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Reginald's Christmas Revel (Little Clothbound Classics)
By Saki. 2022
Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the…
award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.With his signature flair and razor-sharp wit, Saki is an undisputed master of the short story. His tales are by turns hilarious, festive, supernatural and macabre, but all offer fabulous, bite-sized satires of a decadent upper-class Edwardian world. 'Saki, like a chivalrous highwayman, only robs the rich: behind all these stories is an exacting sense of justice . . . they dazzle and delight' Graham GreenePorterhouse Blue: (Porterhouse Blue Series 1) (Porterhouse Blue #1)
By Tom Sharpe. 1974
______________________________The 'endlessly funny' novel widely regarded as a classic of comic English literaturePorterhouse College is world renowned for its gastronomic…
excellence, the arrogance of its Fellows, its academic mediocrity and the social cache it confers on the athletic sons of country families.Sir Godber Evans, ex-Cabinet Minister and the new Master, is determined to change all this. Spurred on by his politically angular wife, Lady Mary, he challenges the established order and provokes the wrath of the Dean, the Senior Tutor, the Bursar and, most intransigent of all, Skullion the Head Porter - with hilarious and catastrophic results.Ooh La La! Connie Pickles
By Sabine Durrant. 2007
Connie Pickles is fulfilling her destiny. She's in Paris, and she has big plans. She will fall in love with…
someone other than William. She will find her long lost grandparents. She will become très chic. But sometimes even destiny doesn't go to plan . . .Sabine Durrant has the laugh-out-loud humour of Louise Rennison, the sharp perception of Anne Fine and the instant girl-appeal of a younger Bridget Jones. Perfect for girls aged 11+.Northanger Abbey: Jane Austen (Vintage Classics Austen Series)
By Jane Austen. 2014
Jane Austen takes a satirical swipe at the gothic novel in this classic book bursting with sly subversive wit. 'Jane…
Austen is a genius, and Northanger Abbey is hugely underrated' Martin Amis Catherine Morland is a young girl with a very active imagination. Her naivety and love of sensational novels lead her to approach the fashionable social scene in Bath and her stay at nearby Northanger Abbey with preconceptions that have embarrassing and entertaining consequences. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY P.D. JAMES VINTAGE CLASSICS AUSTEN SERIES - all six of Jane Austen's major novels, beautifully designed and introduced by our finest contemporary writers.Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley, this is a story full of wry laughs and…
shrewd insight into friendship and family from bestselling author Judy Astley.'Wickedly funny... A thoroughly entertaining romp best enjoyed when you're on a sun lounger with a glass of Pimm's to hand' - DAILY MAIL'Frothy fun from an author worth noting' - DAILY EXPRESS'This deliciously funny novel had me laughing out loud' - WOMAN AND HOME'Highly entertaining with dry humor and hilarious situations' -- ***** Reader review'Perfect for summer, Judy's books show a real passion for writing' -- ***** Reader review******************************************************FRIENDS SHARE EVERYTHING... DON'T THEY?Stella works as an agony aunt for a teenage magazine. She lives on Pansy Island, a self-consciously arty community on the Thames, where her husband Adrian writes erotic novels in a summerhouse by the river, while her two teenage children prepare themselves for adult life in various ways not necessarily recommended in the pages of their mother's advice columns.Stella's friends assume that she has no problems of her own, and shamelessly come to her for the advice she dishes up for a living on the magazine; Stella, however, finds herself with a problem she cannot handle when Abigail, her rich and glamorous friend from university, comes to stay.Abigail has been deserted by her husband, and has decided that Stella's life, and more particularly Stella's husband will fill the gap nicely...Monsterbook: Lumpydump And The Terror Teacher (Monsterbook)
By Michael Broad. 2009
Will's new teacher, Mrs Dumpy, is really, really mean! And his monster friend, Urk, thinks she's hiding a MONSTROUS secret.…
Can a trip to the Horror Hills uncover the terror teacher's putrid plan?Join Will and Urk for another laugh-out-loud adventure!A Modest Proposal and Other Writings: A Modest Proposal And Other Works (Quirky Classics Ser.)
By Jonathan Swift. 2018
The political dilemma of Ireland; the state of faith in England; the charms of the Beggar's Opera; the importance of…
puns . . . This selection gathers together some of Swift's most brilliant prose, from high politics to social gossip, from savage tirades to lighthearted social satire. In addition to his classic essays, the collection includes several of Swift's letters to Alexander Pope and other great thinkers of the age.'L-d! said my mother, what is all this story about? - A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick - And…
one of the best of its kind, I ever heard'Laurence Sterne's great masterpiece of bawdy humour and rich satire defies any attempt to categorize it, with a rich metafictional narrative that might classify it as the first 'postmodern' novel. Part novel, part digression, its gloriously disordered narrative interweaves the birth and life of the unfortunate 'hero' Tristram Shandy, the eccentric philosophy of his father Walter, the amours and military obsessions of Uncle Toby, and a host of other characters, including Dr Slop, Corporal Trim and the parson Yorick. A joyful celebration of the endless possibilities of the art of fiction, Tristram Shandy is also a wry demonstration of its limitations.The text and notes of this volume are based on the acclaimed Florida Edition, with a critical introduction by Melvyn New and Christopher Ricks's introductory essay from the first Penguin Classics edition.'The book that I would never tire of ... Sterne was about 250 years ahead of his time'Roy Porter, author of Enlightenment: Britain And The Creation Of The Modern WorldSterne's utterly original novel - the meandering, maddening 'autobiography' of one of literature's oldest comic characters.Doomed to become the ‘sport…
of fortune’ by an interruption at the crucial moment of conception, Tristram Shandy’s life lurches from one mishap to another: his nose crushed by the doctor’s forceps during birth, christened with the wrong name, an unfortunate incident involving a slamming sash window… Discover the anti-autobiography of the hilarious Tristram Shandy. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY TOM MCCARTHY ‘Tristram Shandy is one of the funniest novels in the English language. It's also one of the first great experimental literary works’ IndependentThe Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr
By E.T.A. Hoffmann. 1999
Tomcat Murr is a loveable, self-taught animal who has written his own autobiography. But a printer's error causes his story…
to be accidentally mixed and spliced with a book about the composer Johannes Kreisler. As the two versions break off and alternate at dramatic moments, two wildly different characters emerge from the confusion - Murr, the confident scholar, lover, carouser and brawler, and the moody, hypochondriac genius Kreisler. In his exuberant and bizarre novel, Hoffmann brilliantly evokes the fantastic, the ridiculous and the sublime within the humdrum bustle of daily life, making The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr (1820-22) one of the funniest and strangest novels of the nineteenth century.Indecent Exposure
By Tom Sharpe. 1984
In Piemburgem, the deceptively peaceful-looking capital of Zululand, Kommandant van Heerden, Konstabel Els and Luitenant Verkramp continue to terrorise true…
Englishman and even truer Zulus in their relentless search for a perfect South Africa. Kommandant van Heerden, that great Anglophile, gropes his way towards attaining true 'Englishness' in the company of the eccentric Dornford Yates Club. But Luitenant Verkramp, whose hatred of all things English is surpassed only by his fear of sex, sets in motion an experiment in mass chastity (with the help of a lady psychiatrist), which has remarkable and quite unforeseen results.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?