Showing titles in Satire

When your fairy godmother threatens to enslave you with a curse - when a malevolent piper solves your rat problem but steals your children - when you seek revenge on the prince who turned you into a frog - who can you turn to in your hour of need? The band of scoundrels known far and wide as the Bastard Champions - the swashbuckling trio who travel a world of legend, seeking adventure and righting wrongs - as long as there's enough gold to be earned.

Loved and appreciated by all with whom he works, Harding lives an ordered, regular life in his protected religious environment. Then one day, a young reformer feels he has uncovered a mismanagement of funds and Harding is held to blame. The accusation comes as a shock not only to Harding himself but also to the cathedral community. It then comes to wider notice when the cause is taken up by a national newspaper.

A full-cast dramatization of the classic Russian novel. Satan and his retinue, including a seven foot tall skinny fellow with a pince-nez , an obnoxious cigar smoking black cat and a beautiful naked vampire visit Moscow in the 1920s, taking with them chaos and insanity where ever they go.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe, read by Richard Goulding. It is the 1980s and the Winshaw family are getting richer and crueller by the year: Newspaper-columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it isn't; Henry's turning hospitals into car...

Gogol's phantasmagorical tale about a man whose nose decides to abscond and begin living a life of its own is one of the earliest and most celebrated examples of absurdist literature. Apart from its recondite humor, it is remarkable for Gogol's skill in characterization and his ability to paint a picture of contemporary life in Russia in a few verbal brushstrokes.

Brought to you by Penguin. Over 1 million Discworld audiobooks sold – discover the extraordinary universe of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld like never before. The audiobook of Monstrous Regiment is narrated by Katherine Parkinson, star of The IT Crowd and Here We Go. BAFTA and Golden Globe...

When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.

Nine-year-old Meena can’t wait to grow up and break free from her parents. But, as the daughter of the only Punjabi family in the mining village of Tollington, her struggle for independence is different from most. Meena wants fishfingers and chips, not chapati and dhal; she wants an English...

The Nose is a satirical short story by Nikolai Gogol written during his time living in St. Petersburg. During this time, Gogol's works were primarily focused on surrealism and the grotesque, with a romantic twist. Written between 1835 and 1836, The Nose tells the story of a St. Petersburg official whose nose leaves his face and develops a life of its own. The Nose was originally published in The Contemporary, a literary journal owned by Alexander Pushkin.

Mark Russell & Shannon Wheeler's faithful yet irreverent approach to the Bible made their book God Is Disappointed in You a modern cult classic. Now, by popular demand, they turn their attention to the best parts left out of the canonical Bible, including the Midrash, the Apocrypha, Gnostic Gospels, and more! And if you thought the Bible had some weird stuff in it....

Winner of the Man Booker Prize, The Line of Beauty is a classic novel about class, politics and sexuality in Margaret Thatcher's 1980s Britain. There was the soft glare of the flash – twice – three times – a gleaming sense of occasion, the gleam floating in the eye as a blot of shadow, his...

All's fair in love and lore. Joonie is living in a fantasy—at least that’s what people tell her. A copywriter by day and fanfic auteur by night, Joonie continues to date and dump disappointing men in search of a happily ever after. But every potential suitor seems to have one flaw in common: They can't hold a candle to her book boyfriend, Ryke. The protagonist of her favorite fantasy romance series (and, notably, a sexy merman), Ryke is a symbol for the life Joonie craves and the kind of relationship she deserves. So with a book always in her back pocket, why would she ever settle for less?

Susy Branch (Tavi Gevinson) and Nick Lansing (Adam DiMarco) aren’t into each other, but they share a similar problem. Susy is a down-on-her-luck socialite who doesn’t want to get a real job, and Nick is a struggling writer who’s tired of tutoring the kids of the one percent. All of their wealthier friends are getting married, to seemingly lucrative results. So, Susy and Nick devise a plan: have a wedding.

The immaculate Psmith - newly emancipated from an unwilling participation in the fish business - donates an umbrella (not his own) to a damsel in distress; and to further press his suit, he follows her to Blandings Castle - seat of that amiable and boneheaded peer, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth - in the guise of an absconded Canadian poet. And, for the best possible motives, Psmith is also embroiled in a plot to steal Lady Constance Keeble's fabulous diamond necklace - an endeavour which brings him into conflict with both professional rivals.

It’s the 1st of June 1914 and Hugh Stanton, ex-soldier and celebrated adventurer is quite literally the loneliest man on earth. No one he has ever known or loved has been born yet. Perhaps now they never will be. Stanton knows that a great and terrible war is coming. A collective suicidal...

To say that Augusten Burroughs has lived an unusual life is an understatement. From having no formal education past third grade and being raised by his mother’s psychiatrist in the seventies to enjoying one of the most successful advertising careers of the eighties to experiencing a spectacular downfall and rehab stint in the nineties to having a number one bestselling writing career in the new millennium, Burroughs has faced humiliation, transformation and everything in between.

With this satirical novella, English schoolmaster Edwin A. Abbott provides both a mathematical fantasy and pointed observations on the social hierarchy of Victorian culture. The narrator, “a Square,” resides in the fictional two-dimensional world of Flatland. When he is visited by a sphere, he is suddenly faced with proof of the existence of three dimensions and is forced to see the limitations of his world.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation by Christopher Reason of the satirical Czech novel by Jaroslav Hasek. This tale charts the exploits during the First World War of 'European Forrest Gump', Svejk, in his progress through the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian army. Good-natured and garrulous...

Then We Came to the End is about how we spend our days and too many of our nights. It is about being away from friends and family, about sharing a stretch of stained carpet with a group of strangers we call colleagues.

Bloomsbury presents The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, read by Aja Naomi King, Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Bahni Turpin and Heather Alicia Sims. * THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * ‘One of the biggest reads of the summer, and for good reason’ INDEPENDENT ‘Enormously fun . . . A...