Absurdist Humor

A "shamelessly funny" (Kirkus) and utterly original new novel from Mark Leyner about a father and his intense and devout relationship with his daughter and with alcohol. An anthropologist and his daughter travel to Kermunkachunk, the capital of Chalazia, to conduct research for an ethnography on...

What I wanted more than anything was to be standing beside Schmidt, in concert with Schmidt, at the foot of Saint Sebastian’s Abyss along with Schmidt, hands cupped to the sides of our faces, debating art, transcendence, and the glory of the apocalypse.” Former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a decades-long falling-out. One of them, called to the other’s deathbed for unknown reasons by a “relatively short” nine-page email, spends his flight to Berlin reflecting on Dutch Renaissance painter Count Hugo Beckenbauer.

Tutto può accadere nel bar sotto il mare. Un bar in cui tutti vorremmo capitare, una notte, per ascoltare i racconti del barista, dell'uomo col cappello, dell'uomo con la gardenia, della sirena, del marinaio, dell'uomo invisibile, della vamp e degli altri misteriosi avventori. Sompazzo, il paese più bugiardo del mondo - Gaspard Ouralphe, il più grande cuoco di Francia - Il verme mangiaparole e l'incredibile storia del capitano Charlemont - La disfida di Salsiccia - Il dittatore pentito - Kraputnyk, il marziano innamorato - Priscilla Mapple e il delitto della II C.

Hilarious, profound, and achingly true to life, Jonas Karlsson's new novel explores the true nature of happiness through the eyes of a hero you won't soon forget. A passionate film buff, our hero's life revolves around his part-time job at a video store, the company of a few precious friends, and a daily routine that more often than not concludes with pizza and a movie in his treasured, small space in Stockholm. When he receives an astronomical invoice from a random national bureaucratic agency, everything will tumble into madness.

Alan Blair, the hero of Wake Up, Sir!, is a young, loony writer with numerous problems of the mental, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and physical variety. He's very good at problems. But luckily for Alan, he has a personal valet named Jeeves, who does his best to sort things out for his troubled master. And Alan does find trouble wherever he goes.

In 1971, at the beginning of Monty Python mania, Eric Idle bought a crumbling ruin in the hills of Provence. With no electricity, no water, no road, and no plan, he set out to transform the neglected stone shack into what he lovingly calls a shackeau. Idle in Provence is the story of the...

*BONUS: Includes the viral essay sensation "The Crane Wife"* "An innovative work of climate fiction, a nuanced and empathic family story, and, for my money, the summer's best novel thus far." --NPR.org "The most oddly enticing novel you will read this year...Keenly satirical yet unashamedly...

An explosive, jaw-dropping debut about a woman who loses her job as an oil company CEO after she’s filmed having sex with a tree in her sleep, a calamity that unravels her mind, spiraling her through history until she’s united with a centuries-old coven of ecstatically revolutionary women...

Geek Love meets Sam Lipsyte in this rollicking, hilarious debut novel about a family of unforgettable women obsessed with securing their legacy Claire grew up with the legend of the Unsinkable Mounsey Women. Her great-great-grandmother Fanny made headlines in 1915 for washing ashore in England...

Evoking such classics as Elmer Gantry and The Day of the Locust, William Giraldi's About Face boldly transfers the perennial literary themes of celebrity, ambition, and obsession to twenty-first-century Boston. There we meet Val Face, a charismatic self-help guru who captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using only the power of his words, the mysterious touch of his hands, and the transcendent beauty of his face.

Jack was never “right,” but that’s a lot of what made him magnetic to other people. When he was younger, he was that guy that girls wanted to be around. People were drawn in by him, even later on when there wasn’t much of him left. I never understood that. He never really put a lot of energy into grooming and maintaining relationships with people. I guess when you see someone that is content spending their time alone, it creates a vacuum and people flood in like water choking a storm drain. Even as his deterioration became apparent, people threw him lifelines.

Suzie's seen it all, but now she's looking for something she lost: a sense of the future. So when the chance comes to work with a maverick video artist on his road movie about Donald Trump's America, she's pretty sure it's a bad idea, but she signs up anyway, hoping for an outside shot at starting over. A provocative, genderqueer, shape-shifting musical romp through the brain-eating nightmare of contemporary America, I Heart Oklahoma! is about art, guns, cars, American landscapes, and American history.

Ich darf gar nicht mehr daran denken! Nachdem ich mich als Mann von der bekannten Inhaberin eines TV-Shoppingsenders als Kindermädchen für ihre verwaisten Nichten einstellen ließ, fing der Wahnsinn an. Äußerlich ein zartes Pflänzchen, entpuppt sie sich als manische, rechthaberische Kaktee. Ihre Logik weigert sich, an der Realität auch nur als Gast teilzunehmen.

Benjamin Malaussène ha uno strano lavoro, è il capro espiatorio dell'Ufficio Reclami del Grande Magazzino di Parigi. Una cliente è appena uscita dalla sua stanza quando si sente un forte boato. Una bomba, poi due, nel dipartimento giocattoli! Il sospettato numero uno dell'ondata di oscuri attentati è proprio Benjamin. E allora per scoprire chi sia il vero responsabile delle esplosioni si mobiliteranno la sua tumultuosa famiglia e una esilarante banda di personaggi: Thérèse la sorella sensitiva, Jérémy il geniale e pestifero fratello, il Piccolo visionario.

Yang Wei wakes to find himself still a patient at the hospital. Somehow, he’s aged decades overnight and is confined to the geriatric ward on a massive Hospital ship as it floats along a bloodred sea full of unsightly things. But human remains and sea nymphs are perhaps nothing compared to the goings-on belowdecks.

Greg Host is a normal guy. Or at least he was 6'2", mid-level retail manager, owner of one judgmental cat. But when he notices he’s a fraction shorter one morning, his ordinary life begins to unravel one inch at a time. No one believes him. Doctors shrug. His mom blames dehydration. And the universe? It just keeps laughing.

The Late Mattia Pascal (Italian: Il fu Mattia Pascal) is a 1904 novel by Luigi Pirandello. It is one of his best-known works and was his first major treatment of the theme of the mask. The protagonist, Mattia Pascal, finds that his promising youth has, through misfortune or misdeed, dissolved into a dreary dead-end job and a miserable marriage.

Se si fugge di notte da Villa Bacilla sulle ali di una diavolessa sexy, sorvolando Tristala assieme a tre equipaggi che si spostano contemporaneamente, può accadere di visitare gli otto mondi alterei della mappa nootica. Capita così di conoscere la terra primordiale di Ermete Trismegisto, Protoplas; i mari incantati di Capitan Guepière a Posidon; i cinquanta casinò e i locali notturni di Bludus; Mnemonia con i suoi fuochi fatui e l'insidia dell'embambolia; Medium con le sue giornate di Beneficenza Ben-evidente.

In his blazing debut novel Last Resort, Andrew Lipstein blurs the lines of fact and fiction with a thrilling story of fame, fortune, and impossible choices. Caleb Horowitz is twenty-seven, and his wildest dreams are about to come true. His manuscript has caught the attention of the literary...

Benjamin was never the sharpest tool in the shed. For as long as he can remember, he’s longed for adventure in far-away lands. But every day he wakes up in the same boring suburb, where nothing ever happens.