Comedy Humor World

This is a story from the "Great Ghost Stories" collection.

New York born John Kendrick Bangs was associate editor and then editor of "Life" and "Harper" magazines, eventually finding his way into the Humour department. Here he began to write his own satire and humour. "Ghosts I Have Met and Some Others" is a delightfully humorous collection of short tales relating encounters with ghosts.

At 32, Faith Frankel has returned to her claustro-suburban hometown, where she writes institutional thank-you notes for her alma mater. It's a peaceful life, really, and surely with her recent purchase of a sweet bungalow on Turpentine Lane, her life is finally on track. Never mind that her fiancé is off on a crowdfunded cross-country walk, too busy to return her texts (but not too busy to post photos of himself with a different woman in every state).

Coupon-clipping police superintendent Jonah Merlin thinks he has an open-and-shut case on his hands after the body of a beautiful woman is found discarded in a run-down building in Tel Aviv. All evidence points to two suspects, but finding them will require unorthodox methods to decode the cryptic words sprayed at every crime scene. As the body count rises, graffiti expert Rai Zitrin and precocious 17-year-old Zoe Navon agree to help Merlin uncover the connection between the killing spree and the words of Polish writer Bruno Schulz.

Only weeks since her release from Borstal, Alice is a candidate for the position of junior nurse at Sacred Heart Hospital for All Ailments. With guidance from the working nurse's manual, and some tricks she picked up in prison, Alice brings support to the thousands of patients littering the hospital’s corridors and concrete courtyard. In the process, she attracts the attention of a lovesick patient, Teddy Bunt, apprentice to the nefarious ‘Gentleman Squad’ of the Karachi police.

Just because a man cheats on his wife and makes Danny DeVito look tall, dark, and handsome, is that any reason to kill him? The reluctant and quirky PI, Lee Alvarez, doesn't think so. The 34-year old half-Latina, half-WASP and 100% detective has her work cut out for her when the man is murdered on her watch. Of all the nerve. For Lee, this has become personal. From San Francisco's famous Embarcadero to quaint Princeton-by-the-Sea, she is out to find the killer. And for the killer, this has become personal, too.

"Cannibalism In The Cars" is a short story by Mark Twain that satirizes the political system of the US. The story is about a group of men trapped in a train during a snow storm. After a week, the men know they must resort to cannibalism for survival. They hold ineffective elections, and are so formal that they even follow parliamentary procedure.

Ferdinand Brun hasn't always been a grumpy old man. Many years ago, he was a grumpy young man. Now he'd much rather spend time with his canine companion, Daisy, than any of his nosy neighbors. But as his behavior becomes increasingly peculiar, his daughter grows concerned and begins to consider moving him into a retirement home.

Demons…. A murderous peeping Tom…. A three-hundred pound psychic beautician… A two-headed baby… And a visionary painter haunted by a strange beauty and a family curse dating back to Napoleonic France. At once a mystery story, a love story, a kabbalistic conundrum, and a black comic farce in knockout prose

What are these barbaric rituals that pass for social and family life? Who are these fearsome creatures who linger in decaying mansions and at glittery malls, trendy weddings and dinner parties? These are the questions that trouble Simone, a beautiful, smart young Haitian woman.

A fun-loving, young bull in Spain who tries to escape his troubled past instead must confront his destiny to help his friends in their time of need, proving why he truly is the national animal of Spain.

Written in 1911, The Card is the story of Edward Henry (Denry) Machin, who rises from washerwoman's son to the Mayor of Bursley (Burslem in the Potteries town of Stoke-on-Trent) via a mixture of gentle deceit and personal hype. He is literally a trickster of confidence. His rise to fame is begun at an exclusive ball to which he has got himself invited, where he has the audacity to claim a dance with the glamourous but imposing Countess of Chell.

Australia is a proud country full of proud people, but exactly what are we proud of? Comedian and history buff Ben Pobjie delves deep into Australia's past and has a good old rummage amongst the nation's personal effects. With wit, perspicacity and a healthily elastic attitude to historical accuracy, the great saga of Australia is unravelled like an old woolly jumper. For anyone who snoozed through history class at school, this is the book to get you all caught up.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic short story of a man born in his 70s who ages backward as those around him age in the normal direction. Both humorous and heartbreaking at times, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was the basis for the David Fincher movie of the same name, though the movie differs in several key ways from Fitzgerald's original story.

Nathan Lochmueller studies birds for just enough money to live and learn on. He drives a glitter-festooned truck, the Gypsy Moth, and he is in love with Lola, a woman so free-spirited and mysterious she can break a man's heart with a sigh or a shrug. Around them swirls a remarkable cast of characters: the proprietor of Fast Eddie's Burgers, the genius behind "Thong Thursdays"; Uncle Dart, a Texan who brings his swagger to Indiana with profound and nearly devastating results; a snapping turtle with a taste for thumbs; a German Shepherd who howls backup vocals; and the very charismatic state of Indiana itself.

Helen Moran is 32 years old, single, childless, college educated, and partially employed as a guardian of troubled young people in New York. She is accepting a furniture delivery in her shared studio apartment when her uncle calls to break the news: Helen's adoptive brother is dead. According to the Internet, there are six possible reasons why her brother might have killed himself. But Helen knows better: she knows that six reasons is only shorthand for "the abyss".

This is the tale of an average modern American man riding the freeways and living high in the peaks of the American southwest. Frank is seeking the love of a beautiful American woman, the dream of wealth, the thrill of adventure, the misfortune of murder, and the longing to be a part of this life everyone else seems to be so comfortable with. Aren't we all?

Hailed by Time as an “extravagantly comic” novel, A Woman Named Drown is a wild and strange journey through America’s South that follows a young PhD dropout who falls in with an amateur actress-cum–pool shark. On the brink of earning his doctorate in chemistry, the unnamed narrator decides to chuck it all away in favor of real life. So begins an odd pilgrimage through the American South.

Yegor could not imagine his future works, but he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would look after him.

When Gustavus Pulvertoft finds himself saddled with a horse with the power of human speech, he little imagines how quickly he will come a cropper. His courtship of the horse-loving Diana Chetwynd goes swimmingly so long as his talking horse is on good terms with Miss Chetwynd's grey mare... but when their trusty mounts fall out, a series of terrible events ensues which Pulvertoft is powerless to prevent. His determination to get revenge on the horse leads to his ultimate downfall.