検索キーワード： 制作 "Phoenix Books" コメディー・落語

Political provocateur Bill Maher tells it like it is in a useful and hilarious guide for the many Americans who want to do more here at home to help the war effort, but are at a loss as to what. Thirty-three dynamic posters and several classics from our government's archive—accompanied by text from one of our leading pundits and cutting-edge comedians—make this the perfect book for this time in our nation's history, the zeitgeist of post-9/11 America. This is the book that will help Americans make the connections between what we do and how it can help our troops and ourselves.

If there's even a smidgen of Scrooge in your psyche, just say, "Bah-Humbug!" and laugh at this satire of the treacly best seller, The Christmas Box. Among the variations on the theme are: The Christmas Vox, in which a young man finds himself having phone sex with Ms. Santa Claus; The Christmas Jury Box, a touching memoir by a sequestered O.J. juror who misses her fruitcake; and The Christmas Box Lunch, the touching tale of a caterer's X-mas. You'll be pleased to learn that the true meaning of Christmas is receiving.

"Isn't so and so a snob?" he asks. "She won't even admit she liked Grease." Looking for an author who ponders the imponderable, expresses the inexpressible, describes the indescribable, and leaves no burning issue of American popular culture or world concern unexamined? Well, you'll find him in Mark Leyner. On this recording, Leyner, one of the most gifted and original young American writers around, reads 6 prose pieces from his first published book.

Subtitled "512 boorish, insensitive, and socially obnoxious pointers for leading a simple, self-centered life," this little book is a hilarious parody of the best seller with a similar name. Here are just a few of the gems contained within. Number 24: Give little kids clothes for their birthdays. Number 101: Argue with everybody. Number 326: Leave the alarm on when he doesn't have to get up. This guide is bound to bring at least 512 laughs.

When Dave Barry goes mano a mano with the Information Superhighway, it's guaranteed to be a rip-roaring adventure. This self-proclaimed computer geek and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist starts with the motto, "Never read the instructions," and slides from there into the world of hardware, software, Windows 95, and the critical issue of RAM ("the bottom line is, if you're a guy, you cannot have enough RAM").

This is the story of Bronx-born David Kokolovitz and his hilarious experiences with sex, Shakespeare, and the South Pacific. We follow David on his journey away from his Bronx home in search of an acting career. In a comedy of opposites, New Yorker David ends up living in the Deep South where he lands his first acting job at a southern Shakespeare repertory company. Just as the hazards of too-tight tights and too-long soliloquies become too much for him, World War II conveniently breaks out and he moves on to entertain the troops.

The place: New York. The time: the early 1980s. The scene: the red-hot comedy clubs, very late at night. The cast: five would-be stand-up comics, their egos, and their girls. The result: a downright hilarious novel about trying to be funny for fame, fortune, and fornication. This is Bill Maher's report from the front, a stageside table at the birth of the comedy boom. You'll laugh in all the right places.

Sick of working your way to the top? America's most popular humorist, Dave Barry, shows you the alternate route, giving you tools to become the head of a major corporation in roughly a week. His surefire tips, from what shirt to wear to how to deal with pesky subordinates, will keep you laughing all the way up the corporate ladder.

Here is the absolute best of Dave Barry; selections from four of his most popular books, including the hilarious Guide to Guys. Dave Barry is on the loose and no one is safe....

In vignettes both comic and sexy, the owner of a coffee shop recalls the day his first wife seemed to achieve a moment of simple perfection, while she remembers the women's softball game during which she was stricken by the beauty of the shortstop. A young couple spends hours at the coffee shop fueling the idea of their fierce love. A professor of philosophy, stopping by for a cup of coffee, makes a valiant attempt to explain what he knows to be the inexplicable workings of the human heart.

From the comic mind of the one and only Jonathan Winters comes this side-splitting collection of the comedian's most off-the-wall antics and impressions. Grandma Frickert, Chester Honeyhugger, and other comic characters all make appearances on this best-of compilation.

America's most beloved writer, Lilian Jackson Braun, author of twenty-four Cat Who... mysteries is now the subject of a mystery herself. In this spoof by one of her most ardent admirers, her beheaded body has been discovered in the men's room of a gay bar in Lower Manhattan. The police are baffled, and so it is up to Braun's eccentric writer friend, James Q. (Qafka), and his Siamese cats Ying-Ton and Poon-Tang to solve the ghastly mystery.

Without bothering to get approval from the President, the State Department, or even the FTC, Dave Barry's publishers sent him to Tokyo. You'd think they would have known better. Now the word is Barry has set back our diplomatic relations with the whole Pacific Rim by a couple of decades. Japanese culture, dining, sport, and industry all come under Barry's relentless scrutiny.

Ever notice how bad song lyrics get stuck in your head? It's not just you. After Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry's column about this tendency, reader response was enormous. But Barry didn't know what he was getting himself into when he invited his Legion of Alert Readers to submit their nominees in the Bad Song Survey. "Song badness," he soon learned, "is an issue that Americans care deeply about."

This is an equal opportunity recording! No race, sex, ethnic group, religion, profession or recreational activity escapes the slings and arrows of this outrageous compendium of jokes, barbs and fabricated anecdotes. From mother superiors to ventriloquists, from hat-check girls to senators, everybody gets a dose of not-so-gentle humility in the course of this merciless, raunchy performance.

Introducing Sissy Hankshaw—an almost flawlessly beautiful small-town girl with big-time dreams—who hitchhikes her way into your heart, your hopes, and your sleeping bag. Along her travels, meet such unforgettable characters as Bonanza Jellybean and the smooth-riding cowgirls of Rubber Rose Ranch; the unfortunately named Chink, a lascivious guru of yams and yang; Julian, an asthmatic esthete and husband by disposition; and Dr. Robbins, a preventive psychiatrist and reality instructor.

From the grand old man of comedy, George Burns, to the up-to-the minute observations of today's everyman, Dave Barry, these great humorists share one thing in common: their very individual, often raucously funny perceptions of the world around them.

For decades, beloved humorist Dave Barry has tackled the major tribulations—not to mention the petty annoyances—of everyday life. In Babies and Other Hazards of Sex, Barry offers his wacky perspective on sex, childbirth, parenting, and other forms of slow, cruel torture. For instance, Dave exposes natural childbirth for what it is: a pop phenomenon of the 1960s that, along with paisley bell-bottoms and creative sideburns, deserves a rest.

Guy Grand—billionaire by birth, entrepreneur by avocation, and thoroughly unpredictable—is a grand guy. He "keeps his hand in"—buying into and revolutionizing industries ranging from championship boxing to African safaris. Is he a crackpot, an eccentric, or perhaps a visionary with a goal of social redemption?

This sequel to Beaches picks up after the tragic death of Bertie Barron, who has entrusted the care of her eight-year-old daughter, Nina, to her best friend, the dazzling entertainer Cee Cee Bloom. But life in the Hollywood spotlight never prepared Cee Cee for this role: mother to a little girl she barely knows. For several years, it all seems to work for her: career, motherhood, and even high-profile romance with a marvelous and unlikely lover.