Absurdist Fiction

On his deathbed, Franz Kafka asked that all his unpublished manuscripts be burned. Fortunately, his request was ignored, allowing such works as The Trial to earn recognition among the literary masterpieces of the 20th century. This brilliant translation of The Castle captures comedic elements and visual imagery that earlier interpretations missed.

Mr. Quark is a down-on-his-luck pot smuggler hiding out in the mountains of Columbia with his dog, High Pockets, and a small band of banditos led by the irascible José. Times are lean, and to liven up their exile, José decides to mug a family of American tourists. Among the spoils are physics texts, which launch Mr. Quark on a sidesplitting, boisterous adventure north to California, where he confronts the owner of the books with his own theories.

The Metamorphosis tells the unsettling story of Gregor Samsa’s transformation into something entirely unexpected: “a monstrous insect.” This is not just a novel about physical transformation but also a deep reflection on alienation and loneliness. The listener will not only to enjoy Kafka’s incomparable style but also to confront the vital questions that only a masterpiece can provoke.

FonoLibro, el líder en audiolibros en español, celebra los 400 años de la obra mas importante y universal de nuestra lengua Las Aventuras del Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha, mas conocida por el nombre abreviado de Don Quijote.

Understanding Albert Camus: Key Existential Ideas and How to Apply Them to Everyday Life is a powerful and accessible guide to the enduring wisdom of one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers. Blending philosophy with practical insight, this book explores the major ideas of Albert Camus, including the absurd, revolt, freedom, and moral responsibility, all while showing how his timeless principles can help you live a richer, more authentic life. Whether you’re new to existentialism or looking for a deeper understanding of Camus’s work, this engaging book takes you through key...

Awarded a three-month stipend to travel and work, a Swedish writer flies to Madrid, where in a bar she meets a man with an extraordinary story to tell. In exchange for somewhere to sleep and to hide out for a few days, he is willing to tell her the whole astonishing tale. What follows is an account of fantastic proportions and ingredients: the existence of a shadowy Internet TV show with a certain morality clause, a threat to the storyteller's life, a diabolical nun, and the story of a girl with a missing left thumb.

The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the #1 New York Times bestsellers What If? and Thing Explainer For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally...

A member of the landed gentry, with a seemingly guaranteed income from his estate in the country, Oblomov lives in Petersburg, uninterested in the business that provides his living and barely aware that the revenue is diminishing. Not that he leads a dissolute life of extravagance, balls and entertainment. Instead he is a dreamer, a sybarite, content above all to spend most of the day supine, in bed. The novel opens with Oblomov thus ensconced, attended only by his dirty, grumbling, indolent servant Zahar, who has looked after him since childhood, catering to his every need.

After a domestic terrorist unleashes a dirty bomb in Manhattan in 1970, making the borough uninhabitable, FBI Agent Uli Sarkisian finds himself in a world that is suddenly unrecognizable, as the United States faces its greatest immigration crisis ever: finding housing for millions of its own citizens. The federal government hastily retrofits an abandoned government installation in the Nevada desert. Despite the government's best intentions, as the military pulls out of "Rescue City", the residents are increasingly left to their own devices, and tribal gang warfare fuses with democracy.

In Temporary, a young woman’s workplace is the size of the world. She fills increasingly bizarre placements in search of steadiness, connection, and something, at last, to call her own. Whether it’s shining an endless closet of shoes, swabbing the deck of a pirate ship, assisting an assassin, or filling in for the Chairman of the Board, for the mythical Temporary, “there is nothing more personal than doing your job.”

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude", an imaginary crime that defies definition.

“Darkly funny, surprisingly tender . . . witheringly dead-on.” — Los Angeles Times Named one of the year’s best novels by: Time Salon.com Los Angeles Times NPR/Fresh Air New West Kansas City Star St. Louis Post-Dispatch A comic and heartfelt novel from the #1 New...

Billy Boustany uncovers a mystery that transforms his sleepy midwestern city into a vibrant metropolis of iridescent skyscrapers, wild parties, and eccentric characters. He has the adventure of a lifetime, but it comes with a perilous secret. When Billy shares his discovery with his college student daughter, they explore together until they reach a magnificent city of Native Americans at an ancient site. However, they also encounter a formidable foe—the Knights, a secret society bent on keeping outsiders away.

The First Mann on Mars is a riotous, irreverent romp across the solar system, blending absurd comedy, interplanetary intrigue, and just the right amount of science fiction chaos, perfect for fans of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and anyone who’s ever wondered if Earth’s fate could hinge on a slightly incompetent human, a snarky AI, and a rogue sausage. Derek Mann is, by most reasonable definitions, completely unqualified for space exploration. Yet somehow he has become the First Mann on Mars. With him are Barry, the highly sarcastic and occasionally metallic companion, and Doreen, a ...

Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle--but nonetheless world-changing--invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible. Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep’s utopian influence--until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life.

Winner of the Locus Award and CIBA Mark Twain grand prize, The Man Who Saw Seconds is a gripping speculative fiction thriller, blending absurdist satire and adrenaline-charged suspense, about a New York man who can see five seconds into the future—which changes his life forever; perfect for...

Bonnie Lincoln just wants to be left alone. To come home from work, shut out the voice that reminds her of some devastating losses, and unwind in front of the nostalgic, golden glow of her favorite TV show, Three's Company. When Bonnie wins the lottery, a more grandiose vision—to completely shuck off her own troublesome identity—takes shape. She plans a drastic move to an isolated mountain retreat where she can re-create the iconic apartment set of Three's Company and slip into the lives of its main characters.

Traveling across the landscapes of time and of space, heading always west, and carrying a dead but laconically opinionated crow in her chest, our undead narrator encounters and loses parts of her body and her self in one terrifying, hilarious, and heartbreaking situation after another.

With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness.

A uniquely humorous and deeply profound novel from a legendary stand-up comedian that follows the thoughts of a 1960s third grader during a single day at school. Steven Wright is one of the most significant and influential stand-up comedians in history. Rolling Stone ranked him fifteenth on...