Satire Comedy

Obituary writer Bud Stanley isn’t really living his best life. He’s fallen into a funk after a divorce. (She left him for another man, who, in fairness, was far more interesting). He’s not doing his job well. He’s given up on dating. And he’s about to be fired for accidentally publishing his own obituary one mildly drunken night (though technically the company can’t legally fire a dead person).

Meet Rabo Karabekian, a moderately successful surrealist painter who we meet late in life and see struggling (like all of Vonnegut's key characters) with the dregs of unresolved pain and the consequences of brutality. Loosely based on the legend of Bluebeard (best realized in Bela Bartok's one-act opera), the novel follows Karabekian through the last events in his life that is heavy with women, painting, artistic ambition, artistic fraudulence, and as of yet unknown consequence.

After a decade spent in isolation in the Ugandan jungles thinking about stuff, David Cross has written his first book. Known for roles on the small screen such as "never-nude" Tobias Funke on Arrested Development and the role of "David" in Mr. Show with Bob and David, as well as a hugely successful stand-up routine full of sharp-tongued rants and rages, Cross has carved out his place in American comedy.

He was born into an ancient powerful dynasty and, through no fault of his own, became one of the most recognisable men on the planet. His life was a constant barrage of press intrusion and manipulation. Until finally, he demanded that it stop. In order to get the privacy he so craved, he has written a frostbite-and-all book that goes deep inside the castle walls and exposes every shouting match, fist-fight, betrayal, teddy bear, awkward hug and tear-stained wedding rehearsal for the world to feast their eyes on.

Walter Starbuck, a career humanist and eventual low-level aide in the Nixon White House, is implicated in Watergate and jailed, after which he (like Howard Campbell in Mother Night) works on his memoirs. Starbuck is innocent (his office was used as a base for the Watergate shenanigans of which he had no knowledge), and yet he is not innocent (he has collaborated with power unquestioningly and served societal order all his life). He represents another Vonnegut Everyman caught amongst forces he neither understands nor can defend.

Welcome to the paperless (or "audiobook") edition of More Information Than You Require, a further compendium of COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE assembled and illumined by John Hodgman, a Famous Minor Television Personality. It contains all of the half-truths, fake trivia, amazing made-up facts, and molemanic lore as the paper edition, narrated here by Resident Expert John Hodgman, occasionally interrupted by this veritable extravaganza of illustrious and sometimes presumptuous guests.

Mild-mannered sheep farmer Albert Stark is fed up with the harsh life of the American frontier, where it seems everything and anything can kill you: Duels at high noon. Barroom brawls. Poisonous snakes. Cholera-infected drinking water. Tumbleweed abrasion. Something called “toe-foot.” Even a trip to the outhouse. Yes, there are a million ways to die in the wild, wild West, and Albert plans to avoid them all. Some people think that makes him a coward. Albert calls it common sense.

Years after the events of The House of God, the Fat Man has been given leadership over a new Future of Medicine Clinic at what is now only Man's 4th Best Hospital, and has persuaded Dr. Roy Basch and some of his intern cohorts to join him to teach a new generation of interns and residents. In a medical landscape dominated by computer screens and corrupted by money, they have one goal: to make medicine humane again.

A wildly successful first novel made Grady Tripp a young star, and seven years later he still hasn't grown up. He's now a writing professor in Pittsburgh, plummeting through middle age, stuck with an unfinishable manuscript, an estranged wife, a pregnant girlfriend, and a talented but deeply disturbed student named James Leer.

Koom Valley, the ancient battle where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls, was a long time ago. But if he doesn't solve the murder of just one dwarf, Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch is going to see it fought again, right outside his office. With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war-drums sounding, he must unravel every clue, outwit every assassin and brave any darkness to find the solution. And darkness is following him.

Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He’s a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies - in other words, a flack for cigarette companies, paid to promote their product on talk and news shows. The problem? He’s so good at his job, so effortlessly unethical, that he’s become a target for both anti-tobacco terrorists and for the FBI. In a country where half the people want to outlaw pleasure and the other want to sell you a disease, what will become of Nick Naylor?

When the end of the world is just another Tuesday... In the battle between destiny and disaster, sometimes all it takes is a reluctant hero with zero qualifications and even less enthusiasm. Meet Grongol, a goose with the extraordinary power to bring about Armageddon - if he ever lays that final, fateful egg. Follow his unwitting companion Pibblestone McTavish as he flees mayonnaise-obsessed villains and chicken cultists while accidentally preventing doomsday. Journey alongside Snarksteel the Insufferable, a sentient sword with three centuries of watching heroes die stupidly while ignoring ...

Marc-Uwe Kling lebt mit einem Känguru zusammen. Das Känguru ist Kommunist und steht total auf Nirvana. Die Känguru-Chroniken berichten von den Abenteuern und Wortgefechten des Duos. Und so bekommen wir endlich Antworten auf die drängendsten Fragen unserer Zeit: War das Känguru wirklich beim Vietcong? Und wieso ist es schnapspralinensüchtig? Könnte man die Essenz des Hegelschen Gesamtwerkes in eine SMS packen? Und wer ist besser: Bud Spencer oder Terence Hill?

Have you ever been married to a demon…I mean, a narcissist? No? Well, let me tell you about it, and it ain’t going to be pretty. Grab a glass of wine—trust me, you'll need it. I’d always been drawn to the charismatic types. You know the kind—loud, brimming with confidence, and always wearing a smile that could charm the Satan himself. Little did I know, I was about to sign a lifelong blood contract with one who truly might. Now, being married to a narcissist is a lot like organizing a circus. At first, you’re thrilled to be part of something that excites so many people; then you...

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.

For decades Hazie Coogan has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton, veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart - and boudoir. Soon, Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in an upcoming musical extravaganza. As the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans and for posterity.

The irreverent author of the cult classic Syrup hits his target in this satire on the wages of big capital. In Max Barry's hilarious vision of the near future, the world is run by giant American corporations, and employees take the last names of the companies they work for; The Police and The NRA are publicly traded security firms, and the U.S. government may only investigate crimes if they can bill a citizen directly.

On doctor's orders, Bertie Wooster retires to sample the bucolic delights of Maiden Eggesford. But his idyll is rudely shattered by Aunt Dahlia who wants him to nobble a racehorse. Similar blots on Bertie's horizon come in the shape of Major Plank, the African explorer, Vanessa Cook, proud beauty and "molder of men," and Orlo Porter who seems to have nothing else to do but think of sundering Bertie's head from his body.

"I am Myra Breckinridge, whom no man will ever possess." So begins the irresistible testimony of the luscious instructor of Empathy and Posture at Buck Loner's Academy of Drama and Modeling. Myra has a secret that only her surgeon shares; a passion for classic Hollywood films, which she regards as the supreme achievements of Western culture; and a sacred mission to bring heteronormative civilization to its knees. Fifty years after its first publication unleashed gales of laughter, delight, and ferocious dissent, Myra's moment to instruct and delight has once again arrived.

Steve is hell's super, its handyman. Being Mr. Fixit to the underworld keeps him and his assistant, Orson Welles (yes, that Orson Welles), pretty busy, since things go on the blink all the time down there. No malfunction has ever created so much inconvenience, though, as the malfunction of hell's escalator, which leads from the pearly gates to the depths of Hades. What's worse: The breakdown appears to be sabotage.