Showing titles in Satire

Lions, Komodo dragons, dogs, monkeys, and pheasants - all have shared spotlights and tabloid headlines with celebrities such as Sharon Stone, Thomas Edison, and David Hasselhoff. In this critically acclaimed collection, Lydia Millet hilariously tweaks these unholy communions to run a stake through the heart of our fascination with famous people and pop culture.

Alexander Pope was fiercely critical of writers whom he considered to have little talent and whom he liked to nominate as dunces. His most encyclopedic examination of these apostles of dullness is the Dunciad, a long satirical saga first published in a three-book version in 1728. A variorium edition followed shortly afterwards in 1729. In 1742, Pope added a fourth book, and a new, complete edition was published in 1743.

Danielle (still she/her) is back, and this time it's professional. Having survived the vocational trauma of Irvine, California, Danielle catapults into the C-Suite as the youngest Chief Diversity Officer in herstory. But with her lofty title comes peril. Expectations, the male gaze, accountability ... The dangers are legion, and the worst of them is Bruce (he/him), the powerful CEO used to taking what he wants. Now Danielle is in the fight of her life. Not just against America's racist meta-culture, but against her deepest, forbidden desires. Can she resist Bruce's charismatic pull?

Nate Turner has a nice life. He has a steady job as a driving examiner and lives with his wife, Sinead, and son, Flynn, in a lovely house in a good part of town. Yes, it’s a very nice life. Until one morning Nate comes downstairs to find Sinead gone and a note lying on the kitchen table, listing all the many things that Nate does wrong - or doesn’t do at all.

Is there any chance of a second date? That all depends on what a woman and a man are willing to invest in the first, in this quick-witted short story of a perfectly equitable modern romance. After 10 years of bad blind dates, Candace is having a hard time believing Patrick is so spot-on. He’s sharp, handsome, and kind - her mind can’t help racing to where it all will lead. Then the check arrives. It’s time to get real.

They call me Big Pickle. It's not what you think. (Although that's true, too.) I happen to be the oldest Pickle in the family deli business. And we have the best salami. Take that one however you like. But when my father announces the franchise will go to the most profitable of the three brothers, I learn that even though I'm the eldest Pickle, I'm dead last. I hightail it to Texas to see what's happened to my restaurant, only to find a sassy little spitfire named Nova Strong in charge. She's amazing. She's sexy. She runs our deli like she owns it.

In this slyly funny and lavishly inventive novel, Nobel Prize winner V. S. Naipaul traces the unlikely career of Ganesh Ramsumair, a failed schoolteacher and impecunious village masseur who in time becomes a revered mystic, a thriving entrepreneur, and the most beloved politician in Trinidad. Witty, tender, filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of Trinidad's dusty Indian villages, The Mystic Masseur is Naipaul at his most expansive and evocative.

A delivery driver finds himself inside a world occupied by characters from unfinished novels and must accept he is not real. But the world around him doesn’t feel right, and when he starts asking questions, the authorities soon take extreme measures to stop him finding the truth about Fiction Land.

Rose Gold can’t catch a break. Her latest “golden opportunity” has given way to a madcap adventure through the soft underbelly of Bonneville City. She finds herself cast in the role of renegade mentor and hero to a trio of idealistic young rebels. Together, they perpetrate an act of subversion targeting “future-mover” and celebrity CEO Moses Honeydew, which puts them in the crosshairs of his Substrate Inc.

In a profoundly strange country called Inner Horner, large enough for only one resident at a time, citizens waiting to enter the country fall under the rule of the power-hungry and tyrannical Phil, setting off a chain of injustice and mass hysteria. An Animal Farm for the 21st century, this is an incendiary political satire of unprecedented imagination, spiky humor, and cautionary appreciation for the hysteric in everyone.

A hilariously funny, touching, and revelatory book from one of America's preeminent humorist. In his plays, his screenplays, and his writing for The New Yorker and Premiere, Paul Rudnick has established himself as a comic master whose talents transcend genre. Now, in I Shudder, he trains his wickedly perceptive eye on everything from his New Jersey family to Hollywood to demented alcoholic Broadway stars waving swords.

Marian is determinedly ordinary, waiting to get married. She likes her work, her broody flatmate and her sober fiancé Peter. All goes well at first, but Marian has reckoned without an inner self that wants something more, that calmly sabotages her careful plans, her stable routine—and her digestion. Marriage à la mode, Marian discovers, is something she literally can't stomach . . .

Suppose you were murdered and then woke up 300 years earlier in someone else’s body. Wouldn’t you want to put yourself in suspended animation and be re-awoken in time to prevent yourself being murdered in the first place? This is the extraordinary tale of an ordinary man in a race across Time.

Felix Hart is back, in the thrilling, wine-soaked sequel to Corkscrew. Hart, a wine buyer at the top of his game, finds himself compromised by a ruthless, multi-national drinks corporation. Forced to participate in a high-profile, corrupt wine tasting, Hart is drawn into a terrifying game of cat-and-mouse, pursued by blackmailers, assassins, and organic wine fanatics. The action moves from the Byzantine intrigue of the Minstrels of Wine to France’s most glamorous chateaux, Hart relying on his quick wits, fine palate and a touch of muscle to stay ahead of his enemies.

Thomas Mann's vivid, dramatic, and thought-provoking The Magic Mountain is firmly established as one of the classic epic novels of the twentieth century. Part surreal comedy, part grim tragedy, Mann's story depicts a decaying European society on the eve of the First World War.

Seven stories of love and loss, drama and glamour, hope and rejection, from a writer at the height of his powers. A brilliantly witty, funny and tender collection of stories that draws on the wealth of film and TV ideas Rupert Everett has created over the course of his career, The American No will delight and surprise his many fans.

A customer service assistant spends her long workdays printing letters. Her one friend is the printer and, in the dark confines of her office, she begins to open up to him, talking about her fears, her past, her hopes and dreams. To her, it seems like a beautiful friendship is blossoming. To her boss, it seems like she’s losing her mind.

I’ve rebuilt my father’s media company with hard work and determination, but my single status leaves me on the outs with the one businessman I need to get close to. A little white lie and I’m suddenly in love, head over heels. Now I need to find a fake girlfriend, someone to keep up appearances without any emotions. When I find my mother’s fiery assistant in a compromising position, it’s the perfect opportunity to get what I want: a girlfriend for business appearances, without any feelings involved. I won’t let the fact that I’m wildly attracted to the petite redhead get in my way.

In the summer of 1987, StarBright Shopping Mall is the place to be—until a masked killer with a bizarre fixation on butts turns it into a slaughtering ground. As the booty count rises, panic spreads faster than parachute pants on an ironing board. With a mix of laugh-out-loud humor and spine-chilling terror, this book will keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering, “Why did anyone write this?” and “Is my butt truly safe?”

A steamy, best-selling tale of Long Island lust, written as a daring literary hoax by Newsday columnist Mike McGrady and two dozen of his colleagues. For talk show host Gillian Blake, the suburbs have long been a paradise. On the radio, she and her husband are Gilly and Billy, local media stars and "New York’s Sweethearts of the Air". At home they’re the envy of their neighbors. Only in the bedroom is their life less than perfect. When Gillian learns that her husband has a mistress, she takes revenge the only way she can. With each lover she takes, her lust multiplies.