18 books like Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Barrel Fever
In David Sedaris’ world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz, and the National Enquirer, Sedaris’ collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite…
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Holidays on Ice
A collection of Christmas stories. The story Dinah, the Christmas Whore, describes the reaction of a family when a daughter brings home a prostitute, while SantaLand Diaries is on a department store elf.
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Hey rub-a-dub-dub
This collection contains numerous essays about the idea of the literary American character and several dramatic works from Dreiser. Dreiser held the collection in high regard, but it was panned by critics on its release. Many of Dreiser's unique obsessions, from the political to the scientific, are explored in these essays.
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Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new book of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences.…
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Let Me Tell You What I Mean
From one of our most iconic and influential writers: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would become Joan Didion's subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt.
Here are six pieces written in 1968 from the "Points West" Saturday Evening Post column Joan Didion shared from 1964 to 1969 with her husband, John Gregory…
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When You Are Engulfed in Flames
"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book. Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside…
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The Widow Bedott papers
"Following the twists and turns of an unimaginable crime, The Widow is an electrifying debut thriller that will take you into the dark spaces that exist between a husband and a wife. When the police started asking questions, Jean Taylor turned into a different woman. One who enabled her and her husband to carry on when more bad things began to happen. . . But that woman's husband died last week.…
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Take the cannoli
"While tackling subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art, and history, these autobiographical tales are written with a biting humor, placing Vowell solidly in the tradition of Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker. Vowell searches the streets of Hoboken for traces of the town's favorite son, Frank Sinatra.
She goes under cover of heavy makeup in an investigation of goth culture, blasts…
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Routledge Revivals
Originally published in 1979, Mark Twain as a Literary Comedian looks at how Mark Twain addressed social issues through humour. The Southwest provided the subject for much of Twain’s writing, but the roots of his style lay principally in north-eastern humour. In the mid-1800s the northern United States underwent social changes that reflected in the writing of the literary humourists like Twain.…
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Essays, first series
Emerson, Alfred Kazin observes in his Introduction, "was a great writer who turned the essay into a form all his own." His celebrated essays--the twelve published in Essays: First Series (1841) and eight in Essays: Second Series (1844)--are here presented for the first time in an authoritative one-volume edition, which incorporates all the changes and corrections Emerson made after their initial…
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Stranger Than Fiction
From the bestselling author of Fight Club and Diary, a collection of essays and journalistic pieces that prove that real life has imagination beaten cold in the strangeness and wonder departmentsChuck Palahniuk's world has always been, well, different from yours and mine. The pieces that comprise Stranger Than Fiction, his first nonfiction collection, prove just how different, in ways both…
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Cheaper by the Dozen (Cheaper by the Dozen #1)
A wonderful memoir of a large and wild family during the early part of the 20th century. The "progressive" parenting and lifestyle of the parents, the hilarious trials and tribulations of the children, and the many adventures through these very interesting decades provide an engrossing and endearing read.
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Thurber Country Lt
First published in 1949, Thurber Country remains a benchmark of satirical writing. This edition includes a new introduction by Lillian Ross. There are 26 short pieces. Most (including "File and Forget," a correspondence with his publishers which is not recommended to people who have a tendency to get bad hiccoughs from too much laughing) have already appeared in The New Yorker. Seven pieces have…
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Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk
If animals were more like us, if mice kept pets and toads could cuss, if dogs had wives and chipmunks dated, sheep sat still and meditated, then in the forest, field, and dairy you might find this bestiary, read by storks, by rats and kitties, skimmed by cows with milk-stained titties. "I found the book to be most droll," might quip the bear, the owl, the mole. Others, though, would be more…
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Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys
For thousands of years, women have asked themselves: What is the deal with guys, anyway? What are they thinking? The answer, of course, is: virtually nothing.
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A fable for critics
A Fable for Critics By James Russell LowellA Fable for Critics is a book-length poem by American writer James Russell Lowell, first published anonymously in 1848. The poem made fun of well-known poets and critics of the time and brought notoriety to its author.A Fable for Critics satirized many of the most important figures in American literature at the time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and…
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Westward ha!
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The best of S.J. Perelman
First published in the US in 1947.
In this collection, Perelman puzzles over the nature of the secret chocolate blend in Hostess Cupcakes, captures the excesses of Russian prose style in a story about cigarettes, and ponders the question of our time: poisonous mushrooms--yes or no?
This collection of humorous essays takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the author's quirky observations and…
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