Historical Humor

Florida, circa 1980. Reed Crowe, the eponymous Florida Man, is a middle-aged beach bum, beleaguered and disenfranchised, living on ill-gotten gains deep in the jungly heart of Florida. When sinkholes start opening on Emerald Island, not only are Reed Crowe's seedy businesses - a moribund motel and a shabby amusement park - endangered, but so are his secrets. Crowe, amateur spelunker, begins uncovering artifacts that change his understanding of the island’s history, as well as his understanding of his family’s birthright as pioneering homesteaders.

One of the great what-ifs among Pride & Prejudice aficionados is: If Mr. Collins married Mary Bennet instead of Charlotte Lucas, how would that influence Mr. Darcy's dogged pursuit of the elusive Elizabeth? In this breezy and hilarious re-telling of Jane Austin's classic novel, the author explores what would have changed - and what would have not - had two of literature's most self-righteous characters found their way together. Elizabeth Bennet goes to Kent with her sister Jane, and the fur flies! A wonderful, mad-cap romp!

Written as an adventure tale, Nicole Burton’s novel Adamson's 1969 is a frolic through the year 1969 as seen through the eyes of a guileless young Englishman, Adamson Henry. Like the characters in the movies Forrest Gump and Zelig, Adamson finds himself caught up in 1969's major historic moments including the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Woodstock, and the massive anti-war protests. Welcome to Adamson's 1969.

June 1813. As the Peninsular War edges toward its climactic battle at Vitoria, a well-bred, newly commissioned, and hopelessly incompetent officer arrives to take charge of a seasoned troop of British cavalry. The troop's eloquent but shifty corporal takes the officer under his wing, and thus begins a journey through the campaign with many laugh-out-loud moments as the less-than-upright members of the troop determine to turn the war against the French to their pecuniary advantage.

Mailand 1493: Der junge Pandolfo liegt mit eingeschlagenem Schädel in einem Abfallhaufen. Der Seidenhändler Bernardino Bellapianta findet den Schwerverletzten und pflegt ihn in seinem märchenhaften Palast gesund. Doch Pandolfo hat sein Gedächtnis verloren. Auf der Suche nach seiner Vergangenheit überlebt Pandolfo einen zweiten Mordanschlag, steigt mit einem Flugmaschinenbauer in die Lüfte auf, verliebt sich zum zweiten Mal in dieselbe Frau und kommt langsam dahinter, dass sein Wohltäter nicht ganz so tadellos ist, wie er scheint.

Tennyson's Gift is an imaginative cocktail of Victorian seriousness and farce that reimagines the world of the 19th-century English poet laureate, placing him in the midst of eccentric company that includes Lewis Carroll. Going Loco features a critic trying to write a definitive account of the doppelganger in Gothic fiction, amid the chaos of her domestic life, including paranoia that her cleaning lady is taking over her life.

Milligan and the Samurai Rebels is a humorous historical novel set in the Japan of the 1860s. The Shogun has been forced by the threat of Western firepower to re-open Japan to the outside world, while samurai outraged at this decision are scheming to topple the Shogunate and re-establish Imperial rule. In parallel to this struggle, Britain and France are fighting by every means except open warfare to establish themselves as the leading influence on the government of Japan and secure the accompanying trading privileges.

In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers, lifeguards, poets, and bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place "Pepperland", after the Beatles movie, Yellow Submarine.

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.

Der junge Pandolfo hat einen Schlag auf den Kopf erhalten: Er weiß nicht mehr, wer er ist. Der schwerreiche Seidenhändler Bernadino Bellapianta findet ihn verletzt in einem Misthaufen liegend, nimmt ihn mit sich und pflegt ihn gesund. Wieder genesen erweist sich Pandolfos Geschick fürs Zeichnen und er wird als Musterzeichner für luxuriöse Webstoffe eingestellt. Aber er macht sich auch auf die Suche nach seiner Vergangenheit.

Seventeen-year-old Sean needs a lot of things: He needs his parents to stop hassling him. He needs his Jewfro to grow out into heavy metal hair. But most of all, he needs a band...Without one, he isn’t sure that he’s ever going to make it out of this two-horse town. He’s been trying to put a band together for as long as he can remember, but finding like-minded metalheads in rural America has been challenging. Finally, the stars align and a band is born. It’s magic. But can these five talented metal kids keep things together long enough to play the show of a lifetime?

Mr Finchley takes a fancy to a horse-drawn caravan that he sees for sale, but his new wife does not relish the prospect of a caravan journey, so he sets off alone to explore the countryside and go house-hunting. While learning to handle the horse and the caravan, he encounters a variety of eccentrics and country characters, and several unsuitable houses. It gradually emerges that the caravan contains a secret, and Mr Finchley finds himself in real trouble. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.

An ebullient Mr Finchley is about to propose marriage to a lady he had rescued from mishap, when he is sent to Paris by his firm. There he manages to upset a boat, adopt a stray orphan, and get himself kidnapped. The fine tangle he gets into takes some unravelling! Only when eventually back in London does he complete the proposal of marriage that was interrupted at the start. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway best seller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.

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.

Franny Steinberg knows there’s powerful magic in laughter. She’s witnessed it. With the men of Chicago off fighting WWII on distant shores, Franny has watched the women of the city taking charge of the war effort. But amidst the war bond sales and factory shifts, something surprising has emerged, something Franny could never have expected. A new marvel that has women flocking to comedy clubs across the nation: the Showstopper.

Mark Robarts, a young vicar, is newly arrived in the village of Framley. With ambitions to further his career, he seeks connections in the county's high society. He is soon preyed upon by a local member of parliament to guarantee a substantial loan, which Mark, in a moment of weakness, agrees to, even though he knows the man is a notorious debtor; it brings Mark to the brink of ruin.

Una narrazione disincantata e ironica denuncia il vuoto di valori che seguì la disfatta napoleonica. La cittadella descritta da Stendhal è in realtà molto diversa dalla vera cittadella di Parma e, invece, molto simile a Castel Sant'Angelo, dalla cui cella fuggì (calandosi con delle corde), nel Cinquecento, Alessandro Farnese, rinchiuso per aver rapito e sedotto una nobildonna romana. In seguito diviene cardinale e, poi, papa.

Clues, quips, and cocktails...that's how Mr. and Mrs. Key always solved crimes. But what happens when their "perfect marriage" falls apart...in the middle of postwar Washington, DC's, most baffling murder?

Acompañada de tres hombres, una mujer llega a un pueblo en busca del panadero para cobrar venganza. Cuando lo encuentra, lo balacea y le prende fuego al lugar. Las investigaciones del crimen revelarán los oscuros secretos de las conocidas hermanas Baladro, dueñas de cantinas y prostíbulos. Estafas, trata de mujeres, entierros clandestinos y asesinatos conforman el siniestro reino que las dos mujeres, Serafina y Arcángela, han construido a su alrededor.

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.