Humor in funny places

A Dirty Job
By Christopher Moore
HarperAudio, unabridged fiction, 10 CDs, 12 hours, $39.95, read by Fisher Stevens. Also available as a download from audible.com, $19.58.

Possible Side Effects
By Augusten Burroughs
Audio Renaissance, unabridged nonfiction, seven CDs, nine hours, $29.95, read by the author. Also available as a download from audible.com, $20.97.

Babylon by Bus
By Ray Lemoine and Jeff Neumann with Donovan Webster
Penguin Audio, unabridged nonfiction, seven CDs, eight hours, $39.95, read by Jeremy Davidson. Also available as a download from audible.com, $19.58.

Sometimes you just need to listen to something completely silly, surreal, funny, and light, but not stupid. Never stupid. And Christopher Moore's "A Dirty Job" fits the bill perfectly.

Moore writes strange comedic novels that have nothing to do with reality, though he does make his weird worlds come to life. And while this didn't make me laugh until I had a headache, as did his previous audiobook, "The Stupidest Angel," it made me laugh out loud often enough to want to encourage other folks with a sense of the offbeat to give it a listen.

Death is not usually cause for a laughfest, but when an unfortunate San Francisco thrift-shop owner is recruited as a soul collector for the Grim Reaper, forces of darkness begin to collect in the sewer system, and a Buddhist costume designer begins making period clothing for her "squirrel people," you know this is not your usual novel about such sensitive subjects as death and the afterlife.

The protagonist is one Charles Asher, a nice guy who loses his nice wife in childbirth and then finds himself employed as a "Death Merchant," even though he does not want the job. Asher is also a typical beta male -- he's careful, he's cautious, he's much more likely to be reactive than proactive. Narrator Fisher Stevens convincingly slips into the part, giving us a character amazed and surprised at his new role in life and beyond, but one who sounds believable.

Stevens understands Moore, so he is able to sound incredulous, pained, annoyed, and occasionally heroic without overdoing it. He also manages to change his voice convincingly for various characters, and his pacing is perfect, meaning characters speak at different tempos and he punches up the jokes without being obvious. Stevens accomplishes a very difficult task: He sounds like your average Joe without ever being boring.

Augusten Burroughs looks back on his life in "Possible Side Effects," a collection of essays that are generally humorous, sometimes poignant, occasionally overwritten, but all worth hearing.

Author of the bestseller "Running With Scissors," Burroughs can be very funny in a dry, sometimes snarky, sometimes insightful way. His subject matter ranges from a hilarious blind date to his early interpretation of Santa Claus as an elderly Chinese man. Lesbian personal ads, Nicorette gum, grandmothers, collage T-shirts, and an incontinent dog are all grist for his quick and nonconformist mind. Just keep in mind that despite Burroughs's wit, there is an underlying sense of sadness to much of his work. Sure, he makes us laugh, but sometimes the subject matter, like a mentally ill mother and an alcoholic father, is ultimately serious.

That said, the essay that really stuck with this listener is a catty little tale in which Burroughs and his partner, Dennis, visit a B&B on an island off Massachusetts and discover it is filled with dolls. Not their kind of place. Things improve when they write their impressions of things in a guest book left in their room. Their sinister and creepy account of the inn and the dolls not being "right" might just make you howl so loud you'll need to rewind and hear it again.

As a narrator -- well, Burroughs isn't bad; he isn't great. His problem is that he is too careful. You can hear him enunciating slowly, reading properly, trying too hard. When he relaxes and gets out of his own way, he can be very funny. Another narrator might have brought more energy to the work, but there is something basic and heartfelt about hearing a writer tell his own story that makes it worthwhile.

In "Babylon by Bus," two slackers who met while at college in Boston decide to give up their lucrative seasonal business selling T-shirts at Fenway Park and go looking for adventure, in Iraq of all places. They con their way into running a nongovernmental organization, drink too much, dodge some bullets, try to make a difference, almost grow up, drop a lot of names, and leave one step ahead of a death squad.

Part travelogue, part memoir, a little bit history, the audiobook does convey the madness that is Iraq. But it also recounts a lot of partying and self-indulgence where one wants substantive reporting about life in a war zone. So, caveat emptor. These guys say right from the get-go that they are slackers, so it was probably unrealistic to expect a pithy and well-written account of their adventures.

Narrator Jeremy Davidson does a decent enough job. He keeps the action moving along and conveys emotion as needed. He has a pleasant voice and clear diction, and wisely gives this a straight read, meaning he doesn't change his voice for the two authors, which could have sounded cartoonish in a memoir.

Rochelle O'Gorman is publisher and editor in chief of audiobookcafe.com, an online magazine about the audiobook industry.