
Would Everybody Please Stop?
Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $14.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jenny Allen
-
By:
-
Jenny Allen
About this listen
In Would Everybody Please Stop?, a collection of first-person essays and humor pieces, Jenny Allen asks the tough questions: Why do people say "it is what it is"? What's the point of fat-free half-and-half? Why don't the women detectives on TV carry purses, and where are we supposed to think they keep all their stuff? And haven't we heard enough about memes?
Reporting from the potholes midway through life's journey, Allen addresses these and other more serious matters, like the rude awakenings of being single after 25 years, of mothering a teenager, and of living with a serious illness. She also discusses life's everyday trials, like the horrors of attempting a crafts project, the anxieties of being a houseguest, and the ever-changing rules of recycling. Allen is a performer at heart - her one-woman show I Got Sick Then I Got Better premiered in 2009, and she regularly acts in other plays - and she brings that same spirit to these 35 short essays, which sound like the work of a female Dave Barry. Writing on places both real (like a swag den for celebrities at Sundance and the parking lot at L.L. Bean's flagship store) and imaginary (a Buddhist retreat attended by Martha Stewart, Elmer Fudd's psychotherapy appointment), Allen's wit and compassion give a fresh slant on the vicissitudes of day-to-day and not so day-to-day life.
©2017 Jenny Allen (P)2017 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
-
-
Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
-
Calypso
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And it's as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
-
-
Excellent, as always
- By Ruthie on 05-31-18
By: David Sedaris
-
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
-
-
Sedaris is the gay Mark Twain.
- By Steve on 06-02-04
By: David Sedaris
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
-
-
Don't Start with this One
- By Elvie on 04-28-16
By: David Sedaris
-
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences.
-
-
Devout Fan Disappointed
- By FanB14 on 05-07-13
By: David Sedaris
-
Theft by Finding
- Diaries (1977-2002)
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print. Now, in Theft by Finding, Sedaris brings us his favorite entries. From deeply poignant to laugh-out-loud funny, these selections reveal with new intimacy a man longtime fans only think they know.
-
-
Don't hate me but...
- By Misty on 06-13-17
By: David Sedaris
-
Happy-Go-Lucky
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
-
-
Great except for an audio glitch
- By Rynnkins on 06-01-22
By: David Sedaris
-
Calypso
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And it's as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
-
-
Excellent, as always
- By Ruthie on 05-31-18
By: David Sedaris
-
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
-
-
Sedaris is the gay Mark Twain.
- By Steve on 06-02-04
By: David Sedaris
-
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
-
-
Don't Start with this One
- By Elvie on 04-28-16
By: David Sedaris
-
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences.
-
-
Devout Fan Disappointed
- By FanB14 on 05-07-13
By: David Sedaris
-
Theft by Finding
- Diaries (1977-2002)
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print. Now, in Theft by Finding, Sedaris brings us his favorite entries. From deeply poignant to laugh-out-loud funny, these selections reveal with new intimacy a man longtime fans only think they know.
-
-
Don't hate me but...
- By Misty on 06-13-17
By: David Sedaris
-
Naked
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the current mania for the memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview, a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.
-
-
Not the whole book
- By Gabriela on 03-09-13
By: David Sedaris
-
The Corrections
- A Novel
- By: Jonathan Franzen
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century--a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.
-
-
"Grandly Entertaining"? Really?
- By Georgia Burns on 10-08-13
By: Jonathan Franzen
-
Medium Raw
- A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
- By: Anthony Bourdain
- Narrated by: Anthony Bourdain
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 10 years since his classic Kitchen Confidential first alerted us to the idiosyncrasies and lurking perils of eating out, much has changed for the subculture of chefs and cooks, for the restaurant business and for Anthony Bourdain. Medium Raw explores those changes, tracking Bourdain's strange and unexpected voyage from journeyman cook to globe-traveling professional eater and drinker, and even to fatherhood. Bourdain takes no prisoners as he dissects what he's seen.
-
-
Surprisingly tender.
- By Sparkly on 10-09-12
By: Anthony Bourdain
-
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life
- Essays
- By: Samantha Irby
- Narrated by: Samantha Irby
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether Samantha Irby is talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets; explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette; detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes; sharing awkward sexual encounters; or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms (hang in there for the Costco loot!); she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.
-
-
There, But For The Grace Of God
- By Anthony Robertson on 11-20-17
By: Samantha Irby
-
The Arrangement
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Dunn
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucy and Owen, ambitious, thoroughly-therapized New Yorkers, have taken the plunge, trading in their crazy life in a cramped apartment for Beekman, a bucolic Hudson Valley exurb. They've got a 200-year-old house, an autistic son obsessed with the Titanic, and 17 chickens, at last count. It's the kind of paradise where stay-at-home moms team up to cook the school's "hot lunch", dads grill grass-fed burgers, and, as Lucy observes, "chopping kale has become a certain kind of American housewife's version of chopping wood".
-
-
Great Story!
- By Teresa on 05-16-17
By: Sarah Dunn
-
The Antelope in the Living Room
- The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life
- By: Melanie Shankle
- Narrated by: Melanie Shankle
- Length: 4 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the story of a real marriage. Marriage is simultaneously the biggest blessing and the greatest challenge two people can ever take on. It is the joy of knowing there is someone to share in your joys and sorrows, and the challenge of living with someone who thinks it’s a good idea to hang a giant antelope head on your living room wall.
-
-
Love love love
- By Katie on 08-21-15
By: Melanie Shankle
-
Motherhood and Hollywood
- How to Get a Job Like Mine
- By: Patricia Heaton
- Narrated by: Patricia Heaton
- Length: 4 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everybody knows that Patricia Heaton plays the hilarious, wise, and tempestuous married-with-kids everywoman on Everybody Loves Raymond. What they might not know is that in real life, she is married, has four boys under eight years old, and is just as funny offscreen as on. Motherhood and Hollywood is Patricia Heaton’s humorous and poignant collection of essays on life, love, marriage, child-rearing, show business, having parents, being a parent, spousal rage, surviving fame, success, and the shame of underarm flab. She is warm, witty, and refreshingly irreverent.
-
-
Fast Read.
- By TLKKnitting on 02-02-21
By: Patricia Heaton
-
Nothing to Prove
- Why We Can Stop Trying So Hard
- By: Jennie Allen
- Narrated by: Jennie Allen
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are you tired inside and out? Are you trying your best to measure up - yet you still feel as if you're losing ground and missing out on the best parts of life? You are not alone. Jennie Allen understands the daily struggle so many of us face with inadequacy and insecurity and the fear that we are not enough. And she invites us into a different experience, one in which our souls overflow with contentment and joy.
-
-
Not convinced
- By A-ZMom on 04-27-17
By: Jennie Allen
-
Jeneration X
- One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Such a Pretty Fat, Jen Lancaster learned how to come to terms with her body. In My Fair Lazy, she expanded her mind. Now, the New York Times best-selling author gives herself - and her generation - a kick in the X, by facing her greatest challenge to date: acting her age. Jen is finally ready to put away childish things (except her Barbie Styling Head, of course) and embrace the investment-making, mortgage-carrying, life insurance-having adult she's become.
-
-
Super Jen Lancaster Fans Be Warned...
- By Amazon Customer on 05-02-12
By: Jen Lancaster
-
Stories I'd Tell in Bars
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster, John Fletcher
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Older, but not wiser, Lancaster goes back to basics in this hilarious essay collection about everything from taking community policing classes to accidentally getting high with her waiter after a fancy dinner. These are the tales she'd tell if she met you in a bar... if she weren't too lazy to put on pants and go to a bar. Offering advice ranging from how to remain happily married to a man who refuses to blow his damn nose already to not creating An Incident at the cheese counter during an attempt at Whole30, she's you, only louder.
-
-
self absorbed
- By D D H on 06-15-19
By: Jen Lancaster
-
Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog
- The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman
- By: Lisa Scottoline
- Narrated by: Lisa Scottoline, Francesca Serritella
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At last, together in one collection, are Lisa Scottoline's wildly popular Philadelphia Inquirer columns. In her column, Lisa lets her hair down, roots and all, to show the humorous side of life from a woman's perspective. The Sunday column debuted in 2007 and on the day it started, Lisa wrote, "I write novels, so I usually have 100,000 words to tell a story. In a column there's only 700 words. I can barely say hello in 700 words. I'm Italian."
-
-
Hilarious book, great on the road
- By Joy on 01-01-11
By: Lisa Scottoline
-
What Doesn't Kill You
- By: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Narrated by: Virginia DeBerry, Donna Grant
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What Doesn't Kill You is the story of how Thomasina Hodges, a.k.a. Tee, loses her job and finds herself. Tee's evolution after her sudden and unexpected outplacement, is loosely based on the stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, relinquishing, readjusting, and reinvesting. For Tee, losing her job is like a death, but with time, and some bumps, bruises and a new attitude, she comes out on the other side, having reassessed what's important in her life.
-
-
Excellent story
- By Doris Greene on 04-11-24
By: Virginia DeBerry, and others
Critic reviews
What listeners say about Would Everybody Please Stop?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- May
- 07-04-17
Too much interference from cursing
Wish I knew about the use of curse words every 5 sentences. Makes jokes seem like the back drop....like clean satire... it works better for me...
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dillyn Ketterman
- 07-02-17
Nonsense
Was excited about this book, heard about it on NPR and the interview made it seem promising. It was spastic and nonsensical and what the heck was the Elmer Fud bit?!?! Terrible. Listened for 3 hours just waiting for it to get good, never happened.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Story
- Christa Kendall
- 10-11-18
UGH! Too much bitching!
If I wanted to hear this much bitching, I would have finished Anthony Bourdain's book 'Medium Raw'.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!