検索キーワード： ユーモア・風刺文学・フィクション

Walter Starbuck, a career humanist and eventual low-level aide in the Nixon White House, is implicated in Watergate and jailed, after which he (like Howard Campbell in Mother Night) works on his memoirs. Starbuck is innocent (his office was used as a base for the Watergate shenanigans of which he had no knowledge), and yet he is not innocent (he has collaborated with power unquestioningly and served societal order all his life). He represents another Vonnegut Everyman caught amongst forces he neither understands nor can defend.

Our heroes are dressed in homemade uniforms and armed with prop phasers but soon find themselves defending their hotel and convention center against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Suddenly, all of their useless knowledge about particle physics and old Star Trek episodes has genuine real-world applications! And while hotel employees and regular civilians are dying left and right, our Trekkies summon strength and courage by emulating their favorite starship-voyaging characters

Wodehouse weaves his wit through a wide collection of terrifying aunts, miserly uncles, love-sick friends, and unwanted fiancés. Bertie gets into a bit of trouble when one of his pals, Bingo Little, starts to fall in love with every second girl he lays his eyes on. But the soup gets really thick when Bingo decides to marry one of them and enlists Bertie's help. Luckily, he has the inimitable Jeeves to pull him out of it.

Okay, I admit it - I didn’t do it. Yet. This is normal, right? I mean, just because everyone I know has talked like they’ve already done it doesn’t mean that they're telling the truth - right? It's not like I'm asking for that much. I don't need the perfect guy. I don't need candlelight or roses. Honestly, I don't even need a real bed. The guys I know complain that girls are always looking for Mr. Right - do I have to wear a sign that says I'm only looking for Mr. Right Now?

Love and Freindship was written when Jane Austen was just 14. Now updated in this sparkling satire by Beth Andrews, the story follows Isabel and her daughter, Marianne, when they attend the theatre in Bury St Edmunds and encounter Isabel’s old friend, Laura Lindsay, who gives her journal to Marianne to read. It is a revelation to the younger woman as she reads of one hilarious, madcap romantic escapade after another.

Stormy Weather centers on the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. The devastation of the storm has attracted crowds of voyeurs and impostors to Florida. Drawn by the chance to prey on Andrew's victims, misfits like the murderous ex-con Snapper and the dangerously seductive Edie find easy targets for their insurance scams. They're not prepared, though, when they meet their opposition, led by a hoary ex-governor who smokes toads.

Both hilariously funny and deadly accurate, Carl Hiaasen's novel will take you into a Florida that is far from the frilly palms and pink flamingos of its post cards.

A boy wins $100,000 in a box of Frosted Flakes - only to discover that claiming the winnings may unravel his family. An acclaimed ambulance driver seeks the courage to follow his heart and throw it all away to be a singer-songwriter. A school principal unveils a bold plan to permanently abolish arithmetic. A new arrival in heaven, overwhelmed by infinite options, procrastinates over his long-ago promise to visit his grandmother. We meet a vengeance-minded hare. We learn why wearing a red T-shirt is the key to finding love; how February got its name; and why the stock market is sometimes just...down.

A side-splitting and heartbreaking tale, now a major Hollywood movie starring Tina Fey, Connie Britton and Jason Bateman. Poor Judd Foxman returns home early to find his wife in bed with his boss - in the act. He now faces the twin threats of both divorce and unemployment. His misery is compounded further with the sudden death of his father. He is then asked to come and 'sit Shiva' for his newly deceased parent with his angry, screwed-up and somewhat estranged brothers and sisters in his childhood home.

As Constantinople is being pillaged and burned in April 1204, a young man, Baudolino, manages to save a historian and a high court official from certain death at the hands of crusading warriors. Born a simple peasant, Baudolino has two gifts: his ability to learn languages and to lie. A young man, he is adopted by a foreign commander who sends him to university in Paris. After he allies with a group of fearless and adventurous fellow students, they go in search of a vast kingdom to the East.

After discovering just how filled with magic, intrigue, and adventure the parahuman world of being an undead American can be, Fredrick Frankford Fletcher did exactly what was expected - he became a certified parahuman accountant. Myths and legends, as it turns out, are not so great at taking appropriate deductions and keeping their receipts, and Fred is more than happy to return to a life others view as woefully dull, expanding his accounting business to cater to various monsters.

Rhiannon is your average girl next door, settled with her boyfriend and little dog...but she's got a killer secret. Although her childhood was haunted by a famous crime, Rhinannon's life is normal now that her celebrity has dwindled. By day her job as an editorial assistant is demeaning and unsatisfying. By evening she dutifully listens to her friend's plans for marriage and babies whilst secretly making a list. A kill list.

Chichikov, a mysterious stranger, arrives in a provincial town with a bizarre but seductive proposition for local landowners. He proposes to buy the names of their serfs who have died but who are still registered on the census, saving their owners from paying tax on them. But what collateral will Chichikov receive for these "souls"?

Night Vale is a small desert town where all the conspiracy theories you've ever heard are actually true. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge. Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked 'KING CITY' by a mysterious man in a tan jacket. She can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and no one who meets this man can remember anything about him.

Can two people who have never met make a marriage work? Popular dating site Sociality thinks so, and is marrying London lad Adam to California girl Jessica to prove it. What better way to show that your 'love algorithms' work than to put two complete strangers together in an expensive publicity stunt? But, as livewire Jess and lazybones Adam quickly discover, just because a computer says you're the perfect match, it doesn't make it so!

Meg Langslow's eccentric parents have a new hobby: growing roses and entering them in highly competitive shows. Dad's gardening skill and Mother's gift for selecting and arranging the blossoms should make them an unbeatable team - and Meg is relieved they've taken up such a safe, gentle hobby. She even volunteers to help when the Caerphilly Garden Club sponsors its first annual rose show. But after a few hours of dealing with her parents' competitors, Meg sees trouble....

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.

A savage and hilarious satire, Gulliver's Travels sees Lemuel Gulliver shipwrecked and adrift, subject to bizarre and unnerving encounters with - among others - quarrelling Lilliputians, philosophising horses, and the brutish Yahoo tribe that change his view of humanity - and himself - forever. Swift's classic of 1726 portrays mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified, and finally, bestial species, presenting us with a comical yet uncompromising reflection of ourselves.

Among the cast of this groundbreaking saga are the lovelorn residents of 28 Barbary Lane: the bewildered but aspiring Mary Ann Singleton; the libidinous Brian Hawkins; Mona Ramsey, still in a'60s trance; Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, forever in bright-eyed pursuit of Mr. Right; and their marijuana-growing landlady, the indefatigable Mrs. Madrigal.

Mo Collins, the reluctant hero, has sailed around the country on board the replica pirate ship, the Viva Ancora, and now he finds himself only miles from his childhood home. But now the world has gone to hell. Hordes of naked, blue, biting zombies have flooded the now dead Alabama lake town. Mo and his only surviving shipmate, Crow, are surviving. They fish and watch the monsters roam the night; seeking untainted flesh and leaving a disgusting mess in their wake. But when a lone survivor stumbles upon Mo and Crow they gain a new crew member but also find much needed direction.

Unlike the rest of her family, Maggie Walsh has always done the right thing - that is until the day she leaves her husband and takes refuge with her friend Emily, a screenwriter in Los Angeles - a city where even the palm trees are skinny.