Publisher: Next Chapter
Theft doesn't pay. Unless you take a roll of lottery tickets and one of them hits the jackpot. John David Netterville found said tickets on the ground outside a gas station. Unfortunately, they had been stolen. When the cashier identifies him as the thief, trouble ensues. Niki Dupre must prove Netterville's innocence, despite the evidence stacked against him. But did he really do it?
The latest installment in Alexander McCall Smith's charming and hilarious Professor Dr Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld series Professor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld is not just any German professor--he is the author of the highly-regarded work of scholarship, Portuguese Irregular Verbs. His eminence in language studies is widely respected, albeit rarely acknowledged by his colleague, Professor Detlev-Amadeus Unterholzer, the writer of a far less important book on the subjunctive. Their rivalry bubbles under the surface, but is quick to come into the open if something unusual disturbs the calm waters of the institute in Regensburg where they both work. One such event is the arrival of two visiting scholars from New Orleans. These ladies, Professor Pom Pom Boisseau and her friend, Professor Alice Martinique, are experts in the Provençal language and avid bikers. When they choose to make a dramatic entrance atop large, noisy motorbikes, Unterholzer is shocked, but von Igelfeld is rather taken with Pom Pom. In fact, he is very taken with her. Everyone can foresee this infatuation leading to disappointment, if not worse. But for von Igelfeld, disasters often arrive in twos and threes. Von Igelfeld may suffer humiliation after humiliation, but at the end of it all is the promise of a visit to Louisiana, where important research on communication among oysters is underway...Show book
Comedian and New York Times bestseller Jenny Slate’s wild, hilarious, genre-bending essays read in her singular voice depict life and motherhood as you’ve never seen it before. Featuring narration from friends Vanessa Bayer and Will Forte (“Schumacher 2”), and George Saunders (“The Therapist”). What happened was this: Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and in that period there was a deep dark loneliness that she had to face and befriend, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, and in that period she was like chimes, or a flock of clean breaths, and her spine lying flat was the many-colored planks on the xylophone, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love, because of past injury. And then what happened was that she became a wild-pregnant-mammal-thing and then she exploded herself by having a whole baby blast through her vagina during a global plague and then she was expected to carry on like everything was normal—but was this normal, and had she or anything ever been normal? Herein lies an account of this journey, told in five phases—Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby, and Ongoing—through luminous, laugh-out-loud funny, unclassifiable essays that take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between racoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about post-partum hair loss, graduation speeches, and more. No one writes like Jenny Slate.Show book
he Sickness Unto Death, and Other Fun Danish Party Games: Kierkegaard Without the Prozac is your gloriously sarcastic, brutally insightful, and occasionally soul-crushing guide to philosophy’s original sadboy, Søren Kierkegaard. Tired of reading philosophy that feels like intellectual sandpaper? This book unpacks Kierkegaard’s anxiety-fueled, despair-drenched theology with the humor and honesty it desperately needs. From aesthetic dead-ends to existential panic, from absurd leaps of faith to spiritual ghosting, this irreverent (but accurate!) guide doesn’t just explain Kierkegaard—it translates him for the modern reader who’s spiritually curious and emotionally exhausted. Perfect for readers who love philosophy but hate philosophers, theology with a side of dark humor, and the occasional mental breakdown in pursuit of authenticity. What you’ll get inside: Pseudonyms, despair, and that one time Abraham almost committed murder in the name of faith The aesthetic life: fun until it isn’t Why being a good person might still mean you’re completely lost Faith, absurdity, and how to jump into the void without looking down Kierkegaard’s existential glow-up in modern philosophy (yes, Sartre, we see you) A roadmap for reading his actual books without losing your will to live And a final call to wake up and stop living someone else’s life No prior philosophy degree required—just a sense of humor, a tolerance for paradox, and maybe a journal for emotional damage control.Show book
P.G. Wodehouse, the master of British humor, produced dozens of books and hundreds of short stories in his long and prolific career. But none of his creations has quite captured the world's imagination as much as his bumbling, empty-headed, man-about-town Bertie Wooster and Bertie's faithful, knight-in-shining tuxedo Jeeves. Collected here are some of Wodehouse's most beloved "Jeeves and Wooster" tales - ten short stories from the anthology "Carry On, Jeeves" as well as the novel "The Inimitable Jeeves" - each a master class in comedic writing. Along with Jeeves and Bertie, we are introduced to an entire cast of beloved Wodehouse characters: Bingo Little, James "Corky" Corcoran, Gussie Fink-Nottle, Honoria Glossop, Rockmetteller Todd and the terrifying and bombastic Aunt Agatha. This collection even contains the one-and-only Wodehouse short story narrated by Jeeves himself. These two collections are presented here in their original and unabridged form.Show book
In sixteen essays published over the past decade, acclaimed novelist Elisa Albert considers everything from the creative process to reproductive justice, ambition to Ani DiFranco, Judaism to the ethos of punk, all in the midst of making a home in the strange city of Albany, New York. With wit and wariness, skepticism and surrender, this collection offers a first-of-its-kind window into the life and mind of an author Shalom Auslander once called "Bukowski with a vagina and a motherf*cker of a hangover." Whether writing about doula training, struggling to embroider local community, art vs commerce, antisemitism, or growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, Albert is heartfelt, rigorous, and delightfully self-aware.Show book
