Yes Please by Amy Poehler

$14.00 NZD

Category: Biography | Reading Level: very good

Now We are Sixty by Christopher Matthew

$10.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: very good

A collection of poems, some of which are about realising we are not as young as we thought, while some are about the more disconcerting problems of modern life; mobile telephones on trains, anti-social behaviour, traffic jams and the internet.

Footrot Flats Weekender by Murray Ball

$12.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand | Reading Level: very good

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

$10.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: good

From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame.'It's about the terror, isn't it?''The terror of what?' I said.'The terror of being found out.'For the past three years, Jon Ronson h as travelled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us - people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work. Once their transgression is revealed, collective outrage circles with the force of a hurricane and the next thing they know they're being torn apart by an angry mob, jeered at, demonized, sometimes even fired from their job.A great renaissance of public shaming is sweeping our land. Justice has been democratized. The silent majority are getting a voice. But what are we doing with our voice? We are mercilessly finding people's faults. We are defining the boundaries of normality by ruining the lives of those outside it. We are using shame as a form of social control.Simultaneously powerful and hilarious in the way only Jon Ronson can be, So You've Been Publicly Shamed is a deeply honest book about modern life, full of eye-opening truths about the escalating war on human flaws - and the very scary part we all play in it. ...Show more

The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose from William Caxton to P. G. Wodehouse: A Conducted Tour by Frank Muir

$18.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: very good

Billy T: The Life and Times of Billy T. James by Matt Elliott

$14.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: good

Billy T James was a larger-than-life comedian who gave us some of our best belly laughs. An accomplished singer and musician, he created enduring characters, poking the borax at the oh-so-delicate state of race relations in New Zealand in a way that stood him head and shoulders above other performers of his era. Like John Clarke's Fred Dagg, Billy T's characters were Kiwi through and through and we loved him for it. When he died in his early forties, of complications following a heart transplant, the nation was shocked - first by his premature death, and then by one of the first highly publicised interracial body-snatching incidents. His Pakeha wife and his iwi disagreed over funeral arrangements, ending in the taking by force of his body from their home in Auckland to a marae in Ngaruawahia. The sight of iwi and family battling in the media and reports of his body being transported in a van made sickening headlines. His widow, Lynn Matthews, and a number of Billy's closest friends who have kept their silence until now, have cooperated with author Matt Elliott to tell the story of the man behind the cheeky grin and the infectious laugh. What emerges is the shy, self-doubting man the public never saw, and the death threats and exploitation of his generous nature that placed intolerable strain on the man who only ever wanted to make us laugh. The result is perceptive, funny and endearing - just like the man himself. ...Show more

1066 and all that by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman

$6.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: very good

The Twelve Days of Christmas by John Julius Norwich

$8.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: very good

My dearest darling- That partridge, in that lovely little pear tree! What an enchanting, romantic, poetic present! Bless you and thank you. Your deeply loving Emily Everyone knows the 'Twelve days of Christmas', but not as rewritten by John Julius Norwich in this delightful correspondence, which records the daily thank-you letters from one increasingly bemused young lady to her unseen admirer. And who but Quentin Blake could exploit the full comic possibilities of this hilarious debacle as first birds, then maids and finally the full percussion section of the Liverpool Philharmonic create mayhem in the calm of an English country Christmas? ...Show more

At My Wit’s End. Columns and Stories by John Lapsley

$10.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: very good

At My Wit's End is a collection of John Lapsley's best columns from the ODT, plus several from other magazines and newspapers in New Zealand and Australia. It includes a humorous short story written for this book - The Millbrook Golf Murder. John Lapsley's popular Wit's End column takes a prime posit ion on the Opinion Page of the Otago Daily Times, He has a large following in the South. The ODT's daily readership is 98,000.Over the years John has written five newspaper columns, and rates Wit's End his favourite. He's enjoyed total freedom to do what he does best - amusing his readers, while also giving them pause for thought.In 2013 Wit's End was one of the three finalists chosen in the strongly contested Columnist category of the Cannon Media Awards. ...Show more

Cautionary Verses by Hilaire Belloc

$16.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: very good

This classic for children, aged six upwards, and adults alike is a collection of poems of moral instruction. The original illustrations by B.T.B are coupled with new pictures by Quentin Blake.

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin

$12.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: very good

In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded on to the comedy scene. By 1978, he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. This book is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away." Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written. At age ten, Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practised and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes. Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times -- the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies. Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time. ...Show more

When You Find Out the World is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments by Kelly Oxford

$15.00 NZD

Category: Humour | Reading Level: very good

The author of the New York Times bestseller Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar returns with a deeper and even funnier new collection of essays about the pleasures and perils of living in Kelly Oxford's head. Kelly Oxford likes to blow up the internet. Whether it is with the kind of Tweets that lea d Rolling Stone to name her one of the Funniest People on Twitter or with pictures of her hilariously adorable family (human and animal) or with something much more serious, like creating the hashtag #NotOkay, where millions of women came together to share their stories of sexual assault, Kelly has a unique, razor-sharp perspective on modern life. As a screen writer, professional sh*t disturber, wife and mother of three, Kelly is about everything but the status quo. Perfect for anyone who ever wished David Sedaris and Mindy Kaling would just finally write a book together already, When You Find Out the World is Against You is filled with the biting, wise, and laugh-out-loud insights that have won Kelly legions of fans. Whether she's detailing her obsession as an eleven-year-old with going to camp so she can become a "kissing bandit," exploring the bittersweet boredom that so often accompanies parenthood, calling out the insanity of a posse of internet poodle vigilantes, writing bracingly about the anxiety that has plagued her as long as she can remember or taking us to ride shotgun as she stalks her husband on an accidental date with another man, When You Find Out the World Is Against You is Kelly at her most honest and disarmingly funny best. Her comedic skill, down-to-earth voice, and bull's-eye observations on the absurdity of modern life mean there is nothing quite like seeing the world through Kelly's eyes. ...Show more