Absurdist Comedy

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.

What if the world’s not ending, it’s just having an allergic reaction to itself? Step into the wings of the Apollo Theatre with Reggie Porter, the most dangerous man in British comedy (according to Zara, his manager, and possibly MI5). With a biro, a Greggs leaflet, and six pages of forbidden insight, Reggie isn’t just doing a set, he’s detonating sacred cows one punchline at a time. From gay frogs to £6 cheddar, from God to oat milk, The Gig is not a short story, not a manifesto, and definitely not safe for anyone still clinging to certainty. It’s a stand-up sermon. A comic ...

I’d Rather Be Murdered in a Public Place is a deeply unnecessary, unapologetically inappropriate book about thinking too much and saying the quiet part out loud. This is not a memoir, not a manifesto, and definitely not self-help. It offers no solutions, no lessons, and no meaningful personal growth. What it does offer is an unfiltered look at the strange ways a mind wanders when left alone for too long, fueled by curiosity, misinformation, and a questionable amount of confidence. The book moves freely between observation and overreaction, sincerity and absurdity, touching on fear, aging,...

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...

“A propulsive, madcap story” (The New York Times) about a salaryman who decides to put his life up for sale in the classifieds section of a Tokyo newspaper after a botched suicide attempt. "An outstanding writer not only of Japan, but of the world." —The Atlantic After salaryman...

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.

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.

What I wanted more than anything was to be standing beside Schmidt, in concert with Schmidt, at the foot of Saint Sebastian’s Abyss along with Schmidt, hands cupped to the sides of our faces, debating art, transcendence, and the glory of the apocalypse.” Former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a decades-long falling-out. One of them, called to the other’s deathbed for unknown reasons by a “relatively short” nine-page email, spends his flight to Berlin reflecting on Dutch Renaissance painter Count Hugo Beckenbauer.

The beloved author of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared returns with an enchanting adventure that skewers the greed and hypocrisy that dominates our time and holds lessons about what’s truly important in life. Meet Ole Mbatian Jr., a Maasai warrior; Kevin...

Chaos erupts at Howling Manor! Rival spies grapple and clash, werewolves howl and prowl, and Dr. Vladislav Volkov's werewolf experiments are coming back to bite...literally. Survival? It's a matter of unraveling the truth...fast...before someone unravels you! In the ominous shadows of 1930s pre-World War II espionage, the delightfully deranged Dr. V unleashes his master plan: a terrifying, unstoppable army of enhanced werewolves, courtesy of questionable genetic engineering. His goal? World domination, of course! But fear not, for an unlikely band of misfits is here to save the day (or at ...

It’s as if her life only began once Moon appeared in it. The desultory copywriting work, the boyfriend, and the want of anything not-Moon quickly fall away when she beholds the idol in concert, where Moon dances as if his movements are creating their own gravitational field; on live streams, as fans from around the world comment in dozens of languages; even on skincare products endorsed by the wildly popular Korean boy band, of which Moon is the youngest, most luminous member. Seized by ineffable desire, our unnamed narrator begins writing Y/N fanfic.

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 ...

A very unique and comical view of life, death and all that comes after it. This very darkly humorous but strangely heart warming tale follows the unremarkable Bernard Fish as he learns that living is far less simple than he thought. He also discovers that being dead is more exciting than he could ever have imagined, not that he has ever had much of an imagination. Betrayal, greed, love and lust all play a part in this simple everyday story of an ordinary man who wasn't supposed to know he was going to die. With guest appearances from God and of course Satan as well as a host of afterlife ...

Project Whisker: Alien Theories About Cats By Reggie The aliens came to study Earth’s most mysterious lifeforms: cats. What they discovered shattered their understanding of reality. From quantum boxes to nap-based propulsion, Project Whisker collects their increasingly desperate theories — all centered around one majestic Maine Coon named Reggie. A hilarious and surprisingly philosophical collection of extraterrestrial research gone off the rails.The EVA Protocols By Reggie and Eva In a secret research facility hidden from the world, Eva — a golden retriever with a boundless love for ...

Fashion editor Anya St. Clair is on the verge of greatness. Her wardrobe is to die for. Her social media is killer. And her career path is littered with the bodies of anyone who got in her way. She’s worked hard to get where she is, but she doesn’t have everything. Not like Sarah Taft. Anya’s obsession sits one desk away. Beautiful, stylish, and rich, she was born to be a fashion world icon. From her beach-wave blonde hair to her on-trend nail art, she’s a walking editorial spread. And Anya wants to be her friend. Her best friend. Her only friend.

One cold winter night, Charlie shares a cab with a stranger in a purple hat. As they talk, a cloud of purple smoke overwhelms him, and he wakes up to find himself behind the only desk in the Epiphany Detective Agency. Charlie, as it turns out, is trapped in Metaphoria, an otherworldly place that reality has forgotten, a place where everything means something else. His first client is Shirley Miller, who insists on hiring Charlie to find her husband’s missing heart. In fact, she’s so insistent that she replaces Charlie’s heart with a bomb.

A book about nothing… and everything. A human wakes up in an alien body. A budgie thinks life is a musical. An AI will not stop talking. An android wants to feel things. And no one knows what they’re doing. They’re not a crew. There’s no plan. And no one’s really in charge. What unfolds is a not-quite-accidental, frequently illogical, occasionally profound journey through life, the universe, and everything. It’s told through curious beings, improbable moments, and meaning hiding where you’d least expect it.

Alan Blair, the hero of Wake Up, Sir!, is a young, loony writer with numerous problems of the mental, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and physical variety. He's very good at problems. But luckily for Alan, he has a personal valet named Jeeves, who does his best to sort things out for his troubled master. And Alan does find trouble wherever he goes.

Sidney Geeder, King of Mortgages, wants nothing more than to cash in his lucrative company stock and quit his job, but his dreams are threatened by the disappearance of Eggs Igino, the only possible man who can replace him.