Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Satire

Candide, is a French satire written in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. One of the finest satires ever written, this lively tale follows the absurdly melodramatic adventures of the youthful Candide, who is forced into the army, flogged, shipwrecked, betrayed, robbed, separated from his beloved Cunégonde, and tortured by the Inquisition. As Candide witnesses calamity upon calamity, he becomes disillusioned and discovers that all is not always for the best....

Perhaps the most autobiographical (and deliberately least disciplined) of Vonnegut's novels, Slapstick (1976) is in the form of a broken family odyssey and is surely a demonstration of its eponymous title. The story centers on brother and sister twins, children of Wilbur Swain, who are in sympathetic and (possibly) telepathic communication and who represent Vonnegut's relationship with his own sister who died young of cancer almost two decades before the book's publication.

Then We Came to the End is about how we spend our days and too many of our nights. It is about being away from friends and family, about sharing a stretch of stained carpet with a group of strangers we call colleagues.

Anthony Trollope's series of witty, gently satirical stories of provincial life are set in the fictional town of Barchester and the surrounding county of Barsetshire. With a focus on the lives, loves and tribulations of the local clergy and rural gentry, the canvas is broad and colourful, with a set of iconic characters in whose lives we become intimately involved as they grow up, grow old, and fall in or out of love and friendship across the years.

Bruce Chatwin's best-selling novel traces the fortunes of the enigmatic and unconventional hero, Kaspar Utz. Despite the restrictions of Cold War Czechoslovakia, Utz asserts his individuality through his devotion to his precious collection of Meissen porcelain. Although Utz is permitted to leave the country each year, and considers defecting each time, he is not allowed to take his porcelain with him and so he always returns to his Czech home, a prisoner both of the Communist state and of his collection.

Well the title looks familiar . . . and Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence may have been the trigger for Christopher Marsh's brilliant debut novel - but there the similarities end. Rather than a middle class Brit travelling all the way to the South of France to patronize the locals, Southern Europe gets its own back courtesy of Jesus Sanchez Ventura - the funniest fictional creation in many a year.

The sudden death of Not Sidney Poitier's mother orphans him at age eleven. He is left with a name no one understands, an uncanny resemblance to an Oscar winning actor, and serious amount of shares in the Turner Corporation. Percival Everett's novel follows Not Sidney's tumultuous life, as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin colour with his fabulous wealth. Maturing under the less-than watchful eye of his adopted foster father, Ted Turner, Not Sidney learns to navigate a world that doesn't know what to do with him.

Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former coworker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart. Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons.

Little Blighty is an idyllic part of the world, with a church, a market, a small school and a pub, The Cock and Bull. Village life is pretty uneventful, though the humdrum happenings include social turmoil, economic upheaval and vicious political squabbles - all presided over by the redoubtable head of the Parish Council and secretary of the Rotarians, Mrs Roberts.

No longer in master Bertie Wooster’s employ, Jeeves is engaged with a new employer, Lord "Chuffy" Chuffnell, an old friend of Bertie’s. True to form, thus follows a supreme comedy of errors which is guaranteed to raise many a chortle, as Wooster travels to one of Chuffy’s cottages in Dorset to carry on his banjolele practice in (dubious) peace.

If you are looking for a highly entertaining and inspiring collection of epigrams and witticisms by America's greatest humorist, then Mark Twain Quotes of Wit and Wisdom is 100 percent for you!

Inez Victor knows that the major casualty of the political life is memory. But the people around Inez have made careers out of losing track. Her senator husband wants to forget the failure of his last bid for the presidency. Her husband's handler would like the press to forget that Inez's father is a murderer. And, in 1975, the year in which much of this bitterly funny novel is set, America is doing its best to lose track of its one-time client, the lethally hemorrhaging republic of South Vietnam.

Media mogul Lord Malan is the billionaire owner of The Blue Touch Paper, an old-fashioned, hard-right weekly magazine with traditional Conservative values. But the paper is so true blue, it’s losing its touch. Sales are falling and circulation is down – mainly because its core readers are either on the brink of death or foam-flecked with rage. It’s time for a new editor, and political commentator Anna is sure she’s a shoo-in for the position. Much to her disappointment, however, Malan picks a different candidate: Keith, the Guardian’s token Tory, who champions compassionate Conservatism.

'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party....' As time passes by and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they first appear....

When Billy Twillig, a genius adolescent, wins the first Nobel Prize ever to be given in mathematics, he is recruited to live and work in the company of 30 Nobel laureates in obscurity underground. There, away from the rest of the world, this panel of estranged, demented and lovable scientists work together on a secret scientific project: deciphering a mysterious transmission received from outer space, from just near Ratner's Star.

No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry glamour of Regency society, battles are fought, fortunes made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is Dobbin, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure.

Modern technology is terrifying. The average smartphone carries out 3.36 billion instructions per second. The average person can carry out only one instruction in that time. Stop and think about that for a second. Sorry, that's two instructions; you won't be able to do that. But what if modern technology was... literally terrifying? What if there really was a ghost in the machine? Prepare to travel through the bad gateway as acclaimed actor, writer and comedian Tom Neenan (The Mash Report) finds out what horrors may be lurking in our apps and gadgets.

A collection of BBC readings and dramas celebrating the much-loved schoolboy terror. First featured in five books by Geoffrey Willans, with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle, Nigel Molesworth is one of the funniest comic creations in literature. A superbly satirical chronicler of 1950s England, he influenced a generation with his anarchic take on life.

Eight dark comic dramas narrated by Alexei Sayle and adapted from his original short stories. Dramatised from Alexei Sayle's hilarious, highly acclaimed fiction, these satirical, surreal and surprising tales feature some of the UK's foremost comic actors, and are introduced by the award-winning comedian himself.

A secret descendant of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, Ricky Lenin is a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist, fervently committed to overthrowing to the decadent world of British football. As a midfield maestro, he's perfectly placed to infiltrate England's top club, Felchester Rovers, where he proceeds to introduce his radical ideas. But there's more to his fellow players than meets the eye, and Ricky soon discovers he's not the only one seeking to foment revolution.