Funny Books

In A Dirty Job, Death comes in the form of a tall, black record store owner named Minty Fresh, who steals your wife's soul, confers upon you the job of Death Merchant, and leaves you and your newly born daughter to fend for yourselves among hellhounds, sewer harpies and an army composed mostly of reanimated squirrels.

Based loosely on Stephen Clarke's experiences in Paris, with names changed to avoid embarrassment and possible legal action, A Year In The Merde is the story of a 27-year-old Brit immersed in the contradictions of French culture.

Another collection of essays based on the diary that David Sedaris has kept every day for some thirty-odd years. Utterly addictive.

Andrew Fox has created an Ignatius Reilly (A Confederacy of Dunces) of the undead and as in John Kennedy Toole's famous novel, Fox takes full advantage of the exotic and eccentric nature of New Orleans.

From Stephen Colbert, the host of television's highest-rated punditry show The Colbert Report, comes the book to fill the other 23½ hours of your day.

Christopher Moore's irreverent, iconoclastic, and hilarious tale of the early life of Jesus Christ as witnessed by his boyhood pal, Biff.

Kelly Palamino is not crazy. Yes, water does talk to him: his toilet tells him to eat fish; his Water Pik quotes Ezra Pound. But Kelly Palamino is not crazy.

Chuck Klosterman's recent collection of essays that range topically from the music industry to "The Awe-Inspiring Beauty of Tom Cruise's Shattered, Troll-like Face."

Steve Martin's hilarious second novel relate the misadventures of a house-bound, obsessive-compulsive anti-hero.

Joshua Ferris nails the cynicism of corporate cubicle culture in his incisively hilarious first novel.