Humor Anthology

This series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It's the Book of Common Prayer as seen through a looking glass - a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams' characters, however, are like the rest of us.

Private McAuslan, J.—the Dirtiest Soldier in the World (alias the Tartan Caliban)—demonstrates his unfitness for military service in this first volume of stories of life in a Scottish regiment. Unkempt, ungainly and unwashed, civilian listeners may regard him with shocked disbelief. But generations of ex-servicemen have hailed him with delight as a familiar friend—because every old soldier can remember a McAuslan!

In this unforgettable work of fiction, Donald Ray Pollock peers into the soul of a tough Midwestern American town to reveal the sad, stunted, but resilient lives of its residents. Spanning a period from the mid-'60s to the late '90s, the linked stories that comprise Knockemstiff feature a cast of recurring characters who are woebegone, baffled, and depraved - but irresistibly, undeniably real. Rendered in the American vernacular with vivid imagery and a wry, dark sense of humor, these thwarted and sometimes violent lives jump at the listener with inexorable force.

From a comic mastermind comes this brilliant collection of stories. Three teenagers believe they are witches. A woman defaces a local billboard. A bored landlord tries to influence his son's best friend. A cul-de-sac WhatsApp group discusses eggs at length. A heavily pregnant woman finds a way to time travel and a girl discovers joy on a stolen bicycle. Each tale paints a life in miniature and offers an escape chute from the catastrophes of modern life.

Gospel comedy queen Pat G'orge-Walker regales listeners with the hilarious antics of Sister Betty and her South Carolina friends, big-hearted Ma Cile and redhaired Sister Connie Fuse. But things don't really start shakin' until on-the-make Deacon Laid Handz, manhungry Sister Carrie Onn, and conniving Reverend Knott Enuff Money get into the act. And yet for all of its rollicking humor, this book is brimming with profound and, at times, pointed truths about church life.

It is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words, but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad?

Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren't ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers.

Original, honest and thought-provoking, Roar is Cecelia Ahern's unforgettable story collection. With her trademark honesty, Cecelia Ahern gives us 30 linked stories, all titled 'The Woman Who...', that capture the different facets of women's lives. Humorous, moving, surreal and poignant, the stories capture the moments the characters are overwhelmed by guilt, confusion, frustration, intimidation, exhaustion - the private moments when they feel the need to roar.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, New York Times best-selling author Dave Eggers is the voice of a generation. This stunning collection of his matchless short fiction includes the highly acclaimed “The Only Meaning of Oil-Wet Water.”

Three hilarious romantic comedies by Emily James to make you swoon and giggle in equal measure....

A funny and heartwarming debut for fans of Celia Imrie and Dawn French. Evie Gallagher is regretting her hasty move into a care home. She may be 75 and recently widowed, but she’s absolutely not dead yet. And so, one morning, Evie walks out of Sheldon Lodge and sets off on a Great Adventure across Europe. But not everyone thinks Great Adventures are appropriate for women of Evie’s age, least of all her son, Brendan, and his wife, Maura, who follow a trail of puzzling text messages to bring her home.

A stunning new talent in literary fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class in these compelling, boundary-pushing vignettes. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous while others are devastatingly poignant. Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship.

In a unique listening experience from the unforgettable writer and public speaker W.O. Mitchell, An Evening with W.O. Mitchell is a curated, abridged selection of nine remarkable pieces from Mitchell’s lifetime of public readings, read by the author himself. Featuring both a wide variety of recognizable characters from his novels as well as new, never-before-published work, the collection revives Mitchell’s distinctive voice and comedic perspective on universal subjects.

When Elizabeth Gilbert's story collection Pilgrims first appeared in 1997, it immediately announced her compelling voice, her comic touch, and her amazing ear for dialogue. Brave and unforgettable, the heroes of Pilgrims are sure to strike a chord with fans old and new.

This is a collection of the second six short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series.

Marcovaldo is an unskilled worker in a drab industrial city in northern Italy. He is an irrepressible dreamer and an inveterate schemer. Much to the puzzlement of his wife, his children, his boss, and his neighbors, he chases his dreams - but the results are never the expected ones.

Ellen sat waiting in the Buick while Fr. Dean Finn checked in at the motel office. He always registered them as Mr. and Mrs. George Adams of Syracuse, New York. There was no objection to a couple without luggage taking a room for a couple of hours at the Hit-the-Sack. The desk clerk, a poorly-shaven, perpetually smirking man of 35 lewd years, had managed, in the midst of an ambiance of sexuality which should have inoculated him against disgust, to cultivate a urinal of a mind.

This is a collection of six short stories from the Caverns and Creatures series. It includes the following stories: "Slimes and Misty Wieners", "Great Balls on Fire", "Your Anus Is a Gas Giant", "Clear and Present Ranger", "The Mimic's Chest", and "Styxian Stoners May Break My Boners".

The untimely death of Chairman Mao has set in motion enormous changes in the world. The new empress of China is a contact of Rick’s, and this leads to his involvement in events in China, the Vietnams, and Hong Kong. At the same time, he starts his quest for being the second amateur to complete a Grand Slam in golf. He learns that a broken heart hurts. As the old Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.”

This is a collection of the third six short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series.