Absurd History

Experience history as a glorious and uproarious comedy of errors. Murderers, schemers, traitors, fools, thieves, oligarchs, and torturers make up the real history of Britain's "nobility" and their misdeeds, this Victorian bestseller was written by one of the founders of Punch narrated with wicked wit by Charles Featherstone.

Cat's Cradle is Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a little person as the protagonist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a vision of the future that is at once blackly...

Unhinged History isn't your grandma's history lesson (unless your grandma is secretly awesome and knows about bat bombs). It's a laugh-out-loud, jaw-dropping collection of the most bizarre true tales that prove the past was a wild, wacky, and wonderfully weird place. Get ready for history, but with all the boring bits surgically removed and replaced with pure WTF-ery!

From actor, comedian, writer, and host of the hit history podcast SNAFU, Ed Helms brings you an absurdly entertaining look at history’s biggest blunders. History contains a plethora of insane screwups—otherwise known as SNAFUs. Coined during World War I, SNAFU is an acronym that stands for...

?New York Times Bestseller ""Hypnotic and darkly funny. . . . Belongs to a particular strain of American gothic that encompasses The Twilight Zone, Stephen King and Twin Peaks, with a bit of Tremors thrown in."" —The Guardian “A splendid, weird, moving novel.”— NPR.org From the creators...

True & Absurd Lawsuits That Really Happened The Curious Case Files of Sherlock Grant What happens when everyday human behavior collides with rules, loopholes, and the legal system? Sometimes, you get justice. Sometimes, you get absurdity. True & Absurd Lawsuits That Really Happened is a collection of real court cases so strange they sound like satire — spilled coffee disasters, monkey selfies, reward claims gone wrong, and other moments where common sense took a wrong turn and ended up in court. This book isn’t written for lawyers, and it’s not a technical legal textbook. It’s a ...

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850 “How do I hate thee? How much time do you have?” —Joan Rivers, today, about two-ish Joan Rivers is a groundbreaking, award-winning, internationally renowned entertainment goddess. She’s also...

Boldly going wherever common sense gave up Commander Lyra Starling never meant to lead a reverse-harem of humanoid Meerkats into battle, but fate (and very bad paperwork) had other plans. Now she’s juggling three boyfriends with claws, a divine AI gone rogue, cocaine-addicted hedgehogs, and drag-queen squirrels who can out-glitter the gods. Across three gloriously unhinged adventures — Brave New Harem, Do Androids Dream of Sexy Meerkats?, and Missionary Impossible — Lyra and her furry disaster squad will save the universe, ruin diplomacy, and prove that true love doesn’t need logic,...

Prove you are the smartest schmuck in the room with 500 true trivia facts that sound absurd. These facts are so far-fetched some might even say that they sound like bull$#*t! Give the gift that keeps giving to friends, family, fathers, or grads. Knowledge is power! Crush the competition at...

When you take the most absurd parts of history, science, economics, and geography, you end up with a pretty confusing picture of humanity. Why do we have borders? What's the furthest you can get from the ocean? And why did Vikings wear those silly helmets? These are just a few of the strange questions that bounce around the head of Joseph Pisenti. In his YouTube channel, Pisenti presents illogical truths in a logical manner. Here, he builds on this nonsensical humor of the universe with in-depth analysis of empires, economies, and ecosystems as he helps answer the ridiculous.

Prove you are the smartest person in the room with 500 true trivia facts about world history. These facts are so absurd some might even say that they sound like bull$#*t! Explore the wild and the wacky or history in this fun addition to the True Facts series that shares all things from all over...

In 1929, the Soviet government set aside a sparsely populated area in the Soviet Far East for settlement by Jews. The place was called Birobidzhan. The idea of an autonomous Jewish region was championed by Jewish Communists, Yiddishists, and intellectuals, who envisioned a haven of post-oppression Jewish culture. By the mid-1930s tens of thousands of Soviet Jews, as well as about a thousand Jews from abroad, had moved there.

War is hell....but sometimes it's also funny as hell.

Das Ende des nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Reichs scheint klar verortet: Am 7. bzw. 9. Mai wird die bedingungslose Kapitulation der deutschen Wehrmacht unterzeichnet. Damit war zwar der Krieg zu Ende, noch nicht aber waren Wehrmacht und "Drittes Reich" endgültig untergegangen. Nicht jeder bekam sogleich mit oder wollte mitbekommen, dass alles zu Ende war. Manche kämpften weiter, Hinrichtungen von "Deserteuren" gab es noch massenhaft. Manche versuchten sich abzusetzen, begingen Selbstmord oder gerierten sich als Unbeteiligte wie Albert Speer.

REVIEWS “Michael Burk recounts bizarre, fascinating, and tragic vignettes from cultural history… with a beguiling voice that is informative, respectful when necessary, and delightfully mischievous.” – Kirkus Reviews “A carnival where the popcorn is stale, the rides are dangerous, and yet somehow, we can’t look away.” – Kirkus Reviews “An absorbing, if often dark, compendium of stories from pop culture history.” – Kirkus Reviews The Allure & The Absurd: Curious Tales from Art, Music, Film, Sports & More invites readers to dive into a world of quirky, often bizarre ...

In this short 5,225 word novelette's first page Violetta, the Russian Nurse, runs into a friend, Rosa Green, who says to her: “Life has lost its meaning for me. I am going into this drug store here to buy sleeping pills to kill myself.” “What? You are going to kill yourself?” Violetta asks. “Yes, life has no value for me.” “Well, in that case, Mrs. Green, why not kill yourself like we do in Russia?” “How do you do it in Russia?” “First of all you drink some vodka. Then you eat big dinner. Not just normal dinner, but very good meal—a feast. Then you drink more vodka ...

Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir he now tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he had witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins and orphans herding water buffalos.

In 1528, 600 Spanish conquistadors landed in the Florida panhandle to look for gold and glory. Eight years later, the expedition's four survivors stumbled out of a desert in Southern Mexico. Told in a casual tone with splashes of modern humor, History, F Yeah's Cross-Country Conquistadors is a true story of humbled conquerors and unbelievable perseverance.

From the author of Heaven and Earth, a searing novel of the journey from youth into manhood A heartrending, at times darkly comic but ultimately redemptive novel, Paolo Giordano’s The Human Body is an exploration of brotherhood and family, of modern war and the wars we wage within ourselves...

Our world is chock-full of fascinating facts, unbelievable but true stories, and mind-blowing trivia. This book is your one-stop guide to all the extraordinary, shocking, and enthralling information you didn’t know you needed to learn. Impress your friends and family with a vast knowledge of topics guaranteed to stimulate interesting conversations.