Historical Humor

Under the Glacier represents Nobel laureate Halldor Laxness at his entertaining and brilliantly inventive best. Philosophy, theological speculation and charming wit combine to make this novel a timeless fable of modern times. A youthful emissary of the Bishop of Iceland travels to the beautiful and mysterious district of Snæfellsnes, locally known as "Under Glacier" to investigate the affairs of the parish and its enigmatic pastor.

Jane Austen's first major novel, a parody of the popular literature of the time, is an ironic tale of the romantic folly of men and women in pursuit of love, marriage, and money. The humorous adventures of young Catherine as she encounters "the difficulties and dangers of a six weeks' residence in Bath" lead to some of Austen's most brilliant social satire.

What if the history of the transatlantic slave trade had been reversed and Africans had enslaved Europeans? How would that have changed the ways that people justified their inhuman behavior? How would it inform our cultural attitudes and the insidious racism that still lingers today? We see this tragicomic world turned upside down through the eyes of Doris, an Englishwoman enslaved and taken to the New World, movingly recounting experiences of tremendous hardship and the dreams of the people she has left behind, all while journeying toward an escape into freedom.

A tempestuous acquaintance and disastrous marriage proposal makes it unlikely Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet will ever reconcile. Despairing of their own reunion, they attend with great energy to salvaging that of Darcy’s friend Mr. Bingley and Elizabeth’s sister Jane. People are rarely so easily maneuvered in and out of love, however, they follow a series of misunderstandings, both willful and unwitting, that complicates all four star-crossed lovers’ alliances more than ever before.

It's 1964 and 10-year-old Felix is sure of a few things: the birds and the bees are puzzling, television is magical, and this is one Christmas he'll never forget. LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone's turntable, and Felix Funicello (distant cousin of the iconic Annette!) is doing his best to navigate fifth grade - easier said than done when scary movies still give you nightmares and you bear a striking resemblance to a certain adorable cartoon boy.

Many have marvelled at General Napier's daring 1868 expedition through the treacherous peaks and bottomless chasms of Abyssinia to rescue a small group of British citizens held captive by the mad tyrant Emperor Theodore. But the vital role of Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., in the success of this campaign has hitherto gone unrecorded.

When Noel Bostock - aged 10, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge - a 36-year-old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it. Noel's mourning his godmother, Mattie, a former suffragette. Wise beyond his years, raised with a disdain for authority and an eclectic attitude toward education, he has little in common with other children and even less with the impulsive Vee.

The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around fast. If the preacher's wife's petticoat shows, the ladies will make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things take a scandalous turn. That is the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, elopes with Miss Love Simpson, a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee!

In Xanth, everyone has a talent. But that doesn't mean everyone loves his talent, and no one understands that better than Hapless. Endowed with the ability to conjure any instrument he wants, Hapless could be an extraordinary musician if only he could play a tune that didn't fall ear-piercingly flat. His one desire is to find an instrument he can play. When the Good Magician hears about Hapless's desperate desire, he sends the young man on a quest to find the elusive Isis Orb, a magical talisman that could fulfill his wish.

Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in southeastern Australia. Together they enter the Redex Trial, a brutal race around the ancient continent, over roads no car will ever quite survive. With them is their lanky, fair-haired navigator, Willie Bachhuber, a quiz show champion and failed schoolteacher who calls the turns and creeks crossings on a map that will remove them, without warning, from the white Australia they all know so well. This is a thrilling high-speed story that starts in one way and then takes you someplace else. It is often funny, more so as the world gets stranger, and always compelling, even as you learn a history these characters never knew themselves.

In this witty, charming follow-up to the acclaimed Crooked Heart, the life of lies a small time scammer and her adopted son have constructed in London becomes endangered during the tumultuous final months of World War II.

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he's brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn't deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.

In China, in 1860, a lot of people mistakenly put their trust in Flashman: the English vicar’s daughter with her cargo of opium; Lord Elgin in search of an intelligence chief; the Emperor’s ravishing concubine, seeking a champion in her struggles for power; and Szu-Zhan, the female bandit colossus, as practised in the arts of love as in the arts of war. They were not to know that behind his Victoria Cross, Harry Flashman was a base coward and a charlatan. They took him at face value. And he took them, for all he could, while China seethed through the bloodiest civil war in history.

From the original Greek financial crisis (when the profligate Gods of Olympus were punished by Odin and the other Norse Gods for their unchecked spending) to a handy unintended benefit of cosmetic surgery; from Pope Ron (the first Australian pope, who wants nothing more than to live quietly) to a rather droll cat named Stanley to Good President Wenceslas (benevolent leader of a snowy land) - these stories are by turns funny, poignant, and deliciously wicked, each one a gift begging to be unwrapped and enjoyed again and again.

L.A. Woman is quintessential Babitz, the story of Sophie, a 20-something blonde Jim Morrison groupie gliding through a golden existence in L.A.; and Lola, a German immigrant who settles in Hollywood in the '20s to drive Pierce Arrows recklessly down Sunset Boulevard and who knows that Maybelline mascara cakes and that Rudolph Valentino is the essence of life. Sophie and Lola, like the many other women who move in and out of this electric saga, know that while L.A. is constantly changing, it is essentially eternal.

The most fearsome enemy he ever faced. Of all the enemies that our hero has shrunk away from, there was one he feared above them all. By his own admission they gave him nightmares into his dotage. It was not the French, the Spanish, the Americans, or the Mexicans. It was not even the more exotic adversaries such as the Iroquois, Mahratta, or Zulus. While they could all make his guts churn anxiously, the foe that really put him off his lunch were the Ashanti.

Mad Jack is in reality Winifrede Levering Bascombe, who, happily, has her name changed very quickly in the story. She arrives in London with the aunts, Mathilda and Maude, of Lord Cliffe, Grayson St. Cyre, to beg his assistance. He welcomes the aunts, briefly spots the valet, Jack, and proceeds very quickly after their arrival to fall down the rabbit hole.

A darkly satirical novel of love, revenge, and 1950s haute couture - now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, and Hugo Weaving. After 20 years spent mastering the art of dressmaking at couture houses in Paris, Tilly Dunnage returns to the small Australian town she was banished from as a child. She plans only to check on her ailing mother and leave. But Tilly decides to stay, and though she is still an outcast, her lush, exquisite dresses prove irresistible to the prim women of Dungatar.

LOVE, DISHONOR, MARRY, DIE, CHERISH, PERISH leaps cities and decades as Rakoff sings the song of an America whose freedoms can be intoxicating, or brutal. The characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty.

His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh, KG, KT, OM, GBE has been at the forefront of British public life since he married Princess Elizabeth in 1947. In the 70 years since, his wit (and the occasional 'gaffe') has continued to endear him to the nation, as he travelled the world taking his unique and charmingly British sense of humour to its far-flung corners. In the year in which the Prince has stepped down from his royal duties, this joyous and timely book celebrates his wry humour and supremely wicked wit.