Other books that might interest you

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  The US of EH? - How Canada...

  Rob Sorensen, Kerry Colburn

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  “Uncovers evidence of covert Canadian usurpation . . .Thankfully, Colburn has some tips on identifying these stealthy yet tidy marauders in our midst.” —Seattle Weekly 
   
  Canadians are peaceable, friendly, unassuming, and adorable. They’re also secretly in control of nearly every aspect of life in the Southernmost Canadian territory known as the United States.  
   
  This hilarious illustrated compendium of real facts and wild assertions traces a vast, maple-leaf conspiracy that plays up Canada’s self-effacing second fiddle image to the U.S. while it creates and clandestinely controls nearly everything Americans hold dear, from Superman to basketball to William Shatner to macaroni and cheese.  
   
  With everyday life in the U.S. already as much as 70% Canadian, and our music, movies, and TV shows filled with subliminal pro-Canadian messages, the authors of So, You Want to Be Canadian reveal that in actuality, you already are. 
   
  “The premise is that Canadians have gotten their overly polite (and no doubt well groomed) mitts on everything. The U.S. of Eh? includes lists of many Canadian things—hotties, music, actors, inventions—as well as lots of general silliness about the ‘maple leaf conspiracy.’” —January Magazine

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  Envy

  Yury Olesha

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  “To read [this] triumphant short novel is . . . to behold man’s heroic confrontation with the monsters of his own creation.” —The New York Times Andrei Babichev is a paragon of Soviet values, an innovative and practical man, Director of the Food Industry Trust, a man whose vision encompasses such future advances for mankind as the 35-kopeck sausage and the self-peeling potato. Out of kindness, he rescues from the gutter Nikolai Karalerov, violently tossed from a bar after a drunken and self-destructive tirade. But instead of gratitude, Babichev finds himself the subject of an endlessly malignant jealousy, as Kavaelrov sees in him a representative of the new breed of man who has prevented him from realizing his true greatness. A scathing social satire, Envy is a concise and incisive exploration of the paradigmatic conflicts of the early Soviet age: old versus new, imagination versus pragmatism, and the alienation of the romantic artist in the age of technology. One of the signs of the book’s universality is the fact that it has been claimed by nearly every school of critics and interpreted as everything from a submerged homosexual story to a twentieth-century Notes from the Underground. “Poetic and satiric and quite an achievement, it is a novel everyone should read.” —Flavorwire “Vladimir Nabokov had a low opinion of almost everything produced in Russia after his departure, but he admired Olesha’s writing.” —Columbus Dispatch “Olesha writes about the clash of two worlds, but with a wry, half-defeated yet touchingly affectionate irony that seems entirely his own.” —Irving Howe, Harper’s magazine

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  Who Are You Calvin Bledsoe? - A...

  Brock Clarke

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  With the comic unpredictability of a Wes Anderson movie and the inventive sharpness of a John Irving novel, author Brock Clarke introduces listeners to an ordinary man who is about to embark on an absurdly extraordinary adventure.
   
  After his mother, a theologian and best-selling author, dies in a fiery explosion,49-year-old Calvin Bledsoe's heretofore uninspired life is upended. A stranger shows up at the funeral, claiming to be Calvin's aunt Beatrice, and insists that Calvin accompany her on a trip to Europe, immediately.
   
  As he and Beatrice traverse the continent, it quickly becomes apparent that his aunt's clandestine behavior is leading him into danger. Facing a comic menagerie of antiquities thieves, secret agents, religious fanatics, and an ex-wife who's stalking him, Calvin begins to suspect there might be some meaning behind the madness. Maybe he's not the person he thought he was? Perhaps no one is who they appear to be? But there's little time for soul-searching, as Calvin first has to figure out why he has been kidnapped, why his aunt disappeared, and who the hell burned down his house. Powered by pitch-perfect dialogue, lovable characters, and surprising optimism, Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe? is a modern-day Travels with My Aunt, a novel about grabbing life, and holding on-wherever it may take you.

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  Tour of Dr Syntax in Search of...

  William Combe

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  “To bury these, to christen those,And marry such fond folks who choseTo change the tenor of their lifeAnd risk the matrimonial strife.” This was the humdrum life of Dr. Syntax before he set out on his bizarre and hilarious adventures, presented here in the form of satirical poem in 26 cantos. It’s a lot of fun! - Summary by Adrian Praetzellis

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  A Ghostly View of Village Life

  Marion Reid

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  A thought-provoking whimsical tale of life in a Dandenong Village, Colby, seen through the eyes of the irascible ghost, Jasper.Captivating. Reminiscences of life in the 80s.

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  The Grand Design - A Novel

  John Dos Passos

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  John Dos Passos’s literary response to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, The Grand Design critiques the gargantuan growth of bureaucracy in Washington during the Great Depression and World War II. The satiric novel conveys the author’s frustration with federal overreach and the hollow rhetoric that sells it to the people.   “War is a time of Caesars,” writes Dos Passos as he laments the death of idealistic, intelligent enterprises at the desks of elitist administrators. After witnessing the Spanish Civil War claim so many well-intentioned men, he advises caution for America’s New Dealers: “Some things we have learned, but not enough; there is more to learn. Today we must learn to found again in freedom our republic.”

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