Nervous People, and Other Satires

Nervous People, and Other Satires
Author: Mikhail Zoshchenko
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 484
Release: 1975
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780253201928

Among the most popular writers of the early Soviet period was the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko, whose career spanned nearly four decades and who was as beloved by ordinary people as he was admired by the elite. His most popular pieces, often appearing in newspapers, were "short-short stories" written in a slangy, colloquial style. Typical targets of his satire are the Soviet bureaucracy, crowded conditions in communal apartments, marital infidelities and the rapid turnover in marriage partners, and what a disdainful Soviet judge in one of the sketches dismisses as "the petty-bourgeois mode of life, with its adulterous episodes, lying, and similar nonsense." Farcical complications, satiric understatement, humorous anachronisms, and an ironic contrast between high-flown sentiments and the down-to-earth reality of mercenary instincts were his favorite devices. Zoshchenko had an uncanny knack for eluding Soviet censorship (one of the sketches even touches humorously on the dangerous topic of party purges) and his work as a result offers us a marvelous window on life in Russia during the twenties and thirties.

You Can't Spell America Without Me

You Can't Spell America Without Me
Author: Alec Baldwin
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 052552200X

Political satire as deeper truth: Donald Trump’s presidential memoir, as recorded by two world-renowned Trump scholars, and experts on greatness generally "I have the best words, beautiful words, as everybody has been talking and talking about for a long time. Also? The best sentences and, what do you call them, paragraphs. My previous books were great and sold extremely, unbelievably well--even the ones by dishonest, disgusting so-called journalists. But those writers didn't understand Trump, because quite frankly they were major losers. People say if you want it done right you have to do it yourself, even when 'it' is a 'memoir.' So every word of this book was written by me, using a special advanced word processing system during the many, many nights I've been forced to stay alone in the White House--only me, just me, trust me, nobody helped. And it's all 100% true, so true--people are already saying it may be the truest book ever published. Enjoy." Until Donald Trump publishes the ultimate account of his entire four or eight or one-and-a-half years in the White House, the definitive chronicle will be You Can’t Spell America Without Me: The Really Tremendous Inside Story of My Fantastic First Year As President. Trump was elected because he was the most frank presidential candidate in history, a man eager to tell the unvarnished truth about others’ flaws and tout his own amazing excellence. Now he levels his refreshingly compulsive, un-PC candor at his landslide election victory as well as his role as commander-in-chief and leader of the free world. There are intimate, powerful, mind-boggling revelations on every page. You are there with him during his private encounters with world leaders, a few of whom he does not insult. You are there at the genius Oval Office strategy sessions with his advisers. You are there in his White House bedroom as he crafts the pre-dawn Twitter pronouncements that rock the world. And, of course, you are there on the golf course as Trump attempts to manage the burdens of his office. President Trump explains each of the historic decisions that have already made America great again, and how he always triumphs over the fake news media. You'll learn what he really thinks of his cabinet members and top aides not related to him, of the First Lady and the First Daughter and the additional three or four Trump children. Included at no extra charge is a lavish and exclusive portfolio of spectacular, historic and intimate color photographs of President Trump in private – inside the White House, inside Mar-a-Lago, at Trump Tower, and more. You Can’t Spell America Without Me is presented by America’s foremost Trump scholar Kurt Andersen as well as America's foremost mediocre Trump impersonator, Alec Baldwin. You Can't Spell America Without Me is the perfect holiday gift!

The Cambridge Introduction to Satire

The Cambridge Introduction to Satire
Author: Jonathan Greenberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2019
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 1107030188

Provides a comprehensive overview for both beginning and advanced students of satiric forms from ancient poetry to contemporary digital media.

Classical Literature

Classical Literature
Author: William Allan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2014-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199665451

William Allan's Very Short Introduction provides a concise and lively guide to the major authors, genres, and periods of classical literature. Drawing upon a wealth of material, he reveals just what makes the 'classics' such masterpieces and why they continue to influence and fascinate today.

How to Be Black

How to Be Black
Author: Baratunde Thurston
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2012-01-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062098047

New York TimesBestseller Baratunde Thurston’s comedic memoir chronicles his coming-of-blackness and offers practical advice on everything from “How to Be the Black Friend” to “How to Be the (Next) Black President”. Have you ever been called “too black” or “not black enough”? Have you ever befriended or worked with a black person? Have you ever heard of black people? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you. It is also for anyone who can read, possesses intelligence, loves to laugh, and has ever felt a distance between who they know themselves to be and what the world expects. Raised by a pro-black, Pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University, Baratunde Thurston has more than over thirty years' experience being black. Now, through stories of his politically inspired Nigerian name, the heroics of his hippie mother, the murder of his drug-abusing father, and other revelatory black details, he shares with readers of all colors his wisdom and expertise in how to be black. “As a black woman, this book helped me realize I’m actually a white man.”—Patton Oswalt

Sentimental Tales

Sentimental Tales
Author: Mikhail Zoshchenko
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2018-07-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0231545150

“Dralyuk’s new translation of Sentimental Tales, a collection of Zoshchenko’s stories from the 1920s, is a delight that brings the author’s wit to life.”—The Economist Mikhail Zoshchenko’s Sentimental Tales are satirical portraits of small-town characters on the fringes of Soviet society in the first decade of Bolshevik rule. The tales are narrated by one Kolenkorov, a writer not very good at his job, who takes credit for editing the tales in a series of comic prefaces. Yet beneath Kolenkorov’s intrusive narration and sublime blathering, the stories are genuinely moving. They tell tales of unrequited love and amorous misadventures among down-on-their-luck musicians, provincial damsels, aspiring poets, and liberal aristocrats hopelessly out of place in the new Russia, against a backdrop of overcrowded apartments, scheming, and daydreaming. Zoshchenko’s deadpan style and sly ventriloquy mask a biting critique of Soviet life—and perhaps life in general. An original perspective on Soviet society in the 1920s and simply uproariously funny, Sentimental Tales at last shows Anglophone readers why Zoshchenko is considered among the greatest humorists of the Soviet era. “A book that would make Gogol guffaw.”—Kirkus Reviews “If you find Chekhov a bit tame and want a more bite to your fiction, then you need a dose of Zoshchenko, the premier Russian satirist of the twentieth century . . . Snap up this thin volume and enjoy.”—Russian Life “Mikhail Zoshchenko masterfully exhibits a playful seriousness. . . . Juxtaposing joyful wit with the bleakness of Soviet Russia, Sentimental Tales is a potent antidote for Russian literature’s dour reputation.”—Foreword Reviews “Superb.”—Los Angeles Review of Books

PUT OUT MORE FLAGS

PUT OUT MORE FLAGS
Author: Evelyn Waugh
Publisher: Alien Ebooks
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2023-06-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1667623761

Put Out More Flags is set during the first year of the war and follows the wartime activities of characters introduced in Waugh’s earlier satirical novels Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, and Black Mischief.

The dormant conflict is reflected in the activity of the novel’s main characters. Earnest would-be soldier Alistair Trumpington finds himself engaged in incomprehensible manoeuvres instead of real combat, while Waugh’s recurring ne’er-do-well Basil Seal, finds ample opportunity for amusing himself in the name of the war effort.

The Galosh

The Galosh
Author: Mikhail Zoschenko
Publisher:
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2006-08-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Though little known to English readers, Zoshchenko was one of the most popular writers in early Soviet Russiaa̮ time when, as Hicks explains in a useful introduction to this collection of brief comic tales, satire was not yet prohibited by the authorities. Describing himself as "a temporary substitute for the proletarian writer," Zoshchenko wrote in a deliberately simple style, filling his pages with corrupt officials, petty thieves, and confused bureaucrats.