Life Satire

Tietam Brown tells the story and speaks in the voice—at once innocent and too knowing for his age—of Antietam (Andy) Brown, named for the great-great-great- grandfather who died on that Civil War battlefield. Andy at seventeen is himself the veteran of a violent boyhood, having been locked up in the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center for killing a teenager who attempted to rape him. Now, after seven years, he is out, free, at a crossroads, trying to make a fresh start.

This short novel follows the fate of Sissy Jupe, a warm-hearted circus child, and the family that adopts her. Deserted by her ailing father, Sissy is taken into the cold household of the Gradgrind family, which operates a school. The "eminently practical" Thomas Gradgrind believes only in facts and figures and has raised his children accordingly, thoroughly suppressing the imaginative side of their nature, and the consequences are devastating.

There's a whole world of Dahl still to discover in a newly collected audiobook of his deliciously dark tales for adults. In war, are we at our heroic best or our cowardly worst? Featuring the autobiographical stories from Roald Dahl's time as a fighter pilot in the Second World War as well as seven other tales of conflict and strife, Dahl reveals the human side of our most inhumane activity.

Jerry Wonder is the hero of this hilarious coming-of-age novel. A 19-year-old Mormon missionary, Jerry leaves South Dakota to save souls in New Zealand for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Elder Wonder's path is fraught with challenge. He misses his girlfriend, Susan, who tried valiantly to seduce him before he left, but to his regret, he remained strong for both of them. Now, he worries he will lose her in his two-year absence. And he is flawed.

Coach Randy is working mightily to keep it together, and not simply with his vaguely unhappy wife, distant child, and a new boss who's eliminating half the sales force. This season's soccer parents are a demanding bunch. Diane's wine-fueled group emails are almost unintelligible; team mom Jacqui's enthusiasm for the league verges on manic; a divorced couple can barely conceal their murderous rage at each other; and another mom is laser-focused on schooling everyone on what constitutes a healthy snack option.

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.

A Harvard reunion prompts a Boston Brahmin’s search for meaning in this comedy of manners by the number-one New York Times best-selling author of Point of No Return.

In a provocative novel addressing contemporary immigration by the sharply observant Lionel Shriver, a New York family takes in a Honduran migrant—who may or may not be the innocent paragon she claims to be.

If you fail at Pee-Wee Hockey, you fail at life. Right? Charlie and Kate Miller are involved, supportive parents who have always loved to watch their little athlete play. Until now. When their son Brett makes a competitive U12 ice hockey team, they have no idea how fully it will engulf their lives. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that to the dad-coach and parents around them youth hockey isn’t just for fun—it’s a way of life. While the Millers attempt to keep perspective, they slowly find themselves spending endless hours of idle time at the rink, jockeying for the affections of...

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.

From Roald Dahl, the master of the sting in the tail, a newly collected audiobook of his darkest stories, read by Juliet Stevenson, Cillian Murphy, Adrian Scarborough, Tamsin Greig, Stephanie Beacham and Andrew Scott. 'There is a pleasure sure in being mad, which none but madmen know.' Our greatest fear is of losing control - of our lives, but, most of all, of ourselves. In these 10 unsettling tales of unexpected madness master storyteller Roald Dahl explores what happens when we let go our sanity.

Like Kofi Annan, Larry Miller is one of the most irresistible comic personalities working today. Known for years as an actor, writer, comedian, and sexual pioneer, he's gained a new following as a cultural commentator and frequent guest on political shows. Now, in Spoiled Rotten America, he fixes his gaze on what's funny about our daily lives; which includes, roughly speaking, everything.

Life is going pretty well for Raymond "Stick" Hart. He's happily married to the former Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Club assistant pro, the beauteous Cajun firecracker Dannie, raising his rambunctious son, Charlie, and getting by writing smart-mouthed greeting cards for 50 bucks a pop. Then, one disaster of a day, Stick's world does a 10-car pile-up. Luckily, Stick has a solution to all his problems. He'll qualify for the British Open.

Close to turning eighty, in the midst of a demographic winter, the millennial Ebenezer Espósito urgently needs to hire a prepaid nursing home. He doesn’t want just any nursing home... he wants the one with the best care, since he has no children to oversee his care. Fortunately, he has found the right place, where every detail will be taken into account. A short story of social satire about the problem faced by many communities that have entered the process of demographic winter.

The witty, mischievous and supremely artful Fay Weldon announces on the first page of The Hearts and Lives of Men that she has written a love story and give away its ending - happy. It is a love story, though, with all the obstacles, both devilish and divine - a tale of innocence corrupted and selfishness reformed. Helen Lally is 22, the stunning daughter of an impoverished artist whose fame and fortune will soon be made. Woe to her for catching the eye of Clifford Wexford, a 35-year-old art dealer, rapaciously ambitious, eminently eligible and careless of all lives but his town.

Someone committed a crime in a fantasy kingdom. The suspect is a fearsome dragon. Jimmy Delehanty and Enid O’Malley, hardboiled private detectives and dragon hunters, are on the case. Enid’s the brainy one. Jimmy? Definitely not. Along the way they meet a diverse cast of characters – a narcissistic woodsman, a grouchy leprechaun, a giant with body shame, a tortoise who can’t get over his childhood, a bad-tempered oak tree, and a witch named Francine. The High Heeled Dragon Hunter is a mashup of fantasy, detective story, and a healthy dose of romantic tension between two pulp fiction...

Sloane Jacobsen is the most powerful trend forecaster in the world (she was the foreseer of "the swipe"), and global fashion, lifestyle, and tech companies pay to hear her opinions about the future. Her recent forecasts on the family are unwavering: the world is overpopulated, and with unemployment, college costs, and food prices all on the rise, having children is an extravagant indulgence. So it's no surprise when the tech giant Mammoth hires Sloane to lead their groundbreaking annual conference, celebrating the voluntarily childless.

After eight and a half years and 323 pageants, Miranda Miller has become the ultimate stage mother. Her mission in life is to see that her nine-year-old daughter, Bailey, continues to be one of the most successful child pageant contestants in the southern United States. Lately, though, that mission has become increasingly difficult. Bailey wants to retire and has been secretly binge eating to make herself "unpageantable". But Miranda has a plan.

La obra de Francisco Quevedo abarca la mayoría de los géneros prosísticos del siglo XVIII y refleja su visión pesimista de la sociedad española de los Austrias menores. El Buscón, extraordinaria novela picaresca, combina la crítica social con la intención de crear una obra de arte del lenguaje.

Managing Chaos and living with it when your best laid plans… get laid. The aircraft carrier USS America and its battle force visit Athens for a little fun in the sun for its 6,000 sailors. Spiros, the highly respected port Godfather, runs his own operations providing water taxis, barges of all types, unofficial security, and more. The more includes black marketing with visiting sailors providing cherished goods from the American Air Force Hellenikon Air Base Sales Store. He runs his port in such an extremely, profitable manner that no multi-national company could compete with him if such ...