The Humor & Satire category has 1,659 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.4★ across 12,280 ratings. The most-rated is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Summary
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. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.") and a galaxy full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!
©1980 Serious Productions Ltd (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Good Omens
Summary
The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist. Put New York Times best-selling authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett together...and all Hell breaks loose.
©1990 Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers
Everything Is F*cked
Summary
From the author of the international mega-best-seller The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck comes a counterintuitive guide to the problems of hope. We live in an interesting time. Materially, everything is the best it’s ever been - we are freer, healthier, and wealthier than any people in human history. Yet, somehow everything seems to be irreparably and horribly f*cked - the planet is warming, governments are failing, economies are collapsing, and everyone is perpetually offended on Twitter. At this moment in history, when we have access to technology, education, and communication our ancestors couldn’t even dream of, so many of us come back to an overriding feeling of hopelessness. What’s going on? If anyone can put a name to our current malaise and help fix it, it’s Mark Manson. In 2016, Manson published The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, a book that brilliantly gave shape to the ever-present, low-level hum of anxiety that permeates modern living. He showed us that technology had made it too easy to care about the wrong things, that our culture had convinced us that the world owed us something when it didn’t - and worst of all, that our modern and maddening urge to always find happiness only served to make us unhappier. Instead, the “subtle art” of that title turned out to be a bold challenge: to choose your struggle; to narrow and focus and find the pain you want to sustain. The result was a book that became an international phenomenon, selling millions of copies worldwide while becoming the number-one best seller in 13 different countries. Now, in Everthing Is F*cked, Manson turns his gaze from the inevitable flaws within each individual self to the endless calamities taking place in the world around us. Drawing from the pool of psychological research on these topics, as well as the timeless wisdom of philosophers such as Plato, Nietzsche, and Tom Waits, he dissects religion and politics and the uncomfortable ways they have come to resemble one another. He looks at our relationships with money, entertainment, and the internet, and how too much of a good thing can psychologically eat us alive. He openly defies our definitions of faith, happiness, freedom - and even of hope itself. With his usual mix of erudition and where-the-f*ck-did-that-come-from humor, Manson takes us by the collar and challenges us to be more honest with ourselves and connected with the world in ways we probably haven’t considered before. It’s another counterintuitive romp through the pain in our hearts and the stress of our soul. One of the great modern writers has produced another book that will set the agenda for years to come. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Mark Manson (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
Anxious People
Summary
A Simon & Schuster audiobook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener.
©2020 Fredrik Backman (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio
Heads Will Roll
Summary
ABOUT THIS AUDIBLE ORIGINAL Please note: This content is not for kids. It is for mature audiences only. This audio comedy features sexual content, adult language and themes, and violence against peasants and hobgoblins alike. Discretion is advised. Heads Will Roll is an Audible Original from Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon and her cocreator/costar (and real-life sister) Emily Lynne. Produced by Broadway Video, this is not an audiobook - it’s a 10-episode, star-studded audio comedy that features performances from Meryl Streep, Tim Gunn, Peter Dinklage, Queer Eye’s Fab Five, and so many more. Queen Mortuana of the Night Realm (McKinnon) and her ditsy raven minion JoJo (Lynne) receive a prophecy about a peasant uprising. Together, they must journey to find the “Shard of Acquiescence”, which will put down the rebellion and save the throne. Will their friendship survive sensitive generals, chatty sex slaves, whiny behemoths, princes with bird fetishes, and the notion of democracy? This raunchy satire also includes the wicked talents of Andrea Martin, Carol Kane, Audra McDonald, Aidy Bryant, Alex Moffat, Heidi Gardner, Chris Redd, Steve Higgins, Bob the Drag Queen, Esther Perel, and more. So, hold on to your head, and let the bad times roll.
©2019 The Broadway Video Group, Inc. (P)2019 The Broadway Video Group, Inc.
Beartown
Summary
2018 Audie Award Finalist for Fiction The number-one New York Times best-selling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream - and the price required to make it come true. People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semifinals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semifinal match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made, and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected. Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
©2017 Fredrik Backman (P)2017 S&S Audio
The Rosie Project
Summary
A first-date dud, socially awkward, and overly fond of quick-dry clothes, genetics professor Don Tillman has given up on love, until a chance encounter gives him an idea. He will design a questionnaire - a 16-page, scientifically researched questionnaire - to uncover the perfect partner. She will most definitely not be a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker or a late-arriver. Rosie is all these things. She is also fiery and intelligent, strangely beguiling, and looking for her biological father - a search that a DNA expert might just be able to help her with. The Rosie Project is a romantic comedy like no other. It is arrestingly endearing and entirely unconventional, and it will make you want to drink cocktails.
©2013 Graeme Simsion (P)2013 HarperCollins Canada
The Unhoneymooners
Summary
For two sworn enemies, anything can happen during the Hawaiian trip of a lifetime - even love - in this witty and swoon-worthy romance from the New York Times best-selling duo who “hilariously depict modern dating” (Us Weekly) and authors of Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating and Roomies. Olive is always unlucky: in her career, in love, in...well, everything. Her identical twin sister, Amy, on the other hand, is probably the luckiest person in the world. Her meet-cute with her fiancé is something out of a romantic comedy (gag), and she’s managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a series of internet contests (double gag). Worst of all, she’s forcing Olive to spend the day with her sworn enemy, Ethan, who just happens to be the best man. Olive braces herself to get through 24 hours of wedding hell before she can return to her comfortable, unlucky life. But when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning from eating bad shellfish, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. And now, there’s an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Hawaii up for grabs. Putting their mutual hatred aside for the sake of a free vacation, Olive and Ethan head for paradise, determined to avoid each other at all costs. But when Olive runs into her future boss, the little white lie she tells him is suddenly at risk to become a whole lot bigger. She and Ethan now have to pretend to be loving newlyweds, and her luck seems worse than ever. But the weird thing is that she doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, she feels kind of...lucky. With Christina Lauren’s “uniquely hilarious and touching voice” (Entertainment Weekly), The Unhoneymooners is a fun and charming romance that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt unlucky in love.
©2019 Christina Lauren (P)2019 Simon & Schuster
An Unwelcome Quest
Summary
Ever since Martin Banks and his fellow computer geeks discovered that reality is just a computer program to be happily hacked, they've been jaunting back and forth through time, posing as medieval wizards and having the epic adventures that other nerds can only dream of having. But even in their wildest fantasies, they never expected to end up at the mercy of the former apprentice whom they sent to prison for gross misuse of magic and all-around evil behavior. Who knew that the vengeful Todd would escape, then conjure a computer game packed with wolves, wenches, wastelands, and assorted harrowing hazards - and trap his hapless former friends inside it? Stripped of their magic powers, the would-be wizards must brave terrifying dangers, technical glitches, and one another's company if they want to see Medieval England - and their favorite sci-fi movies on VHS - ever again. Can our heroes survive this magical mystery torture? Or will it only lead them and their pointy hats into more peril?
©2015 Scott Meyer (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.
Us Against You
Summary
The number-one New York Times best-selling author of A Man Called Ove and Beartown returns with “a lyrical look at how a community heals, how families recover and how individuals grow” (The Washington Post). A small community tucked deep in the forest, Beartown is home to tough, hardworking people who don’t expect life to be easy or fair. No matter how difficult times get, they’ve always been able to take pride in their local ice hockey team. So it’s a cruel blow when they hear that Beartown ice hockey might soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for a rival team in the neighboring town of Hed, take in that fact. As the tension mounts between the two adversaries, a newcomer arrives who gives Beartown hockey a surprising new coach and a chance at a comeback. Soon a team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; always dutiful and eager-to-please Bobo; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the town’s enmity with Hed grows more and more acute. As the big game approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt intensifies. By the time the last goal is scored, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after everything, the game they love can ever return to something as simple and innocent as a field of ice, two nets, and two teams. Us against you. Here is a declaration of love for all the big and small, bright and dark stories that give form and color to our communities. With immense compassion and insight, Fredrik Backman reveals how loyalty, friendship, and kindness can carry a town through its most challenging days.
©2018 Fredrik Backman (P)2018 Simon & Schuster
Life, the Universe, and Everything
Summary
“Wild satire.... The feckless protagonist, Arthur Dent, is reminiscent of Vonnegut heroes.” (Chicago Tribune) The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky above their heads - so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals stand between the killer robots of Krikkit and their goal of total annihilation. They are Arthur Dent, a mild-mannered space and time traveler who tries to learn how to fly by throwing himself at the ground and missing; Ford Prefect, his best friend, who decides to go insane to see if he likes it; Slartibartfast, the indomitable vice president of the Campaign for Real Time, who travels in a ship powered by irrational behavior; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-president of the galaxy; and Trillian, the sexy space cadet who is torn between a persistent Thunder God and a very depressed Beeblebrox. How will it all end? Will it end? Only this stalwart crew knows as they try to avert "universal" Armageddon and save life as we know it - and don't know it! “Adams is one of those rare treasures: an author who, one senses, has as much fun writing as one has reading.” (Arizona Daily Star)
©1982 Serious Productions, Ltd. (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
MaddAddam
Summary
Audie Award Finalist, Science Fiction, 2014 A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Book A Best Book of the Year: The Guardian, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe and Mail A GoodReads Reader's Choice Bringing together Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, this thrilling conclusion to Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction trilogy points toward the ultimate endurance of community, and love. Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, newly fortified against man and giant pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. Their reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is recovering from a debilitating fever, so it's left to Toby to preach the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee, and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb. Zeb has been searching for Adam One, founder of the God's Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. But now, under threat of a Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters. At the center of MaddAddam is the story of Zeb's dark and twisted past, which contains a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear, and a bizarre act of revenge. Combining adventure, humor, romance, superb storytelling, and an imagination at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Margaret Atwood - a moving and dramatic conclusion to her internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy.
©2013 Margaret Atwood (P)2013 Random House Audio
NPCs
Summary
What happens when the haggling is done and the shops are closed? When the quest has been given, the steeds saddled, and the adventurers are off to their next encounter? They keep the world running, the food cooked, and the horses shoed, yet what adventurer has ever spared a thought or concern for the Non-Player Characters?In the town of Maplebark, four such NPCs settle in for a night of actively ignoring the adventurers drinking in the tavern when things go quickly and fatally awry. Once the dust settles, these four find themselves faced with an impossible choice: pretend to be adventurers undertaking a task of near-certain death or see their town and loved ones destroyed. Armed only with salvaged equipment, second-hand knowledge, and a secret that could get them killed, it will take all manner of miracles if they hope to pull off their charade. And even if they succeed, the deadliest part of their journey may well be what awaits them at its end.
©2014 Andrew Hayes (P)2014 Tantor
Barney's Version
Summary
Barney Panofsky - Canadian expat, wily lover of women, writer, television producer, raconteur - is finally putting pen to paper so he can rebut the charges about him made in his rival’s autobiography. Whether it’s ranting about his bohemian misadventures during the 1950s in Paris, his tumultuous three marriages, or his successful trashy TV company, Totally Unnecessary Productions, he quickly proves that his memory may be slipping, but his bile isn’t. But when he’s charged with the murder of his own best friend - caught in bed with the second Mrs. Panofsky - Barney’s version of things might not be enough to keep him out of trouble.
©1997 Mordecai Richler (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Memoirs and Misinformation
Summary
A New York Times Best Seller "None of this is real and all of it is true." (Jim Carrey) Meet Jim Carrey. Sure, he's an insanely successful and beloved movie star drowning in wealth and privilege - but he's also lonely. Maybe past his prime. Maybe even...getting fat? He's tried diets, gurus, and cuddling with his military-grade Israeli guard dogs, but nothing seems to lift the cloud of emptiness and ennui. Even the sage advice of his best friend, actor and dinosaur-skull collector Nicolas Cage, isn't enough to pull Carrey out of his slump. But then Jim meets Georgie: ruthless ingénue, love of his life. And with the help of auteur screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, he has a role to play in a boundary-pushing new picture that may help him uncover a whole new side to himself - finally, his Oscar vehicle! Things are looking up! But the universe has other plans. Memoirs and Misinformation is a fearless semi-autobiographical novel, a deconstruction of persona. In it, Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon have fashioned a story about acting, Hollywood, agents, celebrity, privilege, friendship, romance, addiction to relevance, fear of personal erasure, our "one big soul", Canada, and a cataclysmic ending of the world - apocalypses within and without.
©2020 Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon (P)2020 Random House Audio
Go the F--k to Sleep
Summary
Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) rocks this mock bedtime story, capturing a hilarious range of emotions as the voice of a father struggling to get his child to sleep. Go the F--k to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach’s profane, affectionate, and radically honest verses perfectly capture the familiar - and unspoken - tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, he opens up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations and laugh at their absurdity. Beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny, Go the F**k to Sleep is a book for parents new, old, and expectant. Due to its explicit language, you probably should not play it for your children. Feel free to share the link to this page with tired parents and other people who could use a good swear and a laugh.
©2011 Adam Mansbach. Cover Illustration © 2011 Ricardo Cortes. (P)2011 Audible, Inc.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Summary
“A madcap adventure...Adams’s writing teeters on the fringe of inspired lunacy.” (United Press International) Back on Earth with nothing more to show for his long, strange trip through time and space than a ratty towel and a plastic shopping bag, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription, the mysterious disappearance of Earth's dolphins, and the discovery of his battered copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all conspire to give Arthur the sneaking suspicion that something otherworldly is indeed going on. God only knows what it all means. Fortunately, He left behind a Final Message of explanation. But since it's light-years away from Earth, on a star surrounded by souvenir booths, finding out what it is will mean hitching a ride to the far reaches of space aboard a UFO with a giant robot. But what else is new? “The most ridiculously exaggerated situation comedy known to created beings.... Adams is irresistible.” (The Boston Globe)
©2006 Douglas Adams (P)2006 Random House, Inc.
Morningwood: Everybody Loves Large Chests (Vol.1)
Summary
Large chests are said to encompass all manner of hopes and dreams. Men covet them. Women envy them. But one fact holds true - everyone wants to get their hands on some big ones. The same holds true for one intrepid adventurer - a strapping young lad by the name of Himmel. Armed with his grandfather's trusty longsword and the dream of being the strongest, he sets out on the journey of a lifetime! It is sure to be a long and dangerous road, fraught with danger! And it all starts with a simple test - reach Level Five in the dungeon called the "newbie zone" and earn the right to become a full-fledged adventurer! However, such things get hopelessly derailed when his adolescent mind beholds an exposed chest for the first time - a fateful meeting that would inevitably lead his life in a direction he never even dreamed of! Content warning: Gore, violence, explicit sexual scenes Everybody Loves Large Chests was first brought to Jeff Hays on Soundbooth Theater Live, his live streaming narration show. Since then, it has been the most consistently requested and enjoyed title by fans. So much so, that Neven Iliev finally decided to approach us to put out a full audio version of the first arc in Boxxy's adventures! The Soundbooth Theater team for this production: Jeff Hays - Narration, Characters, Production Supervision Dalton Lynne - ProofingAlex Tate - Production, Editing, Mastering
©2017 Neven Iliev (P)2017 Jeff Hays
Fizzlesprocket: Everybody Loves Large Chests - Vol. 2
Summary
Things are not well within the Lodrak Empire. An entire city goes up in smoke and ash, and an entire province is slowly being consumed by an ever-expanding cloud of death. But while the humans rally to contain the fallout of this disaster, they are much quicker to pin the blame for it on their elven neighbors to the north. With centuries' worth of strife and bad blood between the two nations flaring up, all out war is rapidly becoming an inevitability. Powerful figures are already on the move. Some wish to unravel the mystery behind the dead city in order to bring the perpetrators to justice. Others are more than content enough to use this "act of terrorism" as an excuse to further the Empire's agenda. A select few are even planning on somehow turning this cataclysm into a weapon for the sake of their ambitions. The elves of the Ishigar Republic are hard at work undermining and sabotaging their old enemy, while the international community watches the ongoing situation with a critical eye. Even the Gods themselves are closely monitoring the situation, ready to intervene should they deem it necessary. However, though all these entities have different reasons and methods, they all have the same objective - to find the mastermind responsible for setting all this in motion. The same "mastermind" that is far too busy figuring out how wagons work to notice the world is stirring. Content warning: Profanity, gore, violence, explicit adult content.
©2018 Neven Iliev (P)2018 Soundbooth Theater
Split the Party
Summary
Fleeing from a vengeful king has sent the former NPCs across Solium's borders, into the kingdom of Alcatham. As wanted fugitives, they head to the small farming village of Briarwillow, hoping to blend in, lay low, and avoid trouble at all costs. Unfortunately, Briarwillow has problems all its own, and its troubles quickly become theirs. If they hope to survive long enough to escape, they'll have to tackle an all-but-forgotten mystery buried at the town's border as well as seek the wisdom of a mysterious group of mages. With time, magic, and at least one god against them, it will take everything they've got to save Briarwillow - and themselves.
©2015 Andrew Hayes (P)2015 Tantor