Satirical fiction and parodies
Must Have Books Black No More
£9.10
Vintage Publishing Animal Farm
Book SynopsisTHE AUTHORATITIVE TEXT "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. "Mr Jones, the owner of Manor Farm, is a lazy drunk. The animals decide to overthrow him in a revolution that will allow them to run the farm, liberating themselves and creating a new life of equality and freedom. But they have underestimated the pigs. Napoleon and Snowball form an elite and take control for themselves, and the tyranny of the farmer is replaced with another kind of control leaving the animals again subject to a ruthless and cruel authority. Imagined only as Orwell could, this powerful fable is instilled with humour and an underlying urgency that makes this one of the most prescient warnings ever written. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
£8.99
Legend Press Ltd The Square
Book Synopsis ''Quirky and real fun too!'' Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The IndependentJane has the ideal life: loving husband, beautiful house and delightful son. Her fashionable dinner parties are perfect - and so are her secret assignations with her neighbour''s husband, Jay. From Tracey and her New Money' lottery winnings to eccentric artist Philip and his pornographic portraits, the residents of North London''s most privileged enclave The Square are a very satisfied bunch. To raise money for communal fencing, the Residents'' Association decides to hold a Talent Show, produced by Jane and hosted by TV celebrity Alan Makin. But when the show lurches into public disarray, reputations are shattered and everyone has to learn to live with a far less glossy reality than before. ''A much-welcomed comedy of manners'' Jane Green, New York Times Bestselling author''Pin-sharp and wickedly funny'' Adam Foulds, Granta Best of Young British Novelists''A waspish portrait shot through with wit, insight and buckets of glorious bonking'' Jonathan Maitland
£13.62
£12.39
Little, Brown Book Group Divine Comedies: Omnibus 3
Book Synopsis'Uniquely twisted ... cracking gags' - Rob Grant'Frantically wacky and wilfully confusing ... gratifyingly clever and very amusing' - Mail On SundayHERE COMES THE SUNThe sun rises late, dirty and so badly in need of a service it's a wonder it gets up at all. The moon's going to be scrapped soon and a new one commissioned - but they've been saying that for years ... All is not well with the universe, and it's because the mortals are running the show. It's time for a Higher Power to take charge ...ODDS AND GODSIt's a god's life at the Sunnyvoyde Residential Home for retired deities. Everlasting life can be a real drag when all you've got to look forward to is cauliflower cheese on Wednesdays. But things are about to change, because those almighty duffers Thor, Odin and Frey have restored a thousand-year-old traction engine ... and the thing actually works. Then there's Osiris, preparing to set out on a quest that will test his wheelchair to the very limits. Only one thing might save the world. Dentures.Two fantastic comic fantasies - HERE COMES THE SUN and ODDS AND GODS - reissued with brilliant new cover style.Books by Tom Holt: Walled Orchard Series Goatsong The Walled Orchard J.W. Wells & Co. Series The Portable Door In Your Dreams Earth, Air, Fire and Custard You Don't Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But It Helps The Better Mousetrap May Contain Traces of Magic Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages YouSpace Series Doughnut When It's A Jar The Outsorcerer's Apprentice The Good, the Bad and the Smug Novels Expecting Someone Taller Who's Afraid of Beowulf Flying Dutch Ye Gods! Overtime Here Comes the Sun Grailblazers Faust Among Equals Odds and Gods Djinn Rummy My Hero Paint your Dragon Open Sesame Wish you Were Here Alexander at World's End Only Human Snow White and the Seven Samurai Olympiad Valhalla Nothing But Blue Skies Falling SidewaysLittle PeopleSong for NeroMeadowlandBarkingBlonde BombshellThe Management Style of the Supreme BeingsAn Orc on the Wild SideTrade ReviewPraise for Tom Holt: 'Uniquely twisted ... cracking gags' Rob Grant, THE GUARDIAN, 'Frantically wacky and wilfully confusing ... gratifyingly clever and very amusing' MAIL ON SUNDAY, 'Frothy, fast and funny' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY, 'Dazzling' TIME OUT, 'Wildly imaginative' NEW SCIENTIST
£28.47
HarperCollins Publishers Miss Undine’s Living Room
Book SynopsisA brilliantly observed, hilarious and poignant social satire. Wilcox’s Tula Springs novels (there are six and characters overlap) have the narrative litheness of an Armistead Maupin and the piercing tragi-comic insights of Edith Wharton. No scandal has ever rocked Tula Springs, Louisiana, like the discovery one morning of a dead body sprawled beneath L. D. Loraine’s window. No matter that L.D. is 91 and nearly bedridden – the evidence clearly points to him as the murderer of the nasty Mr Versey, his lackadaisical home attendant. Before justice can be done however half the staff of City Hall, a suspicious old curmudgeon of a judge, a home ec teacher, an uninspired dentist, the principal of a disreputable school, several adulterous housewives and even Miss Undine’s living room are implicated… Standing firmly and stubbornly at the centre of the action is the great niece of the accused, Olive Mackie. Outraged on learning that she too has been drawn into the case she decides that desperate action is called for and heads out to restore her reputation and to singlehandedly set things straight in the beleaguered town.Trade ReviewPraise for Wilcox: ‘Like Anne Tyler, Wilcox writes with a compassion best expressed in the willingness to laugh at his characters’ foibles.’New York Newsday ‘Mr Wilcox has real comic genius.’Ann Tyler ‘Wilcox conveys the paradoxical sense that human life may be random and absurd but that to capture that absurdity exactly in just the right words is to conquer it.’Mirabella
£9.49
Aesop Publications Private Schulz
£28.46
Omnia Veritas Ltd Bagatelle per un massacro
£23.00
Swashbuckler Press OverLondon
£16.59
Inkprint Press The Loved One
£13.26
Tellwell Talent Empty
£14.72
IFWG Publishing Australia Year of the Fruit Cake
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£17.09
Raw Dog Screaming Press Freud: The Penultimate Biography
£12.39
Contra Mundum Press The Transformation Book
£20.66
Stanford Court Press Welcome to Groove House
£23.51
Chump Change Candide
£8.68
Artemis Books The Haunting of Walter Rabinowitz
£16.19
Classic Wisdom Reprint The Master and Margarita
£22.29
Ancient Wisdom Publications Lolly Willowes: or the Loving Huntsman
£11.61
Independently Published Delusions
£15.45
Books on Demand Voltaire: Candide ou l'optimisme: Le texte en
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£17.90
Books on Demand Une épopée monumentale
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£14.90
Books on Demand Das Lob der Narrheit. Farbiges Faksimile der
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£144.30
Books on Demand Die Kanzlerin
£13.90
Books on Demand Pepo die Sch(m)eißfliege: Ich bin zu alt für
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£14.90
Books on Demand Die große Chaos AG: Master of Deaster
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£11.10
Books on Demand Dapp 4.0: Emil ohne einen Funken Verstand
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£17.90
Books on Demand Sinnlos-Märchenbuch Vol. 4: - auf sächsisch
£14.91
Books on Demand Stolpern
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£14.04
£11.97
£17.95
Verbivoraciouspress The Sycamore Tree
£13.62
Verbivoraciouspress The Middlemen: A Satire
£13.62
Verbivoraciouspress Knut
£13.62
Independently Published Gothic Violence
£13.38
HarperCollins Publishers If I Survive You
Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZEDazzling' GUARDIANBlistering' THE TIMES''A delight'' DIANA EVANSFiction written at the highest level' ANN PATCHETT''Hilarious, revelatory'' MARLON JAMESAn electrifying, hilarious and deeply moving tragicomic debut novel following a Jamaican family grappling with a new life in the US.What are you?'This is the puzzled question that greets a young Trelawny growing up in a Miami where his racial ambiguity is regarded with confusion and suspicion. It's not just his neighbours, his Jamaican parents Topper and Sanya don't seem to understand him either. Then there's his stubborn older brother Delano, who is determined to secure a better future for his own children, no matter what it takes.As both brothers navigate the challenges littered in their path a woefully unreliable father, racism, recession and even a hurricane they find themselves increasingly at odds. Will they make it through together or must one brother's future come at the cost of the other?STrade Review‘Blistering … Escoffery writes stinging sentences’ The Times ‘All of life is here in unflinching detail: the fragility of existence, the American dream and the road not taken’ The Booker Prize Judges ‘Thrilling … With much tenderness in the gulf between father and son’ Observer ‘So brilliant it stopped me in my tracks … Astonishing’ iNews ‘Brilliantly energetic… his talent feels fully formed and raring to go’ Financial Times ‘Unmissable… rare in that it has the heft and heart of a novel, with the refined finesse of the short story’ Irish Times ‘Surges with the symphonic, imaginative, propulsive energy of Gabriel García Márquez’ Guardian ‘A compelling hurricane of a book’ Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House Profound, tender, and laugh-out-loud hilarious, If I Survive You will knock you off your feet and keep you spellbound to the very last page … A must-read. Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for The Booker Prize ‘Superb… a much-needed new voice’ Percival Everett, author of Erasure 'This I adore… Sumptuous and astute' Diana Evans, author of Ordinary People ‘An elegant meditation on belonging from a powerful new writer’ Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby ‘A dazzling mirror held up to our identity-obsessed time’ Joyce Carol Oates, author of Blonde ‘A gifted, sure-footed storyteller’ New York Times ‘Like nothing you've read before’ Marlon James, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings ‘So damn funny’ Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
£9.49
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Yellowface
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£22.50
Little, Brown & Company Startup A Novel
Book SynopsisFrom the veteran online journalist Doree Shafrir, a sharp, hugely entertaining story of youth, ambition, love, money and technology's inability to hack human nature.
£12.34
Putnam Publishing Group,U.S. A Short Film About Disappointment
Book SynopsisAn ingenious novel about art and revenge, insisting on your dreams and hitting on your doctor, told in the form of 81 movie reviews.
£18.89
Random House USA Inc My Sister the Serial Killer A Novel
Book SynopsisONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • BOOKER PRIZE NOMINEE • “A taut and darkly funny contemporary noir that moves at lightning speed, it’s the wittiest and most fun murder party you’ve ever been invited to.” —MARIE CLAIRE Korede’s sister Ayoola is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead, stabbed through the heart with Ayoola’s knife. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood (bleach, bleach, and more bleach), the best way to move a body (wrap it in sheets like a mummy), and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit. Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome d
£14.00
Random House USA Inc The Heart Goes Last
Book SynopsisFrom the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—in the gated community of Consilience, residents who sign a contract will get a job and a lovely house for six months of the year...if they serve as inmates in the Positron prison system for the alternate months.“Captivating...thrilling.” —The New York Times Book Review Stan and Charmaine, a young urban couple, have been hit by job loss and bankruptcy in the midst of nationwide economic collapse. Forced to live in their third-hand Honda, where they are vulnerable to roving gangs, they think the gated community of Consilience may be the answer to their prayers. At first, this seems worth it: they will have a roof over their heads and food on the table. But when a series of troubling events unfolds, Positron begins to look less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled. The Heart Goes Last
£10.92
Penguin Publishing Group Romeo andor Juliet
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£999.99
Pan Macmillan The Making of Zombie Wars
Book Synopsis'A raucous, hilarious book . . . deadly funny.' Chicago MagazineScript idea #142: Aliens undercover as cabbies abduct the fiancée of the main character, who has to find a way to a remote planet to save her. Title: Love Trek.Script idea #185: Teenager discovers his girlfriend's beloved grandfather was a guard in a Nazi death camp. The boy's grandparents are survivors, but he's tantalizingly close to achieving deflowerment, so when a Nazi-hunter arrives in town in pursuit of Grandpa, he has to distract him long enough to get laid. A riotous Holocaust comedy. Title: The Righteous Love.Script idea #196: Rock star high out of his mind freaks out during a show, runs offstage, and is lost in streets crowded with his hallucinations. The teenage fan who finds him keeps the rock star for himself for the night. Mishaps and adventures follow. This one could be a musical: Singin' in the Brain.Josh LevTrade ReviewAleksandar Hemon is a gifted crafter of sentences . . . a rambunctious farce that includes zombies, a lot of slapstick, comedic violence, allusions to the Bible and Spinoza, and a climactic showdown involving a stoned Desert Storm veteran and a samurai sword . . . brilliant * Guardian *Dreadfully, wrigglingly, antisocially funny . . . Hemon's work often crackles with humour, but it's never been this uproarious. * Spectator *What soon becomes clear is that the jokes in Hemon's novel are not just jokes, but about something larger, whether political, philosophical, or moral. Like all the best comedy, the novel makes it impossible not to sense the melancholy beneath the sullenness and absurdity . . . A troubling, mysterious, lyrical elegy to the world in which the living struggle to maintain their fragile truce with the undead. * New York Review of Books *Exhilaratingly astute. * Sunday Times *What is exceptionally impressive about this novel is the deft control of different registers. It is like watching someone juggle with Sabatier knives. While wisecracking . . . Caustic and tender, enraged and forgiving, giggly and plaintive. * Scotland on Sunday *It's not every day you read a novel that moves effortlessly between references to the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, eruptions of the crazed undead, a po-faced TV image of George Bush, sidewinding literary references . . . The Making of Zombie Wars, the new novel from the Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon, doesn't so much move as whizz the reader from the heights of creative whimsy to the depths of human tragedy - and back again - with barely time to draw breath. * Irish Times *The Making of Zombie Wars doesn't have much to do with the undead, but it's a comic novel with BRAAAINS. That intellectual heft is to be expected . . . But Hemon is also a master at camouflaging the deeper elements of this novel amid its tomfoolery. * Washington Post *Brutal but darkly hilarious . . . Hemon has always had a gift for humor, but he's never written anything as raucously funny and surreal as this . . . Endlessly entertaining . . . The Making of Zombie Wars is crazy in the best sense of the word, and very few authors could have pulled it off. * NPR *Spinozan philosophy meets screwball comedy in this eccentric, subtly experimental novel by Hemon. * Publishers Weekly *A fast-paced, darkly comic tale set in Chicago . . . ends with a transmutational flourish that is deeply and comically satisfying. * Chicago Tribune *
£8.54
Hodder & Stoughton Pride and Prejudice on Social Media: The perfect gift for fans of Jane Austen
Elizabeth Bennet has politely declined your friend request and asks that you do not slide into her DMs again. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, will probably be verified on social media. The characters of Pride and Prejudice are navigating the same struggles on unfamiliar channels - social media channels, to be precise. When authors Claire McGowan and Sarah Day imagined how 'Pride and Prejudice on Social Media' might look, retelling the story through mocked-up social media posts, their post instantly went viral. Have you ever wondered what Austen's most famous couple might be like if it played out online? Well, here is the story in full . . .Perfect for fans of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy . . .
£14.24
Theatre Communications Group Inc.,U.S. Molière, or The Cabal of Hypocrites & Don
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£21.24
McPherson Divine Punishment
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£21.38
Salt Publishing Nutcase
Book SynopsisRead Regional 2019 – ‘Discover brilliant Northern writers’Aidan Wilson’s misfortune is to be hard as nailsIn this darkly hilarious and seriously horrifying book Williams tells the story of Aidan, a vigilante and young offender from one of Sheffield’s roughest estates. At breakneck speed, we see Aidan’s world unravel as he goes from hero to outlaw, fighting against all-comers and the circumstances he can’t escape. But is he a victim or architect of his own demise? A brutal and breathtaking account of living with violence in the English city.There are lots of crime novels, but Nutcase is something different: a novel about crime which isn’t interested in the conventions of crime fiction. The novel is based on a specific Icelandic saga: the Saga of Grettir the Strong.Nutcase explores the lives of people who live with violence on a day-to-day basis – how it shapes and distorts their lives, and ultimately becomes part of the normality that they live with.Trade ReviewA brutal, funny and heart-rending book, it hurtles towards its fate with unremitting pace, energy and cheek. -- Isy SuttieThis is a brutal book. Upon closing the last page, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. But it’s one I’d recommend to anyone. At least, anyone over the age of 18. I hope Williams has more up of this superb writing up his sleeve for us. And maybe next time I’ll figure out how he manages it. * Murder Underground Broke The Camel's Back *This novel by Tony Williams is completely magnificent. It's based on the Icelandic saga of Grettir the Strong and is set on a housing estate in Sheffield. It's horrifyingly, scabrously funny. It's one of the most distinctive and addictively readable prose voices I've encountered since Magnus Mills. If there was any justice it would be as big as Trainspotting. -- Luke KennardRead of the fortnight: Nutcase by Tony WilliamsAidan is a violent thug, but also has a heartbreaking gentleness. We rattle through the plot at 100mph, but everything is described in vivid detail. Everything is ugly and sordid, but everything is captivating and beautiful. And this is achieved seamlessly. Nutcase is one of those books that feels effortless; so natural that you don’t see the brushstrokes behind the masterpiece. I keep going back to reread sections to see how he pulls it off, and I’m honestly still not sure. But I do know that Williams is a writer on fire. There’s no escaping the fact that this is a brutal book. -- Anna Craig * Sheffield Telegraph *A powerful, if disturbing, book that will remain with you long after you finish it. * Blue Book Balloon *One of the most remarkable things about the novel is that it never loses momentum. This isn't easy when one is essentially describing the lives of a bunch of druggie layabouts; it's a milieu that can soon become a deadly bore. That it does not is both a tribute to the author's handling of pace and a vindication of his choice of style; the saga-form really does suit the material. -- Sheenagh Pugh
£8.54
Duckworth Books A Perfect Harvest
Book SynopsisGiven a terminal diagnosis (actually two of them) thirty-five year old Miguel Padilla decides he must accomplish something meaningful before death. He seizes on the idea of donating a kidney to save someone’s life. Then he decides: why stop there? Why not donate… everything? Why not indeed?Trade ReviewReviews of the Transplant Tetralogy 'His wit and style are as compelling as his tightly wound thriller plots, and his thoughts on the world we live in are fascinating and, often, spot on … An awe-inspiring feat' Washington Post'Fitzhugh’s stuff is unique. It’s also alarmingly accurate. That’s what makes it so good' Clarion-Ledger'Bill Fitzhugh just gets better and better' Christopher Moore'A thrilling tale of science run amok … laugh-out-loud send-ups of the madness of modern life' Booklist'Fast, funny, deft action ... You have to experience it, hanging on tight and keeping those pages turning' New Orleans Times-Picayune'Where Bill Fitzhugh earned his Ph.D. in street smarts is a mystery. The wicked sense of humor he must have been born with' Dallas Morning News'Genuinely funny … his satiric eye spares no one' Publishers Weekly
£11.69
