Showing results by publisher "Phoenix BookS" in Literature & Fiction

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, bestselling author, and failed Wheel of Fortune contestant Dave Barry has questions—lots of them—and sets out to find the answers. If you've ever wondered things such as, "Just how does Oprah have the power to turn a 1957 Hotpoint toaster manual into a #1 bestseller?" or "What makes people want to eat animals they would never consider petting?" then this book is for you. Barry fans will appreciate this best-of collection of his syndicated columns since those likely went out with the recycled newspapers.

Meet the residents of Gammage, New York, a town on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, when inspiration strikes. Why not go native, and open a casino? With Not Enough Indians, actor, writer, producer, and former Saturday Night Live cast member Harry Shearer joins the ranks of such comedian/authors as Steve Martin and Michael Palin with a brilliantly funny, whip-smart satire of greed, collusion, distrust, and betrayal in the halls of Washington and the casinos of Native America.

If there's even a smidgen of Scrooge in your psyche, just say, "Bah-Humbug!" and laugh at this satire of the treacly best seller, The Christmas Box. Among the variations on the theme are: The Christmas Vox, in which a young man finds himself having phone sex with Ms. Santa Claus; The Christmas Jury Box, a touching memoir by a sequestered O.J. juror who misses her fruitcake; and The Christmas Box Lunch, the touching tale of a caterer's X-mas. You'll be pleased to learn that the true meaning of Christmas is receiving.

This is the story of Bronx-born David Kokolovitz and his hilarious experiences with sex, Shakespeare, and the South Pacific. We follow David on his journey away from his Bronx home in search of an acting career. In a comedy of opposites, New Yorker David ends up living in the Deep South where he lands his first acting job at a southern Shakespeare repertory company. Just as the hazards of too-tight tights and too-long soliloquies become too much for him, World War II conveniently breaks out and he moves on to entertain the troops.

"Isn't so and so a snob?" he asks. "She won't even admit she liked Grease." Looking for an author who ponders the imponderable, expresses the inexpressible, describes the indescribable, and leaves no burning issue of American popular culture or world concern unexamined? Well, you'll find him in Mark Leyner. On this recording, Leyner, one of the most gifted and original young American writers around, reads 6 prose pieces from his first published book.

What would it take to lure a serious young newswoman from a respectable New England paper to the most notorious supermarket tabloid in America? The call of journalistic adventure? How about a promise of a salary that's triple what she's making? En route to her new job at the Weekly Galaxy, Sara Joslyn stumbles across a bloody corpse in a Buick Riviera. A big story? Not at this paper. The problem is compounded when the dead man vanishes, Buick and all.

Sick of working your way to the top? America's most popular humorist, Dave Barry, shows you the alternate route, giving you tools to become the head of a major corporation in roughly a week. His surefire tips, from what shirt to wear to how to deal with pesky subordinates, will keep you laughing all the way up the corporate ladder.

America's most beloved writer, Lilian Jackson Braun, author of twenty-four Cat Who... mysteries is now the subject of a mystery herself. In this spoof by one of her most ardent admirers, her beheaded body has been discovered in the men's room of a gay bar in Lower Manhattan. The police are baffled, and so it is up to Braun's eccentric writer friend, James Q. (Qafka), and his Siamese cats Ying-Ton and Poon-Tang to solve the ghastly mystery.

Subtitled "512 boorish, insensitive, and socially obnoxious pointers for leading a simple, self-centered life," this little book is a hilarious parody of the best seller with a similar name. Here are just a few of the gems contained within. Number 24: Give little kids clothes for their birthdays. Number 101: Argue with everybody. Number 326: Leave the alarm on when he doesn't have to get up. This guide is bound to bring at least 512 laughs.

Connor McKnight, former acolyte of film, Zen, and Japanese literature, is not unaware that these avocations are wildly different from his present occupation as a fledgling celebrity journalist. Meanwhile, his longtime girlfriend, the fashion model Philomena, seems curiously remote and soon decamps for the West Coast. Then there's the sister with whom he shared a flamboyantly addled childhood and his best friend, a monkishly neurotic and militantly vegetarian writer.

The place: New York. The time: the early 1980s. The scene: the red-hot comedy clubs, very late at night. The cast: five would-be stand-up comics, their egos, and their girls. The result: a downright hilarious novel about trying to be funny for fame, fortune, and fornication. This is Bill Maher's report from the front, a stageside table at the birth of the comedy boom. You'll laugh in all the right places.

This sequel to Beaches picks up after the tragic death of Bertie Barron, who has entrusted the care of her eight-year-old daughter, Nina, to her best friend, the dazzling entertainer Cee Cee Bloom. But life in the Hollywood spotlight never prepared Cee Cee for this role: mother to a little girl she barely knows. For several years, it all seems to work for her: career, motherhood, and even high-profile romance with a marvelous and unlikely lover.

Introducing Sissy Hankshaw—an almost flawlessly beautiful small-town girl with big-time dreams—who hitchhikes her way into your heart, your hopes, and your sleeping bag. Along her travels, meet such unforgettable characters as Bonanza Jellybean and the smooth-riding cowgirls of Rubber Rose Ranch; the unfortunately named Chink, a lascivious guru of yams and yang; Julian, an asthmatic esthete and husband by disposition; and Dr. Robbins, a preventive psychiatrist and reality instructor.

If the Watergate scandal was a national nightmare, then maybe the Bill Clinton scandal was a national wet dream, and who better to narrate it than Joe Eszterhas, screenwriter of such lurid films as Basic Instinct and Showgirls? In American Rhapsody, Eszterhas takes us through the events that threatened to topple a president and left most of the nation's citizens with, at the very least, a bad taste in their mouths. Here, Washington and Hollywood do more than just flirt with each other—they share the same bed.

Guy Grand—billionaire by birth, entrepreneur by avocation, and thoroughly unpredictable—is a grand guy. He "keeps his hand in"—buying into and revolutionizing industries ranging from championship boxing to African safaris. Is he a crackpot, an eccentric, or perhaps a visionary with a goal of social redemption?

Successful romance novelist Nat Noland has just had his cage severely rattled. After receiving an email directly from God, he just can't seem to get anywhere with his new novel. In Just Desserts, the grand poobah of American comedy, Carl Reiner, will have you holding your sides like never before. Follow Nat on his romps around New York City, as he tries to make sense of this divine intervention. Reminiscent of Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth, Just Desserts sparkles with the slapstick comedy and madcap hijinks that Reiner fans have loved for decades.

Mid-19th century Britain—and America—come to life in this darkly humored classic by Charles Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit the elder is an old man whose death will result in a vast inheritance—but for whom is the question. Though his avaricious and sycophantic relatives hope to benefit from his demise, Martin has other plans. He raises an orphan, Mary Graham, who looks after him and draws an income—so long as the old man lives. But young Martin—named for his grandfather who has raised him along with Mary—falls in love with the orphan, which threatens to spoil the elder Chuzzlewit's plans.

Shipwrecked on an unknown island, Lemuel Gulliver finds himself not merely a fish out of water, but a very big fish in a small pond. He awakens to find himself tied to the ground by the natives of Lilliput—tiny people small enough to fit in his pocket and play hide and seek in his hair!

In this fiendishly original novel, Mark Leyner is a leather-blazer-wearing, Piranha 793-driving, narcotic-guzzling monster who has potential rivals eliminated by his bionically enhanced bodyguards, has his internal organs tattooed, and eavesdrops on the erotic fantasies of Victoria's Secret models–fantasies that naturally revolve around him.