Humor Anthology

Tyler, Channing, and Sammy Clauster have descended on their childhood home, with significant others and four-year-old twins in tow, for another good old-fashioned Christmas. Overwhelming holiday magic, as always, comes courtesy of their mom, Claire. They know she’s thrilled to cook, wrap gifts, decorate, accommodate, play games, overprepare every Christmas Eve Eve Eve tradition, and still let Dad be known as the Fun One. It’s her thing, right? Maybe the family should have paid closer attention. Because this year, something is a little off-key—and it’s not just the carols.

Set in the author’s native Belfast, the ten stories in Sweet Home lay bare the heartbreak and quiet tragedies that run under the surface of everyday lives. A lonely woman is fascinated by her niqab-wearing neighbours; a middle-aged teacher becomes obsessed with a young Gaelic football player; and an employer covers for his two employees caught having sex in a public toilet.

In these wonderfully funny and poignant stories, Willett’s eccentric, complex characters think and do the unconventional. Soft, euphonic women gradually grow old; weak, unhappy men confront love and their own mortality; and abominable children desperately try to grow up with grace. With a unique voice and dry humor, Willett gives us a new insight into human existence, showing us those specific moments in relationships when life suddenly becomes visible. Critically acclaimed when it was first published, Jenny and the Jaws of Life is being brought back due to popular demand.

Imagine being famous. Being recognized on the street, adored by people who have never even met you, known the world over. Wouldn’t that be great? But what if, one day, you got stuck in a country where celebrity means nothing, where no one spoke your language and you didn’t speak theirs...

If the cabbage man doesn't arrive soon, another meal will slip by and the king will still be allowed to exude foul breath from his lips. While the pastry chef and the royal food taster plot in the kitchen, the butcher keeps a close eye on their plans. And don't forget the sausage-lipped prime minister...he's got a secret buried in that mustache, no doubt about that.

What do you get when you combine a chicken named Elvis, a locked diary, and a secret Violet Parker does not want share with her daughter? Seeing Trouble is the first of many short stories involving the characters of the Deadwood Mystery series.

Do not let Etgar Keret deceive you. The Israeli writer who's worked in film, illustration, animation, and radio, is a storyteller in all senses of the word. Like a conman, he'll promise you a simple story and then the next thing you know your emotional reserves have been completely emptied. It's a literary bait and switch, and he'll get you every time.

Bob Odenkirk is a legend in the comedy-writing world, winning Emmys and acclaim for his work on Saturday Night Live, Mr. Show with Bob and David, and many other seminal television shows. This book, his first, is a spleen-bruisingly funny omnibus that ranges from absurdist monologues ("Martin Luther King Jr.'s Worst Speech Ever") to intentionally bad theater ("Hitler Dinner Party: A Play"), from avant-garde fiction ("Obit for the Creator of Mad Libs").

“Kirby has mastered the art of short fiction…A stunning collection from a writer whose talent and creativity seem boundless.” —NPR “Kirby takes joy in subverting the reader’s expectations at every turn. Her characters might be naïve, even reckless, but they aren’t about to be...

An early collection of short stories by England's greatest humorist, P. G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves features eight of the most enjoyable and popular short stories of the early 20th century.

It is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad?

A collection of the comic master's early stories of perpetually in-the-soup Bertie Wooster and his unflappable valet Jeeves, including their debut in "Extricating Young Gussie" and all 28 stories from "The Inimitable Jeeves" and "Carry On, Jeeves".

Here you have found a book so foul, so repulsive, so horrifying...that you will undoubtedly find yourself running to the nearest bathroom in an effort to both relieve your bowels and scrub your hands clean of its putrid filth. They have finally released this humorous collection of terrifying tales, despite the bitter public outcry which demanded these pages never see the light of day...and perhaps for good reason.

Pamela is a newly retired teacher with time on her hands. She’s finding it hard to muster enthusiasm for what’s ahead: exhausting postdivorce dating rituals and an uneasy relationship with her emotionally stunted, live-at-home son. But for Pamela, there’s a surprise in store that could challenge the status quo and, against all expectations, make life interesting again.

Including stories first published in Cosmopolitan and the Saturday Evening Post, this best-selling collection follows the romantic escapades of Max Shulman's famed collegiate Don Juan. Like most undergraduates, Dobie Gillis is a bit scattered - sometimes he's as quick as a whip, other times dull as a doorstop, and his major keeps changing from chemistry to law to journalism. But no matter what subject he should be studying, Dobie always has a girl on his mind.

Eighteen of the very best American short stories, each a classic in its own right. Stories include "The Little Frenchman and his Water Lots", by George Pope Morris; "The Angel of the Odd", by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Schoolmasters’s Progress", by Caroline M.S. Kirkland; "The Watkinson Evening", by Eliza Leslie; "Titbottom’s Spectacles", by George William Curtis; "My Double and "How He Undid Me", by Edward Everett Hale; "A Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed Punsters", by Oliver Wendell; and more.

From a comic mastermind comes this brilliant collection of stories. Three teenagers believe they are witches. A woman defaces a local billboard. A bored landlord tries to influence his son's best friend. A cul-de-sac WhatsApp group discusses eggs at length. A heavily pregnant woman finds a way to time travel and a girl discovers joy on a stolen bicycle. Each tale paints a life in miniature and offers an escape chute from the catastrophes of modern life.

A crotchety nightwatchman in a whaling museum contemplates Neptune the stuffed sea lion, originally owned by P.T. Barnum. In his admiration for the kingly animal, he studies ventriloquism to give Neptune a voice. When a field trip comes through the museum, he has an unexpectedly meaningful exchange with a precocious, like-minded child...and Neptune.

A masterly collection of eleven stories about the way we live now from the best-selling author of Netherland. From bourgeois facial-hair trends to parental sleep deprivation, Joseph O’Neill closely observes the mores of his characters, whose vacillations and second thoughts expose the...

To this irresistible debut collection of short stories, Richard Russo brings the same bittersweet wit, deep knowledge of human nature, and spellbinding narrative gifts that distinguish his best-selling novels. His themes are the imperfect bargains of marriage; the discoveries and...