Showing results for "In Person" in Satire

Acclaimed author of The Adults Alison Espach’s short story "In-Depth Market Research Interviews with Dead People" is an at-once hilarious and heart-breaking portrait of a dead woman’s marriage and the Volvo that stood in the middle of it all.

The first of Kafka’s three great novels, The Man Who Disappeared (America) follows the picaresque adventures of Karl Rossman, who is banished to America following a family scandal. Upon his arrival, Karl immediately happens upon his uncle, and from there follows a pattern of wandering, adoption and expulsion as Karl marches inexorably on towards the interior of the continent. With its blitheness and comical moments, The Man Who Disappeared is perhaps the most charming of Kafka’s works.

Mark Twain, incensed by increasing religious and political imperialism around the globe, characterizes a large nation's invasion and occupation of a smaller country as the "strange and over-showy onslaught of an elephant upon a nest of field mice, on the pretext that the mice had squeaked an insolence at him conduct which 'no self-respecting government could allow to pass unavenged' as Mr. Chamberlain said. Was that a good pretext in a small case when it had not been a good pretext in a large one?- for only recently Russia had affronted the elephant three times and survived...."

David Brenner draws on highlights from his "Laughter to the People" tour's stand-up material to show how humor can give us the power to transcend personal and world problems, from the unavoidable, like aging, to the uncontrollable, like war. His observations cover a wide range of issues, including fear of flying, going bald, marriage and divorce, pets, politics, terrorism, losing and gaining weight, money problems, and religion.