In "Center of the Universe", God struggles to balance the demands of his career with the needs of his long-term girlfriend. In "Magical Mr. Goat", a young girl's imaginary friend yearns to become more than friends. In "Unprotected", an unused prophylactic recalls his years spent trapped inside a teen boy's wallet. The stories in Simon Rich's new audiobook are bizarre, funny, and yet...relatable. Rich explores love's many complications--losing it, finding it, breaking it, and making it--and turns the ordinary into the absurd.

From "one of the funniest writers in America" comes a collection of stories culled from the front lines of the millennial culture wars. Rife with failing rock bands, student loans, and participation trophies,

Spoiled Brats is about a generation of narcissists - and the well-meaning boomers who made them that way.

Laugh till you cry in this new collection of stories from the “Serena Williams of humor writing” (New York Times Book Review) about raising babies and trying to learn how not to be one.

Welcome to Heaven, Inc., the grossly mismanaged corporation in the sky. For as long as anyone can remember, the founder and CEO (known in some circles as "God") has been phoning it in. When God decides to retire (to pursue his lifelong dream of opening an Asian Fusion restaurant), he also decides to destroy Earth. The angels manage to strike a deal with their boss. He'll call off his Armageddon, if they can solve their toughest miracle yet: getting the two most socially awkward humans on the planet to fall in love.

Seymour is the least popular student at Glendale, a private school in Manhattan. His new nickname, “Chunk-Style”, is in danger of entering common usage. But then he meets the new transfer student: Elliot Allagash, evil heir of America’s largest fortune. Elliot’s rampant delinquency has already gotten him expelled from dozens of prep schools. But despite his best efforts, he can’t get himself thrown out of Glendale; his father has simply donated too much money. Bitter and bored, Elliot amuses himself by transforming Seymour into the most popular student in the school.

From wild and wacky to knee-slapping, laugh-out-loud fun, these humorous tales represent some of the best of recent seasons of the hit public radio series Selected Shorts. Comedian Wyatt Cenac gives a killer performance of Simon Rich’s hilarious tale of woe from the point of view of a condom in a young man’s wallet. Alec Baldwin gives a delightful over-the-top performance of James Thurber’s wonderfully silly classic tale of the day everybody in a small Ohio town thought the dam broke.

Read by an all-star cast and featuring a bonus story special to the audio edition, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door is a one-of-a-kind audiobook.... Bringing up a child, lying to the boss, placing an order in a fast-food restaurant: in Etgar Keret’s new collection, daily life is complicated, dangerous, and full of yearning. In his most playful and most mature work yet, the living and the dead, silent children and talking animals, dreams and waking life coexist in an uneasy world.

Tony, Emmy, and Golden Globe Award-winning actor John Lithgow (The Crown, Dexter, 3rd Rock from the Sun) brings his latest critically acclaimed Broadway performance to Audible. Stories by Heart celebrates the transcendent power of great literature and serves as a touching tribute to Lithgow’s late father, actor and director Arthur Lithgow.

Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it's a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news. The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity's music ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang.

Called “our finest black-humorist” by The Atlantic Monthly, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Now his first and last works come together for the first time in print, in a collection aptly titled after his famous phrase, We Are What We Pretend To Be.

The ex-planet Pluto has a few choice words about being thrown out of the solar system. A listing of alternate histories tells you all the various ways Hitler has died. A lawyer sues an interplanetary union for dangerous working conditions. And four artificial intelligences explain, in increasingly worrying detail, how they plan not to destroy humanity. Welcome to Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi.

From America's favorite storyteller, here are 18 new tales of Lake Wobegon, handpicked from live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion.

For Sewanee Chester, being an audiobook narrator is a long way from her old dreams, but the days of being a star on film sets are long behind her. She’s found success and satisfaction from the inside of a sound booth and it allows her to care for her beloved, ailing grandmother. When she arrives in Las Vegas last-minute for a book convention, Sewanee unexpectedly spends a whirlwind night with a charming stranger.

New York Times best-selling author, comedian, and actor Patton Oswalt shares his entertaining memoir about coming of age as a performer and writer in the late '90s while obsessively watching classic films at the legendary New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakeable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol, or sex. It was film.

In a small apartment, Black and White, as the two men are known, begin a conversation that leads each back through his own history, mining the origins of two fundamentally opposing world views. White is a professor whose seemingly enviable existence of relative ease has left him nonetheless in despair. Black, an ex-con and ex-addict, is the more hopeful of the menthough he is just as desperate to convince White of the power of faith as White is desperate to deny it.

All of 31 inches tall, Cady is a true survivor in a town where, as she says, "you can die of encouragement". Her early starring role as a lovable elf in an immensely popular American film proved a major disappointment, since moviegoers never saw the face behind the stifling rubber suit she was required to wear. Now, after a decade of hollow promises from the Industry, she is reduced to performing at birthday parties and bat mitzvahs as she waits for the miracle that will finally make her a star.

In a little dive in a small Israeli city, Dov Greenstein, a comedian a bit past his prime, is doing a night of stand-up. In the audience is a district court justice, Avishai Lazar, whom Dov knew as a boy, along with a few others who remember Dov as the awkward, scrawny kid who walked on his hands to confound the neighborhood bullies. Gradually, teetering between hilarity and hysteria, Dov's patter becomes a kind of memoir, taking us back into the terrors of his childhood.

When legendary film director Dorian Rasmirez gambles his fortune on an opulent remake of Wuthering Heights, he knows it’s his last chance to salvage his career. Thanks to a bitter public feud with producer Harry Greene, Dorian desperately needs a hit - a big one - and he’ll do anything to get it. Even cast Hollywood bad girl Sabrina Leon in the lead role. Plucked from obscurity, Sabrina catapulted to fame at an early age. Now the young starlet is as famous for her battles with drugs and alcohol as she is for her intoxicating beauty.

Once voted the Sexiest Man Alive, Jericho Beaumont dominated the box office before his fall from grace. Now poised for a comeback, he wants the role of Laramie bad enough to sign an outrageous contract with top producer Kate O'Laughlin--one that gives her the authority to supervise JB's every move. Despite her better judgment, Kate's attraction to JB flares into an explosive passion, but is she being charmed by the real Jericho--or the superstar who dazzles the world?

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist's work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents' madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficult to cope with life outside the fishbowl of their parents' strange world.

In Hollywood, fame can be found on every corner and behind any door. You just have to know where to look for it. Nineteen-year-old Madison Parker made a name for herself as best frenemy of nice-girl-next-door Jane Roberts on the hot reality show L.A. Candy. Now Madison's ready for her turn in the spotlight and she'll stop at nothing to get it. Sure, she's the star of a new show, but with backstabbing friends and suspicious family members trying to bring her down, Madison has her work cut out for her.

Mad scientists have never had it so tough. In super-hero comics, graphic novels, films, TV series, video games, and even works of what may be fiction, they are besieged by those who stand against them, devoid of sympathy for their irrational, megalomaniacal impulses to rule, destroy, or otherwise dominate the world as we know it. It’s just not fair. So those of us who are so twisted and sick that we love mad scientists have created this guide.

Fed up with her wild behavior, 16-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business. She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next.

Ryn has one unread text message on her phone. And it's been there for almost a year. She hasn't tried to read it. She can't. She won't. Because that one message is the last thing her best friend ever said to her before she died. But as Ryn finds herself trapped in the Denver International Airport on New Year's Eve thanks to a never-ending blizzard on the one-year anniversary of her best friend's death, fate literally runs into her. And his name is Xander.

After years in Wonderland, Alice has returned to England as an adult, desperate to reclaim sanity and control over her life. An enigmatic gentleman with an intriguing job offer too tempting to resist changes her plans for a calm existence. Soon, she's whisked to New York and initiated into the Collectors' Society, a secret organization whose members confirm that famous stories are anything but straightforward and that what she knows about the world is only a fraction of the truth.

When 12-year-old Cooper Vega moves for the third time in five years, he receives a state-of-the-art smartphone to help him stay in touch with old friends. He's had phones before, but this one is buggy and unpredictable. When a boy named Roderick Northrop communicates with him through the phone, Cooper realizes that his phone isn't buggy at all; the thing is haunted!

No one knows where the Tufa came from or how they ended up in the mountains of east Tennessee. When the first Europeans came to the Smoky Mountains, the Tufa were already there. Dark-haired and enigmatic, they live quietly in the hills and valleys of Cloud County, their origins lost to history. But there are clues in their music, hidden in the songs they have passed down for generations.

After losing her high-octane job as an entertainment blogger, Noelle Hancock was lost. About to turn 29, she'd spent her career writing about celebrities' lives and had forgotten how to live her own. Unemployed and full of self-doubt, she had no idea what she wanted out of life. She feared change - in fact, she feared almost everything. Once confident and ambitious, she had become crippled by anxiety, lacking the courage required even to attend a dinner party - until inspiration struck one day in the form of a quote on a chalkboard in a coffee shop.

With his tight muscles and vibrant ink, certified bachelor Reece Walker is the kind of man who’s used to having any woman he craves in his bed - except Jenna Montgomery. She’s been his best friend for years, and that’s a line he just can’t cross. Until a wild, stolen kiss changes everything. Now anything goes, and Reece is determined to use every wicked skill in his sensual repertoire to claim Jenna as his friend, his lover, his everything.

Tamara Collins is poised to become the next great American actress. The only problem is that Hollywood doesn't know it yet. Since her bills aren't paying themselves though, Tamara decides to sign on to star in the new stage play, It Should've Been Me. Tamara wants to just get in, get out, and get paid, but her co-stars - including Donovan Dobbs, her ex that left her at the altar, and Camille Woods, a young starlet with a serious grudge - could make this the worst decision Tamara's ever made.

Laugh till you cry in this new collection of stories from the “Serena Williams of humor writing” (New York Times Book Review) about raising babies and trying to learn how not to be one.

From "one of the funniest writers in America" comes a collection of stories culled from the front lines of the millennial culture wars. Rife with failing rock bands, student loans, and participation trophies,

Spoiled Brats is about a generation of narcissists - and the well-meaning boomers who made them that way.

In "Center of the Universe", God struggles to balance the demands of his career with the needs of his long-term girlfriend. In "Magical Mr. Goat", a young girl's imaginary friend yearns to become more than friends. In "Unprotected", an unused prophylactic recalls his years spent trapped inside a teen boy's wallet. The stories in Simon Rich's new audiobook are bizarre, funny, and yet...relatable. Rich explores love's many complications--losing it, finding it, breaking it, and making it--and turns the ordinary into the absurd.

Welcome to Heaven, Inc., the grossly mismanaged corporation in the sky. For as long as anyone can remember, the founder and CEO (known in some circles as "God") has been phoning it in. When God decides to retire (to pursue his lifelong dream of opening an Asian Fusion restaurant), he also decides to destroy Earth. The angels manage to strike a deal with their boss. He'll call off his Armageddon, if they can solve their toughest miracle yet: getting the two most socially awkward humans on the planet to fall in love.

From the Thurber Prize-winning author of New Teeth, hailed as “a triumph of sustained humor” (Sarah Lyall, New York Times Book Review), comes a hilarious and powerful collection of short stories chronicling the plight of aging millennials. ​