Life Satire

In Lionel Shriver's entertaining send-up of today's cult of exercise - which not only encourages better health, but now like all religions also seems to promise meaning, social superiority, and eternal life - an aging husband's sudden obsession with extreme sport makes him unbearable.

After getting fired from her job as a fourth grade teacher, Jane takes on two jobs at once: as a nanny for twin babies and as a sexter for a famous porn star. Soon, Jane is feeding Franny and Zooey with one hand and shooting off ridiculous sexts with the other. At first, she feels it’s like a joke: a lot of her clientele are into scat play or “mystical bestiality.” By the end of her first month on the sexting-nanny jobs, Jane is making significantly more money than she could have ever made as a teacher.

Kate and Scott’s marriage has always been a lot of fun, with alcohol at the heart of it. After all, what’s more entertaining than a good laugh and a large drink…or six? But recently, those relaxing drinks have become more crutch than comfort - and the couple have almost forgotten how to talk to each other sober. Then their teenage daughter Holly uploads a video of their humiliating drunken escapades, which gets picked up by YouTube superstar PinkyPud - and goes horrifyingly viral.

A quirky and darkly comic take on domestic life in southern India. Ousep Chacko, journalist and failed novelist, prides himself on being "the last of the real men." This includes waking neighbors upon returning late from the pub. His wife Mariamma stretches their money, raises their two boys, and, in her spare time, gleefully fantasizes about Ousep dying. One day, their seemingly happy seventeen-year-old son Unni - an obsessed comic-book artist - falls from the balcony, leaving them to wonder whether it was an accident.

An Ex-Witch. A Hunky Horror Writer. A Horrid Husband. Stripped of her magic by her greedy husband many Halloweens ago, Hattie has been living a miserable life. With the help of sympathetic witches Angela and her aunt, hope arrives via a hunky horror writer Hattie has secretly loved since he rescued a Dobermann from Waggy Tails Dogs' Home where she once worked. Can this master plotter help Hattie regain her magic? Is the attraction mutual? Will her greedy and evil husband get his just desserts? All will be revealed at a carefully planned Halloween party. But if Hattie has to continue as ...

The brilliant new novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin centres on three generations of the Mandible family as a fiscal crisis hits a near-future America. It is 2029. The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their 97-year-old patriarch dies. Yet America's soaring national debt has grown so enormous that it can never be repaid. Under siege from an upstart international currency, the dollar is in meltdown.

This is a carefully curated collection of over 3,500 quotations by nearly 1,500 authors on a broad spectrum of topics, from science and technology, wisdom and folly, society and government, war and peace, to life and death – grouped in 23 chapters. Three main features distinguish this publication from numerous quote collections available in print and online: (i) Selection: By screening out “inspirational” platitudes, mediocre jokes, and discernible nonsense that dominate so many quote publications, this collection includes only the entries that are real pearls of human thought, ...

A gorgeous ginger boyfriend, a busy job, and a happy social life - Kirsty's perfect beginning couldn't be better. So why is she still chaotically lurching through her life? Kirsty is kept busy managing Cupid's Sting dating agency and enjoying her time with Ben. However, his unwillingness to commit is a sticking point although Kirsty suspects her insecurities relate to her own troubled relationship with her father. Arguments arise, but could better communication be the key? On top of everything else, Kirsty's mother and father are trying to work out the rules of life themselves while making ...

Family. Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em...or can you? When Family of the Year award winners Constance Winslow and her father pick the day of the award ceremony to give in to years of mutual loathing, things aren’t looking good for Constance. That’s when she decides to draft her neighbor. She’s got a plan, all she needs is a little help. If only her neighbor didn’t have a plan of his own...

"Dialogue and flow of the story are excellent." -- NetGalley Every heart is asked, at some point, to leave something or someone behind while it yearns and aches for a different outcome. Beebe Walker is pulled into a compelling story of lost and found. Inside, she’s haunted by a farewell that never came. Her mother abandoned her and her father without a word when she was sixteen. Beebe is surprised by a visit from her ex-fiancé, Vincent Bostick. He brings shocking news. Reluctantly, Beebe decides to move back home, to face the past and renew a relationship with her father. Time and again,...

We’ve all met them—the self-declared gurus, the self-taught “experts,” the confidently oblivious office heroes, and the life coaches whose biggest accomplishment is remembering their Instagram password. In I Have No Idea What I’m Doing, we shine a painfully bright spotlight on twenty gloriously unqualified characters who charge boldly into the world, armed with buzzwords, blind faith, and absolutely no clue. From clueless consultants to motivational speakers who can’t find the stage, this book celebrates the gloriously chaotic people who remind us all that sometimes the only ...

Before Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Doonesbury, there was Art Buchwald. For more than fifty years, from 1949 to 2006, Art Buchwald’s Pulitzer Prize-winning column of political satire and biting wit made him one of the most widely read American humorists and a popular player in the Washington world of Ethel and Ted Kennedy, Ben Bradlee, and Katharine Graham. Dean Acheson, former U.S. Secretary of State, called Buchwald the “greatest satirist in the English language since Pope and Swift.”

Hey, would you like to be my friend? Great. You just need to follow all MY rules, and we'll get along just fine. Kids who read this funny book will see a bad friendship firsthand through the over-the-top satirical interactions with the main character. There are follow-up questions at the end of the book to help prompt discussions.

A Definitive Guide for Workaholics! Workaholics make the world go round but we are often misunderstood and underappreciated! Do your friends and family ever: Tell you to relax Try to take your phone away Expect you to spend time with them Want you to take a vacation If these issues sound familiar, you need this book! Learn valuable tips to keep work at the forefront of any situation! After all, if we all worked 9-to-5 jobs, nothing would get done!

A gritty, occasionally raunchy, darkly disturbing satire set in the green and leafy suburbs of the City of Sheffield and the Wybourn council housing estate. Freddie is the bigoted, misogynistic patriarch of the Robinson clan, and is twice married, twice divorced. He has been unemployed for almost thirty years and is still claiming incapacity benefits…but the winds of change are blowing through the Department of Work and Pensions, and the council estate too. Over the course of one weekend in April, skeletons are dragged from closed cupboards, dark secrets unearthed and this dysfunctional ...

After his wife, Sarah, dies, K. loses his metaphorical capacity, becoming so wedded to the notion of clarity that he infuriates everyone, friends and strangers alike. When he intervenes in an armed robbery, K. finds himself both an inadvertent hero and the star of a new reality television program. Together with Claire, a grocery store clerk with a sharp tongue and a yen for celebrity, he travels the country, ruffling feathers and gaining fame at the intersection of American politics and entertainment.

Dakota Jones had a difficult upbringing, but he escaped to the military as soon as he could. Now, after several tours of duty he has finally been discharged. Refusing to return home, he arrives in Sullivan's Crossing, where his brother, Cal, and sister, Sierra, have found a home. Nestled at the crossroads of the Colorado and Continental Divide Trails, the area attracts those looking for answers or direction or a new lease on life. Dakota will come to terms with his less-than-perfect family and will plant the roots he's never had.

A captivating comedy about a man—rooted in the Sixties—who must choose between his career and the people he loves.

Eight years ago, I was supposed to marry her. Instead, I destroyed her family and then abandoned her. Broken and hurt, she delivered me a savage blow in return. Naturally, that should have been the end of us. Except that I still want her. Even after all these years, memories of her linger in a mix of pain and desire. And now the sassy girl who once set my world on fire is suddenly in my city, curating art she has no idea that she inspired. Her body still ignites under my touch, but her eyes hold a cold, hard resolve to never re-engage with her family’s arch-enemy. To prove to Sabrina that...

For the past 13 years, as England became an increasingly unhappy and fearful place, Prince Charles has been living quietly on a bleak council estate with his wife and love of his life, Camilla. He enjoys gardening and poultry keeping while Camilla spends her days doing as little as possible. But life is about to change.