Frank Carlson Library

"In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who's best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children--everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers' communication skills ("they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news"), to the eating habits of four year olds ("there is no difference...

"Mo Rocca has always loved obituaries -- reading about the remarkable lives of world leaders, captains of industry, innovators and artists. But not every notable life has gotten the send-off it deserves. With Mobituaries -- the book companion to the CBS podcast of the same name -- the journalist, humorist, and history buff is righting that wrong, profiling the people who have long fascinated him -- from the 20th century's greatest entertainer... to...

"No comedian could have written the joke this election cycle has been. The punch line is too ridiculous (whoever the punch line is going to be). Or, as celebrated political satirist, journalist, and diehard Republican P.J. O'Rourke put it in his endorsement of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton: "America is experiencing the most severe outbreak of mass psychosis since the Salem witch trials of 1692." In his latest book, P.J. brings his critical...

The film critic best known for his "Chicago Sun-Times" reviews and his thirty years as co-host of "Siskel & Ebert at the Movies" describes his life and career, including his recovery from alcoholism and the complications from thyroid cancer treatment.

Light is currency, light is big business on Gliese 581g. Severum Rivenshear makes a living hunting those who steal it in the form of fireflies, just to have enough light to live by. He works in the icy, perpetually dark hemisphere of Evig Natt where the sun is nothing more than an absent deity. The rest of the world pursues every pleasure beneath a sun that never sleeps. A feminist organization called O.A.K. attempts to increase planetary rotation...

Erma Bombeck takes on the unforgiving frontier of American suburbia For years, the Bombecks have heard rumors of a magical land called Suburbia where the air is clean, the grass is trimmed, and children don't risk getting mugged on their walk to school. After watching their friends flee the city for subdivided utopias like Bonaparte's Retreat and Mortgage Mañana, Erma and her family load up their belongings and cry, Station wagons... ho!"   But...

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, David Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. Sedaris sets his powers of observation toward middle age and mortality, that vertiginous...

Put the country's big, fat political ass on a diet. Lose that drooping deficit. Slim those spreading entitlement programs. Firm up that flabby pair of butt cheeks which are the Senate and the House. Having had a lot of fun with what politicians do, P.J. O'Rourke now has a lot of fun with what we should think about those politicians. Nothing good, to be sure. bestselling humorist P.J. O'Rourke is back with his latest political masterpiece, Don't Vote...

Sharing anecdotes from his own life, the popular comedian details his odyssey from small-town Texas to the often baffling world of fame and fortune.

"The Fox News host and popular conservative figure shares his views and observations on modern liberalism in the U.S.