Humor Classics

Tobias Smollett, in his creation of the Scot Roderick Random, exposes the sheer incompetence and injustice of the Royal Navy, as well as the snobbery and hypocrisy prevalent in English middle-class society at the time. Set in the mid-18th century, this picaresque novel follows the life and adventures of Roderick, the eponymous hero who has been shunned by his gentleman father's family on the basis of the lowliness of his mother's family.

The adventure continues. Tim and the C and C gang face their most difficult challenges yet. Horses die. Eyeballs are eaten. People are urinated on. A god is born.

From one of the most original voices in fantasy comes a twisted tale of murder, betrayal, and battlefield salvage. There’s no formal training for battlefield salvage. You just have to pick things up as you go along. Swords, armour, arrows – and the bodies, of course. Over the years, Saevus...

A workhouse orphan, Oliver experiences the terror and brutality of the criminal underworld. His companions, a thief, a whore, a pickpocket, and a fence, are destined for gruesome ends, but Oliver emerges unscathed from the darkness of the underworld.

An intimate journey across America, as told by one of its most beloved writers To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck's goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had...

One of NPR's Best Books of the Year: This darkly funny and provocative novel reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma. In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the...

"This is a surreal and hilarious insight into millennial dating with a big twist, and the narrator will have you hooked from the very beginning." -Buzzfeed "Crosley reads with an incisive understanding of Lola's psyche. She hits all of the notes of sarcasm and reluctant self-reflection, and...

Anthony Trollope's classic novel centers on Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity whose charitable income far exceeds the purpose for which it was intended. On discovering this, young John Bold turns his reforming zeal toward exposing what he regards as an abuse of privilege, despite the fact that he is in love with Mr. Harding's daughter, Eleanor.

Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable - and he satisfies it with endless charm.

Jerusha "Judy" Abbott's life is drastically changed one day when a mysterious and rich benefactor scoops her up from an orphanage - the only home she has ever known - and offers to pay her way through college. Her benefactor has many requests, the two most important being that she uses this opportunity to become a writer, and that she writes him monthly to update him on her studies.

A cross-cultural tale of two women brought together by the intersections of television and industrial agriculture, fertility and motherhood, life and love—the breakout hit by the celebrated author of A Tale for the Time Being and The Book of Form and Emptiness Ruth Ozeki’s mesmerizing debut...

When Will returns to Medicine River, he thinks he is simply attending his mother’s funeral. He doesn’t count on Harlen Bigbear and his unique brand of community planning. Harlen tries to sell Will on the idea of returning to Medicine River to open shop as the town’s only Native...

A foundling of mysterious parentage, Tom Jones is brought up by the benevolent and wealthy Squire Allworthy as his own son. Tom falls in love with the beautiful and unattainable Sophia Western, a neighbor’s daughter, whose marriage has already been arranged. When Tom’s sexual misadventures around the countryside get him banished, he sets out to make his fortune and find his true identity.

A well-to-do professor working in Moscow strikes up an unlikely friendship with a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man into the dog. With a wild, but alarmingly human animal on the loose, the professor's previously respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond his imagination. A superb satirical novel, it is also a sharp and pointed criticism of Soviet society, especially the new rich that arose after the Bolshevik revolution.

Soon to be an original movie on Disney+. The beloved 2014 Newbery Medal winner by former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Kate DiCamillo. Holy unanticipated occurrences! It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences...

Bertie Wooster, a bumbling English gentleman based in London, is in need of a new valet after firing his previous one for stealing. Enter unflappable, clever Jeeves. Set in a world of upper-class eccentricities, Jeeves proceeds to save Bertie from doomed romantic entanglements, financial scrapes and various other comic mishaps. With stories such as ‘Jeeves Takes Charge’, ‘Fixing It for Freddie’ and ‘The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy’, Carry On, Jeeves shows Wodehouse at his wittiest, and remains an integral part of the illustrious Jeeves canon.

After his final trip up the river Thames with his three companions - - Harris, George, and Montmorency the dog - - Jerome K. Jerome sat down to write his proposed book, The Story of the Thames. But before he could tackle the work in the serious manner intended, his humor took over and gave birth to a masterpiece of unquenchable comedy. This is a classic of English humor, justifiably loved around the world.

"Full of invention and ingenuity . . . Great fun." - SFX on Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City This is the history of how the City was saved, by Notker the professional liar, written down because eventually the truth always seeps through. The City may be under siege, but everyone still has to...

After being jilted by her fiance, Dulcie Mainwaring despairs of ever finding true love. For a distraction, she goes to a publishing conference, where she meets Viola Dace, a dramatic woman who refuses to live without romance, as well as Aylwin Forbes, an editor whom Viola adores. The fact that Aylwin is married doesn't stop Viola. When her amorous pursuit prompts Aylwin's wife to leave him, the academic heartthrob is wide open to Viola's romantic attentions. That is, until Dulcie's 18-year-old niece moves in with Viola, and the young girl soon catches Aylwin's roving eye.

Enjoy My Man Jeeves and Right Ho, Jeeves, two classic stories by the master of 20th-century humorist, P. G. Wodehouse, in one complete set. The perpetually befuddled Bertie Wooster and his knight-in-shining-tuxedo Jeeves have long been hailed as the greatest literary creations of P. G. Wodehouse.