Showing titles in Absurdist

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant Nobel-prize-nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

There is another 1985, somewhere in the could-have-been, where the Crimean war still rages, dodos are regenerated in home-cloning kits and everyone is deeply disappointed by the ending of 'Jane Eyre'. In this world there are no jet-liners or computers, but there are policemen who can travel across time, a Welsh republic, a great interest in all things literary - and a woman called Thursday Next. In this utterly original and wonderfully funny first novel, Fforde has created a fiesty, loveable heroine and a plot of such richness and ingenuity that it will take your breath away.

Peter Knox lives quietly in one of those small country villages that's up for the Village Garden of the Year award. Until Doc and Constance Rabbit move in next door, upsetting the locals (many of them members of governing political party United Kingdom Against Rabbit Population), complicating Peter's job as a Rabbit Spotter, and forcing him to take a stand, moving from unconscious leporiphobe to active supporter of the UK's amiable and peaceful population of anthropomorphised rabbits.

Fourteen years after her last adventure, Thursday Next, literary detective, finds herself in an unusual situation her job policing the fictional characters of the BookWorld has been downgraded since her previous escapades are now themselves in print. However, a pressing threat may call her back into action: first Sherlock Holmes and then Miss Marple are found dead, stopping their series in their tracks.

Imagine a world where your position in society depended on what bit of the colour spectrum you could see. This is the world inhabited by Eddie Russett (red, middle-level) and Jane Grey (monochromatic, lowest in society). Eddie and Jane must negotiate the delicate Chromatic politics of society to find out what the 'Something that Happened' actually was, how society got to be this way, and crucially, is there Somewhere Else beyond their borders?

With the shadow of the Flayed Monarch looming ever closer, Dan must prepare the store and himself for the battle to come. To stand a chance, he’ll need to expand his operations, broker a precarious trade deal with the Delvers of Howlers Hold, and transform his stash of relics into an arsenal of magical war crimes.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, winner of the 2019 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. A terrifying psychological trip into the life of one Joseph K., an ordinary man who wakes up one day to find himself accused of a crime he...

Ein Blaubär entführt den Hörer in eine Welt, in der Phantasie und Humor auf abenteuerliche Weise außer Kontrolle geraten sind. Dem Hörer geht es in dieser akustischen Neufassung wie der Hauptfigur: Gepackt vom Sog der Lesung Dirk Bachs geht es über sparsam, aber effektvoll eingesetzte Musik zu Zwergpiraten, Klabautergeistern und Gimpeln. Dramatische Klangbilder machen die Reise so plastisch, dass Finsterberge, der Große Wald, der Ewige Tornado, Atlantis u.v.m.

A member of the landed gentry, with a seemingly guaranteed income from his estate in the country, Oblomov lives in Petersburg, uninterested in the business that provides his living and barely aware that the revenue is diminishing. Not that he leads a dissolute life of extravagance, balls and entertainment. Instead he is a dreamer, a sybarite, content above all to spend most of the day supine, in bed. The novel opens with Oblomov thus ensconced, attended only by his dirty, grumbling, indolent servant Zahar, who has looked after him since childhood, catering to his every need.

Ren lives alone on the remote frontier of a country devastated by a coup. High on the forested slopes, she survives by hunting and trading - and forgetting. But when a young soldier comes to the mountains in search of a local myth, Ren is inexorably drawn into her impossible mission. As their lives entwine, unravel and erupt - as myths merge with reality - both Ren and the soldier are forced to confront what they regret, what they love and what they fear.

Nightshift clerk and high-functioning insomniac Jack is back to work, trying his best to keep out of trouble. But when his chain-smoking coworker discovers a mysterious radio signal revealing the guarded secrets of their town, Jack will learn that an annoying new dayshift manager is far from the worst of his problems. In this second installment of the Gas Station saga, Jack finds himself entangled in his most harrowing adventure yet.

'A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything' New York Times 'Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight' James Wood, Guardian 'He induces the kind of laughter which, when read in bed with a sleeping partner, wakes said...

Life is lived according to The Rulebook and social hierarchy is determined by your perception of colour. Eddie Russett is an above average Red who dreams of moving up the ladder by marriage to Constance Oxblood. Until he is sent to the Outer Fringes where he meets Jane - a lowly Grey with an uncontrollable temper and a desire to see him killed. For Eddie, it's love at first sight. But his infatuation will lead him to discover that all is not as it seems in a world where everything that looks black and white is really shades of grey.

The world might be in disarray, but for one young woman, the very weave of herself seems to have loosened. Time and memories pass straight through her body, she’s afraid of her own floorboards, and ‘WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON’T HURT ME’ plays over and over in her ears. ‘I’m sorry not to respond to your email,’ she writes, ‘but I live completely in the present now.’ But tearing through the slippery terrains of fiction and reality, the possibility for human connection seems to beckon from the other side – and with it, the chance for a blinding re-emergence into the world.

* LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025 * * LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2026 * * WINNER OF THE ATWOOD GIBSON WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE * * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, NPR, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY * An...

Ghost Cities—inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China—follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney's Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn't speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work.

Combine an offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose, and the result is the remarkable story Dance Dance Dance: high-class call girls billed to MasterCard, a psychic 13-year-old dropout has a passion for talking heads, and meet a hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. Don’t forget the one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem.

When a man's favourite elephant vanishes, the balance of his whole life is subtly upset. A couple's midnight hunger pangs drive them to hold up a McDonald's. A woman finds she is irresistible to a small green monster that burrows through her front garden. An insomniac wife wakes up in a twilight world of semi-consciousness in which anything seems possible - even death. In every one of these stories Murakami makes a determined assault on the normal.

Der kostenlose, vom Autor um die Weitschweifigkeit gekürzte, einzige Teil der Bittenichthören -Trilogie. Warum man dieses Hörbuch besser nicht hört, ist leider der Kürzung zum Opfer gefallen. Wer den Grund unbedingt wissen will, greife zur Langfassung. Absurd, aber gut. Wie immer verleiht Erik Wikki jeder Figur eine ganz besondere, charakteristische Stimme. Spannend, kurzweilig und nicht selten zum Schieflachen. Trotzdem. Bitte nicht hören.

Mona Kitt has it all. A high-powered job at Kline Turner Solutions. Expensive taste. A revolving door of suitors. And… the ability to see the future. This has, of course, afforded her the luxury of staying three steps ahead of everyone around her. She sees future lovers, future opportunities, and future scandals to use as blackmail fodder. But unfortunately for Mona, she also sees Death, and she's in a race against time to save her soul. Can Mona confront her past to change her future?