Humor Anthology

Some stories, like "Vive La Revolution", which first appeared in the edgy humor magazine Opium, are satire, and others are more heartfelt. But they are all humorous portraits of rebellious women at various stages of their lives.

In First Kiss and Other Cautionary Tales, you will learn about spring-loaded toilet seats in the Pisa Airport (a creation of the Devil). Find out why Googling "How to Pick Up a Chick" is not the best strategy for determining the best way to scoop up live poultry. Hear the lurid details about a poor soul who inadvertently became locked in the loo at the Louvre. Learn the ancient secret of an Italian grandmother's deadly chicken soup recipe. (Hint: it's all in the feet.)

Two guys fighting over a beautiful girl might agree – on reflection, and after a few pills and many pints of lager – that their friendship is actually more important than a woman. Hilarious, shocking and hugely entertaining, 'Victor Spoils' has all the classic Irvine Welsh ingredients.

Not Your Mother's Goose proves that fairy tales and nursery rhymes aren't just for kids anymore. Envision it as the Cliffs Notes of children's stories - if Cliffs Notes was overtaken by Dave Barry or the folks at The Onion. Not Your Mother's Goose is a series of totally irreverent, mega-sarcastic fairy-tale recaps, along with a host of hilarious fake news stories and headlines ranging from Rapunzel getting a bikini wax to Old McDonald bombing on Wheel of Fortune after only buying vowels.

This is my life, one mistake at a time. Worker-bee goes to work, sip coffee, step forward, one, two, three. I'm a brainless zombie with no purpose in life. Feed me brains and I'll eat 'em raw with some Tabasco. Worst mistake in my life, getting married to the perfect Russian princess. Her beautiful face hides treacherous intent. She'll suck you dry like a lemon until you have no juice left. Out of life, out of money, out of any hopes and dreams. This is your life, suck it up and don't complain.

Conversations with Pop is a series of flash fiction stories between a father and his son as they discuss Pop's unique take on life while he imparts some of his "wisdom" to his son on everything from reading, driving, social networking, technology, and the way things used to be.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic short story of a man born in his 70s who ages backward as those around him age in the normal direction. Both humorous and heartbreaking at times, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was the basis for the David Fincher movie of the same name, though the movie differs in several key ways from Fitzgerald's original story.

Have you ever wondered why that smarmy sales guy won't quit, even when it's obvious to both of you that you're not buying what he's selling? Have you ever made a snap judgment about someone's character - only to find out that you were completely wrong? I live in California yet work for Celebrity Magician Criss Angel in Las Vegas. Needless to say, I find myself flying three to four times per week. Those who fly know. This collection of short stories set on airplanes will let you see the strangers around you in an entirely new light - and what you learn just might surprise you.

This collection of short stories is based on exhilarating personal logs recorded by the starcruiser Galaxy's valiant crew, including: "Trip to Proteus" - When a crewmember forms a lively bond with strangers on a space station, his new friends bring a few unwelcome surprises back to the Galaxy.

When Gustavus Pulvertoft finds himself saddled with a horse with the power of human speech, he little imagines how quickly he will come a cropper. His courtship of the horse-loving Diana Chetwynd goes swimmingly so long as his talking horse is on good terms with Miss Chetwynd's grey mare... but when their trusty mounts fall out, a series of terrible events ensues which Pulvertoft is powerless to prevent. His determination to get revenge on the horse leads to his ultimate downfall.

Question: when do sewer rats in suburbia acquire intelligence and cunning? Answer: when they begin calling each other names. For Duff and Tuff, newly arrived on Conner's lawn after being ejected from a drain culvert during a flood, their I.Q. soon begins to rise while Conner's falls. Conner, you see, is obsessed with TV. Now the plan is to keep this bachelor from going through with his vow to change his life (and their situation) by pretending to be his supposedly deceased ex wife. Inspired by "Who Moved My Cheese?", this short fable has but one lesson: imagination is linked to reading, not watching television.

Gogol's phantasmagorical tale about a man whose nose decides to abscond and begin living a life of its own is one of the earliest and most celebrated examples of absurdist literature. Apart from its recondite humor, it is remarkable for Gogol's skill in characterization and his ability to paint a picture of contemporary life in Russia in a few verbal brushstrokes.

In the South, we believe in being polite, even if it kills us. So, when we just can't fight the urge to say something nasty, we follow it up with a "bless her heart" just to make us feel better. "Look at that poor woman trying to jog around that track. Her rear-end is dragging a trail, bless her heart." Youngblood and Poole talk about the ins and outs of nosy neighbors, sibling rivalry, and why every Southerner worth her salt feels the need to offer advice.

I don't remember my dreams normally. I come out of dreaming and let them go and become whatever reality I'm thinking, and by the time I've found out where I am the dreams have slipped away out of mind, and no matter how rich or poor the dreaming was, nothing of it remains when I'm awake, but here are a few that did remain.

A comedy of ambition, dreams, blackmail and daytime TV… Bella’s career as a TV presenter is ‘on hold’. To fill her days, she sits in a coffee shop and obsesses about a wedding dress in the neighbouring shop. Her luck changes when she gets the call from her old boss to present a pilot for a new food and chat show. But her revived TV career is short-lived when one of the celebrity guests threatens to steal the show…

Somewhere people act normal - but not in the Downy Mount Mobile Home Park, where recently widowed Marfa Bacot lives with her mother-in-law, Lulu, who cleans from hell to breakfast and has her make-up tattooed on so she's always ready for the rapture.

Norman, a schizophrenic, hears a voice that tells him he has to build a new genetic Ark to save the planet. He struggles to get a grip on reality, but he is told by sexy Jane that his hallucinations might be real. He is visited by Darwin and Einstein, who are excited about Internet gadgets, want to help him fight an evil TV evangelist, and who refuse to leave him alone. On top of this, he is stuck working in the IT support department with his friend Gupta, who likes to spend his time watching porn and avoiding his parents.

In this short story from Nathan Englander's collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, a Protestant, after a religious awakening in the back of a New York taxi, realizes he has a Jewish soul.

In this short story from Nathan Englander's collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, a group of World War II-era Hasids, mistakenly put on a circus train instead of a transport to a death camp, are assumed to be acrobats. They perform a clumsy act, which their Nazi audience applauds as a parody of "Jewish ballet".

This is a collection of short stories written over my Christmas vacation. Go ahead, take a free look inside and see for yourself! If this book can't make you smile; nothing else will.