Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas


Chuck Klosterman - 2006
    There's An Introduction, But No Footnotes. Well, There's A Footnote In The Introduction, But None In The Story.

Famous Writers School


Steven Carter - 2006
    Famous Writers School is composed of three aspiring authors' letters and stories sent to a correspondence course by that grandiose name, and the self-serving lessons that Wendell Newton, their endearingly obtuse instructor, doles out in response.Wendell's oddball collection of students includes Rio, an alluring blues singer on whom he quickly develops a crush; Linda Trane, an unhinged housewife who may be stalking him; and Dan, a truly talented author of hard-boiled detective fiction. As Dan's gritty mystery arrives piece by piece, Wendell gets hooked on the story--and decides to dress it up in his own style in order to pass it off as his creation.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian


Marina Lewycka - 2005
    Lewycka tells the side-splittingly funny story of two feuding sisters, Vera and Nadezhda, who join forces against their father's new, gold-digging girlfriend.Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their émigré engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth.But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget . . . .

If I Were An Evil Overlord


Martin H. GreenbergFiona Patton - 2007
    Certain to appeal to role-playing gamers, fantasy lovers, and megalomaniacs who want to rule the world.

The Acid House


Irvine Welsh - 1994
    Using a range of approaches from bitter realism to demented fantasy, Irvine Welsh is able to evoke the essential humanity, well hidden as it is, of his generally depraved, lazy, manipulative, and vicious characters. He specializes particularly in cosmic reversals--God turns a hapless footballer into a fly; an acid head and a newborn infant exchange consciousnesses with sardonically unexpected results--always displaying a corrosive wit and a telling accuracy of language and detail. Irvine Welsh is one hilariously dangerous writer and he is bound to create a sensation. Includes the following stories: "The Shooter""Eurotrash""Stoke Newington Blues""Vat '96""A Soft Touch""The Last Resort on the Adriatic""Sexual Disaster Quartet""Snuff""A Blockage in the System""Wayne Foster""Where the Debris Meets the Sea""Granny's Old Junk""The House of John Deaf""Across the Hall""Lisa's Mum Meets the Queen Mum""The Two Philosophers""Disnae Matter""The Granton Star Cause""Snowman Building Parts for Rico the Squirrel""Sport for All""The Acid House"A Smart Cunt: a novella

Air Mail: Letters From The World's Most Troublesome Passenger


Terry Ravenscroft - 2007
    But are they? He is probably the only man who has ever requested the recipe for an airline’s lasagna or wanted to enjoy his flight with an inflatable rubber woman sat on his knee. Prepare to meet the man who must have his diet of stir-fried mulberry leaves accommodated and the man who left his false teeth on a flight and is sure he recognized them on a later flight—in a flight attendant's mouth. Ravenscroft's correspondence tackles travel annoyances like excess baggage charges alongside more surreal letters, such as the one starting out asking an Australian airline if they offer an authentic Australian experience (for instance, Australian cuisine or in-flight movies) which then moves on to the question of at what age a baby is safe from being swallowed by a dingo.

Smithereens


Shaun Micallef - 2004
    Small but beautifully formed pieces of Shaun Micallef.

And Then God Created the Middle East and Said ‘Let There Be Breaking News’


Karl reMarks - 2018
    Well, regions of the world were competing to host the apocalypse and the Middle East won.’Online sensation Karl reMarks disagreed with the idea that reality had become too strange to satirise. Then he read that bin Laden was radicalised by Shakespeare. Since then, Karl has been bringing the best of the Middle East news and views to his followers around the world.Now Karl’s wildly wry observations and sketches are available in one handy collection. With sections on ‘Geography for Dummies’, ‘Democracy for Realists’ and ‘Extremism: A Study’, alongside the best of Karl reMarks’s infamous ‘Bar Jokes’, this hilarious book proudly presents views you’re guaranteed not to hear on the news …We’re actually very proud of God in the Middle East. He’s the local guy who went on to acquire international fame.Wahahahahabism: A fundamentalist Middle Eastern comedy movement.Twelve people just started to follow me. Jesus.

Fortunately, the Milk


Neil Gaiman - 2013
    "I walked out of the corner shop, and heard a noise like this: t h u m m t h u m m. I looked up and saw a huge silver disc hovering in the air above Marshall Road.""Hullo," I said to myself. "That's not something you see every day. And then something odd happened."Find out just how odd things get in this hilarious New York Times bestselling story of time travel and breakfast cereal, expertly told by Newbery Medalist and bestselling author Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Skottie Young.

Why Me? The Very Important Emails of Bob Servant


Neil Forsyth - 2011
    The economy is collapsing, his health is failing, and around his hometown of Broughty Ferry, Bob is struggling to get the respect he deserves. Fortunately his email junk folder is bursting with offers of assistance from around the world. In these genuine emails, Bob Servant looks to the Internet's worst con merchants and charlatans for answers to his many woes. The author of the bestselling Delete This At Your Peril and the critically acclaimed Radio 4 series The Bob Servant Emails is back with an all-new compilation of emails targeting a fresh batch of email spammers—the false lenders who have bravely stepped into the credit crunch, supposed doctors offering expensive treatments for Bob's ailments, and fake foreign soldiers offering him military advice in his campaign against a local bowling club. They all find a man from Broughty Ferry who is ready and willing to give them his valuable time.

Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Notebooks


Justin Richards - 2014
    Now, BBC Books has rediscovered notebooks, long thought lost, compiled by the Bard in which he divulges the influential role the Doctor played in his creative life. Here are the original notes for Hamlet, including a very different appearance by the ghost; early versions of great lines (“To reverse or not to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”); the true story of how the faeries of A Midsummer Night’s Dream were first imagined; stage directions for plays adjusted to remove references to a mysterious blue box; and much, much more.

Pundragon


Chandra Clarke - 2020
    After all, what’s he going to be able to do about it? He’s just this guy, stuck in a small town, pinned there by a load of student debt and a stalled writing career. Oh, and a wicked case of writer’s block.Or at least he was, until a dragon showed up in his bedroom. At midnight. Quoting Freud and muttering about the space-time continuum.So of course, Ian must Make a Choice and decide whether he wants to follow the dragon back into the Connectome and find his muse again, or stay in a house that surely wants to kill him, one repair bill at a time.Follow Ian on a rollicking adventure, where he finds out that he can make a difference. And that some things are worth fighting for.Even if all you have is a can opener.

Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture


Stephen H. Segal - 2011
    Clearly, geeks know something about life in the 21st century that other folks don’t—something we all can learn from. Geek Wisdom takes as gospel some 200 of the most powerful and oft-cited quotes from movies (“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads”), television (“Now we know—and knowing is half the battle”), literature (“All that is gold does not glitter”), games, science, the Internet, and more. Now these beloved pearls of modern-day culture have been painstakingly interpreted by a diverse team of hardcore nerds with their imaginations turned up to 11. Yes, this collection of mini-essays is by, for, and about geeks—but it’s just so surprisingly profound, the rest of us would have to be dorks not to read it. So say we all.

Strange Afterlives


Brooke FosseyNik Holman - 2015
    From sinister feline mummies to ravenous zombified cars and any and all things in-between, the living dead have returned from their graves, junkyards, and even the war torn skies to haunt the lands of the living. With stories horrific, funny, and weird, Strange Afterlives has a little something for everyone who has ever wondered what terrible secrets could be lurking in that rotting tree or broken toy.Stories included in this anthology:Mouse Trouble by A. Lee MartinezAfter the Invasion by Russell C. ConnorSeated Woman with Child by Rosemary Clement-MooreRoots by Brooke FosseyThe Late Mrs. Buttons by Sally HamiltonAn Undercover Haunting by Kristi HutsonGImme Shelter by David C. Whiteman01001110 by Nik HolmanThe Runner by John BartellNight Witch by Shawn ScarberThe Scavenger Hunt by John Sanders Jr.Strange Afterlives will terrify and amuse. You may never look at a rusted automobile the same way again.

The Internet is a Playground


David Thorne - 2010
    The complete collection of articles and emails from 27bslash6 such as Overdue Account, Party in Apartment 3 and Strata Agreement plus articles too litigious to be on the website.