Books like 'The Bald Soprano and The Lesson: Two Plays'
Readers who enjoyed The Bald Soprano and The Lesson: Two Plays by Eugène Ionesco also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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The Complete Yes Prime Minister by Jonathan Lynn, Antony Jay
Rated: 4.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsPresented in the form of diaries, official documents, and letters, rather than simply transcribed scripts, this book is a companion to the successful BBC series, "Yes Prime Minister... -
![The Compromise by Sergei Dovlatov]()
The Compromise by Sergei Dovlatov
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsBased on Dovlatov's experiences as a journalist in the Soviet Republic of Estonia, this is an acidly comic picture of ludicrous bureaucratic ineptitude, which obviously still continues... -
![The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov]()
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsSergei Dovlatov’s subtle, dark-edged humor and wry observations are in full force in The Suitcase as he examines eight objects—the items he brought with him in his luggage upon his emigration from the U.S.S.R... -
![What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski]()
What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire by Charles Bukowski
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsCharles Bukowski's gamble in art was as prolific as it was audacious. The second in Black Sparrow's series of posthumous volumes of Bukowski's poetry takes us deeper into the raw, wild vein that extends from the early 1970s to the 1990s... -
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![Into the Woods (Vocal Score) by Stephen Sondheim]()
Into the Woods (Vocal Score) by Stephen Sondheim
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTitles include: Opening (Part I, II, IIA, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII) * Cinderella at the Grave * Hello Little Girl * Hello Little Girl (Underscore) * I Guess This Is Goodbye * Maybe They're Magic * Rapunzel * Baker's Reprise * Cinderella Coming from the Ball (Underscore) * A Very Nice Prince * First Midnight * Giants in the Sky * Underscore 9A * Agony * Agony Playoff (Underscore) and more... -
![Noises Off by Michael Frayn]()
Noises Off by Michael Frayn
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsNoises Off, the classic farce by the Tony Award—winning author of Copenhagen, is not one play but two: simultaneously a traditional sex farce, Nothing On, and the backstage “drama” that develops during Nothing On’s final rehearsal and tour... -
![Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, William T. Vollmann]()
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, William T. Vollmann
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsLouis-Ferdinand Celine's revulsion and anger at what he considered the idiocy and hypocrisy of society explodes from nearly every page of this novel. Filled with slang and obscenities and written in raw, colloquial language, Journey to the End of the Night is a literary symphony of violence, cruelty and obscene nihilism... -
![The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov]()
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFrom the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, and so many others, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and 1950s, these sixty-five tales—eleven of which have been translated into English for the first time—display all the shades of Nabokov's imagination... -
![Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec]()
Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLife: A User's Manual is an unclassified masterpiece, a sprawling compendium as encyclopedic as Dante's Commedia and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and, in its break with tradition, as inspiring as Joyce's Ulysses... -
![Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler]()
Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsEbullient and perverse, thrice married, Barney Panofsky has always clung to two cherished beliefs: life is absurd and nobody truly ever understands anybody else. But when his sworn enemy publicly states that Barney is a wife abuser, an intellectual fraud and probably a murderer, he is driven to write his own memoirs... -
![Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart]()
Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsLoudmouthed, redheaded Cee Cee Bloom has her sights set on Hollywood. Bertie White, quiet and conservative, dreams of getting married and having children. In 1951, their childhood worlds collide in Atlantic City. Keeping in touch as pen pals, they reunite over the years ... always near the ocean... -
![Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo]()
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsRichard Russo's slyly funny and moving novel follows the unexpected operation of grace in a deadbeat town in upstate New York—and in the life of one of its unluckiest citizens, Sully, who has been doing the wrong thing triumphantly for fifty years... -
![Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 76 ratingsTold with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ...Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet... -
![The Collected Plays, Vol. 1 by Neil Simon]()
The Collected Plays, Vol. 1 by Neil Simon
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis first volume of The Collected Plays of Neil Simon contains the triumphs that put his unique brand of comic genius on the American stage, and made him the most successful playwright of his generation... -
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![The Complete Plays by Joe Orton]()
The Complete Plays by Joe Orton
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis volume contains every play written by Joe Orton, who emerged in the 1960s as the most talented comic playwright in recent English history and was considered the direct successor to Wilde, Shaw, and Coward... -
![Mulliner Nights by P.G. Wodehouse, Jonathan Cecil]()
Mulliner Nights by P.G. Wodehouse, Jonathan Cecil
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA private detective who can make the guilty confess simply by smiling at them. An artist so intimidated by his morally impeccable cat that he feels compelled to wear formal attire at dinner. A devotee of Proust whose life is turned upside down when he inadvertently subscribes to a correspondence course on "How to Acquire Complete Self-Confidence and an Iron Will... -
![Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, Joseph Farrell]()
Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, Joseph Farrell
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn its first two years of production, Dario Fo's controversial farce, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was seen by over half a million people. It has since been performed all over the world and is widely recognised as a classic of modern drama... -
![The Collected Stories by Grace Paley]()
The Collected Stories by Grace Paley
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis reissue of Grace Paley's classic collection—a finalist for the National Book Award—demonstrates her rich use of language as well as her extraordinary insight into and compassion for her characters, moving from the hilarious to the tragic and back again... -
![Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee]()
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 35 ratings"Twelve times a week," answered Uta Hagen when asked how often she'd like to play Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In the same way, audiences and critics alike could not get enough of Edward Albee's masterful play. A dark comedy, it portrays husband and wife George and Martha in a searing night of dangerous fun and games... -
![The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty]()
The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhite Boy Shuffle is Man Booker-winner Paul Beatty’s electrifying debut novel about teenage-surf-bum Gunnar Kaufman who is forced to wise up when his mother moves from suburban Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighbourhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a ‘divided, downtrodden people’... -
![What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe]()
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIf Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie had ever managed to collaborate, they might have produced this shamelessly entertaining novel, which introduces readers to what may be the most powerful family in England--and is certainly the vilest. A tour de force of menace, malicious comedy, and torrential social bile, this book marks the American debut of an extraordinary writer... -
![Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 70 ratingsAlternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereIn Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth... -
![The Best of Saki by Saki]()
The Best of Saki by Saki
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsThe short stories of Saki give brief but dazzling glimpses into the lives of the Edwardian rich; a class that virtually disappeared with the advent of the First World War. With delicious malice, Saki portrays the follies, eloquence, tradition and foibles of his characters... -
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![The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien]()
The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life by Flann O'Brien
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Poor Mouth relates the story of one Bonaparte O'Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents. Potatoes constitute the basis of his family's daily fare, and they share both bed and board with the sheep and pigs... -
![Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins]()
Harold and Maude by Colin Higgins
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNineteen-year-old Harold Chasen is obsessed with death. He fakes suicides to shock his self-obsessed mother, drives a customized Jaguar hearse, and attends funerals of complete strangers. Seventy-nine-year-old Maude Chardin, on the other hand, adores life... -
![The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh]()
The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSet in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her manipulative aging mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as gothically funny as it is horrific... -
![Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970 by Richard Brautigan]()
Revenge of the Lawn: Stories 1962-1970 by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA collection of 62 very short stories set in 1960s California, particularly around the author's home town of San Francisco. Richard Brautigan is the author of "Willard & His Bowling Trophies", "Trout Fishing in America", "In Watermelon Sugar" & "A Confederate General From Big Sur"... -
![Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau]()
Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe plot of Exercises in Style is simple: a man gets into an argument with another passenger on a bus. However, this anecdote is told 99 more times, each in a radically different style, as a sonnet, an opera, in slang, and with many more permutations. This virtuoso set of variations is a linguistic rust-remover, and a guide to literary forms... -
![Significant Others by Armistead Maupin]()
Significant Others by Armistead Maupin
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSignificant Others, the fifth self-contained chronicle in the Tales of the City saga, is a cunningly observed class comedy that's sure to be relished by the cognoscenti and by new readers alike.A holiday in the redwoods goes uproariously awry when the opposing sexes camp out rather too close to each other for comfort... -
![Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante]()
Wait Until Spring, Bandini by John Fante
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt is going to be a cold winter in Rocklin, Colorado for the family of Svevo Bandini. The immigrant Italian bricklayer is spending his money at the Imperial Poolhall and his time at the widow Hildegarde's.His angelic wife Maria stays at home, cleaning, praying, dreading the arrival of her fearsome mother... -
![Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsBroad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn... -
![Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard]()
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 63 ratingsHamlet told from the worm's-eye view of two minor characters, bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, reality and illusion mix, and where fate leads heroes to a tragic but inevitable end... -
![The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello]()
The Late Mattia Pascal by Luigi Pirandello
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMattia Pascal endures a life of drudgery in a provincial town. Then, providentially, he discovers that he has been declared dead. Realizing he has a chance to start over, to do it right this time, he moves to a new city, adopts a new name, and a new course of life—only to find that this new existence is as insufferable as the old one... -
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![The Odd Couple by Neil Simon, Nathan Lane]()
The Odd Couple by Neil Simon, Nathan Lane
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsComedy / 6m, 2f / Int. This classic comedy opens as a group of the guys assembled for cards in the apartment of divorced Oscar Madison. And if the mess is any indication, it's no wonder that his wife left him. Late to arrive is Felix Unger who has just been separated from his wife... -
![Sexus by Henry Miller]()
Sexus by Henry Miller
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsSexus is the first volume of the scandalous trilogy The Rosy Crucifixion, Henry Miller's major life workHenry Miller called the end of his life in America and the start of a new, bohemian existence in 1930s Paris his 'rosy crucifixion'. His searing fictionalized autobiography of this time of liberation was banned for nearly twenty years... -
![Molloy by Samuel Beckett]()
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsMolloy, the first of the three masterpieces which constitute Samuel Beckett’s famous trilogy, appeared in French in 1951, followed seven months later by Malone Dies (Malone meurt), and two years later by The Unnamable (L’Innommable). Few works of contemporary literature have been so universally acclaimed as central to their time and to our understanding of the human experience... -
![In His Own Write by John Lennon]()
In His Own Write by John Lennon
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsAbout The Awful I was bored on the 9th of Octover 1940 when, I believe, the Nasties were still booming us led by Madolf Heatlump (who only had one). Anyway they didn't get me. I attended to varicous schools in Liddypol. And still didn't pass—much to my Aunties supplies... -
![The Umbrella Man and Other Stories by Roald Dahl]()
The Umbrella Man and Other Stories by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsIs it really possible to invent a machine that does the job of a writer? What is it about the landlady’s house that makes it so hard for her guests to leave? Does Sir Basil Turton value most his wife or one of his priceless sculptures? These compelling tales are a perfect introduction to the adult writing of a storytelling genius...Categorized as:
classics drama humor 20th-century action-adventure anthologies children children-books -
![Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins]()
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 56 ratingsStill Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders... -
![Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Mr. Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Mulliner collectionIn the bar-parlour of the Angler's Rest, Mr Mulliner tells his amazing tales, which hold his audience of drinkers (referred to only as Pints of Stout and Whiskies-and-Splash) in the palm of his expressive hand... -
![Meet Mr. Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse]()
Meet Mr. Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA Mulliner collectionIn the Angler's Rest, drinking hot scotch and lemon, sits one of Wodehouse's greatest raconteurs... -
![The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle]()
The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Fan Man is a comic novel published in 1974 by the American writer William Kotzwinkle. It is told in the first-person by the narrator, Horse Badorties, a down-at-the-heels hippie living a life of drug-fueled befuddlement in New York City c. 1970... -
![The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch]()
The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA story about love and friendship and Marxism Many years ago Gerard Hernshaw and his friends “commissioned” one of their number to write a political book. Time passes and opinions change. “Why should we go on supporting a book which we detest?” Rose Curtland asks. “The brotherhood of Western intellectuals versus the book of history,” Jenkin Riderhood suggests... -
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![Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber]()
Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsJames Thurber has been called "one of our great American institutions' (Stanley Walker), "a magnificent satirist (Boston Transcript), and "a Joyce in false-face" (New York Times). The New York Herald Tribune submits that he is "as blithe as Benchley...as savage as Swift.. -
![The Furies by Janet Hobhouse]()
The Furies by Janet Hobhouse
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn exhilarating, fiercely honest, ultimately devastating book, The Furies confronts the claims of family and the lure of desire, the difficulties of independence, and the approach of death.Janet Hobhouse's final testament is beautifully written, deeply felt, and above all utterly alive... -
![The Floating Opera and The End of the Road by John Barth]()
The Floating Opera and The End of the Road by John Barth
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe Floating Opera and The End Of The Road are John Barth's first two novels. Their relationship to each other is evident not only in their ribald subject matter but in the eccentric characters and bitterly humorous tone of the narratives. Both concern strange, consuming love triangles and the destructive effect of an overactive intellect on the emotions... -
![Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa]()
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa
Rated: 3.95 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThis delightful farce opens as the prim and proper Captain Pantoja learns he is to be sent to Peru's Amazon frontier on a secret mission for the army - to provide females for the amorous recruits. Side-splitting complications arise as world of Captain Pantoja's remarkable achievements start to spread... -
![Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward]()
Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratings"An insane farce that is also uproarious."--NY Times"I will ever be grateful for the almost psychic gift that enabled me to write Blithe Spirit in five days during one of the darkest years of the war." - Noel Coward. Written in 1941, Blithe Spirit remained the longest-running comedy in British Theatre for years... -
![Someone Like You by Roald Dahl]()
Someone Like You by Roald Dahl
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIn Someone Like You are fifteen classic tales told by the grand master of the short story, Roald Dahl...
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