Books like 'The Jokers'
Readers who enjoyed The Jokers by Albert Cossery also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical 20th century literary-fiction humor satire politics classics journey crime
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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... -
![They Burn Thistles by Yaşar Kemal]()
They Burn Thistles by Yaşar Kemal
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis is the story of a bitter war between the poor Turkish peasants of the Taurus Mountains and the Aghas who covet their land. Ali Safa is determined to take possession of the village of Vayvay but its inhabitants will not sell. Then one villager weakens, prepared to part with his land in return for the Agha's best stallion... -
![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... -
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![Kinfolk by Pearl S. Buck]()
Kinfolk by Pearl S. Buck
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsKinfolk is the story of a Chinese family. Dr. Liang moves to America in search of a better life, but his children long to return to China. Each responds to their new life in China differently, providing rich insight into the struggles between Eastern and Western culture, and the differences between generations...Categorized as:
classics politics literary-fiction fiction historical-fiction historical family 20th-century -
![A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar]()
A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLibrarian note: Alternate cover edition of: 9780976395096Set on the eve of World War II, A Mind at Peace captures the anxieties of a Turkish family facing the difficult reality entrenched in the early republic, founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923... -
![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... -
![Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu]()
Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy and middle class Chinese society in the Republican era. The title is taken from an old French proverb, "Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out"... -
![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... -
![Complete Stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Dave Eggers]()
Complete Stories by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Dave Eggers
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFeaturing five never-before-published Vonnegut stories!Here for the first time is the complete short fiction of one of the twentieth century’s foremost imaginative geniuses. More than half of Vonnegut’s output was short fiction, and never before has the world had occasion to wrestle with it all together... -
![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 Bedbug and Selected Poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky]()
The Bedbug and Selected Poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis selection of Mayakovsky's work covers his entire career--from the earliest pre-revolutionary lyrics to a poem found in a notebook after his suicide. Splendid translations of the poems, with the Russian on a facing page, and a fresh, colloquial version of Mayakovsky's dramatic masterpiece, The Bedbug... -
![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 Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad, Azar Nafisi]()
My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad, Azar Nafisi
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA teenage boy makes the mistake of falling in love with the much-protected daughter of his uncle, mischievously nicknamed after his hero Napoleon Bonaparte, the curmudgeonly self-appointed patriarch of a large and extended Iranian family in 1940s Tehran...Categorized as:
classics humor journey literary-fiction politics satire 20th-century action-adventure -
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![Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984 by Henri Michaux]()
Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology, 1927-1984 by Henri Michaux
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHenri Michaux defies common critical definition. Critics have compared his work to such diverse artists as Kafka, Goya, Swift, Klee, and Beckett. Allen Ginsberg called Michaux “genius,” and Jorge Luis Borges wrote that Michaux’s work “is without equal in the literature of our time... -
![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... -
![Rapsodie der eenzaamheid by Agnar Mykle, Maurice Michael]()
Rapsodie der eenzaamheid by Agnar Mykle, Maurice Michael
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsDutch translation of Lasso rundt fru Luna... -
![Nervous People and Other Satires by Mikhail Zoshchenko]()
Nervous People and Other Satires by Mikhail Zoshchenko
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsTypical targets of Zoshchenko's satire are the Soviet bureaucracy, crowded conditions in communal apartments, marital infidelities and the rapid turnover in marriage partners, and "the petty-bourgeois mode of life, with its adulterous episodes, lying, and similar nonsense... -
![Manto: Selected Stories by Saadat Hasan Manto]()
Manto: Selected Stories by Saadat Hasan Manto
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratings...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction politics fiction anthologies drama 20th-century historical -
![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... -
![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... -
![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 Bracelet of Garnets and Other Stories by Aleksandr Kuprin, Leo Pasvolsky]()
The Bracelet of Garnets and Other Stories by Aleksandr Kuprin, Leo Pasvolsky
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThis scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages... -
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![Watchbird by Robert Sheckley]()
Watchbird by Robert Sheckley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen Gelsen entered, he saw that the rest of the watchbird manufacturers were already present. There were six of them, not counting himself, and the room was blue with expensive cigar smoke. As a watchbird manufacturer, he was a member manufacturer of salvation, he reminded himself wryly. Very exclusive. You must have a certified government contract if you want to save the human race... -
![His Name was Death by Rafael Bernal, Kit Schluter]()
His Name was Death by Rafael Bernal, Kit Schluter
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA bitter drunk forsakes civilization and takes to the Mexican jungle, trapping animals, selling their pelts to buy liquor for colossal benders, and slowly rotting away in his fetid hut... -
![Babbitt & Main Street: Two Classic American Books by Sinclair Lewis]()
Babbitt & Main Street: Two Classic American Books by Sinclair Lewis
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings• Two of American author Sinclair Lewis' novels are in this Kindle eBook: Babbitt & Main Street Babbitt (1922) Babbitt is at its heart a satire of American society. It was an immediate hit and helped Babbitt win the Nobel Prize in literature. Main Street Another satire, this time involving small town life in America... -
![The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor]()
The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsO'Connor's 1956 account of big-city politics, inspired by the career of longtime Boston Mayor James M. Curley, portrays its Irish-American political boss as a demagogue and a rogue who nonetheless deeply understands his constituents. The book was later made into a John Ford film staring Spencer Tracy... -
![Uova fatali / Cuore di cane by Mikhail Bulgakov]()
Uova fatali / Cuore di cane by Mikhail Bulgakov
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsDeluxe Russian edition of Bulgakov's two most famous early novellas. Also contains Bulgakov's short story collection The Diaboliad and assorted prose sketches. Gorgeous illustrations, limited edition... -
![The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký]()
The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Engineer of Human Souls is a labyrinthine comic novel that investigates the journey and plight of novelist Danny Smiricky, a Czech immigrant to Canada. As the novel begins, he is a professor of American literature at a college in Toronto... -
![Where the Air Is Clear by Carlos Fuentes]()
Where the Air Is Clear by Carlos Fuentes
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Where the Air Is Clear," Carlos Fuentes's first novel, is an unsparing portrayal of Mexico City's upper class. Departing from a traditional linear narrative, Fuentes overlays Mexican myths onto contemporary settings, showing that even the rich and powerful must succumb to the indomitable spirit of Mexico, which undermines all institutions and shapes all destinies... -
![The Zone: A Prison Camp Guard's Story by Sergei Dovlatov]()
The Zone: A Prison Camp Guard's Story by Sergei Dovlatov
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Zone is a satirical novelization of Dovlatov’s time as a prison guard for the Soviet Army in the early 1960s. Snapshots of the prison are juxtaposed with the narrator’s letters to Igor Markovich of Hermitage Press in which he urges Igor to publish the very book we’re reading. As Igor receives portions of the prison camp manuscript, so too does the reader... -
![Call If You Need Me by Raymond Carver]()
Call If You Need Me by Raymond Carver
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsWhen he died in August 1988, Raymond Carver had just published what were thought to be his last stories in the collection entitled Elephant and his own collection of stories, Where I'm Calling from... -
![U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money by John Dos Passos]()
U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money by John Dos Passos
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn the novels that make up the U.S.A.trilogy—The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money—Dos Passos creates an unforgettable collective portrait of America, shot through with sardonic comedy and brilliant social observation. He interweaves the careers of his characters and the events of their time with a narrative verve and breathtaking technical skill that make U.S.A... -
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![Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis de Bernières]()
Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis de Bernières
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsIn this iridescent gem of a novel, Louis de Bernieres returns to the territory he mapped so well in The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, a South American country of resplendent eccentricity, gargantuan corruption, and terrifying violence, where the ordinary machinery of government has rusted and the only thing that works is magic... -
![Tales from Two Pockets by Karel Čapek]()
Tales from Two Pockets by Karel Čapek
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsCapek wrote 48 stories that deconstruct the mystery story by breaking one rule here, three rules there, and yet also make for wonderful reading. His unique approaches to the mysteries of justice and truth are full of the ordinary and the extraordinary, humor and humanism... -
![Vladimir Nabokov: Novels 1955–1962 by Vladimir Nabokov]()
Vladimir Nabokov: Novels 1955–1962 by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis Library of America volume is the second of three volumes that contain the most authoritative versions of the English works of the brilliant Russian émigré, Vladimir Nabokov.Lolita (1955), Nabokov’s single most famous work, is one of the most controversial and widely read books of its time...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction humor politics fiction 20th-century psychological historical -
![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... -
![Cities of Salt by Abdul Rahman Munif, عبد الرحمن منيف]()
Cities of Salt by Abdul Rahman Munif, عبد الرحمن منيف
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSet in an unnamed Persian Gulf kingdom in the 1930s, this remarkable novel tells the story of the disruption and diaspora of a poor oasis community following the discovery of oil there. The meeting of the Arabs and the Americans who, in essence, colonize the remote region is a cultural confrontation in which religion, history, superstition, and mutual incomprehension all play a part...Categorized as:
classics journey literary-fiction politics satire 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![Broken April by Ismail Kadare]()
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the moment that Gjorg's brother is killed by a neighbour, his own life is forfeit: for the code of Kanun requires Gjorg to kill his brother's murderer and then in turn be hunted down. After shooting his brother's killer, young Gjorg is entitled to thirty days' grace - not enough to see out the month of April.Then a visiting honeymoon couple cross the path of the fugitive...Categorized as:
classics crime journey literary-fiction politics 20th-century action-adventure adult -
![The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Vladimir Voinovich, Владимир Войнович]()
The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Vladimir Voinovich, Владимир Войнович
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIvan Chonkin is a simple, bumbling peasant who has been drafted into the Red Army. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, he is sent to an obscure village with one week's ration of canned meat and orders to guard a downed plane. Apparently forgotten by his unit, Chonkin resumes his life as a peasant and passes the war tending the village postmistress's garden... -
![The Petty Demon by Fyodor Sologub]()
The Petty Demon by Fyodor Sologub
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Petty Demon is one of the funniest Russian novels. It is also the most decadent of the great Russian classics, replete with naked boys, sinuous girls, and a strange mixture of beauty and perversity. The main hero, Peredonov, is as comical as he is disgusting, he is at once a victim, a monster, a silly hypocrite, and a sadistic dullard... -
![An Unsuitable Attachment (Bello) by Barbara Pym]()
An Unsuitable Attachment (Bello) by Barbara Pym
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in St Basil’s, an undistinguished North London parish, An Unsuitable Attachment is indeed full of the high comedy for which Barbara Pym is famed. There is Mark Ainger, the vicar, who introduces his sermons with remarks like ‘Those of you who are familiar with the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome... -
![The Public Burning by Robert Coover]()
The Public Burning by Robert Coover
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA controversial best-seller in 1977, The Public Burning has since emerged as one of the most influential novels of our time. The first major work of contemporary fiction ever to use living historical figures as characters, the novel reimagines the three fateful days in 1953 that culminated with the execution of alleged atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg... -
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![The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh by Evelyn Waugh]()
The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh by Evelyn Waugh
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsEvelyn Waugh's short fiction reveals in miniaturized perfection the elements that made him the greatest satirist of the twentieth century... -
![The Vivisector by Patrick White]()
The Vivisector by Patrick White
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHurtle Duffield, a painter, coldly dissects the weaknesses of any and all who enter his circle. His sister's deformity, a grocer's moonlight indiscretion, the passionate illusions of the women who love him - all are used as fodder for his art... -
![The House of Mirth / The Reef / The Custom of the Country / The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton]()
The House of Mirth / The Reef / The Custom of the Country / The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsEdith Wharton’s full and glamorous life bridged the literary worlds of two continents and two centuries. Born in 1862 into an exclusive New York society against whose rigid codes of behavior she often rebelled, she lived to regret the passing of that stable if old-fashioned community and to appreciate the sense of personal identity its definitions provided...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction humor satire fiction historical 20th-century female-author -
![Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban]()
Kleinzeit by Russell Hoban
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratings'An original ... a delight to read' The TimesOn an ordinary day in a strangely unfamiliar London, Kleinzeit is fired from his advertising job and told he must go to hospital with a skewed hypotenuse... -
![Spain, Take This Chalice from Me and Other Poems: Parallel Text Edition (Penguin Classics) by César Vallejo]()
Spain, Take This Chalice from Me and Other Poems: Parallel Text Edition (Penguin Classics) by César Vallejo
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA major new bilingual edition of the Peruvian poet's workCesar Vallejo is one of the best-known Latin American poets of the twentieth century. Challenging, intense, and difficult to translate, Vallejo's work has often been overshadowed by his fervent endorsement of communism...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction politics 20th-century anthropomorphism fiction anthologies historical -
![You Bright and Risen Angels by William T. Vollmann]()
You Bright and Risen Angels by William T. Vollmann
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsIn the jungles of South America, on the ice fields of Alaska, the plains of the Midwest, and the streets of San Francisco, a fearsome battle rages. The insects are vying for world domination; the inventors of electricity stand in evil opposition. Bug , a young man, rebels against his own kind and joins forces with the insects...
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