Historical Humor

The Alehouse at the End of the World is an epic comedy set in the 16th century, where bawdy Shakespearean love triangles play out with shapeshifting avian demigods and a fertility goddess, drunken revelry, bio-dynamic gardening, and a narcissistic, bullying crow, who may have colluded with a foreign power.

Already sold in eight countries around the world, these nine energized, irreverent stories from Nathan Englander introduce an astonishing new talent.

Young Kit Kellan has led a rough-and-tumble life - knocking around the Vega System in his youth as a tiger hunter, a brawler, and a bouncer in a bar. But his real fight is just beginning. Summarily expelled from the prestigious Terra University, he is taken into custody by an agent of the System Bureau of Investigation (SBI). Kit's crime: thinking too much and thinking too well. He’s not in custody for long, however. Snatched from captivity by the People’s Revolutionary Society, Kit sets out an epic adventure that will take him to the farthest reaches of the universe.

Vivian doesn't feel like she fits in - and never has. As a child, she was so whimsical that her parents told her she was "left by fairies". Now, she is living alone in Dublin, where the neighbors treat her like she's crazy, her older sister condescends to her, social workers seem to have registered her as troubled, and she hasn't a friend in the world. So, she decides it's time to change her life. She begins by advertising for a friend. Not just any friend. She wants one named Penelope.

Cette guerre inventée entre l'homme et l'animal c'est, en 1936, tout ce que le monde embrase : le nazisme, l'antisémitisme, la croyance dans le progrès ; ce livre brosse avec humour une satire des hommes et de leur société. Mêlant la parodie au fantastique, à la fois roman et conte philosophique, il se révèle, sous une apparente légèreté, extrêmement lucide et sombre. Étonnamment perspicace quant au devenir de l'Europe quelques années plus tard, "La Guerre des Salamandres" anticipe également les problèmes écologiques.

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.

Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen “City” Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie. Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson—but Long Division is set in 1985.

While transporting a woman to an insane asylum, Deputy Kopp discovers something deeply troubling about her story. Before she can investigate, another inmate bound for the asylum breaks free and tries to escape. In both cases, Constance runs instinctively toward justice. But the fall of 1916 is a high-stakes election year, and any move she makes could jeopardize Sheriff Heath's future - and her own. Although Constance is not on the ballot, her controversial career makes her the target of political attacks.

Deputy sheriff Constance Kopp is outraged to see young women brought into the Hackensack jail over dubious charges of waywardness, incorrigibility, and moral depravity. The strong-willed, patriotic Edna Heustis, who left home to work in a munitions factory, certainly doesn't belong behind bars. And 16-year-old runaway Minnie Davis, with few prospects and fewer friends, shouldn't be publicly shamed and packed off to a state-run reformatory. But such were the laws - and morals - of 1916.

Things are changing in the Gaither household. After soaking up a "power to the people" mind-set over the summer, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern return to Brooklyn with a newfound streak of independence. Pa has a girlfriend. Uncle Darnell is home from Vietnam, but he's not the same. And a new singing group called the Jackson Five has the girls seeing stars. But the one thing that doesn't change? Big Ma still expects Delphine to keep everything together.

It's the summer of 1989. Jack McGuinn is a dockporter, transporting tourists' luggage piled high in the basket of his bike on Mackinac Island, Michigan. It's a summer resort where cars are outlawed and pedal power rules. He's got the season wired tight: a family cottage on the bluff, a dream job, and a loyal crew of hell-raising, tip-hustling buddies. When his old friend turned rival challenges him to ride a record-setting load of luggage, he takes the bet. Soon, he realizes he's not just carrying suitcases; he's carrying the island's future, which is about to be paved over for profit.

For decades Hazie Coogan has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton, veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart - and boudoir. Soon, Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in an upcoming musical extravaganza. As the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans and for posterity.

It's 2006 in the fictional East London borough of Leytonstow. The UK’s pub smoking ban is about to happen, and 38-and-a-half year old John Torrington, a mopper and trolley collector at his local DIY store, is secretly in love with the stylish, beautiful, and middle-class barmaid Lois. John and his hapless, strange, and down-on-their-luck friends, Gabby Longfeather and Glyn Hopkins, live in Clements Markham House - a semi-derelict Edwardian villa divided into unsanitary bedsits, and (mis)managed by the shrewd, Dickensian business man, Mr Kapoor.

Jane Austen skewers the novelistic extremes of her day made popular in many 18th-century Gothic potboilers. Dilapidated castles, locked rooms, inexplicable chests, enigmatic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly sardonic twist.

It's 1962, and all across America barriers are collapsing. But when Natalie Marx's mother inquires about summer accommodations in Vermont, she gets the following reply: The Inn at Lake Devine is a family-owned resort, which has been in continuous operation since 1922. Our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles. For twelve-year-old Natalie, who has a stubborn sense of justice, the words are not a rebuff but an infuriating, irresistible challenge.

In the summer of 1320/1941 while the war is raging in Europe and spreading to the borders of Iran, the illustrious Azimi family migrate to their summer home and sprawling property in the north of the city as they do every year. This is a humorous story of the summer of war conspiracy theories and the Azimi family dealing with the war at their door step.

In this very funny audiobook, Bobs gives us his opinions on everything from fireworks to frogs, cats to Christmas, in his own words. This collection of his letters takes us through a year in the life of Bobs, the adored pet terrier owned by national treasure Enid Blyton.

College senior Patty Wyatt is a fun-loving, headstrong, and intelligent girl who gets herself into mischief and learns valuable lessons, both in and out of the classroom. Written in 1903, this is Jean Webster’s first of many great American novels.

Una descripcion morbosa de la decadencia. La Montana Magica fue la obra que logro para Thomas Mann, el insigne escritor aleman, el Premio Nobel. En esa historia, situada en un sanatorio de tuberculosos en los altos de una montana, el autor creo un increíble microcosmos, reflejo de lo que el consideraba la decadencia de su patria y de toda la civilizacion europea.

Two centuries after his death, Alexander Hamilton is shining once more under America's spotlight - and we need him now more than ever. Orphaned as a kid, this young, scrappy, and hungry self-starter came from nothing and then helped win the Revolutionary War, created the country's financial system, seduced New York's most eligible ladies, ratified the Constitution, and landed his face on our $10 bill. (In his spare time he also formed the Coast Guard and the US Mint.) He is the ultimate underdog.