Humor Classics

One of the greatest satires in American literature, Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" begins when Hank Morgan, a skilled mechanic in a nineteenth-century New England arms factory, is struck on the head during a quarrel and awakens to find himself among the knights and magicians of King Arthur's Camelot. The 'Yankee' vows brashly to "boss the whole country inside of three weeks" and embarks on an ambitious plan to modernize Camelot with 19th c. industrial inventions like electricity and gunfire. It isn't long before all hell breaks loose!

Teri and Phil had never needed their own personal god. But when Phil is passed up for a promotion - again - it's time to take matters into their own hands. And look online. Choosing a god isn't as simple as you would think. There are too many choices; and they often have very hefty prices for their eternal devotion: blood, money, sacrifices, and vows of chastity. But then they find Luka, raccoon god of prosperity. All he wants is a small cut of their good fortune. Oh - and to crash on their couch for a few days.

Life at St Cadfan’s is never dull. There’s the cellar full of unexplained corpses. There’s the struggle to find food when the island is placed under quarantine. And there’s that peculiar staircase in the cellar.... Being a demon in Hell has its own problems. There’s the increasingly impossible torture quotas to meet. There’s the entire horde of Hell waiting for you to slip up and make a mistake. And there’s that weird staircase in the service tunnels.

In Xanth, everyone has a talent. But that doesn't mean everyone loves his talent, and no one understands that better than Hapless. Endowed with the ability to conjure any instrument he wants, Hapless could be an extraordinary musician if only he could play a tune that didn't fall ear-piercingly flat. His one desire is to find an instrument he can play. When the Good Magician hears about Hapless's desperate desire, he sends the young man on a quest to find the elusive Isis Orb, a magical talisman that could fulfill his wish.

"I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess." So begins the irresistible testimony of the luscious instructor of Empathy and Posture at Buck Loner's Academy of Drama and Modeling. Myra has a secret that only her surgeon shares; a passion for classic Hollywood films, which she regards as the supreme achievements of Western culture; and a sacred mission to bring heteronormative civilization to its knees. Fifty years after its first publication unleashed gales of laughter, delight, and ferocious dissent, Myra's moment to instruct and delight has once again arrived.

The Times has announced, much to Bertie's astonishment, the news of his engagement to the beautiful Bobbie Wickham. But worse is to come....Uncle Tom's antique silver cow-creamer has gone missing; Kipper Herring has libelled his and Bertie's former headmaster; leading British psychiatrist Sir Roderick Glossop is posing as a butler; and Aunt Dahlia's masterly French chef, Anatole, is once again becoming a pawn in a terrible power struggle.

George and Weedon Grossmith's The Diary of a Nobody paints a detailed picture of life in 1892. Pooter's diary notes his daily business, parties, embarrassments, and his agitated relationship with son Lupin - a strikingly familiar world, brought to life by Keith Wickham, which provides continual amusement.

The Provincial Lady Goes Further is the immediate sequel to Diary of a Provincial Lady - and life mirrors art. Our Provincial Lady has found herself, unexpectedly, with a literary success on her hands! She is suddenly 'somebody', both in her Devonshire environs and in London, where she establishes a bolthole - ostensibly so she could concentrate on the much-awaited sequel, but also so that she can enjoy the fruits of being a best-selling author!

The usual suspects, including Lord Emsworth and his prize pig, the Empress, line up at Blandings Castle for a Wodehousian caper that sees members of the upper-classes getting hot and bothered over a nude painting they all want to get their hands on. This is wit at its very finest, read by one of our superlative actors, who reads Wodehouse with the requisite style and panache.

When recently orphaned Barnaby Gaunt is sent to stay with his uncle on a beautiful remote island off the coast of Canada, he is all set to have the perfect summer holiday. Except there is one small problem: His uncle is trying to kill him. Heir to a ten-million-dollar fortune, Barnaby tries to tell everyone and anyone that his uncle is after his inheritance, but no one will believe him. That is, until he tells the only other child on the island, Chrissie, who concludes that there is only one way for Barnaby to stop his demonic uncle: He will just have to kill him first.

Vitangelo Moscarda, il protagonista dell'ultimo, straordinario romanzo di Pirandello, in seguito alla banale osservazione della moglie a proposito del suo naso che pende un po' da una parte, si mette sulle tracce del vero se stesso, accorgendosi però, che se il corpo può essere unico, così non accade per l'anima. La sua ricerca finisce per prendere inquietanti aspetti che si avvicinano ad una molteplicità di sapore faustiano, fino ad una modificazione tale dei propri comportamenti, che spinge sua moglie, i parenti e gli amici a considerarlo pazzo.

Award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith breathes life (albeit a wizened Texan version) into the old Greek myths. With her incurable Texas drawl, she spins the Greek myths as you've never heard them before, rendering them 99% more fun while retaining 100% of their original insights into the crooked ways of the human heart and the no less crooked ways of the ancient Greek gods.

Containing drafts of stories later rewritten for other collections (including Carry On, Jeeves), My Man Jeeves offers a fascinating insight into the genesis of comic literature’s most celebrated double-act. All the stories are set in New York, four of them featuring Jeeves and Wooster themselves; the rest concerning Reggie Pepper, an earlier version of Bertie.

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.

The Labyrinth of the World is about a fellow named Pilgrim who treks through the world in order to find the best way to live, aided by two guides: Mr. Ubiquitous and Mr. Delusion. Pilgrim finds much to be concerned about in the world. Ultimately, he finds something he had not planned upon in his journey: The Paradise of the Heart. This original pilgrim allegory was penned 55 years before Pilgrim's Progress. Find out how an educator and theologian, with real-life experience, penned a profound story that is still contemporary today.

Set in the 1920s, The Glimpses of the Moon details the romantic misadventures of Nick Lansing and Susy Branch, a couple with the right connections but not much in the way of funds. They devise a shrewd bargain: they'll marry and spend a year or so sponging off their wealthy friends, honeymooning in their mansions and villas.

Born in England in 1869, Stephen Leacock would immigrate to Canada and become a teacher, political scientist, and writer. He would ultimately come to be best known and loved as a humourist. Literary Lapses was first published as a collection of sketches in 1910, although many of the individual stories were first printed in various newspapers and periodicals, such as Punch, New York Life, and the Detroit Free Press.

Waldo Rabbit is back! Waldo and Alice continue on their quest, now accompanied by the ogre Gronk. They are headed to Norwich, where they hope to find the third monster that will be Waldo's last familiar. But things are never as simple as they seem. An archlich, White Mage, and murderous rabbits all stand in the way. Yes, that's right, the murderous flesh eating rabbits make their appearance! Waldo is both the hunter and the hunted.

Set at the outbreak of World War II, Lady Sophia Garfield dreams of becoming a beautiful spy but manages not to notice a nest of German agents right under her nose. Until the murder of her maid and the kidnapping of her beloved bulldog force them on her attention, with heroic and absurd results. One of Mitford's earliest novels and written before Christmas 1939, Pigeon Pie is delivered with a touch lighter than that of her later masterpieces but no less entertaining. This comedy combines glamour, wit and a fiendishly absurd plot into an irresistible literary confection.

The peaceful slumber of the Worcester village of Rudge-in-the-Vale is about to be rudely disrupted. First there's a bitter feud between peppery Colonel Wyvern and the Squire of Rudge Hall, rich but miserly Lester Carmody. Second, that arch-villain Chimp Twist has opened a health farm - and he and Soapy and Dolly Molloy are planning a fake burglary so Lester can diddle his insurance company.