" In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures. PHC lasted forty-two years,...

Funny men don't necessarily have funny childhoods. Art Buchwald had to find his humor the hard way. In this poignant memoir, Buchwald writes with intimacy and candor about his early years- of a life constantly on the move and in the company of strangers. Shortly after he was born, he and his mother were separated. He tells of a childhood that took him from a Seventh-Day Adventist shelter to New York's Hebrew Orphan Asylum to a series of...

"Before Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Trevor Noah, and "Doonesbury," there was Art Buchwald. For more than fifty years, from 1950 to 2006, his Pulitzer Prize-winning column of political satire and biting wit made him one of the most widely read American humorists and a popular player in the Washington of Ethel and Ted Kennedy, Ben Bradlee, and Katharine Graham. Dean Acheson, former U.S. Secretary of State, called Buchwald the "greatest satirist in...

Shel Silverstein's drawings and comic poems are bedtime staples of millions of children, and biographer Rogak tells the story of a life as antic and adventurous as any of his creations. A man with an incurable case of wanderlust, Shel kept homes on both coasts and many places in between--and enjoyed regular stays in the Playboy Mansion. Everywhere he went he charmed neighbors, made countless friends, and romanced almost as many women. Much more than...

A biography of the man from Oklahoma, known for his wise and witty sayings.