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Thank You, Goodnight: A Novel
By Andy Abramowitz. 2015
In Thank You, Goodnight, hailed by Billboard as &“High Fidelity and About a Boy with a dose of Music &…
Lyrics thrown in,&” the lead singer of a one-hit wonder 90s band tries for one more swing at the fence.Teddy Tremble is nearing forty and has settled into a comfortable groove, working at a stuffy law firm and living in a downtown apartment with a woman he thinks he might love. Sure, his days aren’t as exciting as the time he spent as the lead singer of Tremble, the rock band known for its mega-hit “It Feels Like a Lie,” but that life has long since passed its sell-by date.But when Teddy gets a cryptic call from an old friend, he’s catapulted into contemplating the unthinkable: reuniting Tremble for one last shot at rewriting history. Never mind that the band members haven’t spoken in ten years, that they left the music scene in a blazing cloud of indifference, and that the only fans who seem to miss them reside in an obscure little town in Switzerland.If Teddy manages to snooker his band mates out of their adult lives, can a once immature, self-involved fallen idol find his way back to the top—and possibly back to the one who got away? Thank You, Goodnight is debut novelist Andy Abramowitz’s hilarious, honest, and “unfailingly heartfelt” (The Washington Post) story about love, lyrics, and finding one’s legacy in the unlikeliest of places.The devil wears scrubs: A short comedic novel
By Freida McFadden. 2017
Newly minted doctor Jane McGill is in hell. Not literally, of course. But between her drug addict patients, sleepless nights…
on call, and battling wits with the sadistic yet charming Sexy Surgeon, Jane can't imagine an afterlife much worse than her first month of medical internship at County Hospital. And then there's the devil herself: Jane's senior resident Dr. Alyssa Morgan. When Alyssa becomes absolutely hell-bent on making her new interns pay tenfold for the deadly sin of incompetence, Jane starts to worry that she may not make it through the year with her soul or her sanity still intactLove & mr. lewisham: The story of a very young couple
By H. G Wells. 2023
The world of young Mr. Lewisham is one day turned upside down when he meets and falls in love with…
Ethel Henderson, a young woman from London who is visiting relatives in Sussex. Their brief and innocent rendezvous has significant implications when Lewisham's job is threatened. Some time later, Lewisham moves to London, where he decides to go search of Ethel, but finding her proves to be more complicated than expected ... This book is said to closely resemble events in H. G. Wells's own lifeThe divorce party: A novel
By Laura Dave. 2021
"Sizzle Factor: SPF 50. A secret marriage, lies about affairs . . . even sex on the day of the…
divorce party" ( USA Today ) a novel by the author of the New York Times Bestseller and Reese's Book Club Pick, The Last Thing He Told Me The second novel from Laura Dave, the acclaimed author of Eight Hundred Grapes and Hello Sunshine . In The Divorce Party , she captures a much-discussed cultural phenomenon that has never been profiled in fiction before-divorce celebrations-with her characteristic wit and warmth. Set in Hamptons high society, The Divorce Party features two women-one newly engaged and one at the end of her marriage-trying to answer the same question: when should you fight to save a relationship, and when should you let go? An insightful and funny multi-generational story, this deeply moving novel is sure to touch anyone whose heart has weathered an unexpected stormWhat remains of elsie jane
By Chelsea Wakelyn. 2023
A heartbreaking and darkly funny portrait of a woman unravelling in the wake of tragedy. Sam is dead, which means…
that Elsie Jane has just lost the brilliant, sensitive man she planned to grow old with. The early days of grief are a fog of work and single parenting. Too restless to sleep, Elsie pores over Sam's old love letters, paces her house, and bickers with the ghosts of Sam and her dead parents night after night. As the year unfolds, she develops an obsession with a local murder mystery, attends a series of disastrous internet dates in search of a "replacement soulmate," and solicits a space-time wizard via Craigslist, convinced he will help her forge a path through the cosmos back to Sam. Examining the ceaseless labor of motherhood, the stigma of death by drug poisoning, and the allure of magical thinking in the wake of tragedy, What Remains of Elsie Jane is a heart-splitting reminder that grief is born from the depths of love. Contains mature themesThe Memoirs of Laetitia Horsepole
By John Fuller. 2001
Discovered in the secret compartment of a North Italian cabinet, this enchanting manuscript may or may not be complete, and…
it may or may not be intended for posterity. Undeterred by these uncertainties, John Fuller gives us the early nineteenth-century 'memoirs' of Laetitia Horsepole, painter, philosopher and femme fatale. Shelley, apparently, came across this formidable woman, aged ninety, on his travels through Italy, and became her confidant and neighbour. Why, the reader may wonder, is she not better known? Why indeed? That long spell in Madagascar certainly interrupted her career. She was prickly and disinclined to ingratiate herself with the arbiters of fashionable taste. And then her virtual disappearance to Italy didn't help matters. But her obscurity gives added piquancy to the memoirs which - her idiosyncratic art theory and philosophy apart - are above all a dramatic eighteenth-century adventure in five acts which reflect her tempestuous involvement with the five 'husbands' of her life, from the brutish Crowther and the dull and the rich but louche Count Chiavari. Laetitia reflects on the vagaries of love and erotic involvement, on art and men, on flora and fauna, and reveals for the first time what actually happened in Madagascar. Shamelessly enjoyable, teasingly allusive, irresistibly funny and sometimes sad, Laetitia's is quite simply a brilliant and bewitching romance full of truths that lie deeper than fact.Meltdown
By Ben Elton. 2009
For amiable City trader Jimmy Corby money was the new Rock n' Roll. His whole life was a party, adrenaline…
charged and cocaine fuelled. If he hadn't met Monica he would probably have ended up either dead or in rehab.But Jimmy was as lucky in love as he was at betting on dodgy derivatives, so instead of burning out, his star just burned brighter than ever. Rich, pampered and successful, Jimmy, Monica and their friends lived the dream, bringing up their children with an army of domestic helps.But then it all came crashing down. And when the global financial crisis hit, Jimmy discovers that anyone can handle success. It's how you handle failure that really matters.Identity Crisis
By Ben Elton. 2019
Why are we all so hostile? So quick to take offence? Truly we are living in the age of outrage.…
A series of apparently random murders draws amiable, old-school Detective Mick Matlock into a world of sex, politics, reality TV and a bewildering kaleidoscope of opposing identity groups. Lost in a blizzard of hashtags, his already complex investigation is further impeded by the fact that he simply doesn’t ‘get’ a single thing about anything anymore.Meanwhile, each day another public figure confesses to having ‘misspoken’ and prostrates themselves before the judgement of Twitter. Begging for forgiveness, assuring the public “that is not who I am”.But if nobody is who they are anymore - then who the f##k are we?Ben Elton returns with a blistering satire of the world as it fractures around us. Get ready for a roller-coaster thriller, where nothing - and no one - is off limits.I Should Be So Lucky: an uplifting and hilarious novel from the ever astute Astley
By Judy Astley. 2013
Certain to raise a smile and warm your heart; escape for an afternoon with this gem from Judy Astley. Perfect…
for fans of Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley...'Warm, funny and unerringly true to life' - Katie Fforde'A light, enjoyable, well-written read populated by appealing characters you won't be able to resist warming to.' - Sara Lawrence, DAILY MAIL'Frothy fun from an author worth noting' - DAILY EXPRESS******************************************************SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK...Viola hasn't had much luck with men. Her first husband, Marco, companion of her youth and father of her only child, left her when he realised he was gay.Her second, Rhys, ended his high-octane, fame-filled life by driving his Porsche into a wall. No wonder her family always believes she needs looking after, and her friends think she really shouldn't be allowed out on her own. Which is why, at the age of thirty-five, she finds herself back at home, living with Mum.Viola knows she has to take charge, and fast.With a stroppy teenage daughter, a demanding mother, and siblings who want to control her life for her, where is she going to turn?Gulliver's Travels (The Penguin English Library)
By Jonathan Swift. 2012
With an essay by George Orwell.'Fifteen hundred of the Emperor's largest horses, each about four inches and an half high,…
were employed to draw me towards the Metropolis, which, as I said, was half a Mile distant'A savage and hilarious satire, Gulliver's Travels sees Lemuel Gulliver shipwrecked and adrift, subject to bizarre and unnerving encounters with, among others, quarrelling Lilliputians, philosophizing horses and the brutish Yahoo tribe, that change his view of humanity - and himself - for ever. Swift's classic of 1726 portrays mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with a comical yet uncompromising reflection of ourselves.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.Gulliver's Travels
By Jonathan Swift. 2003
The classic tale of shipwreck and adventure in strange lands, Gulliver's Travels is also a wickedly clever satire on the…
nature of humankind 'A masterwork of irony ... that contains both a dark and bitter meaning and a joyous, extraordinary creativity of imagination' Malcolm Bradbury Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire views mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves. This text, based on the first edition of 1726, reproduces all the original illustrations and includes an introduction by Robert Demaria, Jr, which discusses the ways Gulliver's Travels has been interpreted since its first publication.Guards! Guards!: The Play (Discworld Novels #8)
By Terry Pratchett. 1989
Terry Pratchett's infamous city of Ankh-Morpork is under threat from a 60-foot fire-breathing dragon, summoned by a secret society of…
malcontented tradesmen.Defending Ank-Morpork against this threat is the entire, underpaid, undervalued City Night Watch - a drunken and world-weary Captain, a cowardly and overweight Sergeant, a small opportunistic Corporal of dubious parentage...and their newest recruit, Lance Constable Carrot, who is upright, literal, law-abiding and keen. Aiding them in their fight for truth, justice and the Ankh-Morporkian way are a small swamp dragon and the Librarian of Unseen University (who just happens to be an orang-utan).Grantchester Grind: (Porterhouse Blue Series 2) (Porterhouse Blue #2)
By Tom Sharpe. 1995
Though as cunning as ever, the formidable Skullion - previously head porter, now elevated to Master - is showing signs…
of physical frailty after his stroke. So the tricky business of appointing a new Master must start all over again. Meanwhile the College's monstrous debts refuse to go away, and a sinister American media mogul seems determined to make a television documentary on the premises, destroying part of the chapel in the process. Moreover, the widow of the previous Master is convinced that her husband was murdered, so she plants an agent in the Senior Common Room to dig up an unpleasant truth that everyone else would prefer kept under the carpet. Faced with such continuing crises, the instinct of the true Porterhouse man is to reach for the bottle - or to fall back on the subtle and traditional Cambridge skills of blackmail and kidnap. But will those be enough?Gargantua and Pantagruel
By Francois Rabelais. 2006
The dazzling and exuberant moral stories of Rabelais (c. 1471-1553) expose human follies with their mischievous and often obscene humour,…
while intertwining the realistic with carnivalesque fantasy to make us look afresh at the world. Gargantua depicts a young giant, reduced to laughable insanity by an education at the hands of paternal ignorance, old crones and syphilitic professors, who is rescued and turned into a cultured Christian knight. And in Pantagruel and its three sequels, Rabelais parodied tall tales of chivalry and satirized the law, theology and academia to portray the bookish son of Gargantua who becomes a Renaissance Socrates, divinely guided in his wisdom, and his idiotic, self-loving companion Panurge.From the Diary of a Snail
By Günter Grass. 1972
Probably the most autobiographical of his novels, From the Diary of a Snail balances the agonising history of the persecuted…
Danzig Jews with an account of Grass's political campaigning with Willie Brandt. Underlying all is the snail, the central symbol that is both model and a parody of social progress, and a mysterious metaphor for political reform.From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of The Tin Drum.Flatland (Penguin Science Fiction)
By Edwin Abbott. 2020
The book that influenced writers from Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking, Flatland is set in a two-dimensional world where life…
exists only in lines and shapes - until one of its inhabitants, 'A. Square', has his perspective transformed forever. This brilliantly eccentric classic is an invitation to see beyond our own reality.'At once a playful brainteaser about geometry, a pointed satire of Victorian manners - and a strangely compelling argument about the greatest mysteries of the Universe' Wall Street Journal'Flatland could lead to very profound thought about our Universe and ourselves' Isaac AsimovErewhon
By Samuel Butler. 1970
Setting out to make his fortune in a far-off country, a young traveller discovers the remote and beautiful land of…
Erewhon and is given a home among its extraordinarily handsome citizens. But their visitor soon discovers that this seemingly ideal community has its faults - here crime is treated indulgently as a malady to be cured, while illness, poverty and misfortune are cruelly punished, and all machines have been superstitiously destroyed after a bizarre prophecy. Can he survive in a world where morality is turned upside down? Inspired by Samuel Butler's years in colonial New Zealand and by his reading of Darwin's Origin of Species, Erewhon (1872) is a highly original, irreverent and humorous satire on conventional virtues, religious hypocrisy and the unthinking acceptance of beliefs.Let bestselling author Judy Astley sweep you away with this insightful, uplifting and hilarious novel where a family holiday turns…
into more of a torment than a treat... Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley."I just love Judy Astley's books" - JILL MANSELL"Wickedly funny" - DAILY MAIL"A funny, warm and moving novel" - SUNDAY MIRROR"If I am feeling in need of blue skies and sunshine and none are to be had here I just pick [this] up and settle down to while away an hour or two" -- ***** Reader review"A really light and amusing story" -- ***** Reader review******************************************************IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT, DON'T BRING THE FAMILYAs a penniless and partnerless house-painter with an expired lease on her flat and a twelve-year-old daughter, Lucy could hardly turn down her parents' offer to take them on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Caribbean.She'd just have to put up with her sister Theresa (making no secret of preferring Tuscany as a holiday destination) and brother Simon (worrying that there might be some sinister agenda behind their parents' wish to take them all away) with their various spouses, teenagers and young children.In a luxury hotel, with bright sunshine, swimming, diving, glorious food and friendly locals, any family tensions should have melted away in the fabulous heat. The children should have been angelic, the teenagers cheerful, the adults relaxed and happy.But some problems just refuse to be left at home.Dead Souls
By Nikolay Gogol. 2004
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a…
strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these 'souls' as collateral to re-invent himself as a gentleman. In this ebullient masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov, and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov. Dead Souls, Russia's first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy.The Diary of a Nobody
By George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith. 1999
'The funniest book in the world' Evelyn Waugh'The jewel at the heart of English comic literature' William Trevor Mr Pooter…
is a man of modest ambitions, content with his ordinary life. Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent young office clerks and wayward friends, not to mention his devil-may-care son Lupin with his unsuitable choice of bride. In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing character of Pooter, the Grossmith brothers created a wonderful portrait of the class system and the inherent snobbishness of the suburban middle-class suburbia - one which sends up the late Victorian crazes for Aestheticism, spiritualism and bicycling, as well as the fashion for publishing diaries by anybody and everybody. This edition contains the original illustrations by Weedon Grossmith and an introduction by Ed Glinert, author of The London Compendium, discussing the novel's serialisation in Punch, the growth of the suburbs and the figure of Mrs Pooter.George Grossmith (1847-1912) initially worked as a journalist, reporting Police Court proceedings for The Times. In 1870 he began his career as a singer and entertainer, creating some of the most memorable characters in Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas. Weedon Grossmith (1854-1919) brother of George, was educated at the Slade and the Royal Academy with a view to following a career as a painter, and exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and the Royal Academy. Joining a theatre company in 1885, he toured the provinces and America. The best-known of his many plays, The Night of the Party, was published in 1901.'True humour ... with its mixture of absurdity, irony and affection ... a masterpiece, immortal' J.B. Priestley