Short Stories Humor

Josephine Ying longs to overthrow Big Uncle as the best host, and after his roast duck incident, she’s finally getting her chance this Chinese New Year. Even better, her son is bringing a surprise. Unfortunately, the surprise turns out to be a gold-digging fiancée—who dies at the dinner table. Her problems just got a lot bigger than hosting the perfect meal. Certain there’s a killer at the table, Josephine sharpens her questions to find them out.

Q: What do a set of LEGO toys, a mountain of cocaine, a glitter-dusted stripper, and a monkey who's grown tired of his dead-end day job have in common? A: Absolutely nothing. Except that they're all key elements in some of the stories featured in this dark and funny collection.

Tyler, Channing, and Sammy Clauster have descended on their childhood home, with significant others and four-year-old twins in tow, for another good old-fashioned Christmas. Overwhelming holiday magic, as always, comes courtesy of their mom, Claire. They know she’s thrilled to cook, wrap gifts, decorate, accommodate, play games, overprepare every Christmas Eve Eve Eve tradition, and still let Dad be known as the Fun One. It’s her thing, right? Maybe the family should have paid closer attention. Because this year, something is a little off-key - and it’s not just the carols.

Already sold in eight countries around the world, these nine energized, irreverent stories from Nathan Englander introduce an astonishing new talent.

The first volume of Wodehouse's brilliant complete and unabridged short stories. Originally a semi-novel, this version contains self-contained stories which are nonetheless linked, often by Bingo Little, an endearingly hopeless chap and a serial romancer.

Recipe for drunken laughter: take two best friends since childhood; add four shots of tequila each; sprinkle in a handful of secrets; shake.

Satire, Humor and Irony in some cases have been regarded as the most effective source to understand a society, the oldest form of social study. Contents: The Cop and the Anthem by O. Henry; The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry; What Stumped the Blue Jays by Mark Twain; The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain; The Toys of Peace by Saki (H. H. Munro); The Artful Hussar by Johann Peter Hebel; From The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolf Erich Raspe; The Golden Honeymoon by Ring Lardner; When I Was a Witch by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; Micromegas: A Philosophical History by Voltaire.

Gogol's phantasmagorical tale about a man whose nose decides to abscond and begin living a life of its own is one of the earliest and most celebrated examples of absurdist literature. Apart from its recondite humor, it is remarkable for Gogol's skill in characterization and his ability to paint a picture of contemporary life in Russia in a few verbal brushstrokes.

Welcome to Colorful Colorado is the sometimes-humorous tale of one man’s decision to begin an adventure on the other side of the “world”, when that world is 1,000 miles away.

“They Are Everywhere” is a story that combines the elements of the most spine-tingling supernatural horror with the funniest comedy. Never before have malevolent spirits, poltergeists, and haunted houses been so funny. Make no mistake though, the terror is real; it’s the witless protagonists and their incredibly inappropriate reactions that give the story its humor.

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.

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.

"J'ai commencé à éprouver un sentiment, je veux dire un vrai, à ce moment-là. En sortant de la voiture, à Wandermines, sous la pluie. On ne parle pas assez de l'influence des lieux sur l'affect. Certaines nostalgies remontent à la surface sans prévenir. Les êtres changent de nature, comme dans les contes. Au milieu de cette confrérie en habits du dimanche, se pressant vers la mairie pour échapper aux gouttes, tenant le bras d'Odile pour l'aider sur le parvis glissant, j'ai éprouvé la catastrophe du sentiment.

An urgent and unforgettable collection of stories, Show Them a Good Time explores types - men and women, their assigned roles and meanings - in modern society. A young, broke Irish woman narrates her relationship with a successful comedian in New York; two hapless university students take to the stage in a bid to assert their autonomy; a school teacher makes her way through a series of dead-end dates, gamely searching for love or distraction as the world teeters towards ruin.

The time is the early '80s. The characters go to the same schools and eat at the same restaurants. Their voices enfold us as seamlessly as those of DJs heard over a car radio. They have sex with the same boys and girls and buy from the same dealers. In short, they are connected in the only way people can be in that city.

The warrior Mithra must repel a Roman legion alone and armed only with one very tasty weapon. The Romans are marching! To protect her lands and her tribe, Mithra comes up with a sticky solution to an impossible problem.

A crotchety nightwatchman in a whaling museum contemplates Neptune the stuffed sea lion, originally owned by P.T. Barnum. In his admiration for the kingly animal, he studies ventriloquism to give Neptune a voice. When a field trip comes through the museum, he has an unexpectedly meaningful exchange with a precocious, like-minded child...and Neptune.

Classic warped and wonderful stories from a “genius” (The New York Times) and master storyteller. Brief, intense, painfully funny, and shockingly honest, Etgar Keret’s stories are snapshots that illuminate with intelligence and wit the hidden truths of life. As with the best writers of fiction, hilarity and anguish are the twin pillars of his work. Keret covers a remarkable emotional and narrative terrain - from a father’s first lesson to his boy to a standoff between soldiers caught up in the Middle East conflict to a slice of life where nothing much happens.

Pamela is a newly retired teacher with time on her hands. She’s finding it hard to muster enthusiasm for what’s ahead: exhausting postdivorce dating rituals and an uneasy relationship with her emotionally stunted, live-at-home son. But for Pamela, there’s a surprise in store that could challenge the status quo and, against all expectations, make life interesting again.

With these 13 transfixing, ingenious stories, Ben Marcus gives us timely dystopian visions of alienation in a modern world - cosmically and comically apt. Never has existential catastrophe been so much fun.