Trevor Noah

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New Mexico

Stories from a South African Childhood

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man's coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani, New York Times * USA Today * San Francisco Chronicle * NPR * Esquire * Newsday * Booklist Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. 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. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. 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. The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. 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. Praise for Born a Crime "[A] compelling new memoir . . . By turns alarming, sad and funny, [Trevor Noah's] book provides a harrowing look, through the prism of Mr. Noah's family, at life in South Africa under apartheid. . . . 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. . . . What also helped was having a mother like Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah. . . . Consider Born a Crime another such gift to her--and an enormous gift to the rest of us."--USA Today "[Noah] thrives with the help of his astonishingly fearless mother. . . . Their fierce bond makes this story soar."--People

Born a Crime

3967a9d3-37d1-46cc-b050-8b6a41b19d4c-1

South Carolina

An Isabel Dalhousie Novel

Isabel reluctantly agrees to help a visiting Australian philosopher find her biological father, but the case is complicated by her housekeeper's questionable financial advisor and ongoing doubts about her engagement to Jamie.

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

e833e72d-16df-4b5f-be6e-33730a48f25d-1

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Michigan

Contexts of Musical Wit and Humor

"Wit, humor, and comic effects have been commonly noted in accounts of Joseph Haydn's instrumental music from his own day to ours. Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art is a unique critical and historical study of this celebrated aspect of the composer's music and the key role of listeners in its success. "Artful jesting" indicates a strategy that involves the listener as an active interpreter of compositional alternatives in a musical work. Wheelock discusses how Haydn, utilizing the subversive potential of wit in a variety of classical forms, genres, and venues, both challenged and affirmed the musical conventions of his day." "The book is divided into three sections, each providing a different perspective on the wit and humor of Haydn's music. Part I, "Coming to Terms," takes a multidisciplinary approach to issues of compositional intent and reception history, focusing on changing values of wit and humor in late eighteenth-century literary sources and reviews of Haydn's music. Chapter 1, "The Musical Joke: A Laughing Matter?" details the productive role of humor in heightening consciousness of play with the most basic classical conventions. Dependent on often subtle ambiguities, these musical jokes challenged listeners' understanding of how convention and invention should interact, engaging them as participants themselves in a process of completing the jest. Chapter 2 traces important distinctions between wit and humor in a broad range of eighteenth-century sources, both German and English. Chapter 3 examines the critical understanding of the composer as humorist. Such views - both favorable and unfavorable - are inextricably linked with changing attitudes toward the proper role of instrumental music, popular taste, and the role of the composer in fulfilling expectations of increasingly mixed audiences." "Part II, "Frames of Reference," establishes several models for investigating the process of jesting in Haydn's instrumental works. Chapter 4 explores incongruous manners in the composer's symphonic minuets. Wheelock argues that Haydn's fusing of strictly academic and more popular dance styles subverted the measured dignity and refinement of a "proper" minuet, and that such disturbances of the "humors" actually helped to activate the discovery of wit. Chapter 5, "Engaging Wit in the Chamber," examines the metaphor of conversation in connection with Haydn's Opus 33 string quartets, presenting a convincing case that as the voices of the quartet listen and respond to each other the audience is simultaneously engaged in actively mediating this complex dialogue. Chapter 6 explores the deceptions involved in the symphonic finales, where eccentric motives and procedures focus listeners' attention on predicting their progress. Chapter 7, "The Paradox of Distraction," takes theatrical comedy as a point of departure in locating numerous comic devices akin to fixation, memory lapses, digressions, and incongruous juxtapositions of melody and rhythm." "Part III, "The Implicated Listener," examines how Haydn transformed humorous rhetoric into a new aesthetic, and considers the broader implications of comic procedures in instrumental music of the Classic era." "Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art combines a historical and social perspective with strong critical analysis, appealing not only to students of Haydn's music but also to those interested in the Classic style in general."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art

56fce3d4-e7be-469c-8bce-3ed1cada63bf-1

Samuel Shem

John Updike

An intern becomes disillusioned with the medical establishment when he sees his fellow interns fall for the illusions that destroy a doctor's ability to relate to and really care for his patients.

The House of God

f1a39bcc-561f-4d24-a346-9a779d135c39-1

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Oklahoma

Joke Books

Amy Poehler

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Do you want to get to know the woman we first came to love on Comedy Central's Upright Citizens Brigade? Do you want to spend some time with the lady who made you howl with laughter on Saturday Night Live, and in movies like Baby Mama, Blades of Glory, and They Came Together? Do you find yourself daydreaming about hanging out with the actor behind the brilliant Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation? Did you wish you were in the audience at the last two Golden Globes ceremonies, so you could bask in the hilarity of Amy's one-liners? If your answer to these questions is "Yes Please!" then you are in luck. In her first book, one of our most beloved funny folk delivers a smart, pointed, and ultimately inspirational read. Full of the comedic skill that makes us all love Amy, Yes Please is a rich and varied collection of stories, lists, poetry (Plastic Surgery Haiku, to be specific), photographs, mantras and advice. With chapters like "Treat Your Career Like a Bad Boyfriend," "Plain Girl Versus the Demon" and "The Robots Will Kill Us All" Yes Please will make you think as much as it will make you laugh. Honest, personal, real, and righteous, Yes Please is full of words to live by.

Yes Please

a20c676c-0246-4e30-a47f-8fbc6c62604f

#hardcover #nonfiction #humor #comedy #amypoehler #autobiography #biography #essays 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

New York

In a perfect world . . . We'd get to hang out with Amy Poehler, watching dumb movies, listening to music, and swapping tales about our coworkers and difficult childhoods. Because in a perfect world, we'd all be friends with Amy—someone who seems so fun, is full of interesting stories, tells great jokes, and offers plenty of advice and wisdom (the useful kind, not the annoying kind you didn't ask for, anyway). Unfortunately, between her Golden Globe-winning role on Parks and Recreation, work as a producer and director, place as one of the most beloved SNL alumni and cofounder of the Upright Citizens' Brigade, involvement with the website Smart Girls at the Party, frequent turns as acting double for Meryl Streep, and her other gig as the mom of two young sons, she's not available for movie night. Luckily we have the next best thing: Yes Please, Amy's hilarious and candid book. A collection of stories, thoughts, ideas, lists, and haikus from the mind of one of our most beloved entertainers, Yes Please offers Amy's thoughts on everything from her "too safe" childhood outside of Boston to her early days in New York City, her ideas about Hollywood and "the biz," the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has a "face for wigs." Yes Please is chock-full of words and wisdom to live by.

Leslie Schnur

Maryland

With wry observations and tender humor, the acclaimed author of "The Dog Walker" has written a timely and timeless novel, set in the world of late night talk radio, about the fragility of friendship and family and how we cannot choose who we love.

Late Night Talking

b6cb87df-d6c8-411a-b72b-6a1d5bc424de-1

Andy Cohen

365 Quotes from Women I Love

Sometimes an ordinary day needs a little glitter. For Andy Cohen, it comes as no surprise that the most influential people in his life are women. For a man that has made his career and life out of making the ordinary extraordinary, his greatest inspiration each day has always begun with the larger-than-life women (from his mother to Madonna) he loves. In Glitter Every Day Andy shares his most beloved and needed words of daily inspiration, affirmation, and (just enough) intoxication from those lovely ladies to make any ordinary day shine bright. Andy not only gathers 365 sayings and quotes from the icons, thought leaders, Real Housewives and over-the-top celebs, he writes about the people and experiences that have made him live one of the most joyous, and fun lives that any little boy growing up in St. Louis could dream of so you can, too. And like Andy himself, these quotes are irresistible, infusing your day with a laugh, a pep talk and a shot(ski) of fun. Glitter Every Day reminds us all to take the time to appreciate the fun in life, as only Andy can. So pour a drink, put on your heels, and always remember to let yourself shine.

Glitter Every Day

0e1c7645-2e54-49c3-a3cb-067c6a8120b5-1

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

The Plus One & Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake 

Syed M. Masood

A Novel

"Following two families from Pakistan and Iraq in the 90s through to San Francisco in 2016, a comic novel about being Muslim immigrants in modern America"--

The Bad Muslim Discount

22148d55-ae86-4d00-88d1-479ac8542fe7-1

Jorge Cham

Daniel Whiteson

Iowa

A Guide to the Unknown Universe

Prepare to learn everything we still don't know about our strange and mysterious universe 

Humanity's understanding of the physical world is full of gaps. Not tiny little gaps you can safely ignore --there are huge yawning voids in our basic notions of how the world works. PHD Comics creator Jorge Cham and particle physicist Daniel Whiteson have teamed up to explore everything we don't know about the universe: the enormous holes in our knowledge of the cosmos. Armed with their popular infographics, cartoons, and unusually entertaining and lucid explanations of science, they give us the best answers currently available for a lot of questions that are still perplexing scientists, including:

* Why does the universe have a speed limit?
* Why aren't we all made of antimatter?
* What (or who) is attacking Earth with tiny, superfast particles?
* What is dark matter, and why does it keep ignoring us?

It turns out the universe is full of weird things that don't make any sense. But Cham and Whiteson make a compelling case that the questions we can't answer are as interesting as the ones we can.

This fully illustrated introduction to the biggest mysteries in physics also helpfully demystifies many complicated things we do know about, from quarks and neutrinos to gravitational waves and exploding black holes. With equal doses of humor and delight, Cham and Whiteson invite us to see the universe as a possibly boundless expanse of uncharted territory that's still ours to explore.

We Have No Idea

34b7c002-a790-44e0-b8a5-44440783fd70-1

Jeff Kinney

#hardcover #fiction #childrens #￼realisticFiction #wimpykid #humor #middlegrade #new 

Wrecking Ball (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 14)

4382b86e-1aa4-4c81-b48a-b6842d056d6e-1

Marian Keyes

Some wear on back cover.  Otherwise nearly perfect. 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

The fast lane is much too slow for Rachel Walsh. And Manhattan is the perfect place for a young Irish female to overdo everything. But Rachel's love of a good time is about to land her in the emergency room. It will also cost her a job and the boyfriend she adores. When her loving family hustles her back home and checks her into Ireland's answer to the Betty Ford Clinic, Rachel is hopeful. Perhaps it will be lovely—spa treatments, celebrities, that kind of thing. Instead, she finds a lot of group therapy, which leads her, against her will, to some important self-knowledge. She will also find something that all women like herself fear: a man who might actually be good for her.

Rachel's Holiday

698d06fb-d637-447a-be48-47296adfabf8-1

David Sedaris

Virginia

A recent transplant to Paris, humorist David Sedaris, bestselling author of "Naked", presents a collection of his strongest work yet, including the title story about his hilarious attempt to learn French. A number one national bestseller now in paperback.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

c5fb1ab0-b176-4f84-8a31-055ce049b4c8-1

Joseph Fink

Jeffrey Cranor

From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves...no matter where we live. "Hypnotic and darkly funny. . . . Belongs to a particular strain of American gothic that encompasses The Twilight Zone, Stephen King and Twin Peaks, with a bit of Tremors thrown in."--The Guardian Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge. Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "KING CITY" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels. Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it. Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "KING CITY". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.

Welcome to Night Vale

b5991137-a345-4add-9a8b-a79335c9247c-1

#paperback #comedy #humor #betches #nonfiction 

How to Win at Basically Everything

LOOK, MAYBE YOU’RE A NICE GIRL, but we’re guessing you’re more like us or you probably wouldn’t have picked up this book. Not that we have a problem with girls who are nice people. But being nice is just not the way to get what you want. And this book is about getting what you want. Not in like a finding happiness, giving back to the world, being grateful for what you have sort of way. But in a ruling your world, being the most desired, powerful badass in the room way, so you can come out on top of any situation: guys, career, friends, enemies, whatever. How does a betch make that happen? Here are some highlights: DON’T BE EASY. DON’T BE POOR. DON’T BE UGLY. We didn’t come up with these life lessons. We’re just the ones who wrote it all down. This is not self-help. Self-help is for fat people and divorcées. This is how to deal with your problems when you have no problems. You’re welcome.

Nice Is Just a Place in France

7099427f-7a68-45d8-881d-e837bbff992c

Mississippi

February the fifteenth is a very special day for me. It is the day I gave birth to my first child. It is also the day my husband left me...I can only assume the two events weren't entirely unrelated. Claire has everything she ever wanted: a husband she adores, a great apartment, a good job. Then, on the day she gives birth to their first baby, James informs her that he's leaving her. Claire is left with a newborn daughter, a broken heart, and a postpartum body that she can hardly bear to look at. She decides to go home to Dublin. And there, sheltered by the love of a quirky family, she gets better. So much so, in fact, that when James slithers back into her life, he's in for a bit of a surprise.

Watermelon

b2aab1c7-5f39-4446-aa37-6429d2e7ed36-1

Fredrik Backman

Note: it has some writing and underlined sentences. It was there before I got it.

A cloth bag containing 10 paperback copies of the title, 1 large print edition, 1 audio book, that may also include a folder with sign out sheets.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

2698ee49-6d00-4271-84b4-7718789ba07d-1

Oregon

The Tao of Meow

Neil Gaiman

Florida

Fat Charlie Nancy's normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn't know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother. Now brother Spider is on his doorstep—about to make Fat Charlie's life more interesting . . . and a lot more dangerous.

Anansi Boys

660056e1-7a52-4a01-b083-b945eb4162a0-1

#paperback #nonfiction #autobiography #memoir #humor #biographies #memoirs 

"A collection of whimsical autobiographical essays by the Academy Award-nominated actress and star of Up in the Air recounts memorable milestones from her New England upbringing to the blockbuster films that have made her one of Hollywood's most popular actresses, "--Baker & Taylor.

Scrappy Little Nobody

702d4930-741a-47ac-9ef0-4e8e95c54f68-1

BOTM edition of the book. Never opened. Edges and dustcover intact 

A Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery

Arsenic and Adobo

Kevin Kwan

Envisioning a summer vacation in the humble Singapore home of a boy she hopes to marry, Chinese American Rachel Chu is unexpectedly introduced to a rich and scheming clan that strongly opposes their son's relationship with an American girl.

Browse by categories

Save this search

Trevor Noah

Born a Crime

Alexander McCall Smith

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth

Gretchen A. Wheelock

Haydn's Ingenious Jesting with Art

Samuel Shem; John Updike

The House of God

NA

Joke Books

Amy Poehler

Yes Please

Amy Poehler

Yes Please

Leslie Schnur

Late Night Talking

Andy Cohen

Glitter Every Day

Mazey Eddings

The Plus One & Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake

Syed M. Masood

The Bad Muslim Discount

Jorge Cham; Daniel Whiteson

We Have No Idea

Jeff Kinney

Wrecking Ball (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 14)

Marian Keyes

Rachel's Holiday

David Sedaris

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Joseph Fink; Jeffrey Cranor

Welcome to Night Vale

Betches

Nice Is Just a Place in France

Marian Keyes

Watermelon

Fredrik Backman

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

Waldo Japussy

The Tao of Meow

Neil Gaiman

Anansi Boys

Anna Kendrick

Scrappy Little Nobody

Mia P. Manansala

Arsenic and Adobo

Kevin Kwan

Crazy Rich Asians