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  Alexandra Petri's US History -...

  Alexandra Petri

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  A witty, absurdist satire of the last 500 years, Alexandra Petri's US History is the fake textbook you never knew you needed!Alexandra Petri's US History contains a lost (invented!) history of America. (A history for people disappointed that the only president whose weird sex letters we have is Warren G. Harding.) Petri's "historical fan fiction" draws on real events and completely absurd fabrications to create a laugh-out-loud, irreverent takedown of our nation's complicated past.On Petri's deranged timeline, John and Abigail Adams try sexting, the March sisters from Little Women are sixty feet tall, and Susan Sontag goes to summer camp. Nearly eighty short, hilarious pieces span centuries of American history and culture. Nikola Tesla's friends stage an intervention when he falls in love with a pigeon. The characters from Sesame Street invade Normandy. And Mark Twain—who famously said reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated—offers a detailed account of his undeath, in which he becomes a zombie. This side-splitting work of historical humor shows why Alexandra Petri has been hailed as a "genius," a "national treasure," and "one of the funniest writers alive."

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  Wonders Never Cease - A Novel

  Tim Downs

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  From award-winning author Tim Downs comes this warmhearted story of mistaken identity and unlikely redemption that will have you both laughing and looking at life from a higher perspective.It’s a brilliant plan, if Kemp McAvoy says so himself—and Kemp never hesitates to point out his own brilliance. Kemp is a night nurse for a beautiful but aging movie star in a medically induced coma. And with the help of her agent and a struggling young publisher, he’s concocted a can’t-fail scheme that will make them all rich.Olivia Hayden is about to receive a heavenly visitor—an angel with a message for all humankind. All it takes is a blinding light and little adjustment of her meds, and when she awakes she'll think it was real—and they'll have an instant bestselling book.The scheme seems foolproof. All they have to do for it to work is be good angels and stay out of trouble. But Kemp McAvoy has never been good at staying out of trouble—and he doesn’t realize there may be out-of-this-world consequences for impersonating an angel.Welcome to Los Angeles, the City of Angels, where traffic never stops, people never sleep, and wonders never cease.Stand-alone novelBook length: 75,000 wordsAlso by Tim Downs: PlagueMaker, Head Game, First the Dead

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  The Letters of Mark Twain Complete

  Mark Twain

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  These letters were arranged in two volumes by Albert Bigelow Paine, Samuel L. Clemens's literary executor, as a supplement to Mark Twain, A Biography, which Paine wrote. They are, for the most part, every letter written by Clemens known to exist at the time of their publication in 1917. They begin with a fragment of a letter from teenaged Sam Clemens to his sister, Pamela, and conclude with a letter to his attorney two weeks before his death. 
   
  These letters give us some degree of insight into the evolution of Twain's style of speech and prose over the period of his lifetime; they are a small window into the psyche that created the various characters of his stories. 
   
  But they also reveal the tragedies of his life: the lack of success in his business ventures, the passing of family. And as I read each one in this collection, I can almost detect the faint odor of one of his “devilish” cigars wafting across the room. (Introduction by James K. White)

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  The President's Brain is Missing...

  John Scalzi

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  The question is, how can you tell the President's brain is missing? And are we sure we need it back?

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  I'll Never Be French (no matter...

  Mark Greenside

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  When Mark Greenside—a native New Yorker living in California, political lefty, writer, and lifelong skeptic—is dragged by his girlfriend to a tiny Celtic village in Brittany at the westernmost edge of France in Finistère, or what he describes as "the end of the world," his life begins to change.In a playful, headlong style, and with enormous affection for the Bretons, Greenside shares how he makes a life for himself in a country where he doesn't speak the language or understand the culture. He gradually places his trust in the villagers he encounters—neighbors, workers, acquaintances—and he's consistently won over and surprised as he manages to survive day-to-day trials.Until he came to this town, Greenside was lost, moving through life without a plan, already in his 40s with little money and no house. So when he settles into the rhythm of this new French culture not only does he find a home and meaningful relationships in this French countryside, he finds himself.I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do) is both a new beginning and a homecoming for Greenside. He has never regretted his journey and, as he advises to those searching for their next adventure, neither will you.

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  The Hippopotamus - A Novel

  Stephen Fry

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  Now a major motion picture: A “deliciously wicked and amusing” tale of a cranky curmudgeon investigating strange goings-on at an English country house (The New York Times).   “I’ve suffered for my art, now it’s your turn.” So begins the story of Ted Wallace, unaffectionately known as the Hippopotamus. Failed poet, failed theater critic, failed father and husband, Ted is a shameless womanizer, drinks too much, and is at odds in his cranky but maddeningly logical way with most of modern life.   Fired from his job at the newspaper, Ted seeks a few months’ repose and free liquor at Swafford Hall, the country mansion of his old friend Michael Logan. This world of boozy dinners, hunting parties, and furtive liaisons has recently been turned on its head by miracles, healings, and phenomena beyond Ted’s comprehension. As the mysteries deepen, The Hippopotamus builds into a rollicking sendup of the classic British mystery that is “tremendously funny” (Christopher Buckley) and a “near-perfect book” (Entertainment Weekly).   The basis for the recent movie starring Roger Allam, Matthew Modine, and Fiona Shaw, “The Hippopotamus is animated by an antic sense of comedy and features a willfully feckless hero . . . Described in uproarious terms that suggest Wodehouse crossed with Waugh, Swafford emerges as a parody of every upper-class country house ever depicted in an English novel” (The New York Times).  

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