Historical Humor

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.

From the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes a new tale of romance, heartbreak, and tentacled mayhem. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls, this slyly funny, moving novel about a blue-collar town in upstate New York—and about Sully, one of its unluckiest citizens, who has been doing the wrong thing triumphantly for fifty years—is a classic American story. "Remarkable...

Mark Robarts, a young vicar, is newly arrived in the village of Framley. With ambitions to further his career, he seeks connections in the county's high society. He is soon preyed upon by a local member of parliament to guarantee a substantial loan, which Mark, in a moment of weakness, agrees to, even though he knows the man is a notorious debtor; it brings Mark to the brink of ruin.

In this follow-up to Austenland, Charlotte Kinder is eager to escape the numbness she feels after her divorce. Deciding to get away, she visits the Regency-themed Pembrook Park resort in England, where talented actors set the perfect scene. But with everyone playing a role, it’s hard to distinguish reality from fantasy. So when Charlotte’s heart stirs, she wonders if she’s simply caught up in the experience - or if her ability to feel is finally returning.

It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat: smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book.

Oliver Dasenby is the most infuriating man Primrose Garland has ever known. He may be her brother's best friend, but he has an atrocious sense of humor. Eight years in the cavalry hasn't taught him solemnity, nor has the unexpected inheritance of a dukedom. But when Oliver inherited his dukedom, it appears that he also inherited a murderer. Oliver might be dreadfully annoying, but Primrose doesn't want him dead. She's going to make certain he survives his inheritance - and the only way to do that is to help him catch the murderer!

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.

As Scruff Sanders struggles with the challenges of being manipulated by disguised power as well as the rewards of becoming a national celebrity, his own integrity is put to the test. Puzzled by who to trust, his life, his career, and his values are put in the crucible. The wrong answer might cost him everything. But is there a right answer? With the presidential election looming, decisions must be made.

A modern retelling of the legendary Arthurian tales from one of the twentieth century?s greatest writers Morte d?Arthur was one of the first books that John Steinbeck enjoyed reading as a child, and it became a favorite story to read to his own children. Here now is Steinbeck?s only work of...

Adapted from the major television series created by Mark Gatiss - out now! 'A delicious read' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ READER REVIEW London, 1946. Gabriel Book is an erudite and unconventional London bookseller married to Trottie, the owner of the wallpaper shop next door. He is also a sleuth who uses...

"These immersive linked stories grapple with Ukrainian history through the waning years of the USSR and birth pangs of democracy ... Reva's characters spark off the page as they confront a brutal bureaucratic past with the only tool they possess—hope."—O, The Oprah Magazine A brilliant and...

"A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say 'Slum!' because he could see no more." But to its residents, this derelict corner of Trinidad's capital is a complete world, where everybody is quite different from everybody else. In this tender, funny early novel, V. S. Naipaul renders their lives (and the legends their neighbors construct around them) with Dickensian verve and Chekhovian compassion.

Deputy sheriff Constance Kopp is outraged to see young women brought into the Hackensack jail over dubious charges of waywardness, incorrigibility, and moral depravity. The strong-willed, patriotic Edna Heustis, who left home to work in a munitions factory, certainly doesn't belong behind bars. And 16-year-old runaway Minnie Davis, with few prospects and fewer friends, shouldn't be publicly shamed and packed off to a state-run reformatory. But such were the laws - and morals - of 1916.

Peace has broken out, and World War I flying ace and all-round chancer Bartholomew Bandy isn’t exactly making a success of being a commercial pilot in the USA. But when a job lot of aircraft bits purchased with the last of his pay turns out to be a complete Vickers Vimy bomber, he feels his luck has changed. With the help of his very tall, very sweet girlfriend Cissie, and the hindrance of his very short, very bad, and beautiful girlfriend Dasha, Bart smashes (literally) straight into the exciting new world of the movies.

One of the most beloved novels from the critically acclaimed novelist Laurie Colwin, Goodbye Without Leaving explores a woman’s attempts to reconcile her rock-and-roll past with her significantly more sedate family life as a wife and mother. As a bored graduate student, Geraldine Colshares is...

Cette guerre inventée entre l'homme et l'animal c'est, en 1936, tout ce que le monde embrase : le nazisme, l'antisémitisme, la croyance dans le progrès ; ce livre brosse avec humour une satire des hommes et de leur société. Mêlant la parodie au fantastique, à la fois roman et conte philosophique, il se révèle, sous une apparente légèreté, extrêmement lucide et sombre. Étonnamment perspicace quant au devenir de l'Europe quelques années plus tard, "La Guerre des Salamandres" anticipe également les problèmes écologiques.

Mad Jack is in reality Winifrede Levering Bascombe, who, happily, has her name changed very quickly in the story. She arrives in London with the aunts, Mathilda and Maude, of Lord Cliffe, Grayson St. Cyre, to beg his assistance. He welcomes the aunts, briefly spots the valet, Jack, and proceeds very quickly after their arrival to fall down the rabbit hole.

Dr. Siri Paiboun is summoned to the mountains of Huaphan Province, where for years the leaders of the current communist government hid in caves, waiting to assume power. Now a major celebration of the new regime is scheduled to take place, but an arm is found protruding from the concrete walk laid from the president’s former cave hideout to his new house beneath the cliffs. Siri must supervise the disinterment of the body attached to the arm, identify it, and determine the cause of death.

In the summer of 1942, Hermie is 15. He is wildly obsessed with sex, and passionately in love with an "older woman" of 22, whose husband is overseas and at war. Ambling through Nantucket Island with his friends, Hermie's indelible narration chronicles his frantic efforts to become a man, especially one worthy of the lovely Dorothy, as well as his glorious and heartbreaking initiation into sex.