Humor Short

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. The breakout book from "the funniest writer in America"--not to mention an official...

Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) may be considered the Canadian counterpart to Mark Twain. For many years he was professor of economics at Magill University and published a number of well-regarded texts on economics and political science. However, he is best known today for his many volumes of humorous fiction. During the 1920s he was one of the most widely read authors in the English-speaking world and was considered by Jack Benny and Groucho Marx to be one of the greatest comic writers of all time.

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.

In his debut collection of short stories, Robert Sheehan disappears into characters, challenging the complacencies of everyday experience, often from entirely unexpected angles. Informed by the author’s peripatetic life, Disappearing Act reflects on the absurdity of human behaviour. Sheehan delves deep into his characters’ streams of self-talk and self-imposed delusions, exploring the dark impulses that lurk below the shiny surfaces of many outwardly normal lives.

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").

"A collection of wistful, witty stories." --Esquire "Hilarious, deep and a little bit dirty." --Harper's Bazaar A grief-stricken librarian decides to have sex with every man who enters her library. A half-mad, unbearably beautiful heiress follows a strange man home, seeking total sexual...

У збірку увійшли перлини українського гумору – невеличкі веселі оповідання Остапа Вишні Мисливські усмішки, своєрідна та неповторна лірика мисливця та рибака, викладена у прозі. Цикл «Мисливські усмішки» Остапа Вишні жваво зображує картини полювання, дає влучні та смішні поради мисливцям та рибарям. До книги увійшли наступні усмішки: Відкриття охоти Як варити і їсти суп з дикої качки Лисиця Заєць Ведмідь Бекас Вовк Вальдшнеп Дика коза Дика гуска Як я з ним познайомився Перепілка Лось Дрохва Дикий кабан, або вепр Гагара Екіпіровка мисливця Ружжо З крякухою на озері Лебідь Короп Сом Щука Реготуни Бенгальський тигр.

Janet Williams is practically invisible. If only she had the pluck to speak up at work, flirt with the handsome barista she sees every day, and realize how special she is. When a magical wig offers Janet a chance to shake things up, will she dare to try a bold new style? The voice in her head - flashy and fierce, with an unbridled southern drawl - tells her to go for it. And once she does, there’s no turning back.

Stare if you dare, into Paul Jennings' wild world. What happens when you grow younger?

Eve has her own story, and she's been waiting millennia for Barbara McBride-Smith to tell it. It's the same for Mrs. Noah. Talk about misunderstood or under-appreciated women! McBride-Smith singles them out for her trademark feminist humor. And following Eve and Mrs. Noah's stories are four of McBride-Smith's retellings of Greek myths from her West Texas good-ole-girl perspective.

Bubba’s back from Fairyland, and sometimes it feels like they shoulda just stayed there! Man, coming back to the real world sucks. Bubba and his whole team have been fired on account of going MIA for a year and a half (yeah, time moves differently in Fairyland - yay), and now they’ve got to…get jobs? Oh, this is going to go well.

On the 12th floor of the Acme Building, on a cold February day in St. Paul, Guy Noir looks down the barrel of a loaded revolver in the hands of geezer gangster Joey Roast Beef, who is demanding to hear what lucrative scheme Guy is cooking up with stripper-turned-women's-studies-professor Naomi Fallopian. Everyone wants to know, and Guy faces them one by one, as he and Naomi pursue a dream of earning gazillions by selling a surefire method of dramatic weight loss.

This novelette is an homage to the amazing P. G. Wodehouse and his legendary characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster. While living in 1920's New York City, Bertie is saddled with looking after the son of one of his Aunt Agatha's best mates, the Lady Mallowan. Bertie thinks that the young Lord Wiltshire is a useless, annoying nitwit, but he has no idea that left on his own a completely different side of the young Dermot will start to emerge, putting Bertie in a serious pickle.

From a "genius" (New York Times) storyteller: a new, subversive, hilarious, heart-breaking collection. "There is sweetheartedness and wisdom and eloquence and transcendence in his stories because these virtues exist in abundance in Etgar himself... I am very happy that Etgar and his work are in...

Inviting 25 former classmates to a reunion dinner, Isabel sees an opportunity to finally resolve age-old differences among her classmates. But when damaging secrets and long-held resentments surface, Isabel finds the path to true forgiveness runs along a very slippery slope.

Few authors in America write with such sheer love of story, language, and imagination as T.C. Boyle, and nowhere is that passion more evident than in his inventive, wickedly funny, and widely praised short stories. In After the Plague, Boyle speaks of contemporary social issues in a range of...

Detective Ulf Varg from the Department of Sensitive Crimes is often called upon to investigate unusual matters. But rarely is he asked to conduct an inquiry on behalf of his own family. Is such a thing ethical? Adding to Ulf's moral discomfort is the fact that he does not exactly see eye to eye with his younger brother Bjorn - a leading player in one of Sweden's right-wing parties, the Moderate Extremists. Still, family is family, so Ulf finds himself working to uncover the mole leaking secrets to a rival party, the Extreme Moderates.

"Dans la liste des précautions oratoires, celle-ci occupe une place à part. Elle souhaite jouer la surprise par sa forme, une vulgarité appuyée qui aurait pour mission de gommer à l'avance le pire des soupçons : une pensée réactionnaire. L'interlocuteur ne doit pas se récrier avant la remarque promise. Mais une petite réticence aux commissures des lèvres signifiant "Toi, passer pour un vieux con !?" semble bienvenue. Elle était espérée."

From the author of the sensational bestseller I Was Told There'd Be Cake comes a new book of personal essays brimming with all the charm and wit that have earned Sloane Crosley widespread acclaim, award nominations, and an ever-growing cadre of loyal fans. In Cake readers were introduced to the...

An urgent and unforgettable collection of stories, Show Them a Good Time explores types - men and women, their assigned roles and meanings - in modern society. A young, broke Irish woman narrates her relationship with a successful comedian in New York; two hapless university students take to the stage in a bid to assert their autonomy; a school teacher makes her way through a series of dead-end dates, gamely searching for love or distraction as the world teeters towards ruin.