Showing results for "Histories" in Literature & Fiction

Clive Hapgood is feeling stuck. The private school he teaches at is consuming his life, no thanks to wretched headteacher Julian Crouch. The gentle country life Clive envisaged has stifled him and left his marriage on the brink. What he needs is a holiday - something to remind him and Helen what life used to be like. But when things don't go to plan, and an incident at school begins to weigh heavy on his head, Clive's life starts to unravel in front of him. Has he got it in him to turn things around, whatever the cost? After all, it's his own time he's wasting....

Cat's Cradle is Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a little person as the protagonist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a vision of the future that is at once blackly...

The very liberal Kirks are throwing a party. For Howard Kirk, liberal sociology lecturer whose deluded sense of heroism has him moving seductively around the university campus, the net must be perfectly cast: ‘if you want to have something that’s genuinely unstructured, you have to plan it carefully.’ Kirk embodies the contradictions of the era’s intellectual and political climate. As he navigates complex relationships with his wife, his students and his colleagues, he pursues personal and professional agendas under the guise of progressive thought.

Microdoses of the straight dope, stories so true they had to be wrapped in fiction for our own protection, from the best-selling author of But What if We're Wrong? A man flying first class discovers a puma in the lavatory. A new coach of a small-town Oklahoma high school football team installs...

An unparalleled collection of Full-Cast BBC Drama adaptations of Sean O’Casey’s powerful, poignant works One of Ireland’s foremost playwrights, Sean O’Casey is renowned for his groundbreaking plays depicting the lives of poor, working-class Dubliners struggling with social and political...

*A Short History of the Apocalypse: your comprehensive guide to the challenges of Armageddon* Join Frankie Boyle (Saturday Night Swindle; Celebrity Vengeance) and Charlie Skelton (head writer: Ad Naseum; David Suchet's News Sachet) as they debrief time traveller and bon vivant from the late 21st...

Everett and Kincaid present a fictitious chronicle of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond's desire to pen a history of African Americans—his and his aides' belief being that he has done as much, or more, than any American to shape that history. An epistolary novel, A History follows the letters of loose-cannon congressional office workers, insane interns at a large New York publishing house, and disturbed publishing executives, along with homicidal rival editors, kindly family friends, and an aspiring author named Septic.

The basis for the classic film starring James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rock Hudson, Giant is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edna Ferber's sweeping generational tale of power, love, cattle barons, and oil tycoons, set in Texas during the first half of the twentieth century. When...

A foundling of mysterious parentage, Tom Jones is brought up by the benevolent and wealthy Squire Allworthy as his own son. Tom falls in love with the beautiful and unattainable Sophia Western, a neighbor’s daughter, whose marriage has already been arranged. When Tom’s sexual misadventures around the countryside get him banished, he sets out to make his fortune and find his true identity.

A brilliantly funny look at the tumultuous recent past from the Pulitzer Prize–winning humorist. Remember when everything was going to go to hell when Y2K struck? That didn’t happen, right? But what did happen? To provide a little perspective on a really messed-up millennium (so far), the...

Linda Smith lives in her East London home, where her daily routine involves dozing through Thought for the Day, filing and cross-referencing the pizza leaflets that come through her door, and updating her limited edition 'Songbirds of Great Britain' porcelain collection. That is, when she's not managing the chaos caused by her flamboyant, sugar-loving live-in builder Chris; dealing with the demands of her morbid, crumbly boned Welsh neighbour Betty; or taking regular jaunts chauffeured by Worra, the philosophical Nigerian cabby.

The History of England from Henry IV to Charles I, by a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant historian. N.B. There will be very few dates in this History! Jane Austen wrote The History of England in 1791, at the age of just 15, as a satirical parody of 18th-century historical textbooks. It pokes fun at the apparent impartiality of contemporary historians and contains more opinions about the monarchs’ relative characters than any facts or dates. The History of England was not published until 1922, more than a century after Austen’s death.

Three of the ever-popular Sheridan’s finest plays Born in Dublin in 1751, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was a theatre impresario, statesman and the most celebrated playwright of his time. His brilliantly witty comedies of manners have become part of the literary canon, and are frequently performed...

“You can’t help but fall in love with Lynsay Sands!” —New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd Lynsay Sands—the perennial USA Today and New York Times bestselling author well-known and loved for her delightful novels featuring the Argeneau family of vampires—once again shows...

A Parody Outline of History is hilarious but scathing anti-war satire of The Outline of History (1920) by H. G. Wells, written by Donald Ogden Stewart, in the styles of popular authors of the day, and first published in 1921 only a year after World War I ended. This ear-popping audio dramatization was produced and voiced by Joe Bevilacqua (aka Joe Bev) - enhanced with music and sound effects - in the style of the popular performers of 1920s and 30s, including The Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Jack Benny, W.C. Fields, Gary Cooper, and John Wayne.

When his teacher sets the class a History project, Sam cannot choose which bit of History he prefers, so decides to do all of it. His version of History is a rumbustious collection of half remembered facts, assembled roughly in the right order, and glued together with alarmingly confident misunderstanding. Sam takes us from Ancient Egypt right up to Last Week with the flair of a bright eyed nine year old.

Penguin Classics presents Jonathan Swift's inventive classic, Gulliver's Travels, adapted for audio and now available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Hugh Laurie, star of the hit TV series House. 'Fifteen hundred of the Emperor's largest horses, each...

In this satirical alternative history, Professor Jeronimo Herodotease and his team of documentary filmmakers and reenactors revivify the dark days of the Grim Depression and Amerika's descent into dictatorship. In the chaos and strife that followed the assassination of President-elect Frankie van Rosenvelt, General Jackson and a cadre of Forcist-minded cockroaches swarmed the stage, gnawed away at democratic norms, and declared martial law under the guise of restoring "Law and Order."

They say a single moment can change your life. For Cornish artist Sennen Kellow, that moment comes with the discovery of her late gran’s epic love story—a story that happened years before she ever met Sennen’s grandfather. Now, as Sennen digs into her grandmother’s past and discovers a forgotten beach, a hidden poem and a love that blazed brightly before Fate intervened, her search for answers leads her on a fated journey of her own. One which sees history repeating itself, and Sennen faced with a chance at the kind of once-in-a-lifetime love her gran experienced.

Prepare for the most uproariously grim tour of Tudor England ever recorded! Gilbert Abbott A'Beckett's classic satire skewers the so-called "golden age" of English monarchy, revealing the Tudors as they truly were: a parade of tyrants, schemers, and royal disasters who treated their subjects like pawns in a deadly game of power.