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When Maud Marsh flings herself into George Benson’s cab in Piccadilly, he starts believing in damsels in distress. But when George traces his mysterious traveling companion to Belpher Castle, home of Lord Marshmoreton, things become severely muddled—the scene for the perfect Wodehouse comedy of errors.
Supporting one and a half families is not the ideal situation for a man who makes his living as a writer... unless he comes up with a book so certain to be a bestseller that he doesn’t have to worry about money ever again. (Or maybe Mary will find a fella of her own who can start contributing to the support.)
So Tom’s surefire bestseller, The Christmas Book is begun, and Tom’s troubles begin. His editor quits, Ginger doesn’t want to get married, Mary won’t give him a divorce, his new editor announces she’s pregnant (and quits), the woman in an iron lung enters his life, and a third editor begins work on the book. Then things really get complicated.
From the creator of Family Guy and director of Ted comes a hilarious first novel that reinvents the Western.Mild-mannered sheep farmer Albert Stark is fed up with the harsh life of the American frontier, where it seems everything and anything can kill you: Duels at high noon. Barroom brawls. Poisonous snakes. Cholera-infected drinking water. Tumbleweed abrasion. Something called “toe-foot.” Even a trip to the outhouse. Yes, there are a million ways to die in the wild, wild West, and Albert plans to avoid them all. Some people think that makes him a coward. Albert calls it common sense. But when his girlfriend dumps him for the most insufferable guy in town, Albert decides to fight back—even though he can’t shoot, ride, or throw a punch. Fortunately, he teams up with a beautiful gunslinger who’s tough enough for the both of them. Unfortunately, she’s married to the biggest, meanest, most jealous badass on the frontier. Turns out Albert has just discovered a million and one ways to die in the West.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sOa-2EhbTU
From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook comes the uproarious and poignant story of one very fat man and one very small country
Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA (don’t even ask), and patriot of no country save the great City of New York. Poor Misha just wants to live in the South Bronx with his hot Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a U.S. visa are lost.
Salvation lies in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.
With the enormous success of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Gary Shteyngart established himself as a central figure in today’s literary world—“one of the most talented and entertaining writers of his generation,” according to The New York Observer. In Absurdistan, he delivers an even funnier and wiser literary performance. Misha Vainberg is a hero for the new century, a glimmer of humanity in a world of dashed hopes.
Ed Topliss has a problem.
Two and a half years ago, he was approached by a publishing executive of dubious credentials, who said, “If you can write a grammatical letter, you can write a sex novel.” Since then, Topliss (who also writes under the pseudonyms of Dirk Smuff and Dwayne Toppil) has written one sex novel each month for $1,000 per book. According to his formula, that’s 10 chapters of 5,000 words each with one sex scene in each chapter — or 280 various sexual acts in his entire career.
But Ed Topliss has reached an impasse. Twenty-five years old, the only son of a cocktail waitress, a graduate of Monequois College, the father of a young girl named Elfreda who was conceived before matrimony, Topliss is haunted by an unflagging desire to be a serious writer. Beset by personal and financial crises, he suddenly discovers he cannot write on schedule. His wife leaves home, his fantasy life starts to merge with his real life, and indeed it seems as if his whole future hangs in jeopardy.
In Adios, Scheherazade, Donald E. Westlake, best known for his novels of comic suspense (The Spy in the Ointment, The Hot Rock), turns his attention to a new area. With the same delightful style that won him the Mystery Writers Award for the best novel of 1967, Westlake creates a touching, funny, thoroughly enjoyable portrait of what happens when a small-time writer tries to “make it” in the world of big-time pornography.
Originally, this work was posted on the Guardian newspaper website, in at least 94 installments from November 1999 to October 2001. Set between the novels Adrian Mole: Cappucino Years and Adrian Mole & the Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Наши дни. Семьдесят километров от Москвы, Сергиев Посад, Троице-Сергиева Лавра, Московская духовная семинария – древнейшее учебное заведение России. Закрытый вуз, готовящий будущих священников Церкви. Замкнутый мир богословия, жесткой дисциплины и послушаний.
Семинарская молодежь, стремящаяся вытащить православие из его музейного прошлого, пытается преодолеть в себе навязываемый администрацией типаж смиренного пастыря и бросает вызов проректору по воспитательной работе игумену Траяну Введенскому.
Гений своего дела и живая легенда, отец Траян принимается за любимую работу по отчислению недовольных.
Boston real estate agent William Collins knows that his habits are slipping out of control. Due to obsessive-compulsive daily cleaning binges and a penchant for nightly online cruising for hookups, he finds his sales figures slipping despite a booming market. There’s also his ongoing struggle to collect the rent from his passive-aggressive tenant and his worries about his best friend, Edward, whom he’s certainly not in love with. Just as he decides to do something about his life, he meets Charlotte and Samuel, wealthy suburbanites looking for the perfect city apartment. “Happy couple,” he writes in his notes. “Maybe I can learn something from them.” What he ultimately discovers challenges his own assumptions about real estate, love, and desire; and what they learn from him might unravel a budding friendship, not to mention a very promising sale.
Full of crackling dialogue delivered by a stellar ensemble of players, Alternatives to Sex is a smart, hilarious chronicle of life in post-traumatic, morally ambiguous America—where the desire to do good is constantly being tripped up by the need to feel good. Right now.
A Wall Street Journal and Booklist Best Mystery of 2012
From the acclaimed author of The Gone-Away World, blistering gangster noir meets howling absurdist comedy as the forces of good square off against the forces of evil, and only an unassuming clockwork repairman and an octogenarian former superspy can save the world from total destruction.
Joe Spork spends his days fixing antique clocks. The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun” Spork, he has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism. His client, Edie Banister, is more than the kindly old lady she appears to be—she’s a retired international secret agent. And the device? It’s a 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch-nemesis. On the upside, Joe’s got a girl: a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts, savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun…
Literary Awards:
• The Kitschies for Red Tentacle (Novel) (2012)
• Arthur C. Clarke Award Nominee for Best Novel (2013)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxJn0Wp9nBc
„Angelų klubas“ – vieno garsiausių šiuolaikinių brazilų rašytojų Luiso Fernando Verissimo satyrinė istorija apie keistus pasirinkimus, mirtį ir nuostabias gastronomines patirtis. Nevengdamas tamsaus humoro autorius pasakoja apie dešimt pasiturinčių vyrų, džiaugsmingai puoselėjančių apsirijimo nuodėmę. Visi jie priklauso gurmanų klubui ir kartą per mėnesį susitinka pasimėgauti itin prašmatniomis vakarienėmis. Po dvidešimties klubo gyvavimo metų lyderis miršta nuo AIDS, o kitus narius sieję ryšiai ima braškėti. Mėginant išsaugoti vakarienių tradiciją priimama keistoko mažakalbio virėjo pagalba – jo puoduose ir keptuvėse sukuriami šedevrai išlepusius gurmanus pavergia ir priverčia ryžtis sunkiai suvokiamiems dalykams.