Books like 'Ubu Roi'
Readers who enjoyed Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical comedy 20th century europe western-central-europe poland drama classics humor satire
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The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf, Yevgeny Petrov
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsOstap Bender is an unemployed con artist living by his wits in postrevolutionary Soviet Russia. He joins forces with Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, a former nobleman who has returned to his hometown to find a cache of missing jewels which were hidden in some chairs that have been appropriated by the Soviet authorities... -
![The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar]()
The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA literary discovery: an uproarious tragicomedy of modernization, in its first-ever English translation Perhaps the greatest Turkish novel of the twentieth century, being discovered around the world only now, more than fifty years after its first publication, The Time Regulation Institute is an antic, freewheeling send-up of the modern bureaucratic state... -
![The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker]()
The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA collection of stories and poems by the noted American... -
![The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker, Marion Meade]()
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker, Marion Meade
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe second revision in sixty years, this sublime collection ranges over the verse, stories, essays, and journalism of one of the twentieth century's most quotable authors.For this new twenty-first-century edition, devoted admirers can be sure to find their favorite verse and stories. But a variety of fresh material has also been added to create a fuller, more authentic picture of her life's work... -
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![Wyrd Sisters: The Play by Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett]()
Wyrd Sisters: The Play by Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsTerry Pratchett takes Shakespeare's Macbeth and then turns it up 'till the knob comes off. It's all there - a wicked duke and duchess, the ghost of the murdered king, dim soldiers, strolling players, a land in peril. And who stands between the Kingdom and destruction? Three witches... -
![The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by Oscar Wilde, Richard Allen Cave]()
The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays by Oscar Wilde, Richard Allen Cave
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsCombining epigrammatic brilliance and shrewd social observation, the works collected in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays are edited with an introduction, commentaries and notes by Richard Allen Cave in Penguin Classics... -
![The Plays of Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde]()
The Plays of Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis work consists of the plays "Lady Windermere's Fan" and "A Woman of No Importance". Both the plays deal with the theme of a guilty secret. The wit of the dialogue softens the serious criticism of English manners and morals that lie behind the settings and frivolity of his plays... -
![Pygmalion / My Fair Lady by George Bernard Shaw, Alan Jay Lerner]()
Pygmalion / My Fair Lady by George Bernard Shaw, Alan Jay Lerner
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe ancient Greeks tell the legend of the sculptor Pygmalion, who created a statue of a woman of such surpassing beauty that he fell in love with his own creation. Then, Aphrodite, taking pity on this man whose love could not reach beyond the barrier of stone, brought the statue to life and gave her to Pygmalion as his bride... -
![The Complete Saki by Saki]()
The Complete Saki by Saki
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsHector Hugh Munro is perhaps the most graceful spokesman for England's "golden afternoon''--those slow and peaceful years prior to the outbreak of World War I. The good wit of bad manners, elegantly spiced with irony and deftly controlled malice, has made Saki stories small, perfect gems of the English language... -
![Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings by Daniil Kharms, Matvei Yankelevich]()
Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings by Daniil Kharms, Matvei Yankelevich
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsDaniil Kharms has long been heralded as one of the most iconoclastic writers of the Soviet era, but the full breadth of his achievement is only in recent years, following the opening of Kharms' archives, being recognized internationally... -
![Warlock by Oakley Hall]()
Warlock by Oakley Hall
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOakley Hall’s legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the traditional conventions of the Western to present a raw, funny, hypnotic, ultimately devastating picture of American unreality. First published in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, Warlock is not only one of the most original and entertaining of modern American novels but a lasting contribution to American fiction... -
![The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy by Stanisław Lem]()
The Futurological Congress: From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy by Stanisław Lem
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Futurological Congress is the fourth satirical science fiction novel in the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy series from Kafka Prize–winning author Stanislaw Lem. “Nobody can really know the future. But few could imagine it better than Lem... -
![Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsBertie Wooster vows that nothing will induce him to return to Totleigh Towers, lair of former magistrate Sir Watkyn Bassett. Apart from Sir Watkyn himself, the place is infested with his ghastly daughter Madeline and her admirer, would-be dictator Roderick Spode. But when his old friend 'Stinker' Pinker asks for Bertie's help, there is nothing for it but to buckle down and go there... -
![Selected Stories by O. Henry]()
Selected Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"Selected Stories of O. Henry," by O. Henry, is part of the "Barnes & Noble Classics"" "series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras... -
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![The Short Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald]()
The Short Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsToday, F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for his novels, but in his lifetime, his fame stemmed from his prolific achievement as one of America's most gifted (and best-paid) writers of stories and novellas. In 'The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald', Matthew J... -
![The Collected Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker]()
The Collected Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDorothy Parker, more than any of her contemporaries, captured the spirit of the Jazz Age in her poetry and prose, and The Collected Dorothy Parker includes an introduction by Brendan Gill in Penguin Modern Classics.Dorothy Parker was the most talked-about woman of her day, notorious as the hard-drinking bad girl with a talent for stinging repartee and endlessly quotable one-liners... -
![The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber, Michael J. Rosen]()
The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber, Michael J. Rosen
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratings"An authentic American genius. . . . Mr. Thurber belongs in the great lines of American humorists that includes Mark Twain and Ring Lardner." --Philadelphia InquirerJames Thurber’s unique ability to convey the vagaries of life in a funny, witty, and often satirical way earned him accolades as one of the finest humorists of the twentieth century... -
![My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe]()
My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe ancient Greeks tell the legend of the sculptor Pygmalion, who created a statue of a woman of such surpassing beauty that he fell in love with his own creation. Then, Aphrodite, taking pity on this man whose love could not reach beyond the barrier of stone, brought the statue to life and gave her to Pygmalion as his bride... -
![The Sea and Little Fishes by Terry Pratchett]()
The Sea and Little Fishes by Terry Pratchett
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsFree online fiction. Novelette.This is the story of the time that Granny Weatherwax didn't win the Witch Trials and was nice about it, too. It was horrifying."It's not right! She's got no right to go around being cheerful at people!"Originally published in the collection Legends Vol. 3... -
![Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Much Obliged, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Bertie and Jeeves classic, featuring the Junior Ganymede, a Market Snodsbury election, and the Observer crossword puzzle.Jeeves, who has saved Bertie Wooster so often in the past, may finally prove to be the unwitting cause of this young master's undoing in Jeeves and the Tie that Binds... -
![The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Primary Phase by Douglas Adams, Simon Jones]()
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Primary Phase by Douglas Adams, Simon Jones
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Special Edition of the original radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978 and recently voted the Nation's Favourite Audiobook in a Guardian poll... -
![Arcadia by Tom Stoppard]()
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsArcadia takes us back and forth between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ranging over the nature of truth and time, the difference between the Classical and the Romantic temperament, and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life... -
![The Crime Wave at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse]()
The Crime Wave at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOne of P.G. Wodehouse's most gloriously funny stories, this is the tale of bumbling Lord Emsworth, whose quiet life reading "The Care Of The Pig" and pottering among the flowers at Blandings Castle is shattered by an outbreak of lawlessness involving his niece Jane (the third prettiest girl in Shropshire), an airgun - and the trouser seat of the abominable Baxter... -
![The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan by W.S. Gilbert]()
The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan by W.S. Gilbert
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom Trial by Jury to The Pirates of Penzance: the complete librettos of all fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Gilbert's verses for Sullivan's music are the most fastidiously turned and inventively rhymed in all lyric comedy. As the Savoy Operas enter their second century on a swell of renewed popularity, Gilbert's reputation as the supreme wordsmith of light opera remains secure... -
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![Selected Stories by O. Henry]()
Selected Stories by O. Henry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsO. Henry originated the humorous, energetic tale that ends with an ironic, even shocking twist. In "After Twenty Years," for example, two boys agree to meet at a particular spot exactly twenty years later. Both are faithful, but in the intervening years one boy has turned into a criminal, the other into a policeman... -
![Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme]()
Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsWith these audacious and murderous witty stories, Donald Barthelme threw the preoccupation of our time into the literary equivalent of a Cuisinart and served up a gorgeous salad of American culture, high and low... -
![The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Secondary Phase (Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams, Geoffrey McGivern]()
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Secondary Phase (Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams, Geoffrey McGivern
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsQuandary and Quintessential Phases) to give a full, vibrant sound, now with Philip Pope’s version of the familiar theme tune and specially re-recorded announcements by John Marsh.Stranded on Prehistoric Earth since the end of the first series, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are once again trying to hitch their way off the planet... -
![Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels by Nancy Mitford]()
Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels by Nancy Mitford
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsContains: The Pursuit of Love (1945)Love in a Cold Climate (1949)The Blessing (1951)Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate and Other Novels casts a finely gauged net to capture perfectly the foibles and fancies of the English upper class, and includes an introduction by Philip Hensher in Penguin Modern Classics... -
![A Pelican at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse, Nigel Lambert]()
A Pelican at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse, Nigel Lambert
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsClarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, sank back in his chair, looking like the good old man in a Victorian melodrama whose mortgage the villain had just foreclosed. He felt the absence of that gentle glow which customarily accompanied the departure of one of his sisters. Lord Emsworth needed Galahad... -
![Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker]()
Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAs this complete collection of her short stories demonstrates, Dorothy Parker’s talents extended far beyond brash one-liners and clever rhymes. Her stories not only bring to life the urban milieu that was her bailiwick but lay bare the uncertainties and disappointments of ordinary people living ordinary lives... -
![Dumb Luck by Vũ Trọng Phụng, Peter Zinoman]()
Dumb Luck by Vũ Trọng Phụng, Peter Zinoman
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsBanned in Vietnam until 1986, Dumb Luck--by the controversial and influential Vietnamese writer Vu Trong Phung--is a bitter satire of the rage for modernization in Vietnam during the late colonial era. First published in Hanoi during 1936, it follows the absurd and unexpected rise within colonial society of a street-smart vagabond named Red-haired Xuan... -
![The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth]()
The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsConsidered by critics to be Barth's most distinguished masterpiece, The Sot-Weed Factor has acquired the status of a modern classic. Set in the late 1600s, it recounts the wildly chaotic odyssey of hapless, ungainly Ebenezer Cooke, sent to the New World to look after his father's tobacco business and to record the struggles of the Maryland colony in an epic poem... -
![Going to the Dogs: The Story of a Moralist by Erich Kästner]()
Going to the Dogs: The Story of a Moralist by Erich Kästner
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsGoing to the Dogs is set in Berlin after the crash of 1929 and before the Nazi takeover, years of rising unemployment and financial collapse. The moralist in question is Jakob Fabian, “aged thirty-two, profession variable, at present advertising copywriter . . -
![The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford]()
The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMitford's most famous novels, "The Pursuit of Love" and "Love in a Cold Climate," satirize British aristocracy in the '20s and '30s through the amorous adventures of the Radletts, an exuberantly unconventional family closely modeled on Mitford's own... -
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![Blandings Castle by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Blandings Castle by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFans of P. G. Wodehouse's comic genius are legion, and their devotion to his masterful command of hilarity borders on obsession. Overlook happily feeds the obsession with four more antic selections from the master... -
![Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck, Robert DeMott]()
Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck, Robert DeMott
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIn Monterey, on the California coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that are just naturally bad... -
![Amadeus by Peter Shaffer]()
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAmbition and jealousyall set to music. Devout court composer Antonio Salieri plots against his rival, the dissolute but supremely talented Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. How far will Salieri go to achieve the fame that Mozart disregards? The 1981 Tony Award winner for Best Play. An L.A... -
![The Heart Of A Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov]()
The Heart Of A Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsA rich successful Moscow professor befriends a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man. A distinctly worryingly human animal is now on the loose, and the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance... -
![Cannery Row by John Steinbeck]()
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsCannery Row is a book without much of a plot. Rather, it is an attempt to capture the feeling and people of a place, the cannery district of Monterey, California, which is populated by a mix of those down on their luck and those who choose for other reasons not to live "up the hill" in the more respectable area of town... -
![Les Liaisons Dangereuses a Play by Christopher Hampton]()
Les Liaisons Dangereuses a Play by Christopher Hampton
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"Les Liaisons Dangereuses", A Play by Christopher Hampton, from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos. Produced on the Broadway Stage by James M. Nederlander, The Schubert Organization, Inc., Jerome Minskoff, Elizabeth I. McCann and Stephen Graham in association with Jonathan Farkas... -
![Around the World with Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis, Edward Everett Tanner III]()
Around the World with Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis, Edward Everett Tanner III
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEncore, Encore! The brilliant sequel to the smash bestseller Auntie Mame is back and the reviews are in ..Categorized as:
classics europe humor satire western-central-europe 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Young Men in Spats by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Young Men in Spats by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThese eleven stories describe the misadventures of the delightfully idle "Eggs," "Beans," and "Crumpets" that populate the Drones club: young men wearing spats, starting spats, and landing in sticky spots. For the first of his many appearances in the Wodehouse canon, Uncle Fred comes to what he believes to be the rescue... -
![The Cripple of Inishmaan - Acting Edition (Acting Edition for Theater Productions) by Martin McDonagh]()
The Cripple of Inishmaan - Acting Edition (Acting Edition for Theater Productions) by Martin McDonagh
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn 1934, the people of Inishmaan learn that the Hollywood director Robert Flaherty is coming to the neighboring island to film a documentary. No one is more excited than Cripple Billy, an unloved boy whose chief occupation has been grazing at cows and yearning for a girl who wants no part of him. For Billy is determined to cross the sea and audition for the Yank... -
![A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd]()
A Christmas Story by Jean Shepherd
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA beloved, bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana—the book that inspired the equally classic Yuletide film.The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year... -
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![The Mammy by Brendan O'Carroll]()
The Mammy by Brendan O'Carroll
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"Mammy" is what Irish children call their mothers and The Mammy is Agnes Browne--a widow struggling to raise seven children in a North Dublin neighborhood in the 1960s. Popular Irish comedian Brendan O'Carroll chronicles the comic misadventures of this large and lively family with raw humor and great affection... -
![Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe fall brings four more antic novels from comic genius, P. G. Wodehouse. In Picadilly Jim (soon to be a major motion picture), Jimmy Crocker has a scandalous reputation on both sides of the Atlantic and must do an about-face to win back the woman of his dreams... -
![How Right You Are, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse]()
How Right You Are, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA Bertie and Jeeves classic, featuring a cow-creamer, the redheaded Miss Wickham, and the formidable schoolmaster Aubrey Upjohn. Jeeves is infallible. Jeeves is indispensable. Unfortunately, in How Right You Are, Jeeves, he is also in absentia. In this wonderful slice of Woosterian mayhem, Bertie has sent that prince among gentlemen's gentlemen off on his annual vacation... -
![Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov]()
Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratings"Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster... -
![Pygmalion and Three Other Plays by George Bernard Shaw]()
Pygmalion and Three Other Plays by George Bernard Shaw
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPygmalion and Three Other Plays, by George Bernard Shaw, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras... -
![You Can't Take it With You by Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman]()
You Can't Take it With You by Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsAt first the Sycamore family seems mad, but it is not long before we realize that if they are mad, the rest of the world is really verklempt...
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