Dark Humor Satire

Struggling romance writer and recent divorcée Marcy Jo Codburn feels like a failure. She’s green with author envy and longing for a book deal, a launch party with cupcakes, and the admiration of her daughter. But her dream of literary success is fading faster than her beige hair dye. When she witnesses celebrated author Francesca Barber in a compromising position, Marcy sees her chance. Transforming into Summer Branigan, her bolder, blonder pen name, she leverages Francesca’s secret to secure the ultimate coauthor.

A Mosca, in un afoso pomeriggio di primavera, due letterati stanno elencando le prove dell'inesistenza di Dio. Lo straniero che si intromette nella discussione è di tutt'altro parere. Non solo, ma è stato presente al processo di Gesù. Si tratta infatti del Diavolo, nei panni del mago Woland, e la sua spettacolare comparsa getterà nel caos il burocratismo sovietico e l'élite letteraria del tempo. Satira devastante e fantastica, il romanzo, in parte ambientato nella capitale sovietica e in parte nell'antica Gerusalemme, è uno dei massimi capolavori della letteratura.

The name’s Jett Turner and my writing about Acuña Cartel head Tito “El Tigre” Calderón has turned my day to day into a circus of the unbelievable. This past week has seen me painted by animal activists, forced to play houseguest to the DEA, have dead guinea pigs thrown at me, and witness a live retelling of Daniel in the Lion’s Den that went wrong for everybody but the lions. Toss in my being haunted by a call girl, pursued by a femme fatale with ulterior motives, a Witch Doctor of a housekeeper, Teddy Ruxpin porn, a popcorn serving hairless chimp, and you get an idea of what I’m up against.

A car crash 30 years earlier left Slade Bennington severely disabled but with a new outlook on life. His book about overcoming trauma becomes a best seller and a box office hit movie. Slade strikes up an unusual friendship with Schuyler, the six-foot-tall teenage actress who portrays his sister in the movie. She encourages him to continue writing, and his pithy musings about life spur a nationwide following of devotees who study his books like Holy Scriptures.

The suburbs of Par Mars. Two shopping centers, rows of estates and thematically designed neighborhoods. Twenty-four-year-old Leen is going to open an ear-cleaning and massage studio in the Topic Heights Shopping Centre, taking her mother’s Chinese ritual to the West to bring people back to their bodies. But something is not quite right in Par Mars. Managers are being attacked, and when Leen befriends Jean Paul, a pharmacist who is obsessed with a cryptic online forum, she finds herself involved in a community that is intent on disrupting the routines of capitalism in troubling ways.

In Bicycles of the Gods, the main character, Jesse, presents an earthly incarnation of Jesus Christ come to earth in the body of a 12-year-old boy in the company of Xavi, who is the earthly incarnation of Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, also a 12-year-old boy. The pair stand on a hilltop above the city of Los Angeles contemplating how best to destroy it as a precursor to destroying the entire world to rid it of humanity so it can refresh and rebuild. Xavi is ready to get on with the task The Big Guy, God, has assigned them, but Jesse has a problem.

Für Alexander Humbolt beginnt ein neues Abenteuer, als er sich nach FSJ und Ausbildung ins Berufsleben stürzt. Eine Dienstwohnung, die er bereits wenige Wochen später beziehen kann, scheint sein Glück perfekt zu machen. Die erste eigene Bude! Doch schon bald bekommt die Idylle Risse. Ungeschickte Nachbarn versetzen Alex dabei ebenso in Angst und Schrecken wie Volksmusikmarathons und nächtliche Spontanpartys. Die Nerven liegen blank! Bei der Arbeit sorgen todesmutige Kollegen, alkoholisierte Panzerfahrer und hoch motivierte Feuerlöscher dafür, dass keine Langeweile aufkommt.

Set at the fag-end of the 60s at the moment when Swinging London is starting to take on a darker hue in the wake of Charles Manson's murders, and framed as a novel within a novel published by a seedy Piccadilly-based publisher of pulp fiction, Man-Eating Typewriter is a homage to the great oulipo experiments in fiction. It is the story of a psychopath called Raymond Novak and his untimely demise told entirely in 'polari' - a language developed and used mainly amongst the metropolitan homosexual community in the time when being gay was still a criminal offence.

Told with biting humor, brutal honesty, and moments of absurd laughter, Why Is My Bra Still On? is a darkly comedic, deeply emotional story about love, loyalty, and what it really means to be family.

When Agatha Benedict plucked Kelly off the city streets to replace her dead cat Poopsie, she neglected to inform him of some very important house traditions. The history of the Benedict Estate prescribes that once the estate owner passes on, a will reading is to take place. However, the reading is more than passing on a loved one's final wishes: it's a figurative gunshot into the air, an alert to all in attendance that a playful game of anything-goes murder has begun. The prize? The inheritance, of course.

Take a space-pirate, inspired by a long-ago Dark Lord. Take a long period of quarantine within the tiny confines of a stolen starship. Now, take 42 busted, broken, or overbearing tropes of fantasy and science fiction. One by one, the Dark Lord twists each into a strange shape and uses it to tell a new story - many of them disgracefully funny, some rather dark, and none of them suitable for vulnerable minds such as yours. Jeff Mach brings tight, interesting, usually satirical, often quite twisted stories, to light a fire in your belly like whiskey, and light a whiskey on fire.

The house on Curmudgeon Avenue should be happy now—the nincompoop residents have all met their sorry ends. But they haven't quite left...now that a new family move in, can the house find peace? Or are the ghosts of Curmudgeon Avenue going to interfere with the goings-on, romance, and dramas that new residents bring? Gordon and Zandra Bennett, along with their lovelorn daughter, Krystina, move all the way from London to Curmudgeon Avenue. Zandra has her heart set on renovating the four-story Victorian terrace and hires Harry to rip out the old and bring in the new.

A zany twist on the Southern Gothic, Ballad of Jasmine Wills is a wild and heartfelt tale of abduction and revenge, body shaming and media fame. Lee Rozelle’s debut novel is the story of overweight banker Jasmine and her kidnapper, the enigmatic reality TV mastermind Preston Price. Trapped inside an egg-shaped studio in the secluded backwoods, Jasmine is tortured with haute cuisine, brainwashed with self-help videos, and badgered with cardio exercise routines for her growing mass of livestream fans.

The last time Eric Gideon and Sean Heschmeyer were in the same place was the day of the accident. The day Eric’s dare landed Sean in hospital. The day the Idiots’ Club ceased to be. Now, exactly 20 years later, Sean is back, but he’s nothing like how they remember him. When former Idiots’ Club member and serial bankruptee Callum Jollie receives a surprise invite to a Heschmeyer Industries VIP bridge opening, he tries to persuade Sean to support his failing business. Sean agrees, but there’s only one problem. His money comes with conditions.

When we return to Curmudgeon Avenue in Book Two, Harold and Edith jump on the rollercoaster of romantic comedy. Ricky Ricketts continues his on/off entanglement with Wantha Rose, Edna is missing presumed living in France, and the house itself is still exasperated - but wait! Who is this mysterious man driving his expensive car up and down Curmudgeon Avenue?

Ferdinand Mount’s stinging satire plunges into the dubious world of London PR firms, the back rooms of Westminster and the campaign trail in Africa and America. We follow the hapless Dickie Pentecost, redundant diplomatic correspondent for a foundering national newspaper, together with his stern oncologist wife, Jane, and their daughters, Flo, an aspiring ballerina, and the quizzical teenager Lucy.

A struggling actress' life gets turned upside down when she witnesses the burial of an urn in her yard. She gets entangled with the "dead girl", a Latina health guru, and her criminal antics from Miami to New York to LA.

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.

New York Times best-selling author Bruce Wagner is also a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and a notable contributor to the New Yorker and Vanity Fair. With Dead Stars, Wagner delivers uproarious and sharply critical views on the sex- and money-obsessed world of Hollywood through the story of Telma, a 13-year-old girl who’s also the world’s youngest breast cancer survivor. A regular at pink-tie charity events and private lunches, Telma has come to enjoy her fame—so she’s not pleased to learn another young girl is about to break her record.

"Il Maestro e Margherita" è il romanzo più conosciuto di Michail Bulgakov e capolavoro della letteratura del XX secolo. Dopo svariate stesure viene ultimato dalla moglie dello scrittore un anno dopo la sua prematura morte. Oggetto di censura da parte dell'autorità dell'Unione Sovietica, vede la pubblicazione nella sua integrità solo venti anni più tardi. A rendere il romanzo tanto scabroso è l'impietoso e satirico ritratto della Russia stalinista che l'autore fa emergere attraverso le caratterizzazioni dei numerosi personaggi che prendono parte alla storia: individui meschini e gretti, la cui infima statura morale viene svelata dall'arrivo, inatteso e incredibile, di Satana in persona, incarnato nell'esperto di magia nera Woland, e del suo losco e bizzarro entourage.