The author of 'Dad is Fat' returns to ask: Have you ever eaten in your car so you wouldn't have to share with your children? Does the presence of green vegetables make you angry? Stand-up comic Gaffigan has made his career rhapsodizing over the most treasured dishes of the North American diet ('choking on bacon is like getting murdered by your lover') and decrying the worst offenders ('kale is the early morning of foods') Now he will give them what...

Simply the best storyteller around, Weingarten describes the world as you think it is before revealing how it actually is—in narratives that are by turns hilarious, heartwarming, and provocative, but always memorable. Millions of people know the title piece about violinist Joshua Bell, which originally began as a stunt: What would happen if you put a world-class musician outside a Washington, D.C., subway station to play for spare change? Would...

Crosley's easy, charming voice in the face of minor suffering or potential drudgery has been described as a mix between Dorothy Parker and David Sedaris. In these hilarious and insightful essays, she packs up her sensibility and takes readers with her to Paris, to Portugal (where she falls in with a group of Portuguese clowns), and to Alaska (where she discovers wearing bear bells is a matter of self-defense). Then it's back to New York, where new...

Ever wonder what Nero did before he began fiddling about in Rome, or wanted the bare facts about Lady Godiva? Maybe you've found the story of Lucrezia Borgia a bitter pill to swallow, or wanted the straight skinny on corpulent King Henry the Eighth, but you haven't the stomach for stuffy history books. Now these and twenty-two more of history's most famous personages are brought brilliantly to life, in this collection of unfailingly accurate yet undeniably...

A compilation of three of the popular comedian's irreverent observations about life with more than thirty pages of bonus material.

In the ten years since her Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, bestselling author Amy Krouse Rosenthal has been quietly at work on this modest but mighty magnum opus, creating a distinct blend of nonlinear memoir, observational humor, wistful reflections, and interactive connections with readers. A collection of insights, memories, and moments that are at once intimate and universal. Why the title Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal? Because each piece of...

“Is there a secret to happiness?” asks comedian Paula Poundstone. "I don’t know how or why anyone would keep it a secret. It seems rather cruel, really . . . Where could it be? Is it deceptively simple? Does it melt at a certain temperature? Can you buy it? Must you suffer for it before or after?” In her wildly and wisely observed book, the comedy legend takes on that most inalienable of rights — the pursuit of happiness. Offering herself...

A humorous collection of personal essays discusses the author's career in journalism, divorce, a long-anticipated inheritance with unanticipated results, and the evolution of her relationship with her e-mail in-box.