Humor Classics

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.

In this 1919 collection, Wodehouse introduces readers to the iconic duo of Bertie Wooster, an affable but hapless English gentleman, and Jeeves, his brilliant and resourceful valet. From social blunders, hopeless romances and family mishaps, Bertie is saved by Jeeves’s calm intellect time and time again. Also featured in this collection is the wealthy yet helpless Reggie Pepper, a character often considered an early prototype of Bertie.

Adrian Mole is 39 and a quarter. Due to his financial situation he has been forced to move next door to his parents. And his numerous nightly visits to the lavatory lead him to suspect prostate trouble. As his worries multiply, a phone call to his old flame ignites powerful memories and makes him wonder - is she the only one who can save him now?

For once, a novel that isn’t about the heroine getting the guy. It’s about getting rid of the guy, and in the process, finding herself. Helen is nearly forty, and has, for far too long, had an affair with Matthew, a high-powered, much older, attractive, married man who was once, of course...

P.G. Wodehouse, the master of British humor, produced dozens of books and hundreds of short stories in his long and prolific career. But none of his creations has quite captured the world's imagination as much as his bumbling, empty-headed man-about-town Bertie Wooster and Bertie's faithful knight-in-shining-tuxedo Jeeves. Collected here are some of Wodehouse's most beloved Jeeves-and-Wooster tales - 10 short stories from the anthology Carry On, Jeeves as well as the novel The Inimitable Jeeves - each a master class in comedic writing.

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...

Ryan Fleming is a young agnostic reeling from his brother’s death. Though he is deeply angry with God, he makes good on a promise he made to his brother in the final moments of his life: to visit a church at least once. But shortly after his arrival, the slick megachurch’s shoddily installed video projector falls on his head—sending Ryan through a wormhole into another world. To make it back to his own universe, he must partner with a woman named Faith to awaken a long-sleeping King—the World-Maker who can make all things new.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet. Worse, they were lawyering up. . . . In the hilarious tradition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Rob Reid takes you on a headlong journey through the outer reaches of the universe—and the inner...

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.

When the members of Witches Incorporated receive a visitor from an alternate reality, they are shocked to discover that Gerald Dunwoody is responsible for the chaos in this parallel world. This evil Gerald has turned into a raving tyrant whose use of black magic has made him unstoppable. Unfortunately for them, this problem is about to cross over to their world very quickly because evil Gerald is searching for new worlds to conquer.

K. J. Parker's new novel is the remarkable tale of the siege of a walled city, and the even more remarkable man who had to defend it. A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. To save...

Born in England in 1869, Stephen Leacock would immigrate to Canada and become a teacher, political scientist, and writer. He would ultimately come to be best known and loved as a humourist. Literary Lapses was first published as a collection of sketches in 1910, although many of the individual stories were first printed in various newspapers and periodicals, such as Punch, New York Life, and the Detroit Free Press.

The Diary of Nobody (1892) created a cultural icon, an English archetype. Anxious, accident-prone, occasionally waspish, Charles Pooter has come to epitomize English suburban life. His diary chronicles encounters with difficult tradesmen, the delights of home improvements, small parties, minor embarrassments, and problems with his troublesome son. The suburban world he inhabits is hilariously and painfully familiar in its small-mindedness and its essential decency.

Herman Melville’s novel The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) is a comedy of masquerades and a blend of allegory, cultural satire, and metaphysics. The book portrays a confidence man who sneaks on board a Mississippi steamboat on April Fool's Day, and sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. He rapidly assumes various guises and the pleasure of trickery seems more important than the monetary gain. Each person is forced to confront that in which they believe.

Un día común y corriente, un funcionario ruso se despierta y descubre que su nariz ha desaparecido de su rostro. La nariz ahora se pasea por la ciudad, como si fuera una persona. Desesperado, el protagonista empieza una búsqueda frenética para recuperarla. ¿Podrá restaurar su apariencia normal?

The acclaimed author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies. Chase Insteadman, a handsome, inoffensive fixture on Manhattan's social scene, lives off...

A soldier in the First World War who never actually sees any combat, Josef Svejk is the awkward protagonist - and none of the other characters can quite decide whether his bumbling efforts to get to the front are genuine or not. Often portrayed as one of the first anti-war novels, Hasek's classic satire is a tour-de-force of modernist writing, influencing later writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner and Joseph Heller.

Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them just fine. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather forecasts, and tins of pineapple chunks---not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency.

A bumper collection of vintage episodes of the award-winning panel game Just a Minute is BBC Radio 4's longest-running panel show, and a national treasure. Since 1967, it has welcomed an array of stellar guest players to demonstrate their verbal dexterity, wicked wit and brilliant banter, as...

From World Fantasy Award-winning author K.J. Parker comes a devilishly clever tale of murder, intrigue, and existential crisis. ​Not even the Church of the Invincible Sun is invincible – and somebody has to do its dirty work. Enter Sister Svangerd and her accompanying priest, both first-rate...