Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios" in Comedy & Humour

A hilarious and moving true story by Man Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson about the greatest “swag man” in the history of Manchester. A charming, brazen salesman of genius, Frankie Cohen rises from selling cheap gewgaws, known as swag, for Jacobson's father in the rough market streets of the Northern English city, to buying and selling some of the world's greatest artworks.

Meet Matt Richter. Pi. Zombie. Another case proves dangerous for zombie PI Matt Richter, in the underworld realm of Nekropolis. From his arrival at Nekropolis, Matt has found himself embroiled in disputes with the city's vampire lords, shapeshifters, golems, and other monstrosities. Nothing has prepared him for the Dark War. Tim Waggoner is a novelist and college professor.

Men come and go, but magic is forever…right? Wrong. After a few months of letting witchcraft slide, Jane Madison discovers that not using her powers has her rapidly losing them. Meanwhile, her warder is avoiding her, her familiar has moved out, her mother is abandoning her again, and her grandmother is…getting married? With her world turned topsy-turvy, Jane is at her wits' end trying to set things right. Staking everything on a last-ditch spell that backfires spectacularly, Jane is left full of questions.

Librarian-witch Jane Madison has been invited to join the prestigious Washington Coven - a necessary step, if she’s going to hold onto her feline familiar, her beloved arcane books, and her sexy warder, David Montrose. As the Coven’s tests become more challenging, though, Jane must decide if she can trust her new witchy friend, Haylee. And then there’s that handsome Brit, Graeme Henderson, who is proving to be most distracting...Jane is about to be tested in ways she’s never imagined - and, pass or fail, nothing will ever be the same!

Outlandish and emotional, this humorous novel centers on Sheldon Funk, a struggling actor who dies in a bus restroom only to awaken during his autopsy and attack the coroner. Fleeing into the wintry streets of Toronto, Sheldon realizes he’s now a zombie - as if he didn’t have enough on his plate already. His last audition, reading for the reality television series House Bingo, had gone disastrously wrong. His mother is in the late stages of dementia, his savings are depleted, his agent couldn’t care less, and his boyfriend is little more than a set of nice abs.

Having delivered a particularly stirring speech at his recently deceased colleague's funeral, Monsieur Pamplemousse is more than a little disturbed when the coffin explodes during the ceremony. Luckily, his faithful hound Pommes Frites gave out a warning cry just in time, so there were no casualties. But, who exactly is behind this explosion? And was the same person responsible for his late co-worker's demise?

This hilarious, whip-smart collection of essays from a top writer and producer of Six Feet Under crisscrosses from the highly personal (conflating her own loss of virginity and the Kobe Bryant accusations), to the political (what she has in common with Monica and Chandra), to the outrageously Los Angelean (why women wear huge diamonds and what they must do to get them). Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants is a genre-defying combination of personal essay and memoir, or a hilarious, unruly and unapologetic evaluation of society, religion, sex, love, and - best of all - Jill Soloway.

Amy Crane is in crisis. Six months after the birth of her baby, Amy still looks pregnant and can’t remember the last time she had a wax, or an orgasm. Motherhood is stirring up disturbing questions about her own childhood. And she suspects her boyfriend is cheating. Enter Alice, yummy mummy superior, on a mission to transform Amy’s body, and love life. As Amy swaps breast pads for Botox and climbs out of a vortex of self-doubt, her libido awakens from its long nap and things get rather more complicated...

What Ho, Automaton! chronicles the adventures of Reggie Worcester, gentleman consulting detective, and his automaton valet, Reeves.

Reggie, an avid reader of detective fiction, knows two things about solving crime: One, the guilty party is always the person you least suspect. And, two, the Murders in the Rue Morgue would have been solved a lot sooner had the detective the foresight to ask the witnesses if they’d seen any orangutans recently.

Bleak Expectations' recounts the remarkable adventures of young Pip Bin as he tries to repair his destroyed family and distinctly damaged life, aided by his best friend Harry Biscuit and definitely not aided by his cruel and ironically named guardian Mr Gently Benevolent and his accomplices, the fearsome Hardthrasher siblings.

When James Quinn and Vernor Stanton reunite at the Centennial Club, the scene of many a carefree childhood summer, Stanton marks the occasion by shooting his friend in the heart. The good news is that the bullet is made of wax. The bad news is that the Mephistophelian Stanton wants Quinn to help him wreak havoc upon this genteel enclave of weekend sportsmen: "May I predict that this is not going to be the usual boring, phlegmatic summer?"

This freewheeling black comedy features a bizarre cast of characters, including a Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, an American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one’s earlobe with a feather. By the end of this hilarious tale, they each have risen to the heights of wealth and fame, before arriving at disasters—both personal and ecological— that destroy the rain forest and all birds of Brazil.

Avid antiques collector Pierre-Francois Chaumont unearths the find of a lifetime at a Paris auction house: an 18th-century portrait of a gentleman who looks just like him. Researching into the painting's history, he has the chance to abandon his tedious existence and walk into a brand new life.

In WASPy Larkspur, New Jersey, social expectations and decorum rule, and Marjorie and Dunsfield Thornden are the envy of their neighbors. Their daughters Claire and Cat set the small town’s social calendar by throwing tastefully lavish family parties year round. Because it’s 1977, underage debauchery is to be expected - and Cat and Claire’s children, Bizzy and Choo, are at its very center. But secrets that should’ve never been kept - especially not from each other - are bubbling unattractively to the surface.

In den zehn Jahren ihres aufreibenden Berufes als Lieutenant der New Yorker Polizei hat die gewitzte, mutige Eve Dallas viel Schreckliches gesehen und, für eine so junge, schöne Frau wie sie, viel zu viel erlebt. Doch sie weiß, dass sie sich auf eines garantiert verlassen kann: auf ihren Instinkt. Bei der Jagd nach einem grausamen Serienmörder, der New York in lähmende Angst versetzt, gerät sie an den undurchsichtigen irischen Milliardär Roarke. Alle Indizien weisen darauf hin, dass er nicht so unschuldig ist, wie er vorgibt zu sein. Doch wider jede Vernunft sprechen Eves Gefühle eine andere Sprache. Sie lässt sich von einem hinreißenden Mann verführen, von dem sie nichts weiß, außer dass er als Killer verdächtigt wird - und ihr Herz erobert hat...

Un "divertissement", un guizzo anarchico dell'intelligenza. È così che si possono definire queste pagine nelle quali Cipolla abbandona gli austeri panni dello studioso e, giocando sul filo del paradosso e dell'assurdo, costruisce due brevi saggi: il primo, una ilare parodia della storia economica e sociale del Medioevo; il secondo, una sorta di scherzosa teoria generale della stupidità umana.

Nick Ackerman’s life is an aimless circuit between his uninspiring job and the local bar until a note from a stranger changes everything. He learns he has a 14-year-old son, Billy, whose grandmother can no longer look after him. Railroaded into fatherhood, Nick takes in the resentful Billy and shuffles Grandma Evie off to the nearby dementia ward at Prairie View Manor. Things get off to a rocky start: father and son are little more than strangers, and Nick struggles with his new caretaking role while Billy can’t seem to let go of his.

I was done. Done with men. Women say it all the time; they get fed up, throw their hands in the air, and vow a life of celibacy - until the next chiseled chest comes into view and then they're foaming at the mouth and wiping the drool from their chins. But this was different, I really meant it. I'd decided to bat for the other team.... At least I tried. But creating the next Brat Pack hadn't been on the agenda. Neither had my date's brother, Collier West. And I wasn't prepared for finding true love at the end of my gal-pal tryst.

When the voice of authority calls, Tony Hawkin assumes there is a glitch. After all, why would the nation possibly require the services of a man who runs the gift shop in the FBI building? But there's no mistake, and soon Tony finds himself in the middle of Mexico, pursued by a ruthless killer, and hot on the trail of a priceless work of art. He has to find the painting, determine its authenticity, and return it safely to Washington. There's only one problem: everybody wants this particular painting.

Whether he is accidentally cooking his brain with hand warmers or yanking his lure away from a trophy fish just before it takes the bait, Bill Heavey can do no right. For almost a decade, he has chronicled his incompetence on the back page of Field & Stream, where his hilarious dispatches about life as a hapless outdoorsman who lives in suburbia have earned him legions of fans.