Showing titles in Satire

Alice: 30-something, IQ of 159 (almost a genius), only communicates with her mother in Morse code. Her imaginary friend is back. Erika: 15, daughter of hot ‘wealthugee’ who loves Russian literature, genuine genius, killer eyeliner and killer instincts. The climate is in crisis and wealthy immigrants are flocking to New Zealand for shelter, stealing land, driving up food prices and taking over. But Alice has far more important things to worry about – hating her best friend’s husband, getting free wine and quiet-quitting her dull day job. Until she meets Erika.

Ben Jewell has hit a breaking point. His 10-year-old son, Jonah, has severe autism, and Ben and his wife, Emma, are struggling to cope. When Ben and Emma fake a separation - a strategic decision to further Jonah's case in an upcoming tribunal - Ben and Jonah move in with Georg, Ben's elderly father. In a small house in North London, three generations of men - one who can't talk, two who won't - are thrown together.

Steve Minion, Heaven’s Emissary to Hell, reunites with his pal Orson Welles to catch a supernatural thief in this comedic “catch me if you can” tale. Go with them on a wild ride through the Circles of Hell, outer space, inner space, even the lower dimensions. Can the guys measure up? For that matter, can they measure anything, when nothing seems constant except their friendship?

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of On the Bright Side by Hendrik Groen, read by Patrick Ryecart. Everyone's favourite octogenarian is back and - together with the Old-But-Not-Dead Club - is more determined than ever to wreak havoc. After a year mourning the death of his beloved friend Eefje, Hendrik picks up his pen once again to chronicle the goings on both inside his care home and in the increasingly confusing world outside.

Jonathan Abernathy is a loser. Unemployed and behind on his student loan repayments, the only thing Abernathy has in abundance is debt. When a secretive government loan forgiveness programme offers him a job he can literally do in his sleep, Abernathy thinks he’s found his big break. Hired as a dream auditor, he finds himself entering the dreams of white-collar workers to flag their anxieties for removal at night so they'll be more productive in the day. If Abernathy can at least appear competent, might he have a chance at a new life?

Card-playing corpses, unfaithful husbands and "flying" ladies - life as an ambulance driver in the 1970s was certainly varied.... At the age of 23, Les Pringle decided to escape from office life, broaden his horizons, and become an ambulance driver. Little did he realize how broad those horizons would turn out to be.... Filled with warmth and humour, Blue Lights and Long Nights takes us back to a time when lonely old ladies could call 999 and have a cup of tea waiting when the drivers turned up for a chat; when learning to drive the ambulance meant going out for one test drive and managing not to hit a pedestrian.

A savage and hilarious satire, Gulliver's Travels sees Lemuel Gulliver shipwrecked and adrift, subject to bizarre and unnerving encounters with - among others - quarrelling Lilliputians, philosophising horses, and the brutish Yahoo tribe that change his view of humanity - and himself - forever. Swift's classic of 1726 portrays mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified, and finally, bestial species, presenting us with a comical yet uncompromising reflection of ourselves.

A work that still poses provocative questions about perception and reality, Flatland is a brilliant parody of Victorian society where all existence is limited to length and breadth - its inhabitants unable even to imagine a third dimension. The amiable narrator, A. Square, provides an overview of this fantastic world - its physics and metaphysics, its history, customs and religious beliefs. But when a strange visitor mysteriously appears and transports the incredulous Flatlander to the Land of Three Dimensions, his worldview is forever shattered.

In this ingeniously comic work, Chuck Palahniuk’s first novel in four years, he does what he does best: skewer the absurdities in our society. Smug, geriatric politicians hatch a nasty fate for the burgeoning population of young males, working-class men dream of burying the elites and professors propound theories that offer students only the bleakest future. When it arrives, Adjustment Day inaugurates a new Disunited States of America.

In the title story, we meet Maya, who is torn between her wryly funny boyfriend and the allure of her veterinarian. In "Andorra," a woman's lover calls her every Thursday as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counselling. "How to Give the Wrong Impression" shows us a woman pining for her roommate, a man who will hold her hand but then tell her that her palm is sweaty.

Steve and Orson are back in this cracked sequel to Hell's Super, book two in the new satire and humor series, Circles in Hell. This time, the guys must fix Hell's heating and air conditioning (HVAC) system, which has failed. Hell is getting progressively colder, and things are a lot more serious than devils and demons needing to put on some sweaters.

Three scary monsters - racism, misogyny and ageism - roam through this mesmerising audiobook. The dual nature of Scary Monsters is reflected in the fact that this audiobook can be listened to in two different ways - either Lyle or Lili can be heard first, the choice is yours.

Jack Gladney is the creator and chairman of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill. This is the story of his absurd life - a life that is going well enough until a chemical spill from a rail car releases an Airborne Toxic Event, and Jack is forced to confront his biggest fear: his own mortality. White Noise is an effortless combination of social satire and metaphysical dilemma in which Don DeLillo exposes our rampant consumerism, media saturation and novelty intellectualism.

I’ve always been the person that does whatever someone tells me I can’t. Can’t graduate with a four-point-oh? Check. Can’t win a modeling contract without trying? Did it. Check. Can’t make it in the pro football league? Triple check with an MVP Award on top. When my best friend told me to stay away from his little sister, Layla, it didn’t sound like a challenge. Then again, I’d never seen her before. He obviously wasn’t thinking about who he was talking to if he believed I could ignore her.

In President Me, Carolla shares his vision for a different, better America free from big issues like big government down to small problems like hotel alarm clock placement. Running on an anti-narcissism platform, President Carolla calls for a return to the values of an earlier time when stew and casserole were on every dinner table and there were no “service dogs” on airplanes. President Me hits right at the heart of what makes our country really annoying, and offers a plan to make all of our lives, but mostly Adam’s, much better.

When hordes of people descend on the picturesque village of Nasely for the annual celebration of its most famous resident, murder mystery writer Agnes Crabbe, events take a dark turn as the festival opens with a shocking death. Each year the residents are outnumbered by crowds dressed as Crabbe’s lady detective, Millicent Cutter. The weekend is never a mild-mannered affair as fan club rivalries bubble below the surface, but tensions reach new heights when a second Crabbe devotee is found murdered. Though the police are quick to arrive on the scene, the facts are tricky to ascertain as the witnesses, suspects and victim are all dressed as Miss Cutter.

Tony Award winner for Best Play and Olivier Award winner for Best Comedy. How much would you pay for a painting with nothing on it? Would it be art? Marc's best friend Serge has just bought a very expensive - and very white - painting. To Marc, the painting is a joke, and as battle lines are drawn, old friends use it to settle scores.

Meet Lance. 38-years-old. Works a meaningless job. Still lives above his parents’ garage. By all accounts, a world-class loser. Except for one glaring exception… he has a million-dollar face. Lance has been mistaken twenty-eight times for the Oscar-winning movie star, James Jansen, and for the last 10 years, he’s saved his money, studied Jansen’s films, his moves, his idiosyncrasies, even the way he speaks. Now, after an unceremonious termination from his job, Lance has decided that the time has come to go after his dream.

Fabien and Sylvie had both known their marriage was no longer working. And yet when Sylvie is involved in a fatal car accident, her husband is stunned to discover that she had a lover who died alongside her. With thoughts of revenge on his mind, Fabien decides to find out about the lover’s widow, Martine, first by stalking her, then by breaking into her home. He really needs to get Martine on her own. But she never goes anywhere without her formidable best friend, Madeleine...

Quentin and Lottie Bredin, like many modern couples, can't afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can't afford to go on living in London; instead, they must downsize and move their three children to a house in a remote part of Devon. Arrogant and adulterous, Quentin can't understand why Lottie is so angry; devastated and humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded. Mud, mice and quarrels are one thing - but why is their rent so low?