Best Parodies

Read by a host of celebrities, from Samuel L. Jackson to Jennifer Garner, this subversively funny bestselling storybook will not actually put your kids to sleep, but it will leave you laughing so hard you won’t care. “If you’ve never heard of [Mansbach’s] books, you must not have an internet connection.” — The ParentNormal “Total genius.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn , father of two. “ Go the Fuck to Sleep is the secret anthem of tired parents everywhere.” —Bliss Broyard, author of One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life , mother of two.

Political satire as deeper truth: Donald Trump’s presidential memoir, as recorded by two world-renowned Trump scholars, and experts on greatness generally "I have the best words, beautiful words, as everybody has been talking and talking about for a long time. Until Donald Trump publishes the ultimate account of his entire four or eight or one-and-a-half years in the White House, the definitive chronicle will be You Can’t Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of My Fantastic First Year As President . Included at no extra charge is a lavish and exclusive portfolio of spectacular, historic and intimate color photographs of President Trump in private – inside the White House, inside Mar-a-Lago, at Trump Tower, and more. You Can’t Spell America Without Me is presented by America’s foremost Trump scholar Kurt Andersen as well as America's foremost mediocre Trump impersonator, Alec Baldwin.

The self-help industry tells you that if you're positive, if you put your best foot forward and if you just believe in yourself that you will find happiness. This book teaches you how to harness all the negativity in the world and use it to improve your life, taking everyday feelings like self-loathing, regret and shame and making them work for you. His antics have led him to be featured in the NYTimes, UsWeekly, Huffington Post , People Magazine , and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart , and countless other publications and blogs.

Take a cue from entertaining expert. Amy. Sedaris and host an unforgettable fete that will have your guests raving. "In A t Home with Amy Sedaris , Ms. Sedaris offers deliriously twisted takes on the homemaking skills she skewered in her books I Like You and Simple Times ." The fourth disc contains a PDF file with all 76 recipes for her "15-minute meals in 20 minutes," which were read aloud on the previous discs, in addition to 70 more "Jackpot Recipes." The actor, caterer, film star, comic, and sister of David Sedaris charms, seduces, entertains, instructs, amuses, and just plain invites readers into her somewhat eclectic life. Readers will revel in the more than 100 recipes with menus for dozens of occasions (or not), from blind date at home to table for one (an evening alone, that is, with steak and salad). Her recipes, by the way, are no rivals to the Culinary Institute of America; for instance, the directions for "carrot coins" call for slicing carrots so they look like coins and sauteing with butter, salt, and pepper.

In this celebration of the one hundred year old terminal, Sam Roberts of The New York Times looks back at Grand Central's conception, amazing history, and the far-reaching cultural effects of the station that continues to amaze tourists and shuttle busy commuters. Roberts, an urban-affairs correspondent for the New York Times, seems to have a love affair with the place, and he describes the building, evolution, and unique features of the terminal with an infectious passion. It is, as he notes, a major tourist attraction, the setting for key scenes in many motion pictures, and a center through which an estimated half a million people move each day.

From the New York Times -bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow , a “sharply stylish” (Boston Globe) novel of a young woman in post-Depression era New York who suddenly finds herself thrust into high society. Amazon Best Books of the Month, August 2011 Set during the hazy, enchanting, and martini-filled world of New York City circa 1938, Rules of Civility follows three friends--Katey, Eve, and Tinker--from their chance meeting at a jazz club on New Year's Eve through a year of enlightening and occasionally tragic adventures. Set in New York City in 1938, Rules of Civility tells the story of a watershed year in the life of an uncompromising twenty-five-year- old named Katey Kontent. The story opens on New Year's Eve in a Greenwich Village jazz bar, where Katey and her boardinghouse roommate Eve happen to meet Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a ready smile. Amor Towles's Rules of Civility Playlist While jazz is not central to the narrative of Rules of Civility , the music and its various formulations are an important component of the book’s backdrop. On the night of January 16, 1938, Benny Goodman assembled a bi-racial orchestra to play jazz to a sold-out Carnegie Hall--the first jazz performance in the hallowed hall and one which is now famous for bringing jazz (and black performers) to a wider audience. I am not a jazz historian, but for me the concert marks something of a turning point in jazz itself--from the big-band, swing-era sound that dominated the 1930s (and which the orchestra emphasized on stage that night) towards the more introspective, smaller group styles that would soon spawn bebop and its smoky aftereffects (ultimately reaching an apogee with Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue in 1957). Praise for Rules of Civility “An irresistible and astonishingly assured debut about working class-women and world-weary WASPs in 1930s New York…in the crisp, noirish prose of the era, Towles portrays complex relationships in a city that is at once melting pot and elitist enclave – and a thoroughly modern heroine who fearlessly claims her place in it.” — O, the Oprah Magazine. “With this snappy period piece, Towles resurrects the cinematic black-and-white Manhattan of the golden age…[his] characters are youthful Americans in tricky times, trying to create authentic lives.” — The New York Times Book Review.

DASH as fast as you can! DODGE the oncoming trains!

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Pictures. Words. Stories about things that happened to me. Stories about things that happened to other people because of me. Eight billion dollars*. Stories about dogs. The secret to eternal happiness*. An Amazon Best Book of the Month, November 2013: Who among us has not, in moments that sometimes bleed through years, even decades, felt weird, desperate, and absurd--wishing we could turn all the lamest, most shameful episodes in our lives into hilarious illustrated anecdotes? If you just stumbled across Brosh and can't yet grasp the allure of a Web comic illustrated by rudimentary MS Paint figures, believe the hype. Brosh has a genius for allowing us to channel her weird childhood and the fits and starts of her adulthood through the manic eyes, gaping mouths, and stick-like arms in the panels that masterfully advance her stories, and she delivers her relentless commentary with deadpan hilarity. Today, Bill and Melinda Gates co-chair the charitable foundation bearing their names and are working together to give their wealth back to society. But Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things that Happened , by Allie Brosh, is an honest-to-goodness summer read. Brosh has quietly earned a big following even though, as her official bio puts it, she “lives as a recluse in her bedroom in Bend, Oregon.” The adventures she recounts are mostly inside her head, where we hear and see the kind of inner thoughts most of us are too timid to let out in public. Here’s a typical snippet: “To the simple dog, throwing up was like some magical power that she never knew she possessed—the ability to create infinite food. The mental illness she describes is profoundly isolating: “When you have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating your face into shapes that are only approximately the right ones, alienating people is inevitable.” It must be empowering for those who have struggled with depression to read this book, see themselves, and know they’re far from alone. You explain it again, hoping they’ll try a less hope-centric approach, but re-explaining your total inability to experience joy inevitably sounds kind of negative, like maybe you WANT to be depressed. So the positivity starts coming out in a spray—a giant, desperate happiness sprinkler pointed directly at your face.”. It is no hyperbole to say I love her approach—looking, listening, and describing with the observational skills of a scientist, the creativity of an artist, and the wit of a comedian. The subjects run from light (cakes, dogs) to dark (the author’s own severe depression), and they foreground offbeat feeling and real intellect. Ms. Brosh’s inquisitive mind won me over, too.” (Dwight Garner New York Times). “In a culture that encourages people to carry mental illness as a secret burden . (Elizabeth Gilbert ). “One of the best things I’ve ever read in my life.” (Marc Maron ) "This book made me laugh, cry, and leak. (io9.com ) “ The whole blog is inspired.” (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish (The Atlantic) ). “Anyone seeking an accessible look at someone suffering from depression or some really delightful dog drawings need search no further.” (Time Out New York ). "Both singular and familiar—the popularity of Brosh's blog and her absurd, exuberant voice meant that she started a lot of memes you might have come across— Hyperbole and a Half is a very funny reminder that it's normal to not have your shit together, and to know that it's okay to ask for help."

Adapted for a magnificent George Roy Hill film three years later (perhaps the only film adaptation of a masterpiece which exceeds its source), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) is the now famous parable of Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran and POW, who has in the later stage of his life become "unstuck in time" and who experiences at will (or unwillingly) all known events of his chronology out of order and sometimes simultaneously. The "unstuck" nature of Pilgrim's experience may constitute an early novelistic use of what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; then again, Pilgrim's aliens may be as "real" as Dresden is real to him. Struggling to find some purpose, order or meaning to his existence and humanity's, Pilgrim meets the beauteous and mysterious Montana Wildhack (certainly the author's best character name), has a child with her and drifts on some supernal plane, finally, in which Kilgore Trout, the Tralmafadorians, Montana Wildhack and the ruins of Dresden do not merge but rather disperse through all planes of existence. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor. Hawke rises to the occasion of performing this sliced-and-diced narrative, which is part sci-fi and partially based on Vonnegut's experience as a American prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany during the firebombing of 1945 that killed thousands of civilians.

Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love. Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times. “[An] unforgettable memoir.” — Parade “What makes Born a Crime such a soul-nourishing pleasure, even with all its darker edges and perilous turns, is reading Noah recount in brisk, warmly conversational prose how he learned to negotiate his way through the bullying and ostracism. In the end, Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “[An] unforgettable memoir.” — Parade. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a comic’s origin story better than the one Trevor Noah serves up in Born a Crime . [He] developed his aptitude for witty truth telling [and]…every hardscrabble memory of helping his mother scrape together money for food, gas, school fees, and rent, or barely surviving the temper of his stepfather, Abel, reveals the anxious wellsprings of the comedian’s ambition and success. If there is harvest in spite of blight, the saying goes, one does not credit the blight-but Noah does manage to wring brilliant comedy from it.” — O: The OprahMagazine “What makes Born a Crime such a soul-nourishing pleasure, even with all its darker edges and perilous turns, is reading Noah recount in brisk, warmly conversational prose how he learned to negotiate his way through the bullying and ostracism. “This isn't your average comic-writes-a-memoir: It’s a unique look at a man who is a product of his culture—and a nuanced look at a part of the world whose people have known dark times easily pushed aside.” —Refinery29. told through stories and vignettes that are sharply observed, deftly conveyed and consistently candid. Growing organically from them is an affecting investigation of identity, ethnicity, language, masculinity, nationality and, most of all, humanity—all issues that the election of Donald Trump in the United States shows are foremost in minds and hearts everywhere. What the reader gleans are the insights that made Noah the thoughtful, observant, empathic man who wrote Born a Crime . Here is a level-headed man, forged by remarkable and shocking life incidents, who is quietly determined and who knows where home and the heart lie. “A gifted storyteller, able to deftly lace his poignant tales with amusing irony.” — Entertainment Weekly. Among the many virtues of Born a Crime is a frank and telling portrait of life in South Africa during the 1980s and ’90s. Born a Crime offers Americans a second introduction to Trevor Noah, and he makes a real impression.” — Newsday. Noah is quick with a disarming joke, and he skillfully integrates the parallel narratives via interstitial asides between chapters. Perhaps the most harrowing tales are those of his abusive stepfather, which form the book’s final act (and which Noah cleverly foreshadows throughout earlier chapters), but equally prominent are the laugh-out-loud yarns about going to the prom, and the differences between ‘White Church’ and ‘Black Church.’” — Publishers Weekly (starred review). Incisive, funny, and vivid, these true tales are anchored to his portrait of his courageous, rebellious, and religious mother who defied racially restrictive laws to secure an education and a career for herself—and to have a child with a white Swiss/German even though sex between whites and blacks was illegal. and his candid and compassionate essays deepen our perception of the complexities of race, gender, and class.” — Booklist (starred review). Trevor Noah is the most successful comedian in Africa and is the host of the Emmy and Peabody Award–winning The Daily Show on Comedy Central.

It's a book about what happens when the nation's foremost progressive satirist gets a chance to serve in the United States Senate and, defying the low expectations of the pundit class, actually turns out to be good at it. In this candid personal memoir, the honorable gentleman from Minnesota takes his army of loyal fans along with him from Saturday Night Live to the campaign trail, inside the halls of Congress, and behind the scenes of some of the most dramatic and/or hilarious moments of his new career in politics. "Admirably incautious...Franken has weaponized the gifts that proved so useful for comedy - a sharp eye, a sharper tongue, the ability to tease out the essential absurdity of a given situation and deliver the goods with maximum impact. "In a breezy, funny, biting, and often earnest read, Franken pulls off what many of his congressional colleagues have failed to do: write...an interesting and honest memoir. [Franken] uses self-deprecating humor to poke fun at everyone on either side of the aisle, and he gives readers insight into the daily workings of life in the Senate. "With this book, Franken is both resistance leader and family counselor...A hilarious guide to what happens when a comedian runs for Congress. Senator Franken graduated from Harvard College and received his doctorate in right-wing megalomania studies from Trump University.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from Aziz Ansari, the star of Master of None and one of this generation’s sharpest comedic voices. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. In Modern Romance , Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world. The book includes extensive research, data, and insight from leading experts in the field (he co-wrote it with a social scientist)—all sprinkled with Ansari’s signature, and spot-on, voice of a generation. ". USA Today". "With topics like online dating apps to serious social science research, the book is sure to have you laughing if not taking a few notes. "Paste Magazine". The book is an obsessive exploration of what makes hearts flutter and break across the globe, but most importantly, it dissects those ideas through the lens of a right-and-left swiping society. And as a result, Ansari s final product doesn t only feel complete it s hilariously executed, even without his unmistakable high-register voice belting the punchlines. Club ". It s hard to think of another celebrity book that also feels like breaking news Aside from the jokes, the science of "Modern Romance "holds water, and is absolutely fascinating. But when it was this Parks and Recreation star s turn, he channeled the rejection into an extensive (and riotous) investigation of the current state of dating, going as far as recruiting an NYU sociologist to be his collaborator/wingman. Kirkus Reviews". The ever hip and funny comedian and Parks and Recreation star embarks on a surprisingly insightful exploration of the complex realities of dating today . Ansari s eminently readable book is successful, in part, because it not only lays out the history, evolution, and pitfalls of dating, it also offers sound advice on how to actually win today s constantly shifting game of love. Natasha Gilmore, "Publishers Weekly: ". Ansari, a comedian and TV actor, has co-written a book with a legitimate sociologist about what it means to date in the modern era. When technology and instant gratification are changing the landscape of human interactions, dating is weirder than ever, and I'm looking forward to Ansari's sense of humor and cultural criticism on the topic, which he's started to address in his stand-up. Steven Levitt, coauthor of the #1"New York Times"bestselling"Freakonomics". Always-hilarious Aziz Ansari proves you can be smart and funny at the same time.Not only did I laugh my ass off, I really learned stuff. "Modern Romance"is just like Aziz Ansari himself charming, thoughtful, reasonable, and able to distill the madness of the world into something both sane and wildly funny.

SILLY JOKES FOR SILLY KIDS is a children's joke book containing HUNDREDS of funny kids' jokes with illustrations. Silly Willy was born in a small town named Gill's Hills.

Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love. Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times. “[An] unforgettable memoir.” — Parade “What makes Born a Crime such a soul-nourishing pleasure, even with all its darker edges and perilous turns, is reading Noah recount in brisk, warmly conversational prose how he learned to negotiate his way through the bullying and ostracism. In the end, Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “[An] unforgettable memoir.” — Parade. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a comic’s origin story better than the one Trevor Noah serves up in Born a Crime . [He] developed his aptitude for witty truth telling [and]…every hardscrabble memory of helping his mother scrape together money for food, gas, school fees, and rent, or barely surviving the temper of his stepfather, Abel, reveals the anxious wellsprings of the comedian’s ambition and success. If there is harvest in spite of blight, the saying goes, one does not credit the blight-but Noah does manage to wring brilliant comedy from it.” — O: The OprahMagazine “What makes Born a Crime such a soul-nourishing pleasure, even with all its darker edges and perilous turns, is reading Noah recount in brisk, warmly conversational prose how he learned to negotiate his way through the bullying and ostracism. “This isn't your average comic-writes-a-memoir: It’s a unique look at a man who is a product of his culture—and a nuanced look at a part of the world whose people have known dark times easily pushed aside.” —Refinery29. told through stories and vignettes that are sharply observed, deftly conveyed and consistently candid. Growing organically from them is an affecting investigation of identity, ethnicity, language, masculinity, nationality and, most of all, humanity—all issues that the election of Donald Trump in the United States shows are foremost in minds and hearts everywhere. What the reader gleans are the insights that made Noah the thoughtful, observant, empathic man who wrote Born a Crime . Here is a level-headed man, forged by remarkable and shocking life incidents, who is quietly determined and who knows where home and the heart lie. “A gifted storyteller, able to deftly lace his poignant tales with amusing irony.” — Entertainment Weekly. Among the many virtues of Born a Crime is a frank and telling portrait of life in South Africa during the 1980s and ’90s. Born a Crime offers Americans a second introduction to Trevor Noah, and he makes a real impression.” — Newsday. Noah is quick with a disarming joke, and he skillfully integrates the parallel narratives via interstitial asides between chapters. Perhaps the most harrowing tales are those of his abusive stepfather, which form the book’s final act (and which Noah cleverly foreshadows throughout earlier chapters), but equally prominent are the laugh-out-loud yarns about going to the prom, and the differences between ‘White Church’ and ‘Black Church.’” — Publishers Weekly (starred review). Incisive, funny, and vivid, these true tales are anchored to his portrait of his courageous, rebellious, and religious mother who defied racially restrictive laws to secure an education and a career for herself—and to have a child with a white Swiss/German even though sex between whites and blacks was illegal. and his candid and compassionate essays deepen our perception of the complexities of race, gender, and class.” — Booklist (starred review). Trevor Noah is the most successful comedian in Africa and is the host of the Emmy and Peabody Award–winning The Daily Show on Comedy Central.