Satire Comedy

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.

On an otherwise ordinary fall day on a university campus in Chicago, the toddler son of an ambitious divinity school professor named Adrian Bennett mysteriously starts to glow. The nimbus, as the strange, soft light comes to be known, offers no clues to its origin and frustrates every attempt at rational explanation.

After too many glasses of champers, Ruby takes her moment in the spotlight to reveal what she really thinks of every one of her friends, family and colleagues. She accuses her husband of having an affair and lambasts her mother for a lifetime of playing her three daughters against each other. As the stunned gathering gawks at Ruby, the birthday girl reveals that she has terminal cancer, and has cashed in her life savings to take her two estranged sisters cruising into the sunset for a dose of HRT – Husband Replacement Therapy. But is Ruby being courageous or ruthlessly selfish?

Sven Regener ist ein komischer und zugleich beklemmender Roman gelungen, der uns über den Aufbruch seines Helden in eine verwirrende Zukunft die frühen achtziger Jahre von einer Seite nahebringt, die wir erfolgreich verdrängt zu haben glaubten.

My name is Holly Hyman. I love order and prime numbers - and I’m in trouble. The company I work for is pivoting, and not in a way I like. Our new management? Alex Chortsky, a gorgeous, scruffy Russian devil. Our new direction? VR entertainment of the spicy kind. Maybe I wouldn’t mind it so much if my life’s work wasn’t meant for children. Or if I hadn’t accidentally hooked up with a VR version of my wickedly handsome boss. The only way to save my dream project is to make a Faustian bargain. For one night, I pretend to be Alex Chortsky’s girlfriend.

Adolf Hitler: Mit Charme, Scheitel und Youtube. Er ist wieder da: Adolf Hitler höchstpersönlich. Der Führer ist im globalisierten Deutschland des 21. Jahrhunderts auferstanden und versucht 2011 erneut, die Weltherrschaft an sich zu reißen. Aber wie erobert ein seit 70 Jahren verstorbener Diktator aus Berlin die Welt zurück? Klar, als Medienstar. Der Führer, der vergeblich seinen Bunker, seine Armee und eine Erklärung sucht, startet eine beachtliche Karriere als Adolf-Hitler-Imitator.

Everyone at the large agricultural college dubbed Moo U. has an agenda. Whether it's massaging data, running secret experiments, or seducing the powerful, each person is dedicated to a plan. Meet Dr. Lionel Gift, who feels that his economic principles come directly from God. Visit with "Earl Butz", who is being groomed to be the biggest hog in history. Mull over The Common Wisdom, what every secretary knows. As these agendas begin to collide, Moo trots toward a deliciously loony climax.

At the turn of the 20th century, as he composes a treatise on melancholy, Jacov Reinhardt sets off from his small Croatian village in search of his hero and unwitting mentor, Emiliano Gomez Carrasquilla, who is rumored to have disappeared into the South American jungle - "not lost, mind you, but retired." Jacov's narcissistic preoccupation with melancholy consumes him, and as he desperately recounts the myth of his journey to his trusted but ailing scribe, hope for an encounter with the lost philosopher who holds the key to Jacov's obsession seems increasingly unlikely.

Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group's ringleaders - including Eve, who narrates the story - decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.

Set in the time of Charlemagne and narrated by a nun with her own secrets to keep, The Nonexistent Knight tells the story of Agilulf, a gleaming white suit of armor with nothing inside it. A challenge to his honor sends Agilulf on a search through France, England, and North Africa to confirm the chastity of a virgin he saved from rape years earlier.

The future is blue - endless blue...except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown. Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she’s the only one who knows it. She’s the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it’s full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time.

The sacred and the profane come together with visceral force in two novellas by Bruce Wagner, The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers. The Met Gala & Tales of Saints and Seekers is an illuminated manuscript of Heaven and Hell.

Diabolically funny and subversively philosophical, Italian novelist Giacomo Sartori’s I Am God is the diary of the Almighty’s existential crisis that erupts when he falls in love with a human.

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.

In 2017 the Figaroa family of Mexico City was on the run from the Cartel. They crossed the border into Texas optimisticly seeking asylum. Instead their four year old twins were taken from them and they were deported.

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis is a satirical novel that depicts the rise of a fascist government in the United States, exploring themes of power, democracy, and individual freedom. Through the story of a demagogic politician who becomes president, Lewis warns against the fragility of democracy and the dangers of authoritarianism. The novel is a critical examination of American society and politics in the 1930s, highlighting the potential for tyranny even in a democratic nation.

Lionel Asbo, a terrifying yet weirdly loyal thug (self-named after England's notorious "Anti-Social Behaviour Order"), has always looked out for his ward and nephew, the orphaned Desmond Pepperdine. He provides him with fatherly career advice (always carry a knife, for example) and is determined they should share the joys of pit bulls (fed with lots of Tabasco sauce), Internet porn, and all manner of more serious criminality. Des, on the other hand, desires nothing more than books to read and a girl to love .

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.

Young, arrogant tycoon Earl Grey seduces the naïve coed Anna Steal with his overpowering good looks and staggering amounts of money, but will she be able to get past his fifty shames, including shopping at Walmart on Saturdays, bondage with handcuffs, and his love of BDSM (Bards, Dragons, Sorcery, and Magick)? Or will his dark secrets and constant smirking drive her over the edge?

Nonsense Novels was first published in 1920 yet a century later remains a huge favorite among Stephen Leacock fans. The British-born Canadian writer was renowned for his humor, and Nonsense Novels epitomizes both this skill and his mastery of the ridiculous. From an ill-fated Middle Ages romance to the dubious skills of a pitiful private eye and the happy outcome of a generations-old Scottish feud, Nonsense Novels is a tremendous listen.