Showing titles in Comedy & Humour

This entertaining and sharply written guide - for both beginners breaking into comedy and professionals seeking to improve their sets and advance their careers - examines the work of great comedians such as Louis C. K., Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Izzard, Moms Mabley, Hannibal Buress, Sarah Silverman, Richard Pryor, and more as a means of illustrating the most important techniques of performing and writing stand-up.

Harry Flashman - the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown’s schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross - has three main talents: horsemanship, facility with foreign languages, and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all. Expelled from Rugby for drunkenness, and none too welcome at home after seducing his father’s mistress, the young Flashman embarks on a military career with Lord Cardigan’s Hussars.

Have you ever slathered mustard on a hotdog and thought, "Wow, I sure hope the company that made this condiment isn't a corrupt tech startup run by a CEO who is a tyrannical chauvinist!" Well, you're about to.

Number one best-selling author Sophie Kinsella returns with an irresistible new stand-alone about family love, family tensions and what you might hear if they didn't know you were in the room.

Comedian Pierre Novellie was on stage when a heckler suggested he was autistic. Usually, this disruption would be water off a duck's back but two things made this heckler different: first, he was himself autistic. Second, he turned out to be absolutely right. This random encounter led to a diagnosis of autism at the age of 31 that unravelled his world, explained his struggles and answered questions that had bothered him for his entire life: why were the other kids obsessed with Britney Spears instead of The Goon Show? Why don't people ever say what they mean? Why is everyone chewing so loudly?

Lucas Thorn wasn't born a cheater. All it took was a single moment - say, a certain disastrous incident on the night before his wedding - and boom. Reputation destroyed forever and always. So now he owns it. He has a lady friend for every night of the week (except Sundays - God's day and all), and his rules are simple: No commitments. No exceptions. But a certain smart-mouthed, strawberry blonde vixen is about to blow that all to hell.

Bel’s joined the Manchester office of a big national paper from her award-winning podcast. There’s only three of them – Bel, her relentlessly ambitious colleague Aaron, and the new intern. And when the intern turns out to be a thirty-something man called Connor, she gets off on totally the wrong foot. She’s patronising, he’s hostile. It’s a terrible start. Then Bel gets a sniff at a really big story, Connor gets caught in the crossfire, and before they know it, they have to convince people they’re a couple – and a couple in love at that.

Rhiannon Lewis thought she finally had it all: thanks to the pandemic she’s had to keep a much lower profile but has found happiness with her fiancé Rafael and his family. For once, she is surrounded by people who love her for who she is (or who they think she is). After over 800 days without murdering anyone, the woman formerly known as the Sweetpea Killer thinks she might have finally turned over a new leaf. That is until her soon-to-be sister-in-law has a run in with her abusive ex, and Rhiannon rediscovers her taste for revenge.

A brutal murder in a town called Treachery? It's a story most journos would kill for, but for Stuart Dryden, it's a major inconvenience. He didn't take the gig at the local rag for its bustling crime beat. He'd sacrifice a career-making story for happy hour at the pub, but not even he can let a grisly murder through to the keeper. Especially when he keeps getting scooped by a persistent kid with a disposable Kodak.

From YouTube star and Facebook Video sensation Laura Clery comes a collection of comedic essays in the vein of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby and You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein.

The star of Parks and Recreation and author of the New York Times best seller Paddle Your Own Canoe returns with a second book that humorously highlights 21 figures from our nation’s history, from her inception to present day - Nick’s personal pantheon of “great Americans". After the great success of his autobiography, Paddle Your Own Canoe, Offerman now focuses on the lives of those who inspired him. From George Washington to Willie Nelson, he describes 21 heroic figures and why they inspire in him such great meaning.

Isaac stands alone on a bridge and screams into the river below. And then, an answer. A cry of despair perhaps even greater than his own. The sound draws Isaac into the woods. What he finds there changes everything. It's a tale that might seem familiar. A broken man and an unexpected guest, who can't stay forever. But real life isn't a story. It's full of truths, messy and surprising, that Isaac has been hiding from his new, improbable friend....

Big Time is set in a not-too-distant future Australia, where the eastern states have become the world's newest autocracy—a place where pop music is propaganda, science is the enemy, nationalism trumps all, and moral indecency is punishable by indefinite detention. The novel opens as Julian Ferryman, bass player for the Acceptables, returns to Melbourne after a year overseas. He reconnects with his band as they prepare to record and tour their second album, and is given his first taste of a new designer drug, F, a powerful synthetic hallucinogen that gives users a glimpse of their own future.

Martin Dean spent his entire life analyzing absolutely everything - from the benefits of suicide to the virtues of strip clubs - and passing on his self-taught knowledge to his son, Jasper. But now that his father's dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the man who raised him in intellectual captivity, and the irony is this: theirs was a great adventure. From his prison cell, Jasper Dean tells the unlikely story of his scheming father Martin, his crazy Uncle Terry and how the three of them upset - mostly unintentionally - an entire continent.

Penelope Keith stars in the much-loved sitcom about an aristocrat forced to part with her family home. When her husband's death leaves her financially strapped, Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton has no choice but to sell her beloved Grantleigh Estate. With butler Brabinger in tow, she decamps to the tiny Old Lodge cottage, where she keeps a close - and disapproving - eye on the new squire: the nouveau riche Richard DeVere, a wholesale food magnate of Czech descent.

It’s been an enjoyable and murder-free time for Judith, Suzie and Becks – AKA the Marlow Murder Club – since the events of last year. The most exciting thing on the horizon is the upcoming wedding of Marlow grandee, Sir Peter Bailey, to his nurse, Jenny Page. Sir Peter is having a party at his grand mansion on the river Thames the day before the wedding, and Judith and Co. are looking forward to a bit of free champagne.

Vainqueur Knightsbane is your average dragon: A giant, fire-breathing lizard who loves to take naps on his golden hoard, kidnap princesses for fun, and make the life of adventurers miserable. Vainqueur's only pleasure in life is to watch his treasure get bigger, one coin at a time. So when a would-be thief turned unwilling minion tells him about "classes", "levels", and "quests", Vainqueur wonders if maybe, just maybe, he should consider a career change. After all, why bother hunting monsters for free when you can get paid for it?

Set on a large ranch in rural upstate New York, it’s early days for the eccentric group of people who call themselves “The Zeta Family” - quite possibly the next big cult phenomenon.

There’s a literary niche for all tastes including those who think that either Agatha Christie wasn’t funny enough or that PG Wodehouse didn’t feature anywhere near as many baffling murders as he could have. The Case of the Canterfell Codicil is a classic, cozy, locked-room mystery written in the style of an homage to PG Wodehouse.

Five years ago, the US Space Force became a reality. And while those writing the checks took things very seriously, the other military branches did not. As a result, Space Force was populated by undesirables. My name is Captain Ethan Stone, a decorated member of SEAL Team Six turned Space Force "recruit". Flash forward five years and between tenses. President West is in office. Power has shifted. And Space Force is defunded. With just a handful of us still living on base, we find ourselves being evicted. But before all of us can leave, aliens invade.