Absurdist Humor

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.

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...

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 ...

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy with a normal life, married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. They're even about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie's doing okay—until people start dropping dead around him, and everywhere he goes a dark presence...

The biggest joke in existence is that all of it was rejected by the Peer Review Committee. Universe Under Review is an absurd, sharply satirical take on evolution, told through the universe’s hopeless struggle against a catastrophically cautious Peer Review Committee. Every breakthrough that shaped reality is rejected on principle. The Peer Review Committee hated all of them. Particles? Too unstable. Stars? Too dramatic. Cells? Too experimental. Multicellularity? Absolutely not. Skeletons, lungs, warm blood? Denied for budgetary reasons. Fire? Introduces catastrophic risk without ...

From “weird, scary, ingenious” (The New York Times) stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, an instant New York Times bestselling, brutally honest, and “laugh-out-loud funny” (Jennette McCurdy, #1 New York Times bestselling author) memoir about show business, mental health, and the comfort of...

Richard Brautigan's world is one of gentle magic and marvelous laughter, of the incredibly beautiful and the beautifully incredible. Trout Fishing in America is a pseudonym for the miraculous. A journey that begins at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin statue in San Francisco's Washington Square, that wanders through the wonders of America's rural waterways, and that ends, inevitably, with mayonnaise. Funny, wild, and sweet, Trout Fishing in America is an incomparable guidebook to the delights of exploration.

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.

Four years. One mistake. Infinite trouble. After settling into married life and something dangerously close to respectability, time-hopping duo Stewart and Frankie thought their chaotic days were behind them. But when a sharp-eyed journalist blackmails them over a small historical hiccup (involving a guard, the Tower of London, and perhaps one too many jokes), they’re forced back into the madness they once barely escaped. Their mission? Obey her bizarre demands—or have their very existence unravelled. With help from their old friends—headstrong Anne Boleyn, the ever-enigmatic alien ...

You didn’t mean to open this book. You probably paused. Maybe frowned. Maybe smirked. Maybe thought, “That’s dumb.” And yet… here you are. This book exists for one reason: curiosity always wins. If You Read This Book You’re Gay is not about sexuality, identity, or labels. It’s about the strange, universal human impulse to click things we were explicitly told not to click. It’s about headlines that hijack your attention, social rules that collapse under scrutiny, and the quiet internal voice that says, “I just want to see what this is.” Written in a sharp, self-aware, ...

From the author of The Remains of the Day, here is a novel that is at once a gripping psychological mystery, a wicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study of a man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control. The setting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renowned pianist, has come to give the most important performance of his life. Instead, he finds himself diverted on a series of cryptic and infuriating errands that nevertheless provide him with vital clues to his own past.

Marine biologist Nate Quinn is in love with the majestic ocean-dwelling behemoths who have been singing their haunting song for twenty million years. But why do the humpback whales sing? That's the question that has Nate and his crew filming, charting, and recording every whale that crosses...

All George ever wanted to do was make the world laugh. That's why its strange that he grew up to be a sad clown in a local circus. When he's fired from his job because the world no longer wants to be reminded of their sorrows, he finds himself spiraling into places he no longer recognizes. Is art reflecting life? Will George rise to the occasion or drown in his new-found despair? A satirical look at the interplay between art and capitalism, told through the person least likely to succeed.

What if you were sent back to Earth, but this time, you remembered everything? The celestial pub was comfortable, the afterlife was grand, and Nigel was perfectly happy being a non-corporeal wisecracker. But no—some cosmic lottery has forced him to do the whole "human" thing again. And to make matters worse, he has to narrate it all back to his pals in Monty Python-esque fashion. From the indignity of birth (Why all the screaming?) to the horror of puberty (Who designed this system?!), through the madness of adulthood and the slow decay of old age, Nigel stumbles through the absurdity of ...

Long live the bloodsuckers. On Planet X—formerly Earth, formerly functional—the nation has elected an Uber Vampire whose hunger isn’t metaphorical. His rule spreads through screens, signals, and devotion, draining the population dry while demanding adoration, obedience, and fluids. Preferably red. Nancy and John are retired, irritated, and profoundly unimpressed. When neighbors start hissing, bread is declared treason, and the sky turns grape-purple with suppression gas, they do what any sensible elders would do: form a resistance. Armed with duct tape, lemon bars, outlawed books, and...

A wildly original novel from a rising star of Korean literature—surreal, chilling fables that take on the patriarchy, capitalism, and the reign of big tech with absurdist humor and a (sometimes literal) bite. From an author never before published in the United States, Cursed Bunny is unique...

The town psychiatrist has decided to switch everybody in Pine Cove, California, from their normal antidepressants to placebos, so naturally—well, to be accurate, artificially—business is booming at the local blues bar. Trouble is, those lonely slide-guitar notes have also attracted a...

Told with biting humor, brutal honesty, and moments of absurd laughter, Why Is My Bra Still On? is a darkly comedic, deeply emotional novel about friendship, loyalty, and what it really means to be family.

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.

A family drama with a speculative twist about three siblings and one beastly surprise, from the New York Times bestselling author “Weird, witty, and totally delightful, with echoes of Schitt’s Creek but with more teeth! I loved it.” —Annie Hartnett, author of Unlikely Animals and The...