Humor Classics

Satirical humor from the master. A group of congressmen are trapped in a snowbound train for two months. When they run out of food, they do what congressmen do - they form a committee to decide who among them should be eaten first.

Meet George Marvin Brush, one of Thornton Wilder's most memorable characters. Brush, a traveling textbook salesman, is a fervent religious convert who is determined to lead a good life. With sad and sometimes hilarious consequences, his travels take him through smoking cars, bawdy houses, banks, and campgrounds from Texas to Illinois - and into the soul of America itself.

Hell's too full, so the Devil hires ad man Dirk Quigby to pen a travel guide enticing travelers to different afterlives: Hindu, Catholic, Protestant (that one's got a lot of subdivisions), Scientologist, and more. Instead of writing a boffo best seller, Dirk unites all religions in a common goal: kill Dirk. E. E. King grew up in one of those tolerant households that don't force religion down kids' throats. This is the result.

Part of Wodehouse Blandings series. When a valuable scarab belonging to an American millionaire is absent-mindedly stolen by Lord Emsworth, young writers Ashe Marson and Joan Valentine are tasked with infiltrating Blandings Castle to retrieve it. Meanwhile, vacuous Freddie Threepwood worries that some compromising letters may scupper his engagement to the millionaire's daughter.

Oliver Twist fu il secondo romanzo di Dickens, pubblicato a puntate mensili dal 1837 al 1839. E' una delle opere più famose dello scrittore, primo romanzo inglese ad avere un ragazzo come protagonista e uno dei primi romanzi sociali. L'umorismo feroce con cui Dickens descrive la società inglese, la povertà, l'abuso infantile, l'ipocrisia della cultura fu decisamente una novità.

Grandi speranze è considerato uno dei più grandi e più sofisticati romanzi di Dickens; ebbe inoltre più di 250 adattamenti sul palcoscenico e sullo schermo. Fu pubblicato a puntate fra il 1860 e il 1861, ed è come altri romanzi di Dickens la storia di un percorso di crescita morale di un ragazzo che viene seguito, nel racconto, dall'eta di 7 anni all'età di 35 anni.

Трое приятелей—Джи, Харрис и Джордж,—устав от праздного безделья и желая поправить своё «пошатнувшееся» здоровье, решают отправиться в путешествие на лодке по Темзе. Вместе с собой они взяли фокстерьера Монморанси.

Ein englischer Geschäftsmann, Mr Wood, hat einen glorreichen Einfall, wie er den Iren ihr Geld auf ebenso geschickte wie schamlose Art und Weise legal aus deren Taschen ziehen kann. Jedoch hat er nicht damit gerechnet, dass Mr. Jonathan Swift seinen durch höchste britische Stellen abgesegneten Beutezug durchschauen würde. In der Analyse und Auseinandersetzung mit den Argumenten des "englischen Wirtschaftsgenies" wird die unglaubliche Heuchelei, Unverschämtheit und gewissenlose Gerissenheit ans Tageslicht gebracht, mit welcher skrupellose britische Turbo-Kapitalisten die irische Bevölkerung auszubeuten beabsichtigen.

A beautifully crafted collection of eight short stories by Edna Ferber: In Gigolo, Edna Ferber delves into the minds of eight diverse characters from all walks and stages of life.

Mystery, intrigue and fantasy lead us on a scary adventure.

Chesterton takes us on a merry ride of mystery, intrigue, and above all, fantasy in this tale of anarchism. Sometimes it is referred to as a metaphysical thriller, and Chesterton himself referred to it as "a nightmare".

"Il Napoleone di Notting Hill", pubblicata nel 1904, è la prima opera di narrativa di Chesterton. Nel romanzo vi è un miscuglio di generi che passano dalla satira al paradossale, dal fantastico alla trovata ingegnosa. Nascosto nell'opera il pensiero dell'autore: bisogna combattere per i propri ideali, dando l'importanza di tutto all'agire.

"I demoni", terzo romanzo nel percorso spirituale di Dostoevskij, dopo "Delitto e Castigo", "L'Idiota", e prima dei "Fratelli Karamazov", ha avuto una lunga storia editoriale. Prima pubblicato a puntate sulla rivista "Messaggero Russo" nel 1872 e poi in volume l'anno successivo. Il romanzo è ispirato ad un fatto di cronaca del novembre del 1869: l'anarchico e nichilista Sergej Necaev, legato a Michail Bakunin uccide lo studente Ivan Ivanov, sospettato di voler abbandonare la cellula sovversiva dello stesso Necaev.

Rejoice! A new messiah has come, and her name is Julie. Born to Murray Katz, the solitary (and celibate) keeper of an abandoned lighthouse on the Jersey shore, our protagonist arrives on Earth boasting supernatural abilities evocative of her divine half-brother, Jesus. As a child, she revels in her talent for walking on water, resurrecting dead crabs, and treating fireflies as luminous alphabet blocks. But after she reaches adolescence, her life becomes as challenging and ambiguous as any mortal’s.

We're back with Bertie Wooster and his devoted man, Jeeves, in Carry On, Jeeves, the second collection of P.G. Wodehouse's much-loved series. There are trips to America, scandalous books and articles to tend with, near misses in love, and schemes aplenty, all under the watchful eye of Jeeves, who always finds a way to make things just right.

Finn's re-adaptation to the human world is not going so well. He's got a great girlfriend, and is figuring out how things like the internet work, but he is still carrying the disembodied personality of Alynon, Prince of the Silver Demesne, the fae who had occupied his body during his imprisonment. And he's not getting along at all with his older brother. And oh, by the way, his dead grandfather is still trying to possess him in order to bring about Armageddon.

Ree Reyes’s life was easier when all she had to worry about was scraping together tips from her gig as a barista and comic shop slave to pursue her ambitions as a screenwriter. When a scruffy-looking guy storms into the shop looking for a comic like his life depends on it, Ree writes it off as just another day in the land of the geeks. Until a gigantic “BOOM!” echoes from the alley a minute later, and Ree follows the rabbit hole down into her town’s magical flip-side.

Set and written in 1726, This is a marvelously imaginative tale of the four voyages of Lemuel Gulliver. He finds himself shipwrecked and the prisoner of captors ranging in size from 6 inches tall to 60 feet tall and of various other persuasions. But this is just the beginning of a story written, strangely enough to satirize the foolishness and vices of modern men as they were perceived at the time. No one, young or old, can ever forget the Lilliputians and the Yahoos that starred in these wonderful and riveting stories of long ago.

Charles De Coster, 1827 in München geboren, aufgewachsen in Brüssel, griff die Legende vom Taugenichts Till Eulenspiegel auf und transportierte sie ins 16. Jahrhundert, genauer in die Zeit des Achtzigjährigen Krieges. Womöglich war es sein Engagement für die Satire-Zeitung "Uylenspiegel", das De Coster den Volkshelden näherbrachte. Doch ist sein "Ulenspiegel" nicht nur ein Schelmenstück, sondern auch ein historischer Roman mit einer Hauptfigur, die Freiheitsheld und Widerstandskämpfer zugleich ist.

Rose Macaulay was a fascinating and influential British writer, known for her wit and intellect. First published in 1920, Potterism is a powerful satire about the Potter newspaper empire, and the ways in which journalists struggled during the First World War and the 1920s to balance the truth and what would sell. While Jane and Johnny Potter are at Oxford they learn to despise their father’s popular newspapers, though they still end up working for the family business. But Jane is greedy and wants more than society will let her have.

"This is a history and not a glorification of Mr. Polly, and I tell of things as they were with him.” So writes H.G Wells toward the end of his story of Mr. Polly, and indeed, the narrator’s voice throughout the book leaves us altogether ambivalent about his protagonist. The diminutive Everyman of the story is neither fully hero nor villain.