Humor Anthology

A dozen stories set from NYC to LA, to Asheville to Varanasi. Voices in the Dirt is a transgressive, darkly comical collection of stories, mostly centered around young men struggling with the specter of an incomprehensible world. A banquet server seeks enlightenment by being buried alive (breathing apparatus included!). Three identical families compete with each other to determine the "true" family. Karmic retribution is served after a tourist on the Ganges steals a human jawbone as a ghastly souvenir. If you like wild rides without safety bars, then have a seat.

Herr A. ist ein armes Würstchen. Ständig tappt er in eine der zahllosen Fallen, die das Leben für die Männer ausgelegt hat. Typisch Mann eben. Da ist die Liebe, die Auseinandersetzung mit seiner Frau beim Schuhkauf, beim Fußball und beim Heimwerken, Probleme mit den Kindern und auf der Arbeit, die Beobachtung der Geminiden, die Sache mit der Diät und schließlich der Wettstreit mit den Igeln. Als Retterin in allen Notlagen erweist sich seine Frau.

Throbbing Morton is a village in the English Cotswolds. Though there has been human habitation on the site for well over a thousand years, there is no record of it in the Domesday Book, and you will find it on no map today. Perhaps it is the boggy fields or the high hedges that have kept it out of public view. It might also have been the great fungal toenail epidemic of 1438 that kept the rest of the world at bay; no one knows for sure. The outcome of all this is that it has bred colorful characters of great distinction.

Horror, humor, and science fiction collide in this collection of weird tales about possible futures, warped present-day realities, and alternate history. Unreliable narrators run rampant alongside aliens, ghosts, bullies, cannibals, home invaders, heroes, villains, unimaginable creatures, and gifted individuals of all ages. Paranoia, fear, and bizarre situations abound in these reality-bending stories guaranteed to take you places you've never been.

These are the stories of three boys living in Texas: one growing up, one dreaming, and one fighting to stay alive in the face of destitution and adversity. There's second-grader William, a shy yet imaginative boy who schemes about how to get back at his school-yard bully, Randy. Then there's Sam, a 15-year-old boy who dreams of getting a 1980 Mazda RX-7 for his 16th birthday but has to work at a Greek restaurant to fund his dream. Finally, there's Seff, a 21-year-old on the brink of manhood, trying to survive along with his roommate, working as waiters and barely making ends meet.

Fifteen linked stories chart a true course through the lives of families, farmers, loggers, former classmates, and the occasional stripper. In the richly imagined town of Renata, Oregon, a man watches his neighbor's big-screen TV through binoculars, an errant son paints himself silver, mysterious electrical humming emanates from an enormous barn. In A Simplified Map of the Real World, intimate boundaries are loosened by history - and high above the strife and the hope and the often hilarious, geese seek the perfect tailwind. Stevan Allred's stunning debut deftly navigates the stubborn geography of the human heart.

He has the mind of a child, the sexual proclivities of a teenager - and the subconscious of a scientific genius. And despite the best efforts of Mama Schimmelhorn to get her old man to make Swiss cuckoo clocks by day and stay home by night, Papa's inventions will keep coming.

O. Henry wove several stories together into this highly episodic narrative, taking his title and inspiration from Lewis Carroll's ballad of the walrus and the carpenter in Through the Looking-Glass. The stories are set in the fictional country of Anchuria in Central America, a banana republic where larceny is rampant and revolution lurking in every impoverished back alley. O. Henry offers a cutting satire of contemporary politics and prejudices.

Appalachian Galapagos follows the smash success of Scary Rednecks and Other Inbred Horrors with authors Weston Ochse and David Whitman returning us to the world of rednecks, human-skin beer cozies, urban legends come to life, southern mythology, drunkards flying in lawn chairs, contemplations on the nature of god, and the monsters within us all. Galapagos cements its ownership of the genre opening with a grand opus of a novella co-written by both authors, featuring backwoods churches, boat rides, and bigfoots.

In this collection of 19 short stories, Craig Nybo invites you to visit the lives of mostly unfortunate souls as they face the most terrifying moments of their existences. With everything from vampire hunting to zombie bashing, from steampunk death devices to shifty soul brokers, Nybo brings his own sense of perspective and, of course, his sense of humor to this collection of departures from reality. Terrifying Lies contains Nybo's acclaimed story, "The Mechanic", along with 18 other tales of the macabre.

Bella and Andy have escaped the rat race for the sun-drenched, relaxed lifestyle on the island of Ibiza. But with a run-down house to make habitable and a distractingly gorgeous neighbour, is their island idyll all that it seems? Tamara Gold has been Hollywood's most notorious car crash since she was a child star. Now clean and sober, and engaged to Tinseltown's hottest leading man, it seems like she's finally conquered her addictions, if not her bratty behaviour. But a summer in Europe with all the hedonistic lures of Ibiza beckons.…

Critically acclaimed author David Schickler made a splash with Kissing in Manhattan, a best-selling story collection that Booklist said is "magical" and "never ceases to amaze and impress". Now this gifted writer's extraordinary imagination produces a brazen novel that reads like Bonnie and Clyde meets Robin Hood.

Remember the stories your grandfather used to tell you about way back when? Remember laughing out loud as the stories got deeper? If you like to LOL, then this really is a book for you. Here you'll find some observations on life in general and people in particular, as seen through a collection of newspaper columns, presenting skewed, offbeat, semiserious, and sometimes amusing views of the world.

So there was all that: the ordinary twill of life; the ho-hum sturm und drang of the workplace: the ubiquitous absurdities, the annoying co-workers, the bloody deadlines and even bloodier bottom lines; the bland, eternal, Sisyphean, absolute, unrelenting, surreal certainty of the day-in-and-day-out of it all. Life as a slice of white bread, moistened with spit and rolled into a messy glob, a doughy ball that couldn't make the slightest dent in the iron gates of life. But then, suddenly, on August 27, 2002, all that changed. Suddenly, Rae-Jean's uneventful life began to leaven and swell with hypotheticals.

In the 1930s, the fictional town of Toad Springs, Florida, is filled with the adventures and daily whatnots of worthy, down-to-earth folk such as Flavey Stroudamore, owner of a three-legged gator named Precious who also just happens to have a birthmark of Jesus on his side.

Raising the literary bar to a new level, Jerome Charyn re-creates the voice of Theodore Roosevelt, the New York City police commissioner, Rough Rider, and soon-to-be 26th president through his derring-do adventures, effortlessly combining superhero dialogue with haunting pathos. Beginning with his sickly childhood and concluding with McKinley's assassination, the novel positions Roosevelt as a "perfect bull in a china shop," a fearless crime fighter and pioneering environmentalist who would grow up to be our greatest peacetime president.

Una auténtica profanación del poder eclesiástico de su tiempo por el maestro del género satírico. El presente volumen reúne tres de las obras más importantes del gran escritor irlandés, todas publicadas en 1704: "Cuento de un tonel", obra maestra de la primera etapa creativa del autor, sátira eufórica que, para muchos, es tan importante como la que le consagró de por vida, "Los Viajes de Gulliver";...

What really happened in the Garden of Eden? Who was behind the serpent and the apple? What was God thinking? At last, it can be told! The unexpurgated story of what really happens in Heaven. Why God created time. The truth about his friendship with Satan. Those rumors of a drinking problem. The meaning of life. Whether sin really exists. The political power of the three angels’ unions. Hear all about it! These are the stories that the cherubim don’t want you to know! This is what really goes on Behind the Pearly Gates.

Zbiór opowieści o niestandardowych świętych, których losy zostały związane z dziwnym Osiedlem, gdzie kontakt ze zmarłymi jest możliwy w przestrzeni wirtualnej, a czas da się nie tylko zatrzymać, ale także zawrócić. Osiedlowi święci żyją nie tylko w sąsiedztwie kościoła, lecz także sklepu monopolowego i ławki w parku, a koleje losów postaci opowiadane są z dużą dozą absurdalnego humoru.

Artificial intelligence has evolved, and Henry is on trial for the murder of an AI. Richard discovers he's only as old as he feels. Dr. Stanton and Dr. Kline's patient seems crazy, until he leaves the hospital in a beam of light. A wife is given the opportunity to go inside her husband's mind and do some rewiring. Tina's parents were killed in a house fire, but that doesn't stop them from sharing her special day.