But is their breeding sufficient to allow them to rise above their changed circumstance or deep down are they really just like everyone else?

    Freddy and Fredericka—a brilliantly refashioned fairy tale and a magnificently funny farce—only seems like a radical departure of form, for behind the laughter, Helprin speaks of leaps of faith and second chances, courage and the primacy of love. Helprin’s latest work, an extraordinarily funny allegory about a most peculiar British royal family, is immensely mocking of contemporary monarchy and yet deeply sympathetic to the individuals caught in its lonely absurdities.

    This satirical novel tells the story of the surgical transformation of a dog into a man, and is an obvious criticism of Soviet society, especially the new rich that arose after the Bolshevik revolution.

    and Mrs. Fang called it art.Their children called it mischief.Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist’s work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents’ madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficult to cope with life outside the fishbowl of their parents’ strange world.When the lives they’ve built come crashing down, brother and sister have nowhere to go but home, where they discover that Caleb and Camille are planning one last performance -– their magnum opus -– whether the kids agree to participate or not. Soon, ambition breeds conflict, bringing the Fangs to face the difficult decision about what’s ultimately more important: their family or their art.

    Why Did I Ever takes us along on the darkest of private journeys. The story, told by a woman named Money Breton, is submitted like a furious and persuasive diary-a tale as fierce and taut as its fictional teller.

    In this outrageously farcical adventure, hero  George Giles sets out to conquer the terrible Wescac computer system that threatens to destroy his community in this brilliant "fantasy of theology, sociology, and sex" (Time).

    Confused yet intelligent animals attempt to interact with confused yet intelligent humans, resulting in the death of Elijah Wood, Salman Rushdie, and Wong Kar-Wai; the destruction of a Domino's Pizza delivery car in Orlando; and a vegan dinner at a sushi restaurant in Manhattan attended by a dolphin, a bear, a moose, an alien, three humans, and the President of the United States of America, who lectures on the arbitrary nature of consciousness, truth, and the universe before getting drunk and playing poker.

    But in the treacherous waters of corporate America there are no sure things--and suddenly Scat has to save not only his idea but his yet-to-be-realized career. With the help of the scarily beautiful and brainy 6, he sets out on a mission to reclaim the fame and fortune that, time and again, eludes him. This brilliantly scathing debut is a hilarious send-up of celebrity, sexual politics, corporate America, and the fleeting status that comes with getting to the table first--before the other guy has you for lunch.

    Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, film-maker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider—a film he's convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made—a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete—B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius.All that's left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to recreate the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of "likes" and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bete noire and his raison d'etre.A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy, and the very nature of existence itself—the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.

    In the week before Jack plans to marry, the pair heads out from Los Angeles to the Santa Ynez wine country. For Jack, the tasting tour is Seven Days to D-Day, his final stretch of freedom. For Miles--who has divorced his wife, is facing an uncertain career and has lost his passion for living--the trip is a weeklong opportunity to evaluate his past, his future and himself. A raucous and surprising novel filled with wonderful details about wine, Sideways is also a thought-provoking and funny book about men, women, and human relationships.

    Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself. But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced, a sentiment not shared with their superiors at the Reading Police Department, who are still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody. And on top of all that, the JellyMan is coming to town . . .

    Confronted by danger at every turn, he and his friend, Hubris the Spellbroker, become entangled in a bizarre web of intrigue, politics and outlandish fashion. They soon realise that they are just pawns in a greater game, but who is their real adversary and how can they disentangle themselves without ending up seriously dead?This humorous fantasy novella (28,500 words) is a prequel to the novel, Gaspar The Thief (126,000 words), also by David A. Lindsay.

    I accepted, then and there, my place in the world. I was a fighter of windmills. I was a chaser of whales. I was Not Sidney Poitier.Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age eleven, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor, and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation.Percival Everett’s hilarious new novel follows Not Sidney’s tumultuous life, as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin color with his fabulous wealth. Maturing under the less-than watchful eye of his adopted foster father, Ted Turner, Not gets arrested in rural Georgia for driving while black, sparks a dinnertable explosion at the home of his manipulative girlfriend, and sleuths a murder case in Smut Eye, Alabama, all while navigating the recurrent communication problem: “What’s your name?” a kid would ask. “Not Sidney,” I would say. “Okay, then what is it?”

    Without warning, Beth suddenly finds herself embroiled in a sinister series of events that threaten to destroy everything she holds dear. All seems lost for Beth until she receives an offer of help from an unlikely visitor — a former gangland fixer by the name of Clement. However, there’s one minor issue in that Clement claims he died in 1975 and been sent to help Beth to atone for his actions in a previous life.With just seven days to avoid a fate she’d rather not contemplate, Beth reluctantly joins her deluded, politically-incorrect companion on a quest across London in search of a solution. Will this unlikely partnership succeed? Will Clement ever come to terms with paying five quid for a pint? And will Beth ever learn the truth about who sent Clement?

    That's one take on Frisco Pigeon Mambo, an uproarious new comic novel by C.D. Payne, author of the cult classic Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp.When a flock of alcohol- and tobacco-addicted lab pigeons are liberated in San Francisco, our feathered heroes turn the whole city topsy-turvy. They dance into bars, stick up liquor stores, spy on socialites, swipe a van full of cats, and even dodge a murder rap.Meet the leader who's convinced he's human because "it would be too absurd to name a pigeon Robin". Will Robin and his pals find their way back to Berkeley? Will they survive the next 15 minutes without a cigarette?Along the way, these swashbuckling outlaws team up with Freud-quoting parakeet on the lam from a mental health clinic, a pigeon-devouring falcon with a sudden interest in religion, a halibut-wielding sea gull with a knack for shoplifting, and more. Soon they have a price on their heads, cops on their trail, beer on their breath, and amour on their minds.Not since Hitchcock unleashed "The Birds" has California witnessed such mischief from the skies. But prepare for a surprise or two as the notorious "Killer Pigeons" undergo a dramatic transformation.Described by the author as "America's great pigeon novel", Frisco Pigeon Mambo is now in development as a Twentieth-Century Fox animated film, to be produced by the Farrelly brothers ("Something About Mary", "Me, Myself & Irene"). Foreign rights to the novel have been sold so far to Germany (Droemer) and the Czech Republic (Jota).Frisco is being published simultaneously with Revolting Youth: The Further Journals of Nick Twisp. Thislong-awaited sequel to Payne's first novel continues the comic misadventures of the "world's most dangerous teen diarist".