検索キーワード： "c" ユーモア・風刺文学・フィクション

Name’s Jess, and I have superpowers. A lot of them. You’d think that would make life easier. Wrong. Dead wrong. Having many superpowers landed me my first job out of college. (Translation: The government sent suited sweet-talkers with a carrot-and-stick approach to kidnap me and set me to reviewing superpowers.) Job Pros: Reviewing powers pays well, and my family stays off the scary people’s list of things-to-kill-today. Job Cons: It comes with a billion strings attached and a side serving of life-and-death situations.

You've lost your job as a department store lingerie buyer, your car's been repossessed, and most of your furniture and small appliances have been sold off to pay last month's rent. Now the rent is due again. And you live in New Jersey. What do you do? If you're Stephanie Plum, you become a bounty hunter. But not just a nickel-and-dime bounty hunter - you go after the big money. That means a cop gone bad.

Costanza è bellissima, molto elegante, un po' scostante. Piace molto agli uomini ed è ovviamente oggetto di invidia per le donne. Nel suo intimo tuttavia ha un carattere semplice, ama i suoi genitori e la sua gatta. Ha alcuni amici, pochi ma fidati. Il lavoro non la soddisfa, ma l'ambiente è prestigioso e ormai ci si trova bene. Tutto dunque sembra scorrere nella normalità, fino al giorno in cui, in uno dei laboratori di ricerca, viene trovato morente un giovane ricercatore, assassinato da mano ignota.

Parma, fine anni Novanta. Learco Ferrari, laureato in letteratura russa, suona la tromba e lavora part time come magazziniere. Tra una traduzione, una consegna e una prova con la band, cerca anche di scrivere libri. E soprattutto rimpiange i tempi in cui Bassotuba stava con lui, ora che se n'è andata... Nel racconto in prima persona delle minuscole vicende di Learco scorre un vero romanzo picaresco, una piccola epopea del quotidiano cantata con uno stile inconfondibile, diretto, divagante come la vita.

Until quite recently, Ben Parker was considered, by many, one of the finest bakers on the Isle of Man. Indeed, his wife was once the first to concur with that accolade, directly attributing his culinary skills to her expanding waistline, in fact. So it was ironic, Ben couldn’t help but consider, that she ran off with the dietician he’d hired at her behest. And soon, despite having his wonderful daughter Ruby, whom he adored, by his side, he struggled to adjust to life being suddenly and unceremoniously single.

The services of the Eyes Peeled Detective Agency are secured by Sir Barrington Hedley-Smythe following the theft of four rare and exceptionally valuable bronze busts. Sam and the team are soon hot on the case, also happening upon a mysterious spate of missing pets in the process. Then, if their caseload wasn’t busy enough, the shocking theft of the iconic Isle of Man Senior TT Trophy is making global headlines, meaning even more potential work for our intrepid team. Overall, ideal business conditions for an expanding firm of private detectives, you’d imagine? Not so much….

The Crafternoon Sewcial Club’s going from strength to strength, although Charlotte Newman is far from resting on her laurels. When a chance encounter highlights the sorry plight of parents unable to afford school uniforms, Charlotte is itching to develop a solution. And before too long, she’s initiated a clothing exchange program christened ReCyCool. Unfortunately, news of her fledgling enterprise is painfully slow to travel around the Isle of Man. If it has any chance of succeeding, Charlotte will have to arrange something spectacular to get the word out.

It's not that single mum Charlotte Newman is completely and utterly obsessed with crafting, necessarily. Sure, she has balls of wool stashed everywhere like a squirrel stores nuts and more needles than a tattoo parlour. But that doesn't mean she has a problem, right? Finding herself between jobs, Charlotte fills her time teaching crafting skills at the local nursing home. Encouraged by how positively the residents respond, the possibility of a career doing what she adores fills her mind.

Life rarely stands still when you find yourself surrounded by a bunch of loveable crackpots. Certainly, that was the case for Frank and Stan. With their hugely successful "Le Mans" TT now behind them, thoughts turned to their next adventure and, inevitably, also to the topic of their own mortality.

Farley stands out among his Iñupiat neighbors in the Alaska village he calls home, both white and enormous, like the hungry polar bears that wander its streets. Jovial and a little hapless, he works as an investigator for a North Slope oil company, passing the long Arctic winters drinking whiskey with the village’s preacher and playing in the weekly poker game hosted by its matriarch and mayor. When his young daughter visits from thousands of miles away in Portland—where she lives with her mother, who despises him—a shocking moment of violence leaves her dead and Farley injured.

The gang is back for another crazy adventure. The idea of the maverick racer, Dave Quirk, winning a TT was as probable as a seaside donkey winning the Grand National... But he'd been trying to do exactly that. An unlikely victory would also secure the TT Farm for Frank and Stan’s charity, but it was a crumbling, financial black hole and filled with asbestos. Dave and Monty quitting their jobs to work there wasn’t fantastic timing, either. The charity needed a truckload of cash, and fast.

Loki vowed that Asgard would burn. Bohdi Patel, latest incarnation of Chaos, wants nothing to do with Loki's psychotic oath. Stranded on the icy world of Jotunheim with Amy Lewis, his friend Steve Rogers, and an unlikely band of civilians, magical beings, and elite military, Bohdi just wants to keep himself and his friends alive - but when you're Chaos incarnate, even the simplest goals are complicated. If Jotunheim doesn't kill them, Odin will. And if Odin doesn't, the secrets they harbor might.

After being attacked by a serial killer, being saved by Loki - so-called god of mischief, lies, and chaos - being dragged to Alfheim, losing every cent in her bank account, and caring for her grandmother, Amy Lewis has lost her scholarship to veterinary school. But it's all right. She has a plan. If she manages to keep her day job as a receptionist and her night job as a vet tech, she may be able to get her scholarship reinstated and save enough money for the dreaded "miscellaneous fees". Too bad her day boss is unbearable....

Bohdi Patel is keeping the revelation that he is Chaos incarnate a secret - and handling the revelation about as well as one would expect. He's in a downward spiral: losing his lease, totaling his car, and trying to keep everyone he cares about at arm's length. Veterinarian Amy Lewis is wondering what happened to the funny, flirty, curious Bohdi she knew in the land of the Norns. He's become moody and sometimes cruel. She is definitely glad that she didn't become romantically entangled with him...most of the time.

Loki, god of chaos, gave Amy Lewis all his memories and one request before he saved the universe: "Remember for me." Amy knows that Loki will find her, one way or another...eventually. But as the weeks have ticked by, she's lost hope. Called into the FBI headquarters to identify a magical artifact, Amy gets the opportunity to find Loki for herself. In doing so, she tips the scales of not one but two universes and has to choose for herself what form she wants Chaos to take.

Denied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful boyfriend, Cat decides that she needs a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry.” But when the budding social influencer finally gives in to impulse, buying a Burmese python from a local pet shop, she sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire events that culminates in one of the most memorable denouements in recent fiction, one that ensnares her entire family, from her eco-obsessed parents, Ottilie and Frank, to her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd.

The Glugs of Gosh is a book of satirical verse written by Australian author C. J. Dennis, published by Angus & Robertson in 1917. The book's 13 poems are vignettes of life in a fictional kingdom called Gosh, inhabited by an arboreal race (that is to say, climbers) known as Glugs. Dennis describes the Glugs as a "stupid race of docile folk".

When Rita McCall discovers her husband’s affair, there isn’t a lick of surprise—not a single tear or broken heart. Just a wife and mother who’s over it and ready to watch her twenty-three-year marriage go up in flames. Sticking close, thick as thieves since childhood, Rita’s unfailingly loyal cousins Jemel and Sharae become her lifeline. They stand beside her as she contemplates a new career and navigates the murky waters of being a preacher’s daughter disgraced by scandal.

Tom is a bit of a waster...Turning the wrong side of t30 hit him pretty hard, and what with having no money, no love life, no decent job prospects to speak of, and with debt coming out of his ears, well, the future wasn’t exactly looking too rosy. Tom knew he wanted more out of life and now was the right time to make a fresh start, but, in typical fashion, he didn't have a plan or even the faintest idea of where to begin. So, logically, he'd start by quitting his current job and see what turned up in the process!

In the novel Who's Who When Everyone Is Someone Else, the character "C. D. Rose" searches an unnamed middle-European city for the long-lost manuscript of a little-known writer named Maxim Guyavitch. That search was fruitless, but in The Blind Accordionist, "C. D. Rose" has found the manuscript—nine sparkling, fable-like short stories—and he presents them here with an (hilarious) introduction explaining the discovery, and an afterword providing (hilarious) critical commentary on the stories, and what they might reveal about the mysterious Guyavitch.