Category
Humorous Fiction
Banal Nightmare 2025
In a Midwestern college town at the height of the Me Too era, a group of simultaneously self-flagellating and self-aggrandizing pseudo-academics sit around, think, and send one another insulting emails. As the impulses and memories they have barely managed to repress begin to surface, their...
The Blazing World 2014
After years of having her work ignored or dismissed by critics, artist Harriet Burden decides to conduct an experiment: she presents her own art behind three male masks, concealing her female identity.
Yet when the shows succeed and Burden steps forward for her triumphant reveal, she is betrayed by...
Bliss 1996
For thirty-nine years Harry Joy has been the quintessential good guy. But one morning Harry has a heart attack on his suburban front lawn, and, for the space of nine minutes, he becomes a dead guy. And although he is resuscitated, he will never be the same. For, as Peter Carey makes abundantly clear...
Welcome to Inner Horner, a nation so small it can only accommodate one citizen at a time. The other six citizens must wait their turns in the Short-Term Residency Zone of the surrounding country of Outer Horner. It's a long-standing arrangement between the fantastical, not-exactly-human citizens of...
Dogtangle 2025
Dogtangle opens with a town hall meeting in a Taco Bell nestled in the bland corporate environment of Business Park. A man, bleating to anyone who will listen about the evils of current zoning laws, meets a woman who works in pharmaceutical marketing. They begin a relationship. They get married....
Having collected, among other things, cocktail sticks, electoral campaign badges, paintings of moored ships, rabbits' feet, noises at five in the morning, Croatian maxims, staircase ornaments, the first pages of novels, the labels on melons, birds' eggs, moments with you, hangmen's nooses, Hector...
Fight Club 2005
THE FIRST RULE about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.
Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with whitecollar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to. Then they...
First Person 2019
Kif Kehlmann, a young, penniless writer, thinks he’s finally caught a break when he’s offered $10,000 to ghostwrite the memoir of Siegfried “Ziggy” Heidl, the notorious con man and corporate criminal. Ziggy is about to go to trial for defrauding banks for $700 million; they have six weeks to write...
Fury 2002
Malik Solanka, a celebrated academic and dollmaker, has fled his life in London for a new beginning in New York City. But beneath his calm exterior lies a simmering, uncontrollable rage—one that has already driven him to abandon his family and threatens to erupt again.
In the restless, high-energy...
The Golden House 2018
When the mysterious Nero Golden arrives in New York with his three sons, he seems determined to erase his past and reinvent himself in America. Settling into a grand house in Greenwich Village, the family adopts new names and begins a life of wealth, secrecy, and self-invention.
Observed by their...
In Persuasion Nation 2007
Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers, and moral fables—all in this hilarious and heartbreaking collection from an author hailed as the heir to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon.
Invisible Monsters 2018
She’s a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she...
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on a mission of censorship to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of...
A novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes.
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin,...
The Namaste Club 2025
Just inland from Florida’s sun-splashed Treasure Coast is the Namaste Club yoga center. An exclusive oasis of palms, lakes, and adorable guest villas, it’s perfect for getaways where Shakti, a serenely blond Instagram influencer, holds yoga retreats for well-heeled Miami ladies. The Namaste Club is...
Oh Honey 2017
Sharp, funny, and dark, this novel is about identity and connection. Jane is a telemarketer. She uses a different name each time, and soon it becomes clear that she is calling the same man again and again. Each call is a new battle between them, with him becoming angrier and more threatening. But...
Apex Hides the Hurt 2007
The town of Winthrop has decided it needs a new name. The resident software millionaire wants to call it New Prospera; the mayor wants to return to the original choice of the founding black settlers; and the town’s aristocracy sees no reason to change the name at all. What they need, they realize,...
Annie Lewin is at the end of her rope. She’s a mother of three young children, her workaholic husband is never around, and the vicious competition for spots in New York City’s kindergartens is heating up.
An advice-columnist for a parenting website, Annie can’t help but judge the insanity of it...
Redshirts 2021
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, with the chance to serve on "Away Missions" alongside the starship’s famous senior officers. Life couldn’t be better...until Andrew...
Rejection 2024
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, *Rejection* is a provocative work of contemporary literary fiction and a plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex,...
An irresistible mix of imagination, satire, and humor, these stories by acclaimed Japanese author Yasutaka Tsutsui imagine the consequences of a world where the fantastic and the mundane collide.
The opening story, “The Dabba Dabba Tree,” details the hilarious side effects of a small conical tree...
The Second Chance 2025
Nell has always known the day she's going to die. After a psychic predicted her death date twenty years ago, she has lived life accepting she would never see forty—embracing adventure and travelling the world, choosing fun over commitment and laying down roots.
So, when the fateful day comes, Nell...
Slumberland 2021
After creating the perfect beat, DJ Darky goes in search of Charles Stone, a little know avant-garde jazzman, to play over his sonic masterpiece. His quest brings him to a recently unified Berlin, where he stumbles through the city's dreamy streets ruminating about race, sex, love, Teutonic gods,...
Survivor 2018
Tender Branson―last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult―is dictating his life story into the recorder of Flight 2039, cruising on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He is all alone in the airplane, which will crash shortly into the vast Australian outback.
But...
Enter the wonderfully weird, always uncomfortable, side-splittingly funny world of The Terrifying Realm of the Possible, where your worst fears of who you are or might become are always just around the corner.
In these masterful short stories from the singular mind of the actor and comedian Brett...
Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle, is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball...
Anxious People 2021
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth...
A novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes.
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin,...
Having collected, among other things, cocktail sticks, electoral campaign badges, paintings of moored ships, rabbits' feet, noises at five in the morning, Croatian maxims, staircase ornaments, the first pages of novels, the labels on melons, birds' eggs, moments with you, hangmen's nooses, Hector...
Dogtangle November 4, 2025
Dogtangle opens with a town hall meeting in a Taco Bell nestled in the bland corporate environment of Business Park. A man, bleating to anyone who will listen about the evils of current zoning laws, meets a woman who works in pharmaceutical marketing. They begin a relationship. They get married....
Banal Nightmare August 26, 2025
In a Midwestern college town at the height of the Me Too era, a group of simultaneously self-flagellating and self-aggrandizing pseudo-academics sit around, think, and send one another insulting emails. As the impulses and memories they have barely managed to repress begin to surface, their...
Plays Well With Others August 5, 2025
Annie Lewin is at the end of her rope. She’s a mother of three young children, her workaholic husband is never around, and the vicious competition for spots in New York City’s kindergartens is heating up.
An advice-columnist for a parenting website, Annie can’t help but judge the insanity of it...
Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books August 5, 2025
Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia, where they were born and raised. Now Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on a mission of censorship to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books—none of...
The Namaste Club July 1, 2025
Just inland from Florida’s sun-splashed Treasure Coast is the Namaste Club yoga center. An exclusive oasis of palms, lakes, and adorable guest villas, it’s perfect for getaways where Shakti, a serenely blond Instagram influencer, holds yoga retreats for well-heeled Miami ladies. The Namaste Club is...
The Second Chance May 20, 2025
Nell has always known the day she's going to die. After a psychic predicted her death date twenty years ago, she has lived life accepting she would never see forty—embracing adventure and travelling the world, choosing fun over commitment and laying down roots.
So, when the fateful day comes, Nell...
Rejection September 17, 2024
Sharply observant and outrageously funny, *Rejection* is a provocative work of contemporary literary fiction and a plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex,...
The Terrifying Realm of the Possible March 19, 2024
Enter the wonderfully weird, always uncomfortable, side-splittingly funny world of The Terrifying Realm of the Possible, where your worst fears of who you are or might become are always just around the corner.
In these masterful short stories from the singular mind of the actor and comedian Brett...
Redshirts October 12, 2021
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, with the chance to serve on "Away Missions" alongside the starship’s famous senior officers. Life couldn’t be better...until Andrew...
The White Boy Shuffle September 7, 2021
Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle, is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball...
Slumberland July 13, 2021
After creating the perfect beat, DJ Darky goes in search of Charles Stone, a little know avant-garde jazzman, to play over his sonic masterpiece. His quest brings him to a recently unified Berlin, where he stumbles through the city's dreamy streets ruminating about race, sex, love, Teutonic gods,...
Anxious People July 6, 2021
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth...
My Year of Rest and Relaxation June 25, 2019
A novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes.
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin,...
First Person March 5, 2019
Kif Kehlmann, a young, penniless writer, thinks he’s finally caught a break when he’s offered $10,000 to ghostwrite the memoir of Siegfried “Ziggy” Heidl, the notorious con man and corporate criminal. Ziggy is about to go to trial for defrauding banks for $700 million; they have six weeks to write...
The Golden House June 5, 2018
When the mysterious Nero Golden arrives in New York with his three sons, he seems determined to erase his past and reinvent himself in America. Settling into a grand house in Greenwich Village, the family adopts new names and begins a life of wealth, secrecy, and self-invention.
Observed by their...
Invisible Monsters May 1, 2018
She’s a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she...
Survivor May 1, 2018
Tender Branson―last surviving member of the Creedish Death Cult―is dictating his life story into the recorder of Flight 2039, cruising on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He is all alone in the airplane, which will crash shortly into the vast Australian outback.
But...
Oh Honey July 1, 2017
Sharp, funny, and dark, this novel is about identity and connection. Jane is a telemarketer. She uses a different name each time, and soon it becomes clear that she is calling the same man again and again. Each call is a new battle between them, with him becoming angrier and more threatening. But...
The Blazing World November 4, 2014
After years of having her work ignored or dismissed by critics, artist Harriet Burden decides to conduct an experiment: she presents her own art behind three male masks, concealing her female identity.
Yet when the shows succeed and Burden steps forward for her triumphant reveal, she is betrayed by...
Salmonella Men on Planet Porno January 12, 2010
An irresistible mix of imagination, satire, and humor, these stories by acclaimed Japanese author Yasutaka Tsutsui imagine the consequences of a world where the fantastic and the mundane collide.
The opening story, “The Dabba Dabba Tree,” details the hilarious side effects of a small conical tree...
The Erotic Potential of My Wife January 1, 2008
Having collected, among other things, cocktail sticks, electoral campaign badges, paintings of moored ships, rabbits' feet, noises at five in the morning, Croatian maxims, staircase ornaments, the first pages of novels, the labels on melons, birds' eggs, moments with you, hangmen's nooses, Hector...
In Persuasion Nation March 6, 2007
Talking candy bars, baby geniuses, disappointed mothers, castrated dogs, interned teenagers, and moral fables—all in this hilarious and heartbreaking collection from an author hailed as the heir to Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon.
Apex Hides the Hurt January 9, 2007
The town of Winthrop has decided it needs a new name. The resident software millionaire wants to call it New Prospera; the mayor wants to return to the original choice of the founding black settlers; and the town’s aristocracy sees no reason to change the name at all. What they need, they realize,...
Fight Club October 17, 2005
THE FIRST RULE about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.
Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with whitecollar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to. Then they...
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil September 6, 2005
Welcome to Inner Horner, a nation so small it can only accommodate one citizen at a time. The other six citizens must wait their turns in the Short-Term Residency Zone of the surrounding country of Outer Horner. It's a long-standing arrangement between the fantastical, not-exactly-human citizens of...
Fury August 6, 2002
Malik Solanka, a celebrated academic and dollmaker, has fled his life in London for a new beginning in New York City. But beneath his calm exterior lies a simmering, uncontrollable rage—one that has already driven him to abandon his family and threatens to erupt again.
In the restless, high-energy...
Bliss January 30, 1996
For thirty-nine years Harry Joy has been the quintessential good guy. But one morning Harry has a heart attack on his suburban front lawn, and, for the space of nine minutes, he becomes a dead guy. And although he is resuscitated, he will never be the same. For, as Peter Carey makes abundantly clear...