From growing up in Los Angeles with movie star neighbors, bearing witness to the music scene in the 1960s and seeing the rise of comedy in the early 70s, to studying mime in Paris under the tutelage of Marcel Marceau to becoming a founding member of the seminal comedy troupe The Groundlings, it's no wonder that Lorne Michaels offered Laraine Newman a spot in the original cast of Saturday Night Live. There, Laraine was part of the show that changed TV - and comedy - forever.

The doctor is back with a whole book of sessions from guests like Jon Hamm, Louie Anderson, Susie Essman, Gilbert Gottfried, David Mamet, Wanda Sykes, Marc Maron, Reggie Watts and a slew of others. 

For more than 30 years, Fred Rogers was a beloved fixture in American homes. Warm and welcoming, he spoke directly to children - and their parents - about the marvels of the world, the things that worried them, and above all, the importance of being themselves. Dressed in his cardigan and sneakers, Fred Rogers offered a wholesome message of generosity and love that changed the landscape of television and shaped a generation of children. Kindness and Wonder pays tribute to this cultural icon: the unique, gentle man who embodied the best of what we could be.

When Star Wars burst on to the big screen in 1977, an unfailingly polite golden droid called C-3PO captured imaginations around the globe. But C-3PO wasn’t an amazing display of animatronics with a unique and unforgettable voice-over. Inside the metal costume was an actor named Anthony Daniels. In this deeply personal memoir, Anthony Daniels recounts his experiences of the epic cinematic adventure that has influenced pop culture for more than 40 years. For the very first time, he candidly describes his most intimate memories as the only actor to appear in every Star Wars film.

Hi! I’m Seth! I was asked to describe my audiobook, Yearbook for websites and shit like that, so...here it goes!!! Yearbook is a collection of true stories that I desperately hope are just funny at worst, and life-changingly amazing at best. (I understand that it’s likely the former, which is a fancy “book” way of saying “the first one.”) I talk about my grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, bar mitzvahs, and Jewish summer camp, and tell way more stories about doing drugs than my mother would like.

If there’s one trait that makes someone well-suited to comedy, it’s being able to take a punch - metaphorically and, occasionally, physically. Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy - with a face you can’t help but want to punch.

Why is glass see-through? What makes elastic stretchy? Why does a paper clip bend? These are the sorts of questions that Mark Miodownik is constantly asking himself. A globally renowned materials scientist, Miodownik has spent his life exploring objects as ordinary as an envelope and as unexpected as concrete cloth, uncovering the fascinating secrets that hold together our physical world.

In this rollicking memoir, So, Anyway..., John Cleese takes listeners on a grand tour of his ascent in the entertainment world, from his humble beginnings in a sleepy English town and his early comedic days at Cambridge University (with future Python partner Graham Chapman) to the founding of the landmark comedy troupe that would propel him to worldwide renown.

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.

As this book's title suggests, Norm Macdonald tells the story of his life - more or less - from his origins on a farm in the-back-of-beyond Canada and an epically disastrous appearance on Star Search to his account of auditioning for Lorne Michaels and his memorable run as the anchor of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live - until he was fired because a corporate executive didn't think he was funny. But Based on a True Story is much more than a memoir; it's the hilarious, inspired epic of Norm's life.

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last 15 years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food-delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization”. Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world.

What won't we try in our quest for perfect health, beauty, and the fountain of youth? Well, just imagine a time when doctors prescribed morphine for crying infants. When liquefied gold was touted as immortality in a glass. And when strychnine - yes, that strychnine, the one used in rat poison - was dosed like Viagra. Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices. 

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

For thousands of years, scientists, philosophers, and self-help gurus have wrestled with one of the basic conundrums of human life: Why do we do the things we do? Or, rather, why do we so often not do the things we want to do? In You're a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass), McHargue addresses these issues. We like to think we’re in control of our thoughts and decisions, he writes, but science has shown that a host of competing impulses, emotions, and environmental factors are at play in every action we undertake.