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Santa Responds: He's Had Enough...and He's Writing Back!
by Santa ClausEver wonder what Santa does with all those letters? (And all those cookies?) After a particularly long, cold night staring at nine smelly reindeer butts, the old man lets loose with the real answers to those stupid, whiny, hard-to-read letters from kids. Turns out, we really do get what we deserve.Dear Billy,I know you honestly believe that the good deeds you rattled off represent your behavior for the entire past year rather than the activities that occurred during the two hours leading up to the writing of this letter. Two hours of good behavior hardly justifies a new Playstation, let alone a trip to Disney World!!Your pal,Santa
At My Mother's Knee...: And Other Low Joints
by Paul O'GradyPaul O'Grady is one of Britain's very best loved entertainers. He is known and adored by millions, whether as the creator of the acid-tongued Blonde Bombsite, Lily Savage, the presenter of the fantastically successful, award-winning Paul O'Grady Show on Channel 4 or the massive hit ITV show, For the Love of Dogs.Now, in his own unique voice, Paul O'Grady tells story of his early life in Irish Catholic Birkenhead that started him on the long and winding road from mischievous altar boy to national treasure. It is a brilliantly evoked, hilarious and often moving tale of gossip in the back yard, bragging in the corner shop and slanging matches on the front doorstep, populated by larger-than-life characters with hearts of gold and tongues as sharp as razors. At My Mother's Knee features an unforgettable cast of rogues, rascals, lovers, fighters, saints and sinners - and one iconic bus conductress. It's a book which really does have something for everyone and which reminds us that, when all's said and done, there's a bit of savage in all of us...
The Wisdom of Uncle Kasimir
by Gabi Czerniak William Czerniak-JonesEvery family has its eccentric uncle, and the Czerniaks are no exception. Kasimir Czerniak was an enigmatic Polish aristocrat whose passage into manhood at the age of twelve was determined by his ability to hold a heavy sword over the neck of a puppy without dropping it. He served in World War II as a spy, became a millionaire in England, and later retired to Switzerland, where he lived in comfort with his dog, Anna Karenina the third. And then, one day, he vanished without a trace. All that remained of his life was a mysterious old trunk full of his papers: mostly correspondence with family members in need of advice. The Wisdom of Uncle Kasimir presents these weird and wonderful findings, as compiled by Kasimir's grandniece and nephew. Uncle Kasimir's advice is never what you'd expect (his English is a little unreliable, and it's not uncommon for him to mistake a headache for a haddock) but it's always helpful-if hilariously unorthodox. He recommends elaborate Napoleonic military strategy for a nephew who is bullied out of his paper route, and he steers a shy would-be-ladies man to Stanislavksy's Method. In addition to his priceless correspondence, The Wisdom of Uncle Kasimir includes his ambitious attempts at fiction; his patents for absurd inventions; a baffling series of reviews of highway rest stops; and an inspired collection of common mistakes for non-native English speakers ("MARGARINE/ MARJORIE - Marjorie is very kind woman next door. MARGARINE one does put on toast. Do not confuse."). Funny, surprising, and irresistibly entertaining, The Wisdom of Uncle Kasimir is a book like no other.
The Dog Dialed 911: A Book of Lists from The Smoking Gun
by The Smoking GunFrom the creators of the hugely popular web site thesmokinggun.com, the most hilarious and outrageous true stories uncovered in ten years (almost) of the world's funniest investigative reporting.
I Was Howard Hughes
by Steven CarterPart Great Gatsby, part This Is Spinal Tap, Steven Carter's hilarious debut paints a fictional portrait of a biographer, his notorious subject, and the illusions we hold about fame and fortune. Howard Hughes embodied the American dream: envied by powerful men, desired by beautiful women, Hughes lived his life larger than all who surrounded him and yet died an emaciated recluse. All of which makes him the perfect subject for red-hot biographer Alton Reece. Riding high on the wave of previous astonishing successes, Reece sees Hughes as more than simply a name worth the seven-figure advance he's demanding from his publisher. He finds in Hughes a kindred spirit of greatness, a man misunderstood and beaten down by jealous inferiors. But even as Reece struggles to 'know' his subject, his own rapidly unravelling life keeps finding unexpected ways to intrude. With a deft comic touch and an astounding narrative style, Steven Carter's novel creates a picture of a Hughes that might have been, a biographer that can't separate his subject from his own visions of grandeur, and a public that demands its heroes be larger than life-if only so they can be more easily torn down. A graduate of the Centre for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, Steven Carter currently teaches at Georgetown College in Kentucky. I Was Howard Hughes is his first novel. 'Sly debut novel' Publishers Weekly
Machine-Age Comedy (Modernist Literature and Culture)
by Michael NorthIn this latest addition to Oxford's Modernist Literature & Culture series, renowned modernist scholar Michael North poses fundamental questions about the relationship between modernity and comic form in film, animation, the visual arts, and literature. Machine-Age Comedy vividly constructs a cultural history that spans the entire twentieth century, showing how changes wrought by industrialization have forever altered the comic mode. With keen analyses, North examines the work of a wide range of artists--including Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Marcel Duchamp, Samuel Beckett, and David Foster Wallace--to show the creative and unconventional ways the routinization of industrial society has been explored in a broad array of cultural forms. Throughout, North argues that modern writers and artists found something inherently comic in new experiences of repetition associated with, enforced by, and made inevitable by the machine age. Ultimately, this rich, tightly focused study offers a new lens for understanding the devlopment of comedic structures during periods of massive social, political, and cultural change to reveal how the original promise of modern life can be extracted from its practical disappointment.
Mr. Bean's Definitive and Extremely Marvelous Guide to France
by Robin Driscoll Tony HaaseEngland is wet, and Mr. Bean is fed up. He dashes off a note to the queen to let her know he won't be available to chat for a few days, indulges in a few fantasy drawings of himself as a tanned man in swimwear, and sets off for the south of France. Mr. Bean has a new video camera (although he had intended to buy a kettle) and records every detail of his journey, culminating in his trip to the Cannes Film Festival, where the results of his home video will be screened. This is the story recounted in the hilarious Mr. Bean's Holiday, which releases September 28. But all the while Mr. Bean kept a diary of his creative peregrinations, and this book is the definitive and marvelous result. Here he turns his hand to travel writings and extreme scrapbooking, and has even developed his own rating system (a range of Post-it notes saying everything from "excellent" and "as good as fish and chips" to "a pile of poo"). Also included are souvenirs, menus, sugar wrappers, postcards, and photographs that he collected en route. The first Bean movie, Bean, grossed $255 million worldwide and was an instant surprise hit in America. Much more than a straight tie-in, Mr. Bean's Definitive and Extremely Marvelous Guide to France is a hilarious stand-alone book that will appeal to anyone who loves Mr. Bean, no matter how young or old.
100 Of The Best Curses and Insults In Italian: A Toolkit for the Testy Tourist
by Kirsten HallFor When You Need Just the Right Word
100 Of The Best Curses and Insults In Spanish: A Toolkit For The Testy Tourist
by Rachel PerezFor When You Need Just the Right Word
13 Little Blue Envelopes (13 Little Blue Envelopes Ser. #1)
by Maureen JohnsonEverything about Ginny will change this summer, and it’s all because of 13 little blue envelopes…
30-Something and Over It: What Happens When You Wake Up and Don't Want to Go to Work . . . Ever Again
by Kasey EdwardsKasey Edwards has everything she's always wanted: a successful career and the lifestyle and assets to match. But she's empty and uninspired and doesn't want to go to work . . . Ever again. Terrified that she'll spend the rest of her life wearing pinstripes and pretending to care about 'adding value', Kasey embarks on a quest to rediscover passion and purpose in her life and work. We follow her on a journey of self-discovery as she looks for meaning in a puppy's eyes, begs her gynaecologist to cure her existential crisis, dabbles with the Law of Attraction and braves ten days of silent meditation. Meanwhile, her best friend Emma, who is experiencing a similar crisis, concentrates her search in the fields of casual sex and vodka shots. This irreverent yet poignant memoir will make you question our definition of the 'perfect life', laugh at the absurdity of the modern workplace and be warmed by the story of a friendship. Rise above your office cubicle for a moment and join Kasey in asking life's big questions - and find the courage to listen to your answers.
50 People Who Buggered Up Britain
by Quentin LettsWhich fifty people made Britain the wreck she is? From ludicrous propagandist Alastair Campbell to the Luftwaffe's allies, the modernist architects, it's time to name the guilty.Quentin Letts sharpens his nib and stabs them where they deserve it, from TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh, the dumbed-down buffoon who put the 'h' in Aspidistra, to the perpetrators of the 'Credit Crunch'. Margaret Thatcher ruptured our national unity. The creators of EastEnders trashed our brand over high tea. Thus, he argues, are the people who made our country the ugly, scheming, cheating, beer-ridden bum of the Western world. Here are the fools and knaves and vulgarians who ripped down our British glories and imposed the tawdry and the trite. In a half century we have gone from end-of-Empire to descent-into-Hell.
50 Ways to Find a Lover
by Lucy-Anne Holmes50 Ways to Find a Lover is a hilarious, fun and unputdownable romantic comedy, from Lucy-Anne Holmes.I feel like a failure. It's now been 351 days since I had sex. That's a carnal drought. If Bob Geldof knew about it he'd hold a concert. Sarah Sargeant has been single for three years and nine months. She has just spent five months plucking up the courage to ask out a balding man with a paunch who works in her local pub. The gentleman in question informed her that he would rather stay in and watch the Narnia movie on DVD. Her pride has not just been bruised, it's been disembowelled. And she vows it's the last time she will ever reach out to a member of the opposite sex. But her family and friends have other ideas. They enter her into a reality TV show against her will, persuade her to go speed dating and even more radically, they encourage her to start a blog. Suddenly Sarah Sargeant is on a mission: a mission to explore 50 Ways To Find A Lover.
Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
by Twenty MajorIt's just days after the Folkapalooza concert and having saved the world, Twenty Major is looking forward to some R&R but little does he know that his murky past is about to catch up with him ... Notorious Dublin gangster Tony Furriskey is calling in his marker. Years ago he helped Twenty and Jimmy the Bollix out of a hole and the time has come for them to repay the favour ... or end up swimming with the Dublin Bay prawns.Tony's youngest daughter, is about to marry a man he thoroughly disproves of and it's down to Twenty and Jimmy to make sure the wedding doesn't happen. They must follow the young man and his pals to Barcelona where the stag weekend is taking place, infiltrate the stag party and make sure, one way or another, that the wedding doesn't happen.But will Twenty's Barcelona past catch up with him? Which one of the group finds true love at last? And can they put down the cheap mojitos long enough stop the wedding?In the city of Gaudi and Picasso, Twenty, Jimmy, Stinking Pete and Dirty Dave are more gaudy and pickarse-o as they try and enjoy the Mediterranean sun while getting the job done.
The Abstinence Teacher (Readers Circle Ser.)
by Tom PerrottaA sharp, funny and beautifully observed satire about the disturbing influence of the Christian right from one of America’s most cherished authors.
The Accidental Family: Mum's The Word ... (Sophie Mills Ser. #2)
by Rowan ColemanPerfect for fans of Jojo Moyes, Marian Keyes and Sophie Kinsella, this is a funny, warm-hearted novel from the author of The Memory Book, which was featured in the Richard & Judy book club 2014'I immediately read The Memory Book and it's WONDERFUL ... I'm so happy because she's written other books and its so lovely to find a writer you love who has a backlist' Marian KeyesSix months ago, city girl Sophie Mills gave up everything to move to Cornwall. All to be with the man she thinks she loves, and his two daughters who she knows she loves. But adjusting to life as a semi-permanent mother in the countryside isn't quite as easy as Sophie imagined it would be. Designer shoes aren't nearly so readily available - not that she ever has any occasion to wear them - and her best pair of vintage Manolo's have already found their way into the girls' dressing-up box. Sometimes Sophie doesn't recognise herself; which most of the time makes her happy but every now and then scares her to death. The hardest thing of all is making that final commitment to actually move in with Louis and the girls - she's been the longest paying guest of the Avalon B&B, St Ives in the history of the establishment. And as she tries to adapt to country life, her newly adopted family and discovering more about Louis's past, she begins to wonder if she's got what it takes to make it all work...
Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (The\adrian Mole Ser. #8)
by Sue Townsend None'Effortlessly hilarious. Brilliant satire and tragedy' The TimesCelebrate Adrian Mole's 50th Birthday with this new edition of THE EIGHTH and FINAL BOOK in his diaries, as Adrian continues to struggle with his love life, endures a painfully awkward school play and contemplates the unsettling prospect of applying genital poultice.--------------------------- Sunday 1st July NO SMOKING DAY A momentous day! Smoking in a public place or place of work is forbidden in England. Though if you a lunatic, a prisoner, an MP or a member of the Royal Family you are exempt. Adrian Mole is thirty-nine and a quarter. He lives in the country in a semi-detached converted pigsty with his wife Daisy and their daughter. His parents George and Pauline live in the adjoining pigsty. But all is not well. The secondhand bookshop in which Adrian works is threatened with closure. The spark has fizzled out of his marriage. His mother is threatening to write her autobiography (A Girl Called Shit). And Adrian's nightly trips to the lavatory have become alarmingly frequent . . . 'A tour de force by a comic genius and if it isn't the best book published this year, I'll eat my bookshelf' Daily Mail, Books of the Year 'Hilarious. Comic gold' Sunday Times 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran
After the Break
by Penny SmithThe brilliant second novel from GMTV’s Penny Smith. A sequel to ‘Coming Up Next’, Katie Fisher’s back in front of the cameras, but not exactly on the sofa.
The Age of Innocence: The Wild And Wanton Edition, Volume 1 (Macmillan Collector's Library #194)
by Edith WhartonEdith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Age of Innocence, is both a poignant story of frustrated love and an extraordinarily vivid, delightfully satirical record of a vanished world. This edition features an introduction by award-winning novelist, Rachel Cusk.As the scion of one of New York’s leading families, Newland Archer has been born into a life of sumptuous privilege and strict duty. A sensitive, intelligent young man, he still respects the rigid social code by which his class lives. As he contemplates his forthcoming marriage to the striking and equally well-born May Welland, he gives thanks that she is ‘one of his own kind’. But the arrival of the Countess Olenska, a free spirit who breathes clouds of European sophistication, makes him question the path on which his upbringing has set him. As his fascination with her grows, he discovers just how hard it is to escape the bonds of the society that has shaped him.
All At Sea: One man. One bathtub. One very bad idea.
by Tim FitzHighamAll At Sea is a celebration of the epic absurd, an attempt to explain just how out of hand things can become from a very simple starting point. The book follows the author's death-defying 200-mile journey in his antique Thomas Crapper bath - not just across the Channel, but around Kent - right up to the tremendous reception and huge media attention which awaited him under Tower Bridge. Tim met the Queen, and his bath now resides in the National Maritime Museum of Great Britain.
And Another Thing ...: Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As heard on BBC Radio 4 (Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Ser.)
by Eoin ColferDiscover the sixth book in the ludicrously inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, as broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and featuring original cast members including Simon Jones, Geoff McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey and Sandra Dickinson.Arthur Dent led a perfectly ordinary, uneventful life until the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy hurled him deep into outer space. Now he's convinced a cruelly indifferent universe is out to get him. And who can blame him?His life is about to collide with a pantheon of unemployed gods, a lovestruck green alien, a very irritating computer and at least one very large slab of cheese. If, that is, everyone's favourite renegade Galactic President can get him off planet Earth before it is destroyed . . . again.'A triumph, fabulous. Colfer has given us a delight' Observer'I haven't read anything in a long time that made me laugh as much' The Times'Chock-full of fanciful, inventive one-liners and asides, brimming with a burning sense of the ridiculousness of life' Independent on Sunday'The best post-mortem impersonation I have ever read' Mark Lawson, Guardian
Andy Rooney: 60 Years Of Wisdom And Wit (Americana Ser.)
by Andy RooneyChairs. Neat people. Ugliness. War. Over six decades of intrepid reporting and elegant essays, Andy Rooney has proven a shrewd cultural analyst-unafraid to question the sometimes ridiculous, often surprising facts of our lives. Rooney's great gift is telling it straight, without a hint of sugar coating, but with more than a grain of truth and humor. His take on America? "It's just amazing how long this country has been going to hell without ever having got there.” On food? "There's more dependable mediocrity than there used to be.”Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit brings together the best of more than a half-century of work (including long-out-of-print pieces from his early years) in an unforgettable celebration of one of America's funniest men. Like Mark Twain, Finley Peter Dunne (Mister Dooley) and Will Rogers, Andy Rooney is a classic chronicler of America, a writer for the ages.
Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit
by Andy RooneyAndy Rooney is a classic chronicler of America and her foibles. Over more than six decades of intrepid reporting and elegant essays, Rooney has told it to us straight and without a hint of sugar coating, but with more than a grain of truth and humor.Andy Rooney: 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit brings together the best of more than a half-century of work (including long-out-of-print pieces from Rooney's early years) in an unforgettable celebration of one of America's funniest men. With selections from his beginnings as a correspondent for The Stars and Stripes during WWII to his arrival at CBS to his more than thirty-year stint on 60 Minutes, this book is a must-have for any Rooney fan.
Animal Instincts: From the author of the Miss Underhay series!
by Nell DixonClodagh Martin is fond of her celebrity sister Imogen, but in small doses. So when she turns up drunk at Rainbow's End, Clodagh's animal sanctuary, announcing she's in trouble and staying for a long visit, Clodagh's not exactly delighted. She has enough problems right now. The business is broke, and there's been a worrying wave of vandalism. Is someone really trying to ruin her? A big property magnate, bad-lad Jack Thatcher, has been showing a rather strong interest in Clodagh lately. But is it her or her assets he's after?
Are you there Vodka? It's me, Chelsea (Miniature Editions Ser.)
by Chelsea HandlerChelsea Handler is a woman on a mission. She's smart, sassy and not afraid to speak her mind. From an early age Chelsea knew exactly what she wanted and even in the trickiest of situations, she's never one to pass up an opportunity. Like the time she convinced her third-grade class she was shooting movies with Goldie Hawn on location in the Galapagos just to get them to like her, or when she spent the night in a women's prison, contemplating an affair with the inmate who killed her own sister. Chelsea it seems, has done it all, and a whole lot more ... Any mishaps along the way just spur Chelsea on further. Whether she is being dry-humped by a sumo masseur, dumped by her Big Red experiment or kicked out of a London restaurant with her pants down, Chelsea is always armed with an unshakeable disregard for rules and is incapable of leading a quiet life.Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea is an entertaining memoir-in-stories that will have you rolling around with laughter.