Humor Classics

Золотой теленок - роман Ильи Ильфа и Евгения Петрова. В основе сюжета - дальнейшие приключения центрального персонажа "Двенадцати стульев" Остапа Бендера, происходящие на фоне картин советской жизни начала 1930-х годов. Жанр - плутовской роман, социальная сатира, роман-фельетон.

Josef Schwejk lebt 1914 als behördlich anerkannter Idiot in Prag. Dennoch soll er Kriegsdienst leisten, und so gerät er ins riesige Getriebe der k. u. k. Armee. Schwejk wird Bursche beim Feldkurat Katz, der ihn beim Kartenspiel an Oberleutnant Lukasch verspielt. Mit dem kommt er an die Front, findet aber immer wieder Schlupflöcher, um den Kämpfen zu entgehen. Er verpasst den Zug, vertrinkt sein Fahrgeld und stolpert von einem Missgeschick ins Nächste.

"Mystically powered terrorists unleash volatile magic on the world, turning Washington, D.C., into a politically-charged fantasyland ripe for human sacrifice. Attackers with magical abilities bring down a 747 by summoning a dragon to rip it from the sky, using the hundreds of lives lost as a sacrifice to initiate the Change. The country morphs into a new landscape of swords and sorcery. Now computers and other machines are coming to life, and regular people have started to turn into mythical creatures and forgotten deities." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"The Red Room" (Swedish: "Röda rummet") is a satire of Stockholm society, it has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel. While receiving mixed reviews in Sweden, it was acclaimed in Denmark, where Strindberg was hailed as a genius. As a result of "The Red Room", Strindberg became famous throughout Scandinavia. Edvard Brandes wrote that it "makes the reader want to join the fight against hypocrisy and reaction".

Quando Lemuel Gulliver si sveglia su un'isola dopo un naufragio, con mani e piedi legati e tante frecce puntate su di lui, penseresti che ogni speranza è perduta. Ma i rapitori sono alti un dito, la corda è sottile come un filo e le piccole frecce sfiorano appena la superficie della pelle di Gulliver. Questa storia non è nemmeno tanto assurda rispetto a quanto capiterà a Gulliver in mare, ma, ironicamente, nessuna avventura susciterà una reazione emotiva nell'uomo. "I viaggi di Gulliver" (1726) di Jonathan Swift sono un'ottima satira politica.

Gulliver’s Travels takes listeners on an adventure to fictional and real places in the world, with fantastical elements such as a society of tiny people, flying cities, and the ghosts of ancient world leaders. Gulliver’s adventure takes him all over, and each location is uniquely themed and satirizes themes from our real world.

A beautifully crafted collection of eight short stories by Edna Ferber: In Gigolo, Edna Ferber delves into the minds of eight diverse characters from all walks and stages of life.

The character of Bertram “Bertie” Wooster told the stories in first person style. He had a valet who stole some of his silk sox and was discharged. The agency sent replacement Reginald “Reggie” Jeeves. He arrived, mixed a hangover cure that was much needed and accepted, and the two were together from then on. Bertie, rich and toil-free, disliked hard work, some bossy women, and most children. He had a somewhat dingbat friend, Bingo Little, who fell in love with every girl he met.

Has Jeeves finally lost his grip? Wealthy, scatterbrained Bertie Wooster—with the aid of his ever-faithful butler, Jeeves—attempts to romantically link dreamy, soulful Gussie Fink-Nottle with soppy, sweet Madeline Bassett. But as soon as Bertie takes Gussie and Madeline's love connection into his own hands, things go disastrously wrong! Fortunately, Jeeves steps in to set matters straight. But the characters must endure tangled layers of comedic complications before they reach the invariably clever and satisfying finale.

Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead, the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town.

Il romanzo venne pubblicato nel 1840 su un settimanale , e come volume nel 1842. Si compone di una carrellata di personaggi e di descrizioni dettagliate dei luoghi attraversati dalla piccola Nell e da suo nonno, nella loro fuga da Londra. Il libro alterna momenti di caratterizzazione comica dei personaggi (vi si intravedono le radici di altri successivi umoristi di lingua inglese, come Jerome e Wodehouse) a passaggi drammatici, che, tuttavia, come in tutta l’opera di Dickens, non mancano di morale.

First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America - an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naiveté of their own time in a work that endures as a valuable social document and one of America's most important satirical novels.

Loki vowed that Asgard would burn. Bohdi Patel, latest incarnation of Chaos, wants nothing to do with Loki's psychotic oath. Stranded on the icy world of Jotunheim with Amy Lewis, his friend Steve Rogers, and an unlikely band of civilians, magical beings, and elite military, Bohdi just wants to keep himself and his friends alive - but when you're Chaos incarnate, even the simplest goals are complicated. If Jotunheim doesn't kill them, Odin will. And if Odin doesn't, the secrets they harbor might.

"I demoni", terzo romanzo nel percorso spirituale di Dostoevskij, dopo "Delitto e Castigo", "L'Idiota", e prima dei "Fratelli Karamazov", ha avuto una lunga storia editoriale. Prima pubblicato a puntate sulla rivista "Messaggero Russo" nel 1872 e poi in volume l'anno successivo. Il romanzo è ispirato ad un fatto di cronaca del novembre del 1869: l'anarchico e nichilista Sergej Necaev, legato a Michail Bakunin uccide lo studente Ivan Ivanov, sospettato di voler abbandonare la cellula sovversiva dello stesso Necaev.

Il romanzo, pubblicato nel 1830, raffigura la Francia immediatamente precedente la rivoluzione del 1830, le opposizioni tra Parigi e la provincia, tra borghesia e nobiltà, tra gesuiti e giansenisti. Grazie alla sua capacità di rappresentare i rapporti tra i personaggi e la loro psicologia, Stendhal traccia un affresco della società reazionaria post-napoleonica, mostrando le ambizioni, il cinismo e l'ipocrisia di cui si nutrono quotidianamente i rapporti umani.

In the style of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, an every-man character travels to a land filled with mythical characters. It's an adventure story, with the main character, George Taylor, having to confront and befriend pixies, elves, fairies, brownies, giants, dwarfs, mimis, sprites, satyrs, and mermaids. But there is one character that is the most feared, and hated of all. The groll. A species that kills and tortures for the pure pleasure of seeing the pain they inflict. The tales of their evil are endless.

Una narrazione disincantata e ironica denuncia il vuoto di valori che seguì la disfatta napoleonica. La cittadella descritta da Stendhal è in realtà molto diversa dalla vera cittadella di Parma e, invece, molto simile a Castel Sant'Angelo, dalla cui cella fuggì (calandosi con delle corde), nel Cinquecento, Alessandro Farnese, rinchiuso per aver rapito e sedotto una nobildonna romana. In seguito diviene cardinale e, poi, papa.

Yet another volume of the biggest and silliest collection of side-splitting classic Jewish jokes! Enjoy hundreds more all-time-favorite jokes straight from the archives of the Jewish Press. The laughter will never stop with this once-in-a-lifetime collection of the side-splitting family-friendly humor from the brilliant humorist, Arnold Fine. Arnie's classic Jewish jokes, one-liners, and humorous observations will leave you - and everyone else - rolling on the floor!

Henry Fielding è considerato uno dei padri fondatori del romanzo realista inglese. Tale scopo sarà pienamente raggiunto da Fielding nel suo capolavoro, Tom Jones (1749), uno dei più grandi romanzi della letteratura inglese. La storia narra le divertenti disavventure e peregrinazioni del giovane Tom Jones e della sua amata Sophia Western unendo a una trama sapiente e a pagine di garbata satira personaggi di grande efficacia e presenza, per fornire uno spaccato della società inglese dell'epoca. Cornice musicale di Georg Friedrich Haendel.

John Harmon returns from exile expecting to receive an inheritance, but knows that he must marry a stranger, Bella Wilfer, in order to collect. He fakes his own death and takes on a new identity in order to observe her first. Some of the memorable characters in this, the last completed Dickens novel, include Bella who, unlike other Dickens heroines, cannot be accused of unnatural virtue; the insolent barrister Eugene Wrayburn; the amiable Boffin; and the rascal Silas Wegg.