Life Satire

A mordantly funny, all-too-real novel in the vein of Tom Perotta and Emma Straub about a suburban American family that has to figure out how to survive themselves and their neighbors in the wake of a global calamity that upends all of modern life.

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.

Taylor Bell comes from a long line of Beta Zeta sorority sisters, all of whom expect her to pledge upon starting at the university. However, Taylor is determined to destroy the rich tradition they hold so dear by eschewing sorority life altogether. Taylor's resolve soon melts, though, when she falls in with a group of hilarious, ultra-saucy girls who introduce her to all things Greek and soften her to the idea of joining.

Every summer, a once-sort-of-famous cartoonist named Rich Fischer leaves his wife and two kids behind to teach a class at a weeklong arts conference in a charming New England beachside town. It's a place where, every year, students - nature poets and driftwood sculptors, widowed seniors, teenagers away from home for the first time - show up to study with an esteemed faculty.

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.

Satire master Robert Urban ups the ante in his most recent book sharing his unique perspective about life, love and of course a little cheddar biscuit we all love. Filled with deep thoughts juxtaposed by one-liners, hysterical anecdotes, tangential thoughts and edgy, absurd humor this book is meant to give people who don't take themselves too seriously a rapid fire delivery of humor in only the way Robert can.

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.

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.

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 ...

Filius Thoreau, arch-benefit fraudster and jaunty raconteur, celebrates the silver anniversary of his induction into the world of the workshy with his candid, but not too candid, autobiography in which he celebrates the unique and sinuous path he has steered through the minefield of work-obsessed modern Britain. From the dark days of the Poll Tax through the laissez-faire nineties to the ghastly government work schemes of the new millennium, Filius has marched onwards to the sound of his own personal drummer and constructed a uniquely apologist philosophy along the way.

Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead, the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town.

Mack McAllister has a $600 million idea. His mindfulness app, TakeOff, is already the hottest thing in tech, and he's about to launch a new and improved version that promises to bring investors running and may turn his brainchild into a $1 billion business. Katya Pasternack is hungry for a scoop that will drive traffic. An ambitious journalist at a gossipy tech blog, Katya knows that she needs more than another PR-friendly puff piece to make her the go-to byline for industry news.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the manicured lawns and symmetrically planted flower beds in our beautiful neighborhood. There’s something undeniably picturesque about the row of houses, their paint colors all meticulously approved by a committee of self-appointed taste experts who seem to be more worried about the shade of beige than actual world problems. However, all this beautifully decorated façade comes at a great price—putting up with the HOA board members. Now, if you're unfamiliar with the phenomenon that is an HOA (Homeowners Association), allow me to enlighten you. You either ...

From the author of "Every Mother's Fear" A British aunt and her niece set off to explore Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In this calamity-ridden travel tale their relationship is changed forever. For fans of Marian Keyes and Sophie Kinsella.It's a trip with an eclectic mix of history, culture and scenery. Seafood shacks. Postcard perfect lighthouses. Weather-boarded buildings. Stacks of pancakes dripping in syrup. Quaint boutiques. Walks along the cobblestone streets of Boston, America's oldest city––the city of revolution. Throw in plenty of disagreements and you have all the ...

The Right Address sears through the upper crust of New York's glittering Park Avenue scene to dish the dirt on the ladies who lunch, the gents who club, and the desperate climbers who will stop at nothing to join the backstabbing, champagne-sipping, socialite-eat-socialite stratosphere.

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.”

Newlywed Rosie has grown disenchanted with NYC. Inspired by Instagram ads, she starts thirsting for a rural life upstate—one full of beauty and authenticity. She just needs to convince her tech-bro husband, Jordan, of her vision for the future. Willing to do anything for Rosie’s happiness, Jordan signs on, and they offer—well above asking price—on a beautiful, historic fixer-upper in the Hudson Valley. But when Jordan suddenly loses his job, the couple is forced to rent out the property’s dilapidated outbuilding. There’s no heat, it’s overrun with mold, and nothing works.

If all goes according to plan, tonight will be Jack Current’s last. The young engineer is at the end of his emotional rope and plans to take his own life. But first, a bar crawl through his downtown Cincinnati neighborhood is in order. Accompanying him during his final hours is a dollar store notebook. The Drunk Log. In it, he documents the evening, ruminates on his existence and remembers his 7-year-old nephew, who died exactly a year earlier. It is a loss for which Jack feels responsible—a lapse in judgement for which there is no forgiveness. Buckling under the weight of oppressive ...

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...

Omnibus is an engrossing ride through Jo’s wacky world. There are articles and stories on ski jumps, drumming, music and dogs; even Mary Poppins gets a mention. There’s a friend lost, then found, then slowly lost again as his mind begins to crumble – thank goodness we shared some laughs in days gone by. There’s even a set of Antlers and my favourite aeroplane, the S71 Blackbird at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, England. And then there’s the odd ride on a bus! No ordinary journey this. Many years ago, following some dire health issues, Jo and wife Jan discarded their long-term ...