Audiobooks narrated by Roy Blount Jr.

Garrison Keillor (Author), Calvin Trillin, Paula Poundstone, Roy Blount Jr., Roy Blount, Jr. (Narrator)

Audiobook

It is an entertaining mix of knock-knocks, one-liners, North Dakota, religious, animal, bar, and light bulb jokes, those famous "yo mama" insults and much more. This live recording features guests Roy Blount, Jr. and Paula Poundstone. Pretty Good Jokes is for A Prairie Home Companion fans and all fans unaffected good humor.

Garrison Keillor (Author), Garrison Keillor, Paula Poundstone, Roy Blount Jr. (Narrator)

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Even More Pretty Good Jokes

Even more of a good thing: the latest collection of knee-slappers, toe-tappers, and groaners from A Prairie Home Companion Joke Shows. Did you hear the one about the paranoid dyslexic? He always thought he was following someone. . . . Why did ancient Romans close down the Coliseum? The lions were eating up the prophets. . . . Jokes are made for sharing, and everyone loves to laugh. This nonstop collection gathers the best jokes from four Joke Shows including the two most recent (3/8/2008 and 11/1/08), all recorded before live audiences at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. Performers include show regulars, Garrison Keillor, Sue Scott, Tim Russell, Tom Keith, along with special guests. There's music from the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, a Guy Noir sketch, a Catchup sketch, and an unforgettable performance of "The Sound of Chickens," a song that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Simon & Garfunkel classic "The Sound of Silence." Except it really is about chickens, and while "The Sound of Silence" is dead serious, this version is just plain silly. ("And in the naked light I saw/Ten thousand chickens maybe more.") So it's everything fans want and expect: good jokes, good music, and a pretty darned good time.

Garrison Keillor (Author), Ensemble Cast, Roy Blount Jr. (Narrator)

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Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their

Ali G: How many words does you know? Noam Chomsky: Normally, humans, by maturity, have tens of thousands of them. Ali G: What is some of 'em? - Youtube.com After forty years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, except greeting cards, Roy Blount Jr. still can't get over his ABCs. In Alphabet Juice, he celebrates the juju, the sonic and kinetic energies of letters and their combinations. Blount does not prescribe proper English. The franchise he claims is "over the counter" and concentrates more on questions such as these: Did you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince? Three and a half centuries ago, Sir Thomas Blount produced Blount's Glossographia, the first dictionary to explore derivations of English words. This Blount's Glossographia takes that pursuit to other levels. It rejects the standard linguistic notion that the connection between words and their meanings is "arbitrary." Even the word arbitrary is shown to be no more arbitrary, at its roots, than go-to guy or crackerjack. From sources as venerable as the OED (in which Blount finds an inconsistency, at whisk) and as fresh as Urbandictionary.com (to which Blount has contributed the number-one definition of "alligator arm"), and especially from the author's own wide-ranging experience, Alphabet Juice derives an organic take on language that is unlike, and more fun than, any other.

Jr. Roy Blount, Roy Blount Jr. (Author), Jr. Roy Blount, Roy Blount Jr. (Narrator)

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Long Time Leaving

A sly, dry, hilarious collection of writings from Roy Blount Jr., who, according to The New York Times Book Review, is " in serious contention for the title of America's most cherished humorist." This time Blount focuses on his own dueling loyalties across the great American divide, North vs. South. Scholarly, raunchy, biting and affable, ol' Roy takes on topics ranging from chicken fingers to Elvis's toes. And he shares experiences: chatting with Ray Charles, rounding up rattlesnakes, and imagining Faulkner's tennis game. His yarns, analyses, and flights of fancy transcend all standard shades of Red, Blue, and in between. Long Time Leaving is a comic ode to American variety and also a droll assault on complacency North and South— a glorious union of diverse pieces reshaped and expanded into an American classic.

Roy Blount Jr. (Author), Roy Blount Jr. (Narrator)

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Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans

“Betcha I can tell ya / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Betchadollar, / Betchadollar, / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Got your shoes on your feet, / Got your feet on the street, / And the street’s in Noo / Awlins, Loo- / Eez-ee-anna. Where I, for my part, first ate a live oyster and first saw a naked woman with the lights on. . . . Every time I go to New Orleans I am startled by something.” So writes Roy Blount Jr. in this exuberant, character-filled saunter through a place he has loved almost his entire life—a city “like no other place in America, and yet (or therefore) the cradle of American culture.” Here we experience it all through his eyes, ears, and taste buds: the architecture, music, romance (yes, sex too), historical characters, and all that glorious food. The book is divided into eight Rambles through different parts of the city. Each closes with lagniappe—a little bit extra, a special treat for the reader: here a brief riff on Gennifer Flowers, there a meditation on naked dancing. Roy Blount knows New Orleans like the inside of an oyster shell and is only too glad to take us to both the famous and the infamous sights. He captures all the wonderful and rich history—culinary, literary, and political—of a city that figured prominently in the lives of Jefferson Davis (who died there), Truman Capote (who was conceived there), Zora Neale Hurston (who studied voodoo there), and countless others, including Andrew Jackson, Lee Harvey Oswald, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Jelly Roll Morton, Napoléon, Walt Whitman, O. Henry, Thomas Wolfe, Earl Long, Randy Newman, Edgar Degas, Lillian Hellman, the Boswell Sisters, and the Dixie Cups. Above all, though, Feet on the Street is a celebration of friendship and joie de vivre in one of America’s greatest and most colorful cities, written by one of America’s most beloved humorists. Also available as a Random House AudioBook From the Hardcover edition.

Jr. Roy Blount, Roy Blount, Roy Blount Jr. (Author), Jr. Roy Blount, Roy Blount, Roy Blount Jr. (Narrator)

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A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage

"Upon the border of a remote and out-of-the-way village in south-western Missouri lived an old farmer named John Gray. . . ." In 1876, the same year The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was published, Mark Twain wrote a story for The Atlantic Monthly. He meant it as a "blind novelette", a challenge to other writers to submit their own ending of the story in a national competition. Twain asked his editor at The Atlantic to request submissions from leading authors of the day, including Henry James. Perhaps because few writers could write as well as Twain, no one responded, and Twain's original complete manuscript languished in literary hibernation. It was rediscovered in 1995 and appear in The Atlantic Monthly in 2001, having come full circle. Set in the fictional town of Deer Lick, Missouri, A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage chronicles the fortunes of a farmer determined to have his daughter marry the son of a wealthy man. It's a charming story in the Twain tradition and a delightful addition to his legacy.

Mark Twain (Author), Garrison Keillor, Roy Blount Jr. (Narrator)

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Not Exactly What I Had in Mind

'It's my belief that sanity lies in realizing that reality is not exactly what we had in mind,' says Roy Blount, Jr. in this witty collection of essays. With humor that is wry, dry, and warm, he delights and provokes us by confronting the reality of American life compared to the way we thought it would be. With his characteristic drawl-or 'oral resonance,' as he calls it-he reflects on John Wayne, the federal deficit, women's underwear, and more.

Roy Blount Jr. (Author), Roy Blount Jr. (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Roy Blount Jr.