Short Stories Humor

Pickled Bananas is a collection of 14 quirky short stories from the mind of Douglas Schwartz.

When DeLoyd Stroudamore discovers a cedar chest filled with handwritten stories from 1930s Toad Springs, Florida, he uncovers a world of three-legged gators with Jesus's face, preachers with prison pasts, and beauty shop disasters. Through authentic voices in genuine dialect, these interconnected tales reveal how ordinary people survived the Depression with humor, faith, and resilience.

In vignettes both comic and sexy, the owner of a coffee shop recalls the day his first wife seemed to achieve a moment of simple perfection, while she remembers the women's softball game during which she was stricken by the beauty of the shortstop. A young couple spends hours at the coffee shop fueling the idea of their fierce love. A professor of philosophy, stopping by for a cup of coffee, makes a valiant attempt to explain what he knows to be the inexplicable workings of the human heart.

J. Harris Anderson's popular character Thumper Billington is at a crossroads in his life. A brief and impetuous marriage has ended, a new person has captured his interest. Has she captured his heart too? How can he assure this new relationship will be the one he's always hoped for? An avid foxhunter, he comes to a compelling realization: Life is about The Chase. Through a series of stories and lessons, told with wry humor and sprinkled with a wealth of practical tips, Thumper brings the listener along on his journey of discovery. It's Dave Barry meets Rita Mae Brown meets Dr. Phil!

Ready to feel the chills running down your spine? Wait, that's just the green gelatin monster from one of the stories in this collection of very silly (and a few not-so-silly) horror stories. Vampires, werewolves, demons, mummies, and zombies compete with evil little Shirley Temple look-alikes and their collectibles, centerpieces and church women, cops and monster hunters, for your laughs. It's a light-hearted take on the horror genre.

Here is a story collection about love, death, humor, and the glue called family. In one narrative, a man wakes up one morning to find the odor of dead fish won't go away, but no one else can smell it. In another, a couple's visit with friends to watch the Academy Awards has the protagonist envying his friends' lawn and lifestyle. In these and 11 other stories, Christopher Meeks balances tragedy and wit.

Ever dream about writing to your favorite writer and receiving a package as a reply? What's in that package? What if you could see murders and suicides before they happened? How would you proceed? Easy answer, but what if you enjoyed it? Why is a grandmother singing about the apocalypse in the street? Most importantly, what's your good line?

This collection features two of the most well known stories by the great Russian writer Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852). These selections from his Petersburg tales, "Nevsky Prospect" and "The Nose", are full of humor, mystery and mysticism.

In The Humour of America, 88 short stories, poems, anecdotes, and essays from the 18th and 19th century will keep you smiling and chuckling!

An awful poet, dumped by his girlfriend, roams through Italy, where he clearly doesn't belong; an oil delivery man falls in love with a clumsy woman and becomes even clumsier than she is; and a six-year-old and his father kill over 200 flies at a horse farm while the father wonders about life and death. Poor Advice and Other Stories, with its mix of the serious and the absurd, reveals Lou Gaglia's humor, imagination, and range.

BETRAYAL. PASSION. MAGIC. And...WIGS! From the sparkling imagination of gifted entertainer Keke Palmer and her iconic alter ego, Lady Miss Jacqueline, comes a hilarious modern fairy tale about a wilting violet, a clash of personalities, and a multitude of hair.

In an age of adventure, the Scottish Mexican pirate Captain Duncan MacSanchez and his brave but quirky crew embark on a quest for the Blaze of Glory. It would be easier to find if they actually knew what it was. What if real wizards and warriors played role-playing-games? What would they pretend to be? In our modern world of social media and texting, what kind of powers would superheroes need to preserve civilization? This is a collection of humorous short stories that takes a lighter look at mighty heroes and their adventures.

Arkady Averchenko - brilliant writer of humorous stories and novels, which have stood the test of time. His works have enjoyed enormous popularity in pre-revolutionary Russia, and after the exile - among the Russian diaspora. His stories are really funny, subtle and clever - a rare combination for a comedian. And they are written in excellent literary style.

Wodehouse introduces us once again to the "wonder butler" Jeeves, who, as usual is able to solve any and all of Bertie Wooster's endless problems with ease and finesse. And he also introduces us to a character not dissimilar to Bertie . . . by name of Reggie. Such fun to follow Jeeves in the hijinks!

Horror, humor, and science fiction collide in this collection of weird tales about possible futures, warped present-day realities, and alternate history. Unreliable narrators run rampant alongside aliens, ghosts, bullies, cannibals, home invaders, heroes, villains, unimaginable creatures, and gifted individuals of all ages. Paranoia, fear, and bizarre situations abound in these reality-bending stories guaranteed to take you places you've never been.

In Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts Mr. Darcy has never been more devilish and the seemingly chaste Elizabeth never more turned on. The entire cast of characters from Austen's classic is here in this rewrite that goes all the way. This time Mr. Bingley and his sister both have designs on Mr. Darcy's manhood; Elizabeth's bff Charlotte marries their family's strange relation and stumbles upon a secret world of feminine relations more to her liking.

Kate and Michael, twenty-something housemates working at the same Trader Joe’s supermarket, are thoroughly screwed when people start turning into zombies at their house party in the Oakland hills. The zombie plague is a sexually transmitted disease, turning its victims into shambling, horny, voracious killers.

So there was all that: the ordinary twill of life; the ho-hum sturm und drang of the workplace: the ubiquitous absurdities, the annoying co-workers, the bloody deadlines and even bloodier bottom lines; the bland, eternal, Sisyphean, absolute, unrelenting, surreal certainty of the day-in-and-day-out of it all. Life as a slice of white bread, moistened with spit and rolled into a messy glob, a doughy ball that couldn't make the slightest dent in the iron gates of life. But then, suddenly, on August 27, 2002, all that changed. Suddenly, Rae-Jean's uneventful life began to leaven and swell with hypotheticals.

Raising the literary bar to a new level, Jerome Charyn re-creates the voice of Theodore Roosevelt, the New York City police commissioner, Rough Rider, and soon-to-be 26th president through his derring-do adventures, effortlessly combining superhero dialogue with haunting pathos. Beginning with his sickly childhood and concluding with McKinley's assassination, the novel positions Roosevelt as a "perfect bull in a china shop," a fearless crime fighter and pioneering environmentalist who would grow up to be our greatest peacetime president.

A frustrated lawyer finds release where she least expects it - and where she needs it most - in this exhilarating, sexy romp through the finest gluten-free indulgences in a New York City grocery store. After another long workday, the only thing Meredith wants is a big bowl of paleo maple-pecan coconola. But the hour-long checkout line at 7:00 p.m. at an all-organic supermarket stands between her and satisfaction, and the yupster mob is working her last nerve. Then, out of nowhere, a spontaneous flirtation with a stranger shows her there’s a lot more than coconola waiting for her.