Satire Comedy

Lamar Jimmerson is the leader of the Gnomon Society, the international fraternal order dedicated to preserving the arcane wisdom of the lost city of Atlantis. Stationed in France in 1917, Jimmerson comes across a little book crammed with Atlantean puzzles, Egyptian riddles, and extended alchemical metaphors. It's the Codex Pappus—the sacred Gnomon text. Soon he is basking in the lore of lost Atlantis, convinced that his mission on earth is to administer to and extend the ranks of the noble brotherhood.

In 1920s America, a plague is spreading fast. From New Orleans to Chicago to New York, the "Jes Grew" epidemic makes people desperate to dance, overturning social norms in the process. Anyone is vulnerable and when they catch it, they'll bump and grind into a frenzy. Working to combat the Jes Grew infection are the puritanical Atonists, a group bent on cultivating a "Talking Android", an African American who will infiltrate the unruly black communities and help crush the outbreak.

Continuously available in print since 1968, this novel has become embedded in progressive anti-racist culture with wide circulation of the book and hotly debated film. A literary classic, The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a strong comment on entrenched racial inequities in the United States in the late 1960s. With its focus on the “militancy” that characterized the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s, this is the story of one man’s reaction to ruling-class hypocrisy.

In Shock Induction, the best and brightest students at a seemingly reputable high school are disappearing. Every day it seems another overachiever is lost to an apparent suicide. But something far more sinister is lurking beneath the surface. These kids have been under surveillance since birth, monitored and measured by an online service called “Greener Pastures.” It’s here, in Greener Pastures, that billionaires observe and recruit the next generation of talent.

Senhor Jose is a low-grade clerk in the city's Central Registry, where the living and the dead share the same shelf space. A middle-aged bachelor, he has no interest in anything beyond the certificates of birth, marriage, divorce, and death that are his daily routine. But one day, when he comes across the records of an anonymous young woman, something happens to him.

George, Harris, and J. decide to take a cycling trip through the Black Forest - to be accomplished on a tandem plus one. Whether it is Harris's harrowing experience with a Hanoverian road-waterer or George's valiant attempt to buy a cushion for his aunt, their experiences are hilarious - - and they may even offer some important lessons to all who may be contemplating a cycling trip in the U.S.

Campbell Flynn, art historian, professor, and fêted fixture of the literati, always knew that when his life came crashing down, it would happen in public—yet he never imagined that a single year in London would expose so much. He’s never taken other people half as seriously as they take themselves, which is the first of his mistakes. The second is a new project: opportunistic and precisely calibrated to rake in a fortune.

Bret Ellis, the narrator of Lunar Park, is the bestselling writer whose first novel Less Than Zero catapulted him to international stardom while he was still in college. In the years that followed he found himself adrift in a world of wealth, drugs, and fame, as well as dealing with the unexpected death of his abusive father.

After a decade spent in isolation in the Ugandan jungles thinking about stuff, David Cross has written his first book. Known for roles on the small screen such as "never-nude" Tobias Funke on Arrested Development and the role of "David" in Mr. Show with Bob and David, as well as a hugely successful stand-up routine full of sharp-tongued rants and rages, Cross has carved out his place in American comedy.

Zero Gravity is the fifth collection of comic pieces by Woody Allen, a hilarious prose stylist whose enduring appeal has been savored since his classics Getting Even, Without Feathers, Side Effects, and Mere Anarchy. This new work combines pieces that have appeared in The New Yorker along with 11 written exclusively for this book, each a comic inspiration.

The night Donald Trump won the presidency, our author Joel Stein, Thurber Prize finalist and former staff writer for Time Magazine, instantly knew why. The main reason wasn't economic anxiety or racism. It was that he was anti-elitist. Hillary Clinton represented Wall Street, academics, policy papers, Davos, international treaties and the people who think they're better than you. People like Joel Stein. Trump represented something far more appealing, which was beating up people like Joel Stein.

Marc-Uwe Kling lebt mit einem Känguru zusammen. Das Känguru ist Kommunist und steht total auf Nirvana. Die Känguru-Chroniken berichten von den Abenteuern und Wortgefechten des Duos. Und so bekommen wir endlich Antworten auf die drängendsten Fragen unserer Zeit: War das Känguru wirklich beim Vietcong? Und wieso ist es schnapspralinensüchtig? Könnte man die Essenz des Hegelschen Gesamtwerkes in eine SMS packen? Und wer ist besser: Bud Spencer oder Terence Hill?

After a long and arduous COVID-19 quarantine, Serge A. Storms is fully vaccinated and ready to hit the road. Along with his condo neighbors, he cooks up a wild plan to celebrate in true Serge fashion: each week, they rent a shuttle van and head out for funky Florida road trips and some serious revelry.

Travel with Steve, doomed for eternity to serve as hell’s Mr. Fixit, on a wild ride through the circles of hell in this best-selling, humorous fantasy series.

The Importance of Being Earnest is a very popular play written by Oscar Wilde. In the satire, Algernon and Jack are two young members of the English gentry who pursue their romantic desires dishonestly. Both men want to adopt the name "Ernest," who is Jack's imaginary younger brother. The idea of name changing comes about when Algernon wants to marry Cecily, and Jack wants to marry Gwendolen. However, it just so happens that Cecily and Gwendolen are only interested in marrying men named Ernest!

When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.

Welcome to the paperless (or "audiobook") edition of More Information Than You Require, a further compendium of COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE assembled and illumined by John Hodgman, a Famous Minor Television Personality. It contains all of the half-truths, fake trivia, amazing made-up facts, and molemanic lore as the paper edition, narrated here by Resident Expert John Hodgman, occasionally interrupted by this veritable extravaganza of illustrious and sometimes presumptuous guests.

Behind every assassination, there is an anonymous mastermind - a plotter - working in the shadows. Plotters quietly dictate the moves of the city's most dangerous criminals, but their existence is little more than legend. Reseng is an assassin. Raised by a cantankerous killer named Old Raccoon in the crime headquarters "The Library", Reseng never questioned anything: where to go, who to kill, or why his home was filled with books that no one ever read. But one day, Reseng steps out of line on a job, toppling a set of carefully calibrated plans.

Jon Stewart, host of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning The Daily Show, and his coterie of patriots deliver a hilarious look at American government.

Meet Rabo Karabekian, a moderately successful surrealist painter who we meet late in life and see struggling (like all of Vonnegut's key characters) with the dregs of unresolved pain and the consequences of brutality. Loosely based on the legend of Bluebeard (best realized in Bela Bartok's one-act opera), the novel follows Karabekian through the last events in his life that is heavy with women, painting, artistic ambition, artistic fraudulence, and as of yet unknown consequence.