The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


Douglas Adams - 1996
    "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space."The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat."Life, the Universe and Everything"The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky- so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew."So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak."Mostly Harmless"Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?Also includes the short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe".

Don't Point that Thing at Me


Kyril Bonfiglioli - 1972
    He's not one to pass up a drink - or too many - and he prides himself on being stylishly dressed for whatever occasion may present itself, no matter how debauched. Don't miss this brilliant mixture of comedy, crime, and suspense.

Jailbird


Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1979
    This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate’s least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times.

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells


Sebastian Faulks - 2013
    Wodehouse documented the lives of the inimitable Jeeves and Wooster for nearly sixty years, from their first appearance in 1915 ("Extricating Young Gussie") to his final completed novel (Aunts Aren't Gentlemen) in 1974. These two were the finest creations of a novelist widely proclaimed to be the finest comic English writer by critics and fans alike.Now, forty years later, Bertie and Jeeves return in a hilarious affair of mix-ups and mishaps. With the approval of the Wodehouse estate, acclaimed novelist Sebastian Faulks brings these two back to life for their legion of fans. Bertie, nursing a bit of heartbreak over the recent engagement of one Georgina Meadowes to someone not named Wooster, agrees to "help" his old friend Peregrine "Woody" Beeching, whose own romance is foundering. That this means an outing to Dorset, away from an impending visit from Aunt Agatha, is merely an extra benefit. Almost immediately, things go awry and the simple plan quickly becomes complicated. Jeeves ends up impersonating one Lord Etringham, while Bertie pretends to be Jeeves' manservant "Wilberforce,"—and this all happens under the same roof as the now affianced Ms. Meadowes. From there the plot becomes even more hilarious and convoluted, in a brilliantly conceived, seamlessly written comic work worthy of the master himself.A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013

The Pickwick Papers


Charles Dickens - 1837
    Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle &, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, & his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtor’s prison, characters & incidents sprang to life from Dickens’s pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour & literary invention.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (37 plays, 160 sonnets and 5 Poetry Books With Active Table of Contents)


William Shakespeare - 2016
    This collection gathers together the works by William Shakespeare in a single, convenient, high quality, and extremely low priced Kindle volume!The Comedies of William ShakespeareA Midsummer Night's DreamAll's Well That Ends WellAs You Like ItLove’s Labour ’s LostMeasure for MeasureMuch Ado About NothingThe Comedy of ErrorsThe Merchant of VeniceThe Merry Wives of WindsorThe Taming of the ShrewThe Two Gentlemen of VeronaTwelfth Night; or, What you willThe Romances of William ShakespeareCymbelinePericles, Prince of TyreThe TempestThe Winter's TaleThe Tragedies of William ShakespeareKing LearRomeo and JulietThe History of Troilus and CressidaThe Life and Death of Julius CaesarThe Life of Timon of AthensThe Tragedy of Antony and CleopatraThe Tragedy of CoriolanusThe Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkThe Tragedy of MacbethThe Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of VeniceTitus AndronicusThe Histories of William ShakespeareThe Life and Death of King JohnThe Life and Death of King Richard the SecondThe Tragedy of King Richard the ThirdThe first part of King Henry the FourthThe second part of King Henry the FourthThe Life of King Henry VThe first part of King Henry the SixthThe second part of King Henry the SixthThe third part of King Henry the SixthThe Life of King Henry the EighthThe Poetical Works of William ShakespeareThe SonnetsSonnets to Sundry Notes of MusicA Lover's ComplaintThe Rape of LucreceVenus and AdonisThe Phoenix and the TurtleThe Passionate Pilgrim

Therapy


David Lodge - 1995
    True, he is almost bald and his nickname is "Tubby," but the TV sitcom he writes keeps the money coming in, he has an exclusive house in Rummridge, a state-of-the-art car, a vigorous sex life with his wife of thirty years, and a platonic mistress to talk shop with. What money can't buy, and his many therapists can't deliver, is contentment. It's not the trouble behind the scenes of his TV show that's bugging him or even the persistent pain in his knee; it's this deeper, nameless unease. Is it a spiritual crisis or just one of the midlife variety?Tubby's quest for the source of it will lead into an obsession with Kierkegaard, brushes with the police, gossip-column notoriety, and strange beds and bedrooms worldwide.

My Uncle Oswald


Roald Dahl - 1979
    Here, many famous names are mentioned and there is obviously a grave risk that families and friends are going to take offence... Uncle Oswald discovers the electrifying properties of the Sudanese Blister Beetle and the gorgeous Yasmin Howcomely, a girl absolutely soaked in sex, and sets about seducing all the great men of the time for his own wicked, irreverent reasons.

The Hippopotamus


Stephen Fry - 1994
    Ted Wallace is an old, sour, womanising, cantankerous, whisky-sodden beast of a failed poet and drama critic, but he has his faults too.Fired from his newspaper, months behind on his alimony payments and disgusted with a world that undervalues him, Ted seeks a few months repose and free drink at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend Lord Logan.But strange things have been going on at Swafford.  Miracles, Healings, Phenomena beyond the comprehension of a mud-caked hippopotamus like Ted...

The Pursuit of Love


Nancy Mitford - 1945
    Nancy Mitford's most famous novel, The Pursuit of Love satirizes British aristocracy in the twenties and thirties through the amorous adventures of the Radletts, an exuberantly unconventional family closely modelled on Mitford's own.The Radletts of Alconleigh occupy the heights of genteel eccentricity, from terrifying Lord Alconleigh (who, like Mitford's father, used to hunt his children with bloodhounds when foxes were not available), to his gentle wife, Sadie, their wayward daughter Linda, and the other six lively Radlett children. Mitford's wickedly funny prose follows these characters through misguided marriages and dramatic love affairs, as the shadow of World War II begins to close in on their rapidly vanishing world.

Vile Bodies


Evelyn Waugh - 1930
    A vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the hedonistic fulfilment of their desires. Evelyn Waugh’s acidly funny and experimental satire shows a new generation emerging in the years after the First World War, revealing the darkness and vulnerability beneath the glittering surface of the high life.

Crampton Hodnet


Barbara Pym - 1985
    Here, Barbara Mary Crampton Pym sails off into a wickedly comedic farce, focusing on the unsuitable romantic entanglements of a curate and a pretty young girl, both of whom live in the same rooming house, and a starry-eyed university professor and his female student.

Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel


Jerome K. Jerome - 1889
    and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a 'T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks - not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency. Three Men in a Boat was an instant success when it appeared in 1889, and proved so popular that Jerome reunited his now older - but not necessarily wiser - heroes in Three Men on the Bummel, for a picaresque bicycle tour of Germany. With their benign escapism, authorial discursions and wonderful evocation of the late-Victorian 'clerking classes', both novels hilariously capture the spirit of their age.

About a Boy


Nick Hornby - 1998
    He's single, child-free, goes to the right clubs and knows which trainers to wear. He's also found a great way to score with women: attend single parents' groups full of available (and grateful) mothers, all hoping to meet a Nice Guy.Which is how Will meets Marcus, the oldest twelve-year-old on the planet. Marcus is a bit strange: he listens to Joni Mitchell and Mozart, looks after his mum and has never owned a pair of trainers. But Marcus latches on to Will - and won't let go. Can Will teach Marcus how to grow up cool? And can Marcus help Will just to grow up?

Antic Hay


Aldous Huxley - 1923
    This is Huxley at his biting, brilliant best: a novel, loud with derisive laughter, which satirically scoffs at all conventional morality and at stuffy people everywhere, a novel that's always charged with excitement.