Comedy Humor World

From Benjamin Franklin's newspaper hoax that faked the death of his rival to Abbie Hoffman's attempt to levitate the Pentagon - pranksters, hoaxers, and con artists have caused confusion, disorder, and laughter in Western society for centuries. Profiling the most notorious mischief-makers from the 1600s to the present day, Pranksters explores how "pranks" are part of a long tradition of speaking truth to power and social critique.

Heroic bookseller Laurent Letellier comes across an abandoned handbag on a Parisian street. There's nothing in the bag to indicate who it belongs to, although there's all sorts of other things in it. Laurent feels a strong impulse to find the owner and tries to puzzle together who she might be from the contents of the bag. Especially a red notebook with her jottings, which really makes him want to meet her. Without even a name to go on, and only a few of her possessions to help him, how is he to find one woman in a city of millions?

For fans of Etgar Keret, a debut collection that fuses the humor of everyday life in Israel with technology's challenges and the latest discoveries about the human brain. At once compassionate, philosophical, and humorous, Jerusalem Beach is a foray into the human condition in all its contradictions. Through a series of snapshots of contemporary life in Israel, Gefen reveals a world that's a step from the familiar.

Encore, Encore! The brilliant sequel to the smash bestseller Auntie Mame is back and the reviews are in....

Avishay is up for the Nobel Prize for Economics. There’s just one problem—he’s dead. His four closest friends agree that the well-earned prize must stay within his grasp, and so conspire to conceal Avishay’s corpse until the committee’s announcement. The potential of a glorious legacy for their late friend – and by extension, for them all – is only a mere eight days away. What could go wrong?

Put down the knife, lock away the gun, lay aside the noose - Joy Behar is here to save you from suicide as she hot walks you through the next four years (two if we are lucky, less if liberal dreams come true). Besides despair, the sane response to the insanity in the White House is laughter. On her hit ABC daytime show The View, Joy has been blunt in her condemnation of the comb over-in-chief, and her words have electrified and inspired millions in the resistance for whom #notmypresident has become a rallying cry.

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! is the funny, serious, and compelling new novel by Fannie Flagg, author of the beloved Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (and prize-winning co-writer of the classic movie). Once again, Flagg's humor and respect and affection for her characters shine forth. Many inhabit small-town or suburban America. But this time, her heroine is urban: a brainy, beautiful, and ambitious rising star of 1970s television. Dena Nordstrom, pride of the network, is a woman whose future is full of promise, her present rich with complications, and her past marked by mystery.

The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: No one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son there. To begin again. To start anew. But it isn't quite working out that way.

Hailed in his lifetime as one of Latin America’s greatest writers, Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was a storyteller known for his wholly innovative narrative techniques and uncanny talent for unraveling the social and political milieu of nineteenth-century Brazil. These signature traits are on full display in Quincas Borba, a novel that sees Machado satirize a rapidly changing Rio de Janeiro. Originally published in 1891, the story begins with the death of its titular character, a mad philosopher infamous for spouting pessimistic theories of “Humanitism”.

On the Ides of March, our hero, Raleigh Whittier Hayes (forgetful husband, baffled father, prosperous insurance agent, and leading citizen of Thermopylae, North Carolina), learns that his father has discharged himself from the hospital, taken all his money out of the bank and, with a young Black female mental patient, vanished in a yellow Cadillac convertible. Left behind is a mysterious list of seven outrageous tasks that Raleigh must perform in order to rescue his father and his inheritance.

Claire Sommers grew up as a society girl destined to have it all: tasteful Dallas mansion, high-powered career, hot and rich husband. Until a massive mistake left her reputation in tatters and trust fund frozen. Now the former debutante is scraping by as a magazine staffer in Nashville—trading in her diamonds and designer stilettos for rhinestones and cowgirl boots. But all is not well in the world of print publications.

Reginald Iolanthe Perrin, the creation of comedy genius David Nobbs, is surely one of the best-loved comedy heroes of our time – in both literature and television. So it is with great pride that Audible presents Reggie’s escapades in digital audio for the very first time: we invite you to join him, and the memorable supporting characters who help him along the way, on one man’s quest to avoid an everyday existence.

Lola Daly has just found out that her boyfriend - gorgeous, charming, and powerful politician Paddy de Courcy - is getting married. To someone else. Heartbroken, Lola flees Dublin to a cottage in the countryside. Can a new set of friends help her to get over him?

Clementine Chan believes in the power of the written word. Under the pseudonym Hibiscus, she runs a popular blog reviewing tea shops and discussing larger issues within her Chinatown community. She has a loyal, kind following, save for this one sour grape named BobaBoy888. Danny Mok is allergic to change, and the gentrification seeping into Chinatown breaks his heart. He channels his frustration into his internet alter ego, BobaBoy888, bickering with local blogger Hibiscus over all things Chinatown and tea.

It is 2085, and Truckee Wallace, a factory worker in Crunchtown 407 (formerly Little Rock, Arkansas, before the secessions), has no grand ambitions besides maybe, possibly, losing his virginity someday. But when Truckee is thrust unexpectedly into the spotlight, he is tapped by the president for a sensitive political mission: to deliver a talking goat across the continent. The fate of the world depends upon it. The problem is - Truckee’s not sure it’s worth it.

Rendered paraplegic after a traumatic event four years ago, Cameron Harris has been living his new existence alongside his sister, Tanya, in their battered Biloxi, Mississippi, neighborhood where only half the houses made it through Katrina. One stiflingly hot August afternoon, as Cameron sits waiting for Tanya during their daily run to the Biz-E-Bee convenience store, he suddenly and inexplicably rises up and out of his wheelchair.

Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in southeastern Australia. Together they enter the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the ancient continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive. With them is their lanky, fair-haired navigator, Willie Bachhuber, a quiz show champion and failed schoolteacher who calls the turns and creeks crossings on a map that will remove them, without warning, from the white Australia they all know so well. This is a thrilling high-speed story that starts in one way and then takes you someplace else. It is often funny, more so as the world gets stranger, and always compelling, even as you learn a history these characters never knew themselves.

Chef extraordinaire Gina Foxton doesn't expect anything to be handed to her on a platter. After years of hard work, the former runner-up Miss Teen Vidalia Onion is now the host of her own local Georgia public television show called Fresh Start, and she's dating the show's producer.

A piano tuner called Murkin, a close-shaven man with a yellow face, with a nose stained with snuff and cotton wool in his ears, came out of his hotel room into the passage. And looking at his frightened face one might have supposed that the ceiling had fallen in on him. 'Upon my word, Semyon!' he cried, seeing the attendant running towards him. 'What is the meaning of it? I am a rheumatic, delicate man and you make me go barefoot! Why is it you don't give me my boots all this time? Where are they?'

We guarantee this is the only tool you need to survive the zombie apocalypse. Okay, that's not really true. But when the SHTF, you're going to want a survival guide that's not just geared toward day-to-day survival. You'll need one that addresses the essential skills for true nourishment of the human spirit.