Satire Comedy

Churchill is Prime Minister for the last time. Rationing is still in force. All music sounds like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. People like living in 1952: it's familiar and reassuring, and Britain knows its place in the world. Few have noticed it's been 1952 for the past 65 years. Meet Professor Quanderhorn; a brilliant, maverick scientific genius who has absolutely no moral compass. With his Dangerous Giant Space Laser, High Rise Farm, Invisible Robot and Fleet of Monkey-driven Lorries, he's not afraid to push the boundaries of science to their very limit.

An underpaid, overworked certified flight instructor cheats death while attempting to teach a cast of incompetent student pilots to fly at a skeezy South Florida flight school; all in the quest to build flight time so he can get a “real job” at an airline. The planes break, the regs break, metal gets bent, students are lost at sea, and a Top Gun wannabe student, who has 400 hours of flight instruction, still hasn’t made his first solo flight.

For decades Hazie Coogan has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton, veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart - and boudoir. Soon, Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in an upcoming musical extravaganza. As the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans and for posterity.

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.

This is the legend of Saint Frank, and the great deeds he what did to earn that Sainthood, not born a Saint, in the beginning he was just, Frank, but not long after some stuff that took long, he became Sir. Frank. Sir. Frank may or may not have slayed a Dragon, if he did then this is the Tale of how Sir. Frank became Saint Frank, and if he did not then this is the story of nearly a Saint Frank and a triumphant Dragon.

It's 1994, and the former Yugoslavia is being torn apart. In England a gang of good-hearted young people are about to set off in a Ford Transit van armed with several sacks of rice and a half-written play. A play which will light a beacon of peace across the Balkans and, very probably, stop the war. Andrew would love to stop the war. He has one of the most comprehensively developed personal foreign policies of anyone working on a building site in the Greater Manchester area. He feels everyone should have a foreign policy, really. What sort of person doesn't?

It is the dawn of the twentieth century when the beautiful, budding feminist Katherine Dexter falls in love with Stanley McCormick, son of a millionaire inventor. The two wed, but before the marriage is consummated, Stanley experiences a nervous breakdown and is diagnosed as a schizophrenic sex maniac. Locked up for the rest of his life at Riven Rock, the family's California mansion, Stanley is treated by a series of confident doctors determined to cure him.

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.

Be(com)ing Nigerian: A Guide is a satirical collection that takes a searing look at how different forms of power are abused, negotiated, and performed both in the private and public realm. Through attempting to satirise those who abuse privilege or power, it recognises that power can be found everywhere: in politics, business, religious institutions, and in homes. From the exploration of religious hypocrisy in How to Worship the Nigerian God, to A Letter to My Future Kidnapper, the collection is a jab at Nigerian society and what it means to be a Nigerian.

Is it too much to ask that a managed care facility refund a year’s advance payment when your grandfather dies before he can move in? Frank Johnson doesn’t think so, which is why the 33-year-old now lives in a nursing home, locked in a chess-match feud with management that doesn’t occupy nearly enough of his time. When foster kid Elroy is thrust into his life, Frank decides to turn this forced relationship to his advantage - launching a string of absurd decisions, inappropriate behaviors, and unexpected glimpses of tenderness that ultimately turn a New Jersey suburb upside down.

As Trafford Sewell struggles to work through the usual crowds of commuters, he is confronted by the intimidating figure of his Parish Confessor. Why has Trafford not been streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy onto the community website like everybody else? Does he think he's different or special in some way? Better than his fellow man and woman? Does he have something to hide? Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody.

Gravedigger John Gascoigne lives in Downfell Hurst with his wife, Florrie, their three children and his mother, Gran. John is a deep thinker but extremely taciturn - a man of few words and many grunts. Which is why everyone is alarmed when he's hit on the head by a cricket ball, and it suddenly seems as if the words won't stop. What's more, he says he is talking to Saint Christopher - only no one else can see the saint, and they're beginning to worry John's not quite right in the head.

The Labyrinth of the World is about a fellow named Pilgrim who treks through the world in order to find the best way to live, aided by two guides: Mr. Ubiquitous and Mr. Delusion. Pilgrim finds much to be concerned about in the world. Ultimately, he finds something he had not planned upon in his journey: The Paradise of the Heart. This original pilgrim allegory was penned 55 years before Pilgrim's Progress. Find out how an educator and theologian, with real-life experience, penned a profound story that is still contemporary today.

Hailed in his lifetime as one of Latin America’s greatest writers, Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was a storyteller known for his wholly innovative narrative techniques and uncanny talent for unraveling the social and political milieu of nineteenth-century Brazil. These signature traits are on full display in Quincas Borba, a novel that sees Machado satirize a rapidly changing Rio de Janeiro. Originally published in 1891, the story begins with the death of its titular character, a mad philosopher infamous for spouting pessimistic theories of “Humanitism”.

From the satirical minds behind the viral sensation The Babylon Bee comes the latest installment of its guide series. This looks at the two original gangsta genders—male and female—shows us the progressively insane slide into the multiplying number of genders that has lately been spiraling out of control.

One of the great Victorian novels by an author at the height of his powers, Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of the calculating, upwardly-mobile Becky Sharp and her gentle, good-hearted friend Amelia Sedley as they leave their boarding school and embark upon their lives in Vanity Fair–the social-climbing, wealth-obsessed world of Regency England in the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

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.

Après avoir écrit sur le système de santé, la mort et sur la médecine elle-même, le docteur Alain Vadeboncœur a eu envie de relaxer un peu et de partager les moments étranges et cocasses qui ponctuent sa vie à l'urgence. Avec la sensibilité qu'on lui connaît, il raconte les petits travers des gens du métier (et les siens !), les rencontres loufoques, les contrastes étonnants entre certains drames et leurs répercussions insolites... et même comment son préfacier, le comédien et réalisateur Simon Olivier Fecteau, a un jour tenté de le tuer.

Petronius’ Satyricon is a rampant and vivacious Roman adventure dating back to the first century, during the reign of Nero. It follows the exploits of Encolpius, an impoverished ex-gladiator, and his boy-lover Giton. The action is fleet and the narrative sweeping: over the course of their journey we meet a host of lewd and comical rogues, including beggars, prostitutes, poets, sodomites, and pedants, and witness many strange and curious events, including a remarkably vulgar multi-course feast, hosted by the pompous nouveau riche Trimalchio

Without bothering to get approval from the President, the State Department, or even the FTC, Dave Barry's publishers sent him to Tokyo. You'd think they would have known better. Now the word is Barry has set back our diplomatic relations with the whole Pacific Rim by a couple of decades. Japanese culture, dining, sport, and industry all come under Barry's relentless scrutiny.