検索キーワード： ユーモア・風刺文学・フィクション

In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents) and spent years chasing after a dishevelled, homeless 'artist' - all with her young child in tow. Now she is forgetting things, mixing up her maid's wages and leaving the gas on all night, and her grown-up daughter is faced with the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her.

The second in this hilarious cozy mystery series features a woman who is a talent agent for showbiz animals and discovers that she has a talent herself: solving crimes. Kay Powell, theatrical agent to non-human animals, is babysitting - that is, birdsitting - her client, a parrot named Barney, on the set of his new TV show, Dead City. When the show’s charismatic star is shot in his trailer between scenes, the only eyewitness to the crime is - you guessed it - Barney.

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina's relationship with her obsessive best friend and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention....

Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is the now-classic novel of two women in the 1980s; of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women - of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Rut - -who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder.

Surprised to find himself reborn as a rambunctious golden-haired puppy after a tragically short life as a stray mutt, Bailey's search for his new life's meaning leads him into the loving arms of eight-year-old Ethan. During their countless adventures, Bailey joyously discovers how to be a good dog. But this life as a family pet is not the end of Bailey's journey. Reborn as a puppy yet again, Bailey wonders - will he ever find his purpose?

Alexander McCall Smith, best-selling author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, has turned his hand to humour. The delightful result is a creation of comic genius. For in the unnaturally tall form of Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, we are invited to meet a memorable character whose sublime insouciance is a blend of the cultivated pomposity of Frasier Crane and of Inspecteur Clouseau's hapless gaucherie.

Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.

Der "Hundertjährige" ist zurück - jetzt endlich die Fortsetzung des Weltbestsellers! Was als beschauliche Heißluftballonfahrt zum 101. Geburtstag geplant war, endet für Allan Karlsson auf hoher See, wo er von einem nordkoreanischen Schiff aufgefischt wird. Als er erfährt, dass der Kapitän in geheimer Mission für Kim Jong-un unterwegs ist, nimmt das nächste wahnwitzige politische Abenteuer für Allan Karlsson seinen Lauf.

Rimbach verliebt sich in Julia - eine Frau, die eigentlich eine Nummer zu groß für ihn ist. Um sie zu erobern und sich als ihr Traummann zu inszenieren, ruft er das Projekt "Conquest" ins Leben. An dessen Ende steht eine Hochzeit. Oder ein Halbmarathon. Oder beides. Ein wunderbarer Roman über einen Mann, den eine Frau und der Blick in den Spiegel auf Trab bringen.

Drunk customers. Shoplifting raccoons. Otherworldly visitors. As night shift clerk at the 24-hour gas station at the edge of town, Jack has pretty much seen it all.

In "Bud Spencer - Die unglaubliche Reise zu meinem Filmhelden nach Rom 2011" erzählt der Protagonist, der Österreicher Tom Moore, höchstpersönlich und auf amüsante Weise, wie er im Jahre 2011 von seinem persönlichen Filmidol Bud Spencer nach Rom in dessen Domizil eingeladen wurde und was er dort erlebte.

One of the most popular novels released in the 1920s on the hedonistic Jazz Age, Gentlement Prefer Blondes was declared "the great American novel" by Edith Wharton. Told from the point of view of a blonde flapper named Lorelei in the form of her diary, this novel follows her adventures around the world in search of a gentleman companion who can elevate her position within society. As Lorelei cycles through multiple men, she discovers things about herself and the way that she lives her life in retrospection....

"Animal Farm", a fairy story, is a short novel by George Orwell. It describes a farm where animals revolt, take over and drive out men. It is an apologue written in the form of an animal fable, but also a dystopia. In this novel, Orwell offers a satire of the Russian Revolution and a critique of the Soviet regime, particularly Stalinism, and beyond that, authoritarian regimes and totalitarianism. The book was named one of the 100 best English-language novels written from 1923 to 2005 by Time magazine.

Ça veut dire quoi, « snooze » ? Snooze, c’est une belle gang de colocs. Ouais, mais qu’est-ce que ça signifie ? C’est une fille qui ARRIVE PAS à se lever À L’HEURE . Peux-tu être plus claire ? C’est une rentrée au cégep qui est une CATASTROPHE. C’est aussi un cochon nain qui se dédouble. C’est un groupe d’amis qui finit par se retrouver à la rue. Bref, c’est un appart où il se passe ben des affaires, quoi ! OK, j’ai rien compris. Voilà : c’est pas mal ça, Snooze ! Pis au pire, t’as qu’à lire la série. Je te GARANTIS que tu t’ennuieras pas…

From the outside, Harold is an average seven-year-old third grader growing up in the 1960s. Bored by school. Crushing on a girl. Likes movies and baseball—especially the hometown Boston Red Sox. Enjoys spending time with his grandfather. But inside Harold’s mind, things are a lot more complex and unusual. His thoughts come to him as birds flying through a small rectangle in the middle of his brain. He visits an outdoor cafe on the moon and is invited aboard a spaceship by famed astronomer Carl Sagan.

On doctor's orders, Bertie Wooster retires to sample the bucolic delights of Maiden Eggesford. But his idyll is rudely shattered by Aunt Dahlia who wants him to nobble a racehorse. Similar blots on Bertie's horizon come in the shape of Major Plank, the African explorer, Vanessa Cook, proud beauty and 'moulder of men', and Orlo Porter, who seems to have nothing else to do but to think of sundering Bertie's head from his body.

How fortunate that Stilton Cheesewright drew Bertie Wooster, the red-hot favourite, in the Drones Club annual darts tournament. Had he not he would surely have beaten Bertie to a pulp and buttered the lawn with him. Stilton does not like men trifling with his fiancée Florence Craye's affections. In the event Florence would seem to prefer Percy Gorringe, stepson of L.G. Trotter.

An all-expenses-paid autumn break in the mountains at a luxury art retreat? As a broke single mom, I can't believe my luck. Until my boss's whirlwind son crashes my private cabin. Charlie is my work problem, the rockstar Creative Director with a Kickstarter addiction and a charmed life. The man I can't stand… or stop thinking about. For two years, I've hidden my feelings. But as we explore the experimental art classes, small-town magic, and the wilderness, truths are exposed. Heat turns up and fake dating turns real.

Au départ, entre Caleb et Aya, ce n'est qu'une histoire d'amitié. Vraiment ? Tout est tracé d'avance pour Aya N'Bagra. La jeune femme se laisse dicter ses choix autant dans sa vie personnelle que professionnelle et ne trouve pas grand-chose à redire à la situation. Sauf quand il s'agit de son mariage, là, ça coince. Son angoisse monte et toute sa vie est remise en question en une fraction de seconde. L'amour, est-ce vraiment ça ? Caleb Jones, lui, laisse une place de choix aux sentiments dans sa vie : selon lui, rien n'est plus beau qu'une famille soudée ou un couple heureux.

A hilarious and heartwarming short story told from the perspective of a baby genius—because someone has to make sense of this ridiculous world. Sage is seven months old. She drools. She babbles. She’s stuck in a highchair that squeaks when she thinks too hard. But behind those wide eyes and wobbly limbs lies a mind sharper than most adults on their second cup of coffee.

Dell Danvers is barely keeping it together. She’s behind on rent for her studio apartment (formerly a walk-in closet), she’s being plagued by perpetual stomach pain, and her younger sister, Daisy, is in a coma at a hospital that wants to pull the plug. Freshly unemployed and subsisting on selling plants to trust fund kids, Dell impulsively starts a 24-hour livestream under the username mademoiselle_dell to fundraise for private life support for Daisy.

TV writer Caroline Neumann is thirty-four and mired in professional envy and self-hatred. Even Harry, her usually supportive therapist husband, thinks it’s time for her to press pause on her career ambitions and focus on getting pregnant, despite Caroline’s serious ambivalence about having children. When Caroline accidentally stumbles on Harry’s patient session notes and offhandedly mentions what she finds in a meeting with a producer, the momentum of Hollywood takes over.

Barry Gray isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but that hasn't stopped him from becoming the middle-aged CEO of Atlas Wake, the corporation behind the most addictive energy drink in the world. After an awkward date, Barry is "X-ed"-a fate worse than getting canceled...just days before the company's biggest beverage launch.

Darcy’s life turned out better than she could have ever imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife Joy runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake. But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library.

From Grant Ginder, the bestselling author of The People We Hate at the Wedding, comes a novel of impending millennial middle age that is part love story, part tragic comedy. Five parties over the course of two decades bring six college friends together, exploring the ways we can run from and cling to our friends in love, life, and death.

Meet Sam, an adjunct professor at a public university in Baltimore who takes a last-minute gig at the private liberal arts college down the road. Overworked and underpaid, her life is a blur of back-to-back classes, side hustles, and job applications as she attempts to claw her way toward a full-time position. But her already precarious existence is thrown into disarray when she runs into her former grad school adviser, Dr. Tom Sternberg, on campus.

The Last Love Note will make listeners laugh, cry, and renew their faith in the resilience of the human heart—recognizing that while you may never stop loving the one you lost, you can always find love again.

Mr. Keating is an extraordinary teacher: brilliant, dedicated, and possibly a few pages ahead in a book no one else is reading. He’s a magician able to enchant fourteen-year-olds into a love of writing and literature. Yet no student has lived up to the promise of their potential more than Clara Hightower. Over the course of three decades, Clara is a kindergarten thief, a high school genius, a Silicon Valley celebrity, and an animal rights activist turned terrorist.

Life with a living partner can be tricky. But the #1 dating app in the world, LIV, offers a solution! Date a corpse. Romantic relationships mean having tough conversations and rough patches. An embalmed body, though? Well, they’ve got no opinions, desires, or complex emotional responses. What was once taboo is now a booming business. At the heart of this deranged app are three living, breathing humans who all feel quite differently about the new world they’ve built.

Anthony Wistern es más rico de lo que cualquiera podría imaginar. Lo tiene todo: una esposa despampanante, un puñado de hijos muy fotogénicos, un castillo francés, una mansión en Cotswold, una plétora de amantes, una inclinación a tomar atajos morales... Por desgracia para él, también está muerto. Ahora, con su fortuna como inminente herencia, todos los miembros de la familia caen bajo sospecha. Y es entonces cuando todo se viene abajo...