Short Stories Humor

“These gripping, magical tales span time travel, portals, menacing butterflies, and more. A can’t-miss meditation on families and survival.” —People “A gorgeous book that also serves as a series of unanswerable, probing questions: How did we get here? How will we move forward? Can we...

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD “The stories in Black Light are grimy and weird, surprising, utterly lush. . . . I loved every moment of this book.” —Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties With raw, poetic ferocity, Kimberly King Parsons exposes desire’s...

Actor Matthew McConaughey descends into a surreal desert of the soul, an admirer of Miley Cyrus performs a 3,000-word sentence in defense of his passion, an aging porn star dons a dinosaur costume to film the sex scene of a lifetime, and Leonard Cohen shills for Subway: these mercurial and wildly varied stories explode the conventions of short fiction.

Odd Jobs & After Hours tells a story of drifting down the East Coast while getting involved in one sketchy so-called opportunity after another.

The acclaimed, award-winning author of The Resisters takes measure of the fifty years since the opening of China and its unexpected effects on the lives of ordinary people. It is a unique book that only Jen could write—a story collection accruing the power of a novel as it proceeds—a work...

O. Henry wove several stories together into this highly episodic narrative, taking his title and inspiration from Lewis Carroll's ballad of the walrus and the carpenter in Through the Looking-Glass. The stories are set in the fictional country of Anchuria in Central America, a banana republic where larceny is rampant and revolution lurking in every impoverished back alley. O. Henry offers a cutting satire of contemporary politics and prejudices.

"Isn't so and so a snob?" he asks. "She won't even admit she liked Grease." Looking for an author who ponders the imponderable, expresses the inexpressible, describes the indescribable, and leaves no burning issue of American popular culture or world concern unexamined? Well, you'll find him in Mark Leyner. On this recording, Leyner, one of the most gifted and original young American writers around, reads 6 prose pieces from his first published book.

There were times when Bertie Wooster, the fictional narrator of these stories, was thought of as being at least a trifle feather-brained. However, he had a valet who seemed to know everything about everything. These are among more than 300 short stories written by a man who began a short-lived career in banking after his college days. However, it didn’t take long for P. G. Wodehouse to decide he didn’t like that kind of job, and he began writing in whatever spare time he had.

In this bunch of offbeat stories, the listener will be sucked into a series of abnormal, yet compellingly dark and amusing tales. A sailors tavern gets an unexpected visitor with a message that could save humanity from itself. Two naughty boys on a school trip to the zoo decide to play a trick that backfires with crushing consequences. A grumpy old man drops devastation in his wake as he leaves behind a trail of deadly flatulence on his trip through the village. The neighbours from hell get neighbours who really are from hell.

Matt Debenham's stories are for people who think they don't like short stories. These stories don't leave off in mid-breath; instead, they feature characters who seem to live on even after their closing pages. The humor in The Book of Right and Wrong makes the jarring moments that much more jarring, and the tender moments that much more tender. At once heartbreaking and hilarious, the 11 stories in The Book of Right and Wrong capture their characters at the defining moments of their lives.

The Desert Living Retirement Community is located smack dab in the middle of the Southern California desert, surrounded by windmills. Within this retirement community is a quaint little coffee shop running on a budget. Join the retirees in this quirky and comical short story as they spend their day drinking coffee and gossiping.

Zbiór opowieści o niestandardowych świętych, których losy zostały związane z dziwnym Osiedlem, gdzie kontakt ze zmarłymi jest możliwy w przestrzeni wirtualnej, a czas da się nie tylko zatrzymać, ale także zawrócić. Osiedlowi święci żyją nie tylko w sąsiedztwie kościoła, lecz także sklepu monopolowego i ławki w parku, a koleje losów postaci opowiadane są z dużą dozą absurdalnego humoru.

Álex Ayala escribe acerca de unos jubilados que cumplen heroicamente su última misión en la vida: vigilar una estatua de John Lennon para que nadie robe sus características gafas. Y también lo hace sobre los habitantes de un pueblo de Bolivia que comercian con sus recuerdos sobre las últimas horas de vida del Che Guevara. En otro capítulo se habla del sastre Sillerico, quien ha gozado del dudoso honor de ver en paños menores a la mayoría de los presidentes de su país.

Während Fußballweltmeisterschaften versuchen sogar Deutsche, zu Brasilianern zu werden. Spätestens nach dem dritten Caipirinha in praller Sonne spricht man zumindest schon mal so wie Ailton: "Ailton nicht dick, Ailton schießt Tor, wenn Ailton Tor, dann dick egal." Ein Satz, der so quasi auch für mich gilt. So viel Weisheit wie bei Ailton findet man nicht alle Tage. ‚Ailton gut, guter Tag, Ailton nicht gut, morgen neuer Tag.‘ Daran sieht man auch, wirklich große Philosophie braucht keine Verben.

Including stories first published in Cosmopolitan and the Saturday Evening Post, this best-selling collection follows the romantic escapades of Max Shulman's famed collegiate Don Juan. Like most undergraduates, Dobie Gillis is a bit scattered - sometimes he's as quick as a whip, other times dull as a doorstop, and his major keeps changing from chemistry to law to journalism. But no matter what subject he should be studying, Dobie always has a girl on his mind.

Frank and Philby meet at university. Frank is the king of cool and dysfunctionally libidinous. Philby is nervous, nerdy and dysfunctionally insecure. Somehow, they form a team, and go about chasing girls, passing their degrees and surviving many a green drink experience. The hilarious misadventures of Frank and Philby are just part of what lies between the covers of Headgames....

Within these diverse stories, you will encounter a magician whose finale is murder, shared nightmares, a magic carpet that lives up to its name, a recipe for a Martian non-vegetarian main course, a cook who purloins the body of a stranger, and other interesting topics and characters. A few can be classified as horror stories, one as science fiction, and the majority just plain quirky. There's a story here to amuse almost anyone.

The Burglars' Club is the most exclusive of exclusive Gentleman's Clubs in Victorian London. To pay their dues, members must steal something very valuable and hard to get, and present it to the club at the following meeting (They return it afterwards, of course, if possible). Full of comedy, suspense, and mystery. The award-winning Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air brings these wonderful stories to life with a full cast, music, and sound effects.

Our moon is something special. It illuminates the magical things that could otherwise hide from view. Here there be witches and werewolves. A horror-comedy collection from the author of Demons and Other Inconveniences, What Tangled Webs, and Mortimer Grim.

The world is divided between Asia and the United Continents - two great super powers locked in eternal warfare. But the balance of power is about to shift in Asia’s favor. They have developed a top-secret weapon - the cohesion projector-that could lead to annihilation on an unprecedented scale.... But as far as Lorrilard is concerned, the number one problem with the projector is that it stands in the way of his profits. Can he find a way to subvert the powerful weapon and resume his enterprising exploits?