for teaching women how to make their butts look smaller. But in I Hate Everyone, Except You, he reveals some heretofore unknown secrets about himself, like that he's a finicky connoisseur of 1980s pornography, a disillusioned critic of New Jersey's premier water parks, and perhaps the world's least enthused high school commencement speaker.
-
-
Filthy language overshadowed stories
- By Doris on 04-29-17
By: Clinton Kelly
-
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed contains a dozen short works by John Irving, beginning with three memoirs, including an account of Mr. Irving’s dinner with President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The longest of the memoirs, The Imaginary Girlfriend,” is the core of this collection.
-
-
Unabridged?
- By K. Stiffler on 02-11-22
By: John Irving
-
Property
- Stories Between Two Novellas
- By: Lionel Shriver
- Narrated by: Lionel Shriver
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A striking new collection of ten short stories and two novellas that explores the idea of property in every meaning of the word, from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international best seller We Need to Talk About Kevin.
-
-
Painful and drawn out
- By JR on 06-27-18
By: Lionel Shriver
-
Mislaid
- A Novel
- By: Nell Zink
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stillwater College in Virginia, 1966. Freshman Peggy, an ingénue with literary pretensions, falls under the spell of Lee, a blue-blooded poet and professor, and they begin an ill-advised affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy and marriage. The couple are mismatched from the start - she's a lesbian, he's gay - but it takes a decade of emotional erosion before Peggy runs off with their three-year-old daughter, leaving their nine-year-old son behind.
-
-
Misbegotten, mishandled, misfired novel
- By Julie W. Capell on 02-07-16
By: Nell Zink
-
It Takes Two
- Our Story
- By: Jonathan Scott, Drew Scott
- Narrated by: Drew Scott, Jonathan Scott
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It Takes Two: Our Story shares never-before-revealed tales of the Scott brothers' childhood and rise to fame - from starting their first business at seven years old and their years modeling and acting to their first house purchase at the impressive young age of 18. They soon found their true passion in life, combining their natural gifts for entertaining with the skills they learned from buying, renovating, and selling homes.
-
-
Not Worth the Time or $2.95
- By Sharlotte on 03-06-18
By: Jonathan Scott, and others
-
Funny in Farsi
- A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
- By: Firoozeh Dumas
- Narrated by: Firoozeh Dumas
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father's glowing memories of his graduate school years here.
-
-
The melting pot, next generation
- By Jerry on 02-15-08
By: Firoozeh Dumas
-
Paddle Your Own Canoe
- One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living
- By: Nick Offerman
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Growing a perfect moustache, grilling red meat, wooing a woman - who better to deliver this tutelage than the always charming, always manly Nick Offerman, best known as Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson? Combining his trademark comic voice and very real expertise in woodworking - he runs his own woodshop - Paddle Your Own Canoe features tales from Offerman's childhood in small-town Minooka, Illinois, to his theater days in Chicago, beginnings as a carpenter/actor and the hilarious and magnificent seduction of his now-wife Megan Mullally.
-
-
On the need to acknowledge the role luck plays
- By OpenMindedNotCredulous on 11-17-13
By: Nick Offerman
-
What's So Funny?
- My Hilarious Life
- By: Tim Conway, Jane Scovell, Carol Burnett - foreword
- Narrated by: Tim Conway, Carol Burnett, Dick Hill, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six-time Emmy Award-winning funnyman Tim Conway, best known for his characters on The Carol Burnett Show, offers a straight-shooting and hilarious memoir about his life on stage and off as an actor and comedian. In television history, few entertainers have captured as many hearts and made as many people laugh as Tim Conway. There's nothing in the world that Tim Conway would rather do than entertain - and in his first-ever memoir, What's So Funny?, that's exactly what he does.
-
-
Not narrated by Tim
- By Bob Murdock on 05-05-14
By: Tim Conway, and others
-
The Fran Lebowitz Reader
- By: Fran Lebowitz
- Narrated by: Fran Lebowitz
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "elegant, finely honed prose" (The Washington Post Book World), Lebowitz limns the vicissitudes of contemporary urban life—its fads, trends, crazes, morals, and fashions. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking, and waggish, Fran Lebowitz is always wickedly entertaining.
-
-
Wonderful in her own voice.
- By Sue C on 11-07-12
By: Fran Lebowitz
What listeners say about Mirth of a Nation
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Brad
- 08-03-06
They left out the mirth!
This is simply bad. The reading is good, the articles are well written, but their content is just plan 'stupid'. I hate using such an inelegant word, but anything else may give the articles too much credit.
I suffered through the first two CDs hoping to find something to make this worth the time and expense, but no luck. Just more really bad articles about ridiculous topics.
Stay away from this one.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 06-01-18
Great if you like dry humor
great if you like dry humor, but there are some performance issues, some skipping and a repeated track.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!