Absurdist Fiction

Fairy tales are as old as language itself. Long, long ago, storytellers all around the world told tales of wonder both to enchant and entertain us, and also to teach us that – if we are good and kind and courageous enough – we can change the world for the better. For this is what fairy tales do. They give us hope. As we travel through the dark and dangerous world of the fairy tale, as we fight dragons and outwit ogres and save our sisters and brothers, we learn that we are capable of anything.

Una legione di spiriti diabolici, malvagi, virtuosi, paranoici e sexy contro il conformismo del Megaconcerto di Beneficenza e la violenza dei signori della guerra. Non si sa chi vincerà, ma come dice Stan Hakaleimekalahani "ci sarà gran piagnanza e gran ridanza".

Are you a Law & Order or CSI crime junkie? In these You Solve It mini mysteries, you get to be the lead detective who takes on the case. You will read the case file, collect the evidence and solve the crime. Become an iDetective.

Capolavoro della letteratura spagnola, il personaggio di Don Chisciotte è entrato dal 1605 (anno in cui fu pubblicata la prima parte) nella storia dell'arte letteraria, pittorica, e musicale, e nell'inconscio collettivo, insieme all'inseparabile scudiero Sancio Panza. In entrambi la follia si alterna alla saggezza, componendo una miscela inseparabile.

Zebra is the last in a line of anarchists, atheists, and autodidacts. When war came, her family didn't fight; they took refuge in books. Now alone and in exile, Zebra leaves New York for Barcelona, retracing the journey she and her father made from Iran to the United States years ago. Books are Zebra's only companions - until she meets Ludo. Their connection is magnetic; their time together fraught. Zebra overwhelms him with her complex literary theories, her concern with death, and her obsession with history. He thinks she's unhinged; she thinks he's pedantic.

A retired general—the leader of the latest military takeover—moves to a peaceful island and decides to rid it of what he sees as its last remaining “anarchic” components. The island, described by its people as a utopia, the last peaceful resort for mankind, morphs into dystopia when the general, in the hope of bringing order to the island life, begins to act more and more like a dictator. The first ones to revolt against the general are the seagulls.

As head of the crisis management team at a Madison Avenue PR firm, Leonard Lundell spends his days counseling executives whose reputations have been ruined by scandal. But Leonard has been managing a strange and debilitating crisis of his own that’s held him captive his entire adult life: Leonard likes to eat soap, pencils, paint chips—anything with no nutritional value. For years, he’s kept his compulsion hidden behind a professional veneer.

Enter the wonderfully weird, always uncomfortable, side-splittingly funny world of The Terrifying Realm of the Possible, where your worst fears of who you are or might become are always just around the corner. In these masterful short stories from the singular mind of the actor and comedian Brett Gelman, you’ll meet five individuals, each navigating a uniquely strange stage of life.

Un cane troppo fedele che torna sempre come un boomerang dal padrone che lo vuole abbandonare; un potentissimo manager pronto a tutto pur di riunire i Beatles per un concerto; un terzino fantasioso e romantico su uno spelacchiato campo di periferia; un arrogante e irredimibile uomo d'affari; un frate che sceglie il silenzio per sentirsi più vicino a Dio ma viene vinto dalla bellezza di una muta; una perfida vecchietta divorata dall'invidia e dal livore sono solo alcuni dei protagonisti di questa raccolta di racconti, nella quale Benni mostra il lato più curioso, imprevedibile e misterioso della vita.

Are you a Law & Order or CSI crime junkie? In these You Solve It mini mysteries, you get to be the lead detective who takes on the case. You will read the case file, collect the evidence and solve the crime. Become an iDetective.

When 34-year-old Ms Shibata gets a new job in Tokyo to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that, as the only woman at her new workplace—a company that manufactures cardboard tubes—she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day, she announces that she can't clear away her colleagues' dirty cups—because she's pregnant and the smell nauseates her. The only thing is...Ms Shibata is not pregnant.

In this bold and brilliant short work of experimental fiction by the author of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers and Lanny, Max Porter inhabits Francis Bacon in his final moments, translating into seven extraordinary written pictures the explosive final workings of the artist's mind. Writing as painting rather than about painting, Porter lets the images he conjures speak for themselves as they take their revenge on the subject who wielded them in life.

An early 20th century tale of a young European American immigrant who has a series of adventures in America.

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.

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.

Un hombre despierta y se encuentra convertido en un enorme insecto. Un faquir, dedicado al ayuno, lo hace por tanto tiempo que se olvidan de el. Este es el tipo de historia de pesadilla que caracteriza al gran autor checo.

Jenlena and Daphne are two aimless humanities grads living in a crumbling Montreal when animals besiege cities and towns across the world, terrorizing their human residents. Though shocking, the threat is quickly neutralized when the animals are killed en masse for the safety of humanity. In the post-fauna world, Jenlena is transformed, shaking off her characteristic passivity to capitalize on other people’s heartbreak and grief by selling plants that have come to replace pets, and impersonating dogs for pay.

An author goes on a book tour for his new bestseller which, as people keep telling him, is one hell of a book. One morning, he meets The Kid: a young Black boy who looks just like the one he keeps seeing on the news. And The Kid wants him to tell his story. It's the story of a boy who spent most of his life trying to hide. And it may not be that different from the story of our author. But to find out why, you'll have to listen to this for yourself.

Tim Scott's inventive and hilarious science fiction novels are unlike any others. In a strange world where living refrigerators exist in herds like wild animals, Seattle has become a coddled city beset by irrational fears. Enter ex-cop Huckleberry, who's about to see his life take a turn for the weird when he stumbles into a dangerous conspiracy and the fridges become his only friends.

Margherita Dolcevita è una ragazzina allegra, intelligente e appena sovrappeso, con un cuore che di tanto in tanto perde un colpo. Vive con la famiglia fra città e campagna. Un giorno, davanti alla sua casa, spunta, come un fungo, un cubo di vetro nero circondato da un asettico giardino sintetico e da una palizzata di siepi. Sono arrivati i signori Del Bene, i portatori del "nuovo", della beatitudine del consumo. Amici o corruttori? La famiglia di Margherita cade in una sorta di oscuro incantesimo, nessuno rimane immune.