Absurdist Fiction

In these 11 stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien - and through it, find a way to liberation. The Lonesome Bodybuilder is the English-language debut of one of Japan's most fearlessly inventive young writers.

In fuga da un matrimonio infelice, il bibliotecario Mattia Pascal si ritrova a Montecarlo con una grossa somma vinta al casinò. Sulla via del ritorno a casa, scopre però dal giornale che al paese tutti lo credono morto. Decide così di approfittarne per cambiare vita, con una nuova identità. Antieroe grottesco, il protagonista racconta con umorismo le vicende che l'hanno portato a diventare il "fu" di se stesso.

L'Empire du bien n'est pas un essai, c'est une charge, une provocation, un éclat de rire grinçantlancé contre le conformisme du monde moderne. Philippe Muray y démonte avec une ironiecinglante les travers d'une époque où le divertissement se confond avec la morale, où la critique est suspecte, où l'enthousiasme obligatoire dicte les règles. Dans la langue au panache aussisuperbe qu'excessif d'un moraliste sous nicotine, Muray s'attaque à une société qui transforme touten fête forcée et où la liberté de penser s'efface derrière le masque du bonheur collectif.

Un capolavoro letterario senza tempo, in cui l'autore mescola il reale con l'assurdo, l'insensibilità con la compassione...

Perfect for fans of Haruki Murakami, Ghost Cities is a profound and highly imaginative novel that cleverly draws on Chinese history to explore the absurdity of modern life and work.

Sidney Geeder, King of Mortgages, wants nothing more than to cash in his lucrative company stock and quit his job, but his dreams are threatened by the disappearance of Eggs Igino, the only possible man who can replace him.

Size matters. Or at least it does to Ed, nitpicking quantity surveyor and captain of his local pub football team who has faked a business trip abroad to get some cheap plastic surgery. Ed intends to be even more of a man upon his return. But has he managed to keep this as secret as he thinks? Will this really be such a wonderful surprise for Fiona on their wedding night? And just who is this operation for anyway?

Shelf Death by Mit Namzo Dive into the darkly whimsical world of Shelf Death, a gripping and imaginative eBook that transforms an ordinary supermarket into an epic battleground of sentient groceries. In the fluorescent-lit aisles of Grimley’s Supermarket, where the doors lock and the lights dim, a hidden war rages. Canned goods, fresh produce, frozen foods, and processed snacks—each faction fights for dominance, driven by survival, pride, and the cold gaze of the Algorithm, a profit-obsessed AI that tallies every move. At the heart of this chaos is Tommy the Tomato, a pacifist dreamer ...

Shezlez the Self-Proclaimed is an absurdist story about a poor man's ambition to organise his own political party in an unnamed country characterised by moral apathy, poverty and heartless bureaucracy. Upon his first speech, so rousing as to attract the attention of the Progressive Party, Shezlez finds himself embroiled in a corrupt scheme of deceit and backstabbing in the leadup to the upcoming mayoral elections.

The spiritual and comedic journey of two unlikely friends, Mowbray and Turner, who are desperately trying to get back to the city after a drug and booze-fueled weekend at a music festival in the countryside.

Greg is a reporter who is about to get the story of his life. The Prophet, an elusive figure who makes predictions about disasters has just tapped him to do an exclusive interview. Except Greg's not really a reporter. Two minutes before entering his apartment, he didn't exist and when he meets the Prophet he finds out his true purpose- to kill the Prophet. But killing someone who is near omnipotent isn't easy, in fact, it takes more than one try even if you get it right.

Se si fugge di notte da Villa Bacilla sulle ali di una diavolessa sexy, sorvolando Tristala assieme a tre equipaggi che si spostano contemporaneamente, può accadere di visitare gli otto mondi alterei della mappa nootica. Capita così di conoscere la terra primordiale di Ermete Trismegisto, Protoplas; i mari incantati di Capitan Guepière a Posidon; i cinquanta casinò e i locali notturni di Bludus; Mnemonia con i suoi fuochi fatui e l'insidia dell'embambolia; Medium con le sue giornate di Beneficenza Ben-evidente.

Embark on a rollicking Florida escapade through this masterfully crafted, wickedly funny comic novel. Set in 1980s Florida, this coming-of-age adventure follows the journey of a 17-year-old aspiring horror filmmaker captivated by a B-movie scream queen. Stealing away from his family’s Palm Beach mansion, he joins forces with an aging con man and his ambitious girlfriend. Together, they race into the heart of the Everglades, where his dream girl is filming Swamp Fiend 2. However, their plans bog down in a treacherous swamp teeming with competing cons and hustles, and a whole lot of alligators!

It is a time of unrest in the BookWorld. Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the peace talks, Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the RealWorld or is this something more sinister? All is not yet lost. Living at the quiet end of speculative fiction is the written Thursday Next, eager to prove herself worthy of her illustrious namesake.

Cervantes se adjudica, con mucha razon, el credito de haber sido quien escribio las primeras novelas en lengua espanola en su serie de doce Novelas Ejemplares, llamadas asi, segun el mismo Cervantes en el prologo a ellas, por "no hay ninguna de la que no se pueda sacar un ejemplo provechoso".

Buffalo is melting. The sidewalks squirm. The cats have formed a militia. Max Noir—sarcastic detective, caffeine addict, and reluctant hero—just wanted his coffee. Instead, he finds himself ankle-deep in sentient goo, guilt-fueled hallucinations, and a grotesque game masterminded by a sourdough-born intelligence. As Buffalo oozes into madness, Max is forced to investigate a mystery that smells like burnt soup, features a psychic yeast tantrum, and may be targeting him personally. From a cheese-curd confession to a feline urine offensive, Max Noir is a genre-bending, noir-splattered ...

Jack was never “right,” but that’s a lot of what made him magnetic to other people. When he was younger, he was that guy that girls wanted to be around. People were drawn in by him, even later on when there wasn’t much of him left. I never understood that. He never really put a lot of energy into grooming and maintaining relationships with people. I guess when you see someone that is content spending their time alone, it creates a vacuum and people flood in like water choking a storm drain. Even as his deterioration became apparent, people threw him lifelines.

A petty thief finds himself stuck acting as the butler to a seemingly idyllic home and becomes deeply and disastrously involved with his unknowing host family.

"Nous avions deux sacoches d'herbe, soixante-quinze pastilles de mescaline, cinq feuilles d'acide-buvard carabiné, une demi-salière de cocaïne, et une galaxie complète et multicolore de remontants, tranquillisants, hurlants, désopilants... sans oublier un litre de tequila, un litre de rhum."

After decades of loyal service, Ma Daode, a corrupt and lecherous party official, has been appointed director of the China Dream Bureau, charged with promoting President Xi Jinping’s China Dream of national rejuvenation. But just as he is about to present his plan for a microchip that will be implanted into the brain of every citizen to replace all painful recollections with a collective dream of national supremacy, his sanity begins to unravel.