Humor

The day her gifted twins leave home for university, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. For seventeen years she's wanted to yell at the world, 'Stop! I want to get off'. Finally, this is her chance. Perhaps she will be able to think.

Her husband Dr Brian Beaver, an astronomer who divides his time between gazing at the expanding universe, an unsatisfactory eight-year-old affair with his colleague Titania and mooching in his shed, is not happy. Who will cook dinner? Eva, he complains, is either having a breakdown or taking attention-seeking to new heights.

But word of Eva's refusal to get out of bed quickly spreads.

Alexander the dreadlocked white-van man arrives to help Eva dispose of all her clothes and possessions and bring her tea a

This book is a Jeeves and Wooster collection. It is an outstanding collection of Jeeves stories, every one a winner, in which Jeeves endeavours to give satisfaction: By saving a grumpy cabinet minister from being marooned and attacked by a swan - in the process saving Bertie Wooster from his impending doom. By rescuing Bingo Little and Tuppy Glossop from the soup (twice each). By arranging rather too many performances of the song 'Sonny Boy' to a not very appreciative audience. And by a variety of other sparkling stratagems that should reduce you to helpless laughter.

The place is Ithaca, in California's San Joaquin Valley. The time is World War II. The family is the Macauley's—a mother, sister, and three brothers whose struggles and dreams reflect those of America's second-generation immigrants…In particular, fourteen-year-old Homer, determined to become one of the fastest telegraph messengers in the West, finds himself caught between reality and illusion as delivering his messages of wartime death, love, and money brings him face-to-face with human emotion at its most naked and raw.

Gentle, poignant and richly autobiographical, this delightful novel shows us the boy becoming the man in a world that even in the midst of war, appears sweeter, safer and more livable than out own.

Hasek's most important work was centered around the deeply funny story of a hapless Czech soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army -- dismissed for incompetence only to be pressed into service by the Russians in World War I (where he is captured by his own troops). A mischief-maker, bohemian and drunk, Hasek demonstrated his wit in this classic novel of the Czech character and preposterous nature of war.

This is a Jeeves and Wooster novel. Jeeves is on holiday in Herne Bay, and while he's away the world caves in on Bertie Wooster. For a start, he's astonished to read in "The Times" of his engagement to the mercurial Bobbie Wickham. Then at Brinkley Court, his Aunt Dahlia's establishment, he finds his awful former head master in attendance ready to award the prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. And finally the Brinkley butler turns out for reasons of his own to be Bertie's nemesis in disguise, the brain surgeon Sir Roderick Glossop. With all occasions informing against him, Bertie has to hightail it to Herne Bay to liberate Jeeves from his shrimping net. And after that, the fun really starts.

Go the Fuck to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don't always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland. Profane, affectionate and refreshingly honest, it captures the familiar and unspoken tribulations of putting your child to bed for the night. Colourfully illustrated and hilariously funny, this is a breath of fresh air for parents new, old and expectant*.

(*You should probably not read this to your children.)

It. Is. On. From the pen of the prolific (and bestselling) author Barney Stinson comes the indispensable guide for every Bro looking to score with The Ladies. Featuring the famous plays including: -The Lorenzo Von Matterhorn -Mrs. Stinsfire -The Ted Mosby -The Time Traveller -The 'SNASA' -The Scuba Diver -The 'He's Not Coming' ...and other greatest hits from Barney Stinson's secret Playbook of legendary moves. So suit up and get ready to be schooled in awsomeness.

In 1995, high-flying British journalist Toby Young left London for New York to become a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Other Brits had taken Manhattan - Alistair Cooke, Tina Brown, Anna Wintour - so why couldn't he? Surely, it would only be a matter of time before the Big Apple was in the palm of his hand. But things did not go according to plan. Within the space of two years he was fired from Vanity Fair, banned from the most fashionable bar in the city and couldn't get a date for love or money. Even the local AA group wanted nothing to do with him. How To Lose Friends & Alienate People is Toby Young's hilarious account of the five years he spent steadily working his way down the New York food chain, from glossy magazine editor to crash-test dummy for interactive sex toys. Bu

David Sedaris's new collection tells a most unconventional life story. It begins with a North Carolina childhood filled with speech therapy classes and unwanted guitar lessons taught by a midget. From budding performance artist to writing teacher in Chicago, his career leads him to New York and eventually, of all places, France. Arriving a "spooky man-child" capable of communicating only through nouns, he is led ever deeper into cultural confusion. Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other -- "Original, acid, and wild". said the L.A. Times -- to every unforgettable encounter.

Lines up David Lodge's trio of comic novels that revolve around the University of Rummidge and the lives of its role-swapping academics. David Lodge exposes the dizzy pursuit of knowledge - literary, commercial, romantic and erotic - with unparalleled wit and insight.

This omnibus lines up David Lodge's trio of brilliantly comic novels that revolve around the University of Rummidge and the lives of its role-swapping academics. When Philip Swallow, lecturer in English at Rummidge, changes places with flamboyant Morris Zapp of Euphoric State University, USA, trouble ensues. Then, ten years on, older but not noticeably wiser, they are let loose on the international conference circuit - a veritable academic carnival. And finally, Dr Robyn Penrose becomes part of a scheme to le

Michal Viewegh's novel Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia is the story of the young Beata Kralova and her not-so-young tutor. Beata is a 20-year-old drop-out and daughter of Denis Kral (i.e., King), a Czech "new millionaire" of dubious connections. Beata embraces lover after lover as well as causes new to Eastern Europe: the environment, animal rights, feminism, consumerism, new-age religion. This picaresque romp gives a gritty but hilarious portrait of today's Prague, its mafiosi and their ex-secret police bodyguards, the expatriate Americans, and many an extraordinary Czech, from a cremation enthusiast to a hopelessly naive sex-education teacher. The novel is also a serious exploration of the role of the writer in post-communist Central Europe. The narrator, himself an author and teacher w