Satire Comedy

The irresistible wit and charm of Alexander McCall Smith's New York Times best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series has won over countless fans. The same subtle humor and enchanting characterizations are full on display in At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, the third entertaining novella starring Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld.

Paul Pennyfeather is a quiet and unassuming student at Scone College, Oxford. One evening, on his return to his rooms, he is set upon by a member of the notorious Bollinger Club resulting in the loss of his trousers. He is expelled from the college for indecent behavior.

Wickedly narrated by David Stifel, and written in 1729, this satiric essay on how to solve Ireland's chronic poverty is perhaps more shocking today than when it was written. In the 1960s, when Peter O'Toole did a public reading of this piece in Dublin, he very nearly started a riot. Newspapers the following day lambasted O'Toole's "shocking bad taste." Whether shocking satire, or Monty-Pythonesque surrealism, this essay has continually managed to offend people for well over 3 centuries. Enjoy! (and Thank You!)

With millions of copies of his New York Times best-selling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency mysteries in print across the globe, Alexander McCall Smith is one of the most popular novelists and humorists in the world. Starring the brilliant but bumbling Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs is a wonderfully entertaining showcase for Smith's award-winning wit.

Maurice Allington has reached middle age and is haunted by death. As he says, “I honestly can’t see why everybody who isn’t a child, everybody who’s theoretically old enough to have understood what death means, doesn’t spend all his time thinking about it. It’s a pretty arresting thought.” He also happens to own and run a country inn that is haunted. The Green Man opens as Maurice’s father drops dead (had he seen something in the room?) and continues as friends and family convene for the funeral.

Named one of Time’s 100 best novels in the English language, Money is “savagely hilarious. It risks, it boils with energy . . . it even manages to shock” (The Washington Post). Including a new introduction by Lorrie Moore, author of I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home Originally published...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, bestselling author, and failed Wheel of Fortune contestant Dave Barry has questions—lots of them—and sets out to find the answers. If you've ever wondered things such as, "Just how does Oprah have the power to turn a 1957 Hotpoint toaster manual into a #1 bestseller?" or "What makes people want to eat animals they would never consider petting?" then this book is for you. Barry fans will appreciate this best-of collection of his syndicated columns since those likely went out with the recycled newspapers.

In yet another collection of essays, investigative journalist Dave Barry is on the job, hard at work between lunch and naps researching and compiling out-of-the-ordinary news stories from his legion of loyal followers all across the country. Reported as only Dave's wit and wisdom can accomplish, Barry covers everything from exploding municipal toilets to spontaneous human combustion (over 200 cases) to humor impairment—citing Exhibit A, former President Richard Nixon. No one is exempt: Barry lambasts traffic cops, dentists, doctors, Congress, and his very dumb dogs.

Back in 1979, when Solomon Zuch and Delphyne Shea were in high school, they shared an intense, romantic liaison on Halloween night. It became one of Solomon's most treasured memories. Twenty years later, Solomon is the married manager of the All Hallows' Eve Shoppe, a pop-up store that reopens every year to sell Halloween supplies to customers in north Columbus, Ohio. Delphyne Shadow, as she is now popularly known, calls herself the Madonna of the Underworld, and every year she hosts the most infamous Halloween party in town, the Nightmare Bash.

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 .

When headhunter Fabrice Valantine faces a smoking ban at work, he decides to undertake a course of hypnotherapy to rid himself of the habit. At first the treatment works, but his stress levels begin to rise when he is passed over for an important promotion and he finds himself lighting up again - but with none of his previous enjoyment. Then he discovers something terrible: he accidentally causes a man's death, and needing a cigarette to calm his nerves, he enjoys it more than any other previous smoke.

100% of The Late Show’s proceeds from this book go to disaster relief. Whose Boat Is This Boat? Comments That Don’t Help in the Aftermath of a Hurricane is a picture book made entirely of quotations from President Donald Trump in the wake of Hurricane Florence. It is the first children’s...

"Dieses Buch hilft mir, meine Mutter besser zu verstehen, und dir, Deutschland besser zu verstehen." Noch bevor Tahsim Durgun die Grundschule abschließt, muss er für seine Mutter die Abschiebebescheide entziffern, begleitet sie als Dolmetscher zu intimen Arztbesuchen und verliest Aldi-Kataloge am Fliesentisch. So wie Tahsim geht es vielen jungen Menschen mit Migrationsgeschichte, die früh Verantwortung für ihre Eltern übernehmen und gleichzeitig einen Platz finden müssen in einem oft feindseligen Land.

Jerry Wonder is the hero of this hilarious coming-of-age novel. A 19-year-old Mormon missionary, Jerry leaves South Dakota to save souls in New Zealand for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Elder Wonder's path is fraught with challenge. He misses his girlfriend, Susan, who tried valiantly to seduce him before he left, but to his regret, he remained strong for both of them. Now, he worries he will lose her in his two-year absence. And he is flawed.

Fille d'une vendeuse et d'un catcheur professionnel à la retraite, Margo a toujours su qu'elle devrait se débrouiller seule. En revanche, elle n'avait pas prévu d'avoir une liaison avec son professeur de lettres, encore moins de tomber enceinte. Contre l'avis de ses proches, Margo décide de garder l'enfant. À vingt ans, la voilà donc seule avec un nouveau-né, sans emploi et à deux doigts d'être expulsée de chez elle. Elle a besoin d'argent, et vite.

Life doesn't pick winners and losers. That's for the corporations to decide. And they picked Liam Argyle for a carefree life of fame and fortune as host of the world's most popular reality show competition. After two seasons of parading about the world's biggest victims on The Grass Is Greener, he's been forced to put a happy face on one tragedy too many - and he won't turn a blind eye to the horrors of the corporate dystopian world of the 2070s any longer. Now, Liam is out to destroy the very people who made him a star.

Sie lauern immer und überall: die kleinen und großen Tücken des alltäglichen Wahnsinns - in der Familie, im Beruf, in der Politik...

Considerada como la autobiografía del propio Dostoyevski, el jugador narra las experiencias de Víctor Ivanovich, tutor de una familia rusa en Alemania y su desgraciada adicción por los juegos de azar. Esta novela expone el lado materialista y mal intencionado del ser humano, desde la foránea perspectiva rusa dentro de los prestigiosos casinos alemanes.

Gappers will get your goat. Literally. If you don't brush them off and return them to the ocean, whence they arrive every day, these bright orange, many-eyed creatures will cover your goats, and the goats will stop giving milk. In a village called Frip, goat's milk was the entire economy. Three...

Timothy ‘Timbo’ Smith, part-time healer and self-styled security analyst, travels down the dark canyons of global capitalism, from short-selling scams in the City to the depleted rainforests of Brazil. His accomplices in this irresistible safari through the late modern world are two reformed alcoholics, the lovely and brilliant Lee ‘Lethal’ Thorold, and her husband Professor Luke Deverill, lecherous Oxford philosopher and caustic computer wizard.