Short Stories Humor

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.

From the highly acclaimed author of Edisto and The Interrogative Mood, Padgett Powell's new collection of stories, Cries for Help, Various Stories, follows his mentor Donald Barthelme's advice that "wacky mode must "break their hearts". The surrealistic and comical terrain of most of the 44 stories here is grounded by a real preoccupation with longing, fear, work, loneliness, and cultural nostalgia. These universal concerns are given exhilarating life by way of Powell's "wit, his...dazzling turns of phrase" (Scott Spencer).

In the unforgettable opener, "The Infamous Bengal Ming", a misunderstood tiger's affection for his keeper goes horribly awry. In "Demons", a woman tries to celebrate Thanksgiving after the sudden death of her husband, even though his corpse is still sprawled on their living room floor. The heroes - and antiheroes - of this collection include a railroad manager in a turn-of-the-century Indian village, the newlywed executioner of the title, and an elephant writing her autobiography - the creations of a riotous, singular imagination that promises to dazzle the universe of American fiction.

Since its earliest days, The New Yorker has been a tastemaker: literally. As the home of A. J. Liebling, Joseph Wechsberg, and M. F. K. Fisher, who practically invented American food writing, the magazine established a tradition that is carried forward today by irrepressible literary gastronomes, including Calvin Trillin, Bill Buford, Adam Gopnik, Jane Kramer, and Anthony Bourdain. Now, in this indispensable collection, The New Yorker dishes up a feast of delicious writing on food and drink.

Hollywood and Broadway are icons of the American Dream. But what happens to those who feed off that dream? Just as drug cartels have many underlings who must get paid along the journey to the addicts, so do the characters who need to be nourished by the luminaries who make up this star-studded world above us. James Musgrave’s collection of 11 stories, in many ways, addresses the theme of “star power”, but in a way that satirizes the stereotypical “Hollywood endings” in very unique and literary ways.

Welcome to the peculiar and headlong world of Brian Doyle's fiction, where the odd is happening all the time, reported upon by characters of every sort and stripe. Swirling voices and skeins of story, laughter and rage, ferocious attention to detail and sweeping nuttiness, tears and chortling - these stories will remind listeners of the late giant David Foster Wallace, in their straightforward accounts of anything-but-straightforward events and of modern short story pioneer Raymond Carver, a bit, in their blunt, unadorned dialogue.

Todos somos los héroes o las heroínas de nuestro propio cuento. Pero ese cuento cambia según quién decida ponerse tras el papel para narrarlo, o quizás si entran en escena personajes que no nos esperábamos o que deciden, de golpe, cobrar un papel más protagonista. ¿Qué pasaría si el príncipe no puede salvar a la princesa... porque tiene que quedarse en casa cuidando a su padre? ¿El cuento hubiera terminado de la misma manera?

From the wicked imagination of award-winning writer Warren Ellis comes DEAD PIG COLLECTOR, a love story with a classic Ellis twist. So while it might be a love story, it's also about killing people and disposing of their bodies in the most efficient manner possible. DEAD PIG COLLECTOR introduces...

Tales from the Eerie Canal weaves the sinister mystery of Edgar Allan Poe with the dark humor of Edward Gorey. No canal. No Lake Erie. Just a stream of the disturbing splashed with bits of the absurd.

A delightful collection of humorous classic tales by some of the world's greatest racconteurs.

Douglas Fergus wants you to be happy. And laugh. Or at least feel good knowing you’re not the only person who thinks weird is cool. He is compelled to share his quirky/humorous/satirical outlook on life in an effort to spread joy to as many people as possible.

An implant that gives moral advice whether you like it or not, an irritable galactic ambassador examining Earth’s religions, a future where love can’t happen without litigation, pushy alien anthropologists without regard for the human need for privacy, discrimination against an artificial intelligence in a multicultural world, alien sex - love in the time of deformity, neighborly nitpicking made easy by Computer Court, the excruciating reality of Martian music, invasion of the toe snatchers, something crunchy on the menu, and a transgenic pig dog at war with an android nemesis.

Death. It’s a part of life and something we all must accept. Whether it be our own demise or losing a loved one, the experience of death is both sobering and surreal. My Dad Is Dead is a group of related short stories that explore that dichotomy through the eyes of a kid. In George Verongos’ second book, he turns childhood memories into “fictionally enhanced” tales (he made us say that, he’s trying to make it a thing).

Chuckle along with the best 19th-century humorists, who provide you with tall tales, puns, and witty ripostes. No guarantees of political correctness, but they're sure to tickle your 21st-century funny bone! Beginning with the piece that made Mark Twain famous -- "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" -- and ending with his fanciful "How I Edited an Agricultural Paper," this anthology collects several of Twain's own pieces in addition to tall tales, fables, and satires by 14 of Twain's contemporaries.

This book consists of 27 short stories of murder, mystery and mayhem. This is book one in a series of eight short story compilation books.

Underground, we are at once isolated and connected. We avoid eye contact and conversation while our lives literally intersect with those of strangers. As we stand on the tube, it becomes possible to travel far further than expected - and this sense of possibility lies at the heart of this stunning collection. Twelve writers explore life on the London Underground through eleven short stories and one memoir, commissioned to mark the opening of the Elizabeth line in 2018.

It was, maybe, the first job I'd ever had where people were happy to see me. An odd feeling indeed, to wield this kind of power. To be this kind of force. As near to magical as any mortal should stride. A technician of unspeakable joy. Braving the neon mountains to return with blue raspberry concentrate. Tearing out sundae cone fangs from the mouths of snow beasts. And so on.