Historical Humor

This novel centers on the figure of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, a member of the dying class of the landed gentry, who spends most of his time lying in bed gazing at life in an apathetic daze, encouraged by his equally lazy servant Zakhar and routinely swindled by his acquaintances. But this torpid existence comes to an end when, spurred on by his crumbling finances, the love of a woman, and the reproaches of his friend, the hardworking Schtoltz, Oblomov finds that he must engage with the real world and face up to his commitments.

The next novella in the New York Times bestselling Sworn Soldier series, featuring Alex Easton investigating the dark, mysterious depths of a coal mine in America. "The audiobook narrated by Avi Roque is delightful." —BuzzFeed News on What Moves the Dead Alex Easton does not want to visit...

When first published in 1759, Candide became an instant best seller and is now regarded as one of the key texts of the Enlightenment. Voltaire’s preoccupations with evil and with various kinds of human folly and intolerance found a perfect vehicle in this philosophical tale. A master storyteller, he combined often wildly entertaining action with profoundly serious sense, parodying the traditional chivalric and oriental tales with which his public was more familiar.

The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around fast. If the preacher's wife's petticoat shows, the ladies will make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things take a scandalous turn. That is the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, elopes with Miss Love Simpson, a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee!

In this terrifying and hilarious prequel, we witness the genesis of the zombie plague in early 19th-century England. We watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a nave young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. We laugh as she begins her first clumsy training with nunchucks and katana swords and cry when her first blush with romance goes tragically awry.

In 1964, Little Big Man gave us the reminiscences of Jack Crabb - a white orphan raised among the Cheyenne - who returns to "civilized" society, where (among other things) he tangles with Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok, and ends up as the only white survivor of Custer's Last Stand. At the end of Little Big Man, Jack's supposed death at age 111 cut short his tale.

With his disturbingly horse-like face and a pious distaste for strong drink and bad language, young Bartholomew Bandy doesn't seem cut out for life in the armed services, as we meet him at the start of World War I. Yet he not only survives the dangers and squalor of the infantry trenches, he positively thrives in the Royal Flying Corps, revealing a surprising aptitude for splitarsing Sopwith Camels and shooting down the Hun. He even manages to get the girl.

Imagine that there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after the Vietnam War. Imagine that there is a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women have shared a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore. Imagine just those things (don’t even try to imagine the love story) and you’ll have a foretaste of Tom Robbins’s eighth and perhaps most beautifully crafted novel--a work as timeless as myth yet as topical as the latest international threat.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety...and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

Bartholomew Bandy has become an air ace. On the ground, he causes disasters wherever he goes, but in the air, he's deadly, shooting down dozens of German planes in the course of thrilling aerial combats. As a handy but disposable war hero, he encounters a number of hair-raising adventures, not to mention English plumbing and an unforgettable honeymoon night.

*Named One the 10 Most Anticipated Fiction Books of 2022 by Kirkus* From critically acclaimed, award-winning author Michelle Huneven, a sharp and funny novel of a congregational search committee, told as a memoir with recipes Dana Potowski is a restaurant critic and food writer and a longtime...

Val Eliot, a young woman working on an English farm during the war, meets Mike, a US Air Force pilot stationed nearby. When Val rescues a Border Collie named Peter Woodhouse, who is being mistreated by his owner, she realizes the dog would actually be safer with Mike. And so Peter Woodhouse finds a new home on the air force base, and Val finds herself falling in love.

Lamar Jimmerson is the leader of the Gnomon Society, the international fraternal order dedicated to preserving the arcane wisdom of the lost city of Atlantis. Stationed in France in 1917, Jimmerson comes across a little book crammed with Atlantean puzzles, Egyptian riddles, and extended alchemical metaphors. It's the Codex Pappus—the sacred Gnomon text. Soon he is basking in the lore of lost Atlantis, convinced that his mission on earth is to administer to and extend the ranks of the noble brotherhood.

Meet Penrod Schofield—eleven years old, endlessly curious, and a magnet for scrapes. Set in a Midwestern town at the turn of the twentieth century, Penrod follows a boy whose imagination routinely collides with adult rules: backyard “shows” that spiral into chaos, school pageants gone spectacularly wrong, neighborhood rivalries, and the fierce loyalty between a boy and his dog, Duke. Booth Tarkington’s classic is laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly tender, a snapshot of American childhood that still feels true.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem.

As usual, the RAF top brass don't know what to do with maverick flying ace and well-known loose cannon Major Bartholomew Bandy. They pack him off to a squadron where the flying record barely registers, thinking it'll keep him out of their hair. But after a shaky start, Bart gets a firm grip on things - one of those things being the adjutant, who jealously guards his own private and baroquely magnificent WC. With old pal Dick Milestone, Bart reinvigorates the superbly turned-out but demoralized pilots, who start doing some serious flying and very serious damage to the enemy.

Once again, Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. Fannie truly writes from the heartland, and her storytelling is, to quote Time, "utterly irresistible."

While many people have written books and novels on the Peninsular War, Thomas Flashman's memoirs offer a unique perspective. They include new accounts of famous battles, but also incredible incidents and characters almost forgotten by history. Flashman is revealed as the catalyst to one of the greatest royal scandals of the 19th century, which disgraced a prince and ultimately produced one of our greatest novelists.

Times are tough for young Jack McGreary in the American dust bowl. Living with his father, Jack is only getting by thanks to a solid repertoire of cons and scams. Everything gets shaken up, though, when shysters Virgil Ray and Miss Rose roll into town. Recognizing them as first-class scam artists, Jack gleefully joins their criminal band. Soon a budding romance between Jack and Miss Rose begins to bloom, but is it on the up-and-up?

An infectiously edifying, not-so-saintly self-help book that dives into the wild, wise, and unconventional lives of 16th- and 17th-century nuns, offering advice for our modern age and proving one thing: no matter the century, nuns know best. When most of us think of nuns, we picture hands...