Historical Humor

“Absorbing...Eastman is a riveting...presence who demands to be loved and remembered.” —The Boston Globe An ambitious new novel set in the literary world of 1970s New York, following a washed-up writer in an errant quest to pick up the pieces of his life. One of Esquire's Best books of...

Spreading democracy takes more than cutting-edge military hardware. Winning the hearts and minds of a troubled nation is a special mission we give to bewildered young soldiers who can’t speak the native language, don’t know the customs, can’t tell friends from enemies, and–in this...

New York Times bestselling author Sally Jenkins and distinguished Harvard professor John Stauffer mine a nearly forgotten piece of Civil War history and strike gold in this surprising account of the only Southern county to secede from the Confederacy. The State of Jones is a true story about the...

The first story collection from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Memory Keeper's Daughter With The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards touched hearts across the nation. In this, her first collection of stories-now with three new stories added-she explores the lives of those...

The acclaimed author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies. Chase Insteadman, a handsome, inoffensive fixture on Manhattan's social scene, lives off...

Six marriages, six heartbreaks, one shared beginning. In her forties – a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role – Becky Aikman struggled to make sense of her place in an altered world. In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, she explores surprising new discoveries...

This masterpiece is a brilliant work of black humor that has taken its place as a classic novel about the Holocaust. Set in Poland, it is the story of I. C. Trumpleman, the indiscreet director of an orphanage. When the Germans invade and the Jewish community is forced into a ghetto, Trumpleman becomes the leading figure caught in making choices about who will live and who will starve.

Gustav "Old Red" Amlingmeyer is an old-fashioned kind of guy: He prefers a long trail ride even when a train ticket can get him where he's going in one-tenth the time. So when it's Old Red who insists on guarding the Pacific Axpress, despite a generations-old family distrust of the farm stealin', cattle-killin', money-grubbing' railroads, Big Red is flummoxed. But as usual, he'll follow his ornery brother just about anywhere.

The collected short stories of the great Victor Canning, originally written and published in the 1950s and 1960s—full of humor, charm, and in true fashion of classic crime writing. Canning’s heartwarming vignettes and clever mysteries take us from a Welsh valley to a far-off island and across the French countryside—introducing unforgettable characters and stories along the way.

The career of George, the famed Greek mob boss, gets off to a bad start. As a teenager, he kills Joey, the man who might have been his father. Joey's twin brother, Lazarus, vows revenge. All George has to do to survive is to marry a Greek girl picked by his family. Unfortunately, George falls in love with Kelly, a girl who isn't Greek. She loves him. All she asks is that he leave his family. This is the first book in The Saga of George trilogy, a satire of mob novels. Set in the late 1960s, it blends Greek culture, mythology, and religious themes with sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Clues, quips, and cocktails...that's how Mr. and Mrs. Key always solved crimes. But what happens when their "perfect marriage" falls apart...in the middle of postwar Washington, DC's, most baffling murder?

David reluctantly joins members of his high school bridge club at their 20th class reunion in the hope of solving a personal mystery from his own past. But reuniting soon delivers a few unwelcome truths, and fear sets in when a classmate is found dead. As old rivalries and resentments flare, the gathering on the Queen Mary in Long Beach for a weekend of memory-making brings forth more murder. David enjoys a high school flashback with an old flame but is left with more questions than answers.

It's downbeat Dublin in the late 1980s. Temple Bar, bedsits, and dole queues. Fred, a loser adrift in the world, and Maggie, a fiercely intelligent and complicated writer, are brought together through circumstances they think they can handle, whereas they are totally out of their depth. In this first part of a planned trilogy, the key ingredients are that the "Butterfly Effect" of two seemingly fringe characters in their society turn out to trigger changes far beyond their plans or wishes.

Mr Finchley takes a fancy to a horse-drawn caravan that he sees for sale, but his new wife does not relish the prospect of a caravan journey, so he sets off alone to explore the countryside and go house-hunting. While learning to handle the horse and the caravan, he encounters a variety of eccentrics and country characters, and several unsuitable houses. It gradually emerges that the caravan contains a secret, and Mr Finchley finds himself in real trouble. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.

An ebullient Mr Finchley is about to propose marriage to a lady he had rescued from mishap, when he is sent to Paris by his firm. There he manages to upset a boat, adopt a stray orphan, and get himself kidnapped. The fine tangle he gets into takes some unravelling! Only when eventually back in London does he complete the proposal of marriage that was interrupted at the start. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway best seller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.

Renee is from a small town, in provincial France, who flees to Paris, only to find that it has been overrun by Nazis. He returns to his hometown of Brassac to discover that the fiancé he abandoned on the night of their wedding has joined the local convent. He finds himself mayor of the town he abandoned when the former officeholder flees to avoid working with the Vichy government.

We all come to crossroads in our lives where a step in one direction or another can dictate the rest of our time on the planet. It can happen just once for some, or like Stephen and his son Terry, it can happen often and each time they make a choice, they have half a chance to make the right one. If it is wrong then the next choice, even though it may be fueled by alcohol or drugs, may be a little more complex, and so it goes, life unfolds, and we take what we get.

When David is drafted at the last minute to cover a class on human sexuality, he prepares by attending a sex therapists conference, where a fellow attendee confides that she’s being blackmailed over illicitly obtained sex tapes. Things take a sinister turn when murder is thrown into the mix, and as David fumbles his way through his first mystery, he discovers he has a talent for sleuthing—and for finding himself in sticky situations.

A street-side conman becomes embroiled in high politics when his scheme to relieve the doge of Genoa of a sizable portion of his wealth backfires. He is conscripted to deliver a message to The Cutler, a mysterious figure in the papal city of Avignon. Two English pilgrims are also making their way to the pope, seeking repentance for their sins. Their journey takes a debauched turn, however, and their arrival is one of a pair of wandering drunkards rather than pious pilgrims.

Blandford Candy is sent to London, after an illicit affair, and joins the Roundhead army to fight against the King, taking part in the Battle of Edgehill. A reluctant hero if ever there was one, he becomes a spy for the cause - and, through luck or judgement, uncovers more than one Royalist plot. His love of wine and the fairer sex prove both a curse and a blessing for the agent. Blandford soon earns the enmity of the King’s spy mistress Jane Whorwood, and patronage of the great parliamentarian leader John Hampden.