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Bad Becky in Trouble
Par Gervase Phinn. 2005
Bad Becky is cheeky (but charming), opinionated and always in some kind of trouble. But you can't help loving her!…
I mean wouldn't you rather hear a story about a princess who gets gobbled up by the dragon rather than another soppy one wher the prince saves the princess? And if a magician at a party was rubbish wouldn't you point it out? And who wants their horrible Great Aunt Mildred visiting? So really, Becky is just doing everyone a favour...A wickedly funny new series for readers gaining confidence. Bad Becky's got attitude!Araminta's Wedding
Par Jilly Cooper Obe. 1993
A Country House Extravaganza Story by Jilly Cooper. Pictures by Sue Macartney-Snape.Rufus, fifth Earl of Atherstone, has no son and…
gloomily contemplates his vast Lincolnshire estate passing into the hands of his plain but good-natured daughter, Araminta, and her grasping cousin, Piggy Atherstone, who is determined to marry her. A serious rival for Araminta's hand, however, materialises in Bounder Cartwright, a debonair money-market gambler, whose sexual conquests are as prolific as his investments are suddenly catastrophic. By Ascot he has won the day and the wedding is fixed for September.Then, at the last minute, the events of the previous Boxing Night catch up with the Atherstones in a surprising way. Will the wedding take place or not? The combination of Jilly Cooper's irreverent tale of country house life with the colourful and perceptive paintings of Sue Macartney-Snape which inspired it, presents a wickedly funny portrait of the English upper classes at play. Araminta's Wedding is irresistible fireside reading for even the coldest of stately homes.Abroad (Penguin Specials)
Par Penelope Lively. 2013
A brilliantly funny original short story from Booker Prize winning author Penelope Lively.'Anyone artistic needed Abroad in the 1950s.'Paul and…
his girlfriend are artists in need of subject matter. Arresting, evocative subject matter. So they decide to go Abroad, as much as possible, for as long as possible. Because Abroad is full of well furnished scenery. Particularly peasants. Real, earthy, traditional peasants. Except you shouldn't really call them peasants should you? 'Country people'. Abroad is full of country people.In this funny, deftly written short story, Penelope Lively satirises an arty student of the 50s, a precursor of the gap year traveller, who hasn't learnt as much from her time Abroad as she likes to think . . .Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels and short-story collections for both adults and children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel, The Road to Lichfield, and again in 1984 for According to Mark. She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel Moon Tiger. Her other books include Going Back; Judgement Day; Next to Nature, Art; Perfect Happiness; Passing On; City of the Mind; Cleopatra's Sister; Heat Wave; Beyond the Blue Mountains, a collection of short stories; Oleander, Jacaranda, a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt; Spiderweb; her autobiographical work, A House Unlocked; The Photograph; Making It Up; Consequences; Family Album, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award, and How It All Began. She is a popular writer for children and has won both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Year's Honours List, and DBE in 2012. Penelope Lively lives in London.Fight Club: A Novel (Biblioteca Polirom Ser.)
Par Chuck Palahniuk. 2005
The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club. Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his…
generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the basements of bars. There, two men fight "as long as they have to." This is a gloriously original work that exposes the darkness at the core of our modern world.Invisible Monsters: A Novel
Par Chuck Palahniuk. 2012
"A harrowing, perverse, laugh-aloud funny rocket ride of catastrophes…Gutsy, terse and cunning, Invisible Monsters may emerge as Palahniuk’s strongest book."…
—Greg Berkman, Seattle Times She’s a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better. And that salvation hides in the last places you’ll ever want to look.Identity Crisis
Par Ben Elton. 2019
Why are we all so hostile? So quick to take offence? Truly we are living in the age of outrage.…
A series of apparently random murders draws amiable, old-school Detective Mick Matlock into a world of sex, politics, reality TV and a bewildering kaleidoscope of opposing identity groups. Lost in a blizzard of hashtags, his already complex investigation is further impeded by the fact that he simply doesn’t ‘get’ a single thing about anything anymore.Meanwhile, each day another public figure confesses to having ‘misspoken’ and prostrates themselves before the judgement of Twitter. Begging for forgiveness, assuring the public “that is not who I am”.But if nobody is who they are anymore - then who the f##k are we?Ben Elton returns with a blistering satire of the world as it fractures around us. Get ready for a roller-coaster thriller, where nothing - and no one - is off limits.I Should Be So Lucky: an uplifting and hilarious novel from the ever astute Astley
Par Judy Astley. 2013
Certain to raise a smile and warm your heart; escape for an afternoon with this gem from Judy Astley. Perfect…
for fans of Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley...'Warm, funny and unerringly true to life' - Katie Fforde'A light, enjoyable, well-written read populated by appealing characters you won't be able to resist warming to.' - Sara Lawrence, DAILY MAIL'Frothy fun from an author worth noting' - DAILY EXPRESS******************************************************SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK...Viola hasn't had much luck with men. Her first husband, Marco, companion of her youth and father of her only child, left her when he realised he was gay.Her second, Rhys, ended his high-octane, fame-filled life by driving his Porsche into a wall. No wonder her family always believes she needs looking after, and her friends think she really shouldn't be allowed out on her own. Which is why, at the age of thirty-five, she finds herself back at home, living with Mum.Viola knows she has to take charge, and fast.With a stroppy teenage daughter, a demanding mother, and siblings who want to control her life for her, where is she going to turn?Gulliver's Travels (The Penguin English Library)
Par Jonathan Swift. 2012
With an essay by George Orwell.'Fifteen hundred of the Emperor's largest horses, each about four inches and an half high,…
were employed to draw me towards the Metropolis, which, as I said, was half a Mile distant'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, philosophizing horses and the brutish Yahoo tribe, that change his view of humanity - and himself - for ever. 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.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.Gulliver's Travels
Par Jonathan Swift. 2003
The classic tale of shipwreck and adventure in strange lands, Gulliver's Travels is also a wickedly clever satire on the…
nature of humankind 'A masterwork of irony ... that contains both a dark and bitter meaning and a joyous, extraordinary creativity of imagination' Malcolm Bradbury Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour. Swift's savage satire views mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified and finally bestial species, presenting us with an uncompromising reflection of ourselves. This text, based on the first edition of 1726, reproduces all the original illustrations and includes an introduction by Robert Demaria, Jr, which discusses the ways Gulliver's Travels has been interpreted since its first publication.Guards! Guards!: The Play (Discworld Novels #8)
Par Terry Pratchett. 1989
Terry Pratchett's infamous city of Ankh-Morpork is under threat from a 60-foot fire-breathing dragon, summoned by a secret society of…
malcontented tradesmen.Defending Ank-Morpork against this threat is the entire, underpaid, undervalued City Night Watch - a drunken and world-weary Captain, a cowardly and overweight Sergeant, a small opportunistic Corporal of dubious parentage...and their newest recruit, Lance Constable Carrot, who is upright, literal, law-abiding and keen. Aiding them in their fight for truth, justice and the Ankh-Morporkian way are a small swamp dragon and the Librarian of Unseen University (who just happens to be an orang-utan).Grantchester Grind: (Porterhouse Blue Series 2) (Porterhouse Blue #2)
Par Tom Sharpe. 1995
Though as cunning as ever, the formidable Skullion - previously head porter, now elevated to Master - is showing signs…
of physical frailty after his stroke. So the tricky business of appointing a new Master must start all over again. Meanwhile the College's monstrous debts refuse to go away, and a sinister American media mogul seems determined to make a television documentary on the premises, destroying part of the chapel in the process. Moreover, the widow of the previous Master is convinced that her husband was murdered, so she plants an agent in the Senior Common Room to dig up an unpleasant truth that everyone else would prefer kept under the carpet. Faced with such continuing crises, the instinct of the true Porterhouse man is to reach for the bottle - or to fall back on the subtle and traditional Cambridge skills of blackmail and kidnap. But will those be enough?Gargantua and Pantagruel
Par Francois Rabelais. 2006
The dazzling and exuberant moral stories of Rabelais (c. 1471-1553) expose human follies with their mischievous and often obscene humour,…
while intertwining the realistic with carnivalesque fantasy to make us look afresh at the world. Gargantua depicts a young giant, reduced to laughable insanity by an education at the hands of paternal ignorance, old crones and syphilitic professors, who is rescued and turned into a cultured Christian knight. And in Pantagruel and its three sequels, Rabelais parodied tall tales of chivalry and satirized the law, theology and academia to portray the bookish son of Gargantua who becomes a Renaissance Socrates, divinely guided in his wisdom, and his idiotic, self-loving companion Panurge.From the Diary of a Snail
Par Günter Grass. 1972
Probably the most autobiographical of his novels, From the Diary of a Snail balances the agonising history of the persecuted…
Danzig Jews with an account of Grass's political campaigning with Willie Brandt. Underlying all is the snail, the central symbol that is both model and a parody of social progress, and a mysterious metaphor for political reform.From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of The Tin Drum.Flatland (Penguin Science Fiction)
Par Edwin Abbott. 2020
The book that influenced writers from Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking, Flatland is set in a two-dimensional world where life…
exists only in lines and shapes - until one of its inhabitants, 'A. Square', has his perspective transformed forever. This brilliantly eccentric classic is an invitation to see beyond our own reality.'At once a playful brainteaser about geometry, a pointed satire of Victorian manners - and a strangely compelling argument about the greatest mysteries of the Universe' Wall Street Journal'Flatland could lead to very profound thought about our Universe and ourselves' Isaac AsimovErewhon
Par Samuel Butler. 1970
Setting out to make his fortune in a far-off country, a young traveller discovers the remote and beautiful land of…
Erewhon and is given a home among its extraordinarily handsome citizens. But their visitor soon discovers that this seemingly ideal community has its faults - here crime is treated indulgently as a malady to be cured, while illness, poverty and misfortune are cruelly punished, and all machines have been superstitiously destroyed after a bizarre prophecy. Can he survive in a world where morality is turned upside down? Inspired by Samuel Butler's years in colonial New Zealand and by his reading of Darwin's Origin of Species, Erewhon (1872) is a highly original, irreverent and humorous satire on conventional virtues, religious hypocrisy and the unthinking acceptance of beliefs.Let bestselling author Judy Astley sweep you away with this insightful, uplifting and hilarious novel where a family holiday turns…
into more of a torment than a treat... Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley."I just love Judy Astley's books" - JILL MANSELL"Wickedly funny" - DAILY MAIL"A funny, warm and moving novel" - SUNDAY MIRROR"If I am feeling in need of blue skies and sunshine and none are to be had here I just pick [this] up and settle down to while away an hour or two" -- ***** Reader review"A really light and amusing story" -- ***** Reader review******************************************************IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT, DON'T BRING THE FAMILYAs a penniless and partnerless house-painter with an expired lease on her flat and a twelve-year-old daughter, Lucy could hardly turn down her parents' offer to take them on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Caribbean.She'd just have to put up with her sister Theresa (making no secret of preferring Tuscany as a holiday destination) and brother Simon (worrying that there might be some sinister agenda behind their parents' wish to take them all away) with their various spouses, teenagers and young children.In a luxury hotel, with bright sunshine, swimming, diving, glorious food and friendly locals, any family tensions should have melted away in the fabulous heat. The children should have been angelic, the teenagers cheerful, the adults relaxed and happy.But some problems just refuse to be left at home.Dead Souls
Par Nikolay Gogol. 2004
Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in the provincial town of 'N', visiting a succession of landowners and making each a…
strange offer. He proposes to buy the names of dead serfs still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them, and to use these 'souls' as collateral to re-invent himself as a gentleman. In this ebullient masterpiece, Gogol created a grotesque gallery of human types, from the bear-like Sobakevich to the insubstantial fool Manilov, and, above all, the devilish con man Chichikov. Dead Souls, Russia's first major novel, is one of the most unusual works of nineteenth-century fiction and a devastating satire on social hypocrisy.The Diary of a Nobody
Par George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith. 1999
'The funniest book in the world' Evelyn Waugh'The jewel at the heart of English comic literature' William Trevor Mr Pooter…
is a man of modest ambitions, content with his ordinary life. Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent young office clerks and wayward friends, not to mention his devil-may-care son Lupin with his unsuitable choice of bride. In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing character of Pooter, the Grossmith brothers created a wonderful portrait of the class system and the inherent snobbishness of the suburban middle-class suburbia - one which sends up the late Victorian crazes for Aestheticism, spiritualism and bicycling, as well as the fashion for publishing diaries by anybody and everybody. This edition contains the original illustrations by Weedon Grossmith and an introduction by Ed Glinert, author of The London Compendium, discussing the novel's serialisation in Punch, the growth of the suburbs and the figure of Mrs Pooter.George Grossmith (1847-1912) initially worked as a journalist, reporting Police Court proceedings for The Times. In 1870 he began his career as a singer and entertainer, creating some of the most memorable characters in Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas. Weedon Grossmith (1854-1919) brother of George, was educated at the Slade and the Royal Academy with a view to following a career as a painter, and exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and the Royal Academy. Joining a theatre company in 1885, he toured the provinces and America. The best-known of his many plays, The Night of the Party, was published in 1901.'True humour ... with its mixture of absurdity, irony and affection ... a masterpiece, immortal' J.B. PriestleyDiary of a Madman, The Government Inspector, & Selected Stories
Par Nikolay Gogol. 2005
Author, dramatist and satirist, Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852) deeply influenced later Russian literature with his powerful depictions of a society dominated…
by petty beaurocracy and base corruption. This volume includes both his most admired short fiction and his most famous drama. A biting and frequently hilarious political satire, The Government Inspector has been popular since its first performance and was regarded by Nabokov as the greatest Russian play every written. The stories gathered here, meanwhile, range from comic to tragic and describe the isolated lives of low-ranking clerks, lunatics and swindlers. They include Diary of a Madman, an amusing but disturbing exploration of insanity; Nevsky Prospect, a depiction of an artist besotted with a prostitute; and The Overcoat, a moving consideration of poverty that powerfully influenced Dostoevsky and later Russian literature.Blind Faith
Par Ben Elton. 2012
Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where 'sharing' is valued above all, and privacy is considered a…
dangerous perversion.Trafford wouldn't call himself a rebel, but he's daring to be different, to stand out from the crowd. In his own small ways, he wants to push against the system. But in this world, uniformity is everything. And even tiny defiances won't go unnoticed.Ben Elton's dark, savagely comic novel imagines a post-apocalyptic society where religious intolerance combines with a sex-obsessed, utterly egocentric culture. In this world, nakedness is modesty, independent thought subversive, and ignorance is wisdom.A chilling vision of what's to come? Or something rather closer to home?