Showing titles in Satire

Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort. One fateful night - different from the night he died, which was more inconvenient than fateful - Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos of the parahuman world.

Mars has declared its independence from Earth. But building a country takes more than a new flag, an arena-worthy anthem, and naming Pluto the donkey the national animal. As the Red Planet spirals into political upheaval, Flip Buchanan—the irreverent, reluctant son of the most powerful man on Mars—stumbles through two tumultuous decades of alien discoveries, killer clones, and the chaos of a new nation still working out the kinks.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE BESTSELLING RAISING STEAM AUDIOBOOK To the consternation of the patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork – a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all of the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being...

When ex-SAS soldier Michael Purdy comes in front of the judge for hacking the bank account belonging to the Minister for Invalidity Benefits and wiping out his personal wealth, he braces himself for a prison sentence. What Michael doesn’t expect is to be put in charge of a group of offenders and sent to a remote location in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Spain to teach them survival skills as part of their rehabilitation programme. But Michael knows nothing at all about survival skills.

'Be careful what you wish for. You never know who might be listening.' There's no getting away from it. From whichever angle, Death is a horrible, inescapable business. But someone's got to do it. So if Death decides to take a well-earned moment to uncover the meaning of life and discover...

Brought to you by Penguin. **One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World** Moraes 'Moor' Zogoiby is the last in line of a crooked and fantastical dynasty of spice merchants and crime lords from Cochin. He is also a compulsive storyteller and an exile. As we travel with him on a route that...

My husband is dead. I attended his funeral. I watched his casket be lowered six feet into the ground. (Actually, it may have been only five feet, but that still seems like more than enough.) And then we ate an array of finger sandwiches and deviled eggs and miniature beef wellingtons that cost more than my first car. My point is, Grant is gone. And so are all his many, many deep, dark secrets which I never really ever bothered to ask him about. He is never coming back.

Gorm Ingerson knows the king is a fink. With the land’s insidious ruler hell-bent on his destruction, the axe-wielding Dwarf berserker is desperate to beat him to the punch. But when he discovers the rotten regent’s claim of a town razed by the world’s richest dragon is false, the gruff adventurer fears there’s more than a personal grudge at stake.

Perhaps the most autobiographical (and deliberately least disciplined) of Vonnegut's novels, Slapstick (1976) is in the form of a broken family odyssey and is surely a demonstration of its eponymous title. The story centers on brother and sister twins, children of Wilbur Swain, who are in sympathetic and (possibly) telepathic communication and who represent Vonnegut's relationship with his own sister who died young of cancer almost two decades before the book's publication.

After surviving countless perils and dangers, including an examination by the Blood Council, Fred is preparing to take on his most important adventure to date: marrying Krystal. That is, if he can get everything handled in time. Visiting Boarback, hiring new staff, clearing out his schedule for a honeymoon; there’s no shortage of tasks to check off before the big day arrives. But not everyone views the occasion in such a happy light. With new dangers looming, old debts raised, and grudges rekindled, it’ll take everything Fred has to finally make it down the aisle.  

Adrian Mole is thirty, single and a father. His cooking at a top London restaurant has been equally mocked ('the sausage on my plate could have been a turd') and celebrated (will he be the nation's first celebrity offal chef?) And the love of his life, Pandora Braithwaite, is too busy as the newly elected MP for Ashby-de-la-Zouch to notice him. Frustrated, disappointed, and undersexed, Adrian despairs until a letter from his past changes everything.

Gravedigger John Gascoigne lives in Downfell Hurst with his wife, Florrie, their three children and his mother, Gran. John is a deep thinker but extremely taciturn - a man of few words and many grunts. Which is why everyone is alarmed when he's hit on the head by a cricket ball, and it suddenly seems as if the words won't stop. What's more, he says he is talking to Saint Christopher - only no one else can see the saint, and they're beginning to worry John's not quite right in the head.

Brought to you by Penguin. Perhaps one reason not enough people kill billionaires is it’s actually quite tricky... An electrifying, ultra-contemporary heist, a wild and hilarious story that is also dangerously prescient. When her home is destroyed in wildfires, fourteen-year-old Australian...

A satiric novel by Evelyn Waugh, published in 1930. Set in England between the wars, the novel examines the frenetic but empty lives of the Bright Young Things, young people who indulge in constant party-going, heavy drinking, and promiscuous sex. At the novel's end, the realities of the world intrude, with Adam Fenwick-Symes, the protagonist, serving on a battlefield at the onset of another world war.

A BEST BOOK OF 2024 IN STYLIST, DAILY MAIL, THE i PAPER, IRISH TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND RED SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BRITISH BOOK AWARDS DEBUT FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 'ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS YOU WILL READ ALL YEAR' ELIZABETH DAY 'BRILLIANT. WHAT A WRITER' NIGELLA LAWSON 'INCREDIBLY FUNNY' CAITLIN...

Andy Bellows is in a right state. Plagued with insomnia, anxiety and neckache, he’s convinced there’s something seriously wrong with him. And the worst thing is that his doctor agrees. The diagnosis: Andy is in the grip of a self-destructive addiction to technology - he just cannot put that bloody mobile phone down. Texting, tweeting, gaming and online dating - technology rules Andy’s life. His phone even monitors his bowel movements. So how will he cope when he’s forced to follow doctor’s orders and step away from all of his beloved screens?

Many view "hitting rock bottom" as a foundation on which to rebuild one's life, a place from which one can only ascend. Gamers know to search for a secret door leading down to the sewer.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Dirk Gently has an unshakeable belief in the interconnectedness of all things, but his Holistic Detective Agency mainly succeeds in tracking down missing cats for old ladies. Then Dirk stumbles upon an old friend behaving bizarrely - and is drawn into a four-billion year old mystery that must be...

Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham are turning 60. They live in a small Dorset town and have been friends since school. On the surface Susan has it all - a lovely house and a long marriage to accountant Barry. Life has not been so kind to Julie, but now, with several failed businesses and bad relationships behind her, she has found stability: living in a council flat and working in an old people's home.