Books like 'Headgames'
Readers who enjoyed Headgames by Nick Earls also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary comedy 20th century humor magical-realism low-fantasy
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Matilda by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 87 ratingsMatilda is a little girl who is far too good to be true. At age five-and-a-half she's knocking off double-digit multiplication problems and blitz-reading Dickens. Even more remarkably, her classmates love her even though she's a super-nerd and the teacher's pet. But everything is not perfect in Matilda's world. For starters she has two of the most idiotic, self-centered parents who ever lived...Categorized as:
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Yes! No (Maybe...) by Liz Pichon
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Best Book for Younger Readers - Red House Children's Book Award, the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 5 - 12 year-olds and the Blue Peter Best Story Book Award 2013, comes the eighth amazing instalment of this brilliant illustrated series in diary... -
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsCaptured by a giant! But the BFG is no ordinary bone-crunching giant. He is far too nice and jumbly. It's lucky for Sophie that he is. Had she been carried off in the middle of the night by the Bloodbottler, the Fleshlumpeater, the Bonecruncher, or any of the other giants—rather than the BFG—she would have soon become breakfast...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book british-isles -
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 46 ratingsLibrarian's Note: For an alternate cover edition of the same ISBN, click here.This beloved story -first published more than fifty years ago- introduces readers to Milo and his adventures in the Lands Beyond. For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different...Categorized as:
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Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe incomparable Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle loves children good or bad and never scolds but has positive cures for Answer-Backers, Never-Want-to-Go-to-Bedders, and other boys and girls with strange habits...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century audiobook book children children-books -
The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Álvaro Mutis
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMaqroll the Gaviero (the Lookout) is one of the most alluring and memorable characters in the fiction of the last twenty-five years...Categorized as:
humor magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies classics comedy -
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... -
Revenge of the Lawn / The Abortion / So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away by Richard Brautigan
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThree unforgettable Brautigan masterpieces reissued in a one-volume omnibus edition. REVENGE OF THE LAWN: Originally published in 1971, these bizarre flashes of insight and humor cover everything from "A High Building in Singapore" to the "Perfect California Day." This is Brautigan's only collection of stories and includes "The Lost Chapters of TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA... -
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... -
Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsThere was a terrible mistake - Wayside School was built with one classroom on top of another, thirty stories high (The builder said he was sorry.) Maybe that's why all kinds of funny things happened at Wayside-especially on the thirteenth floor...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children -
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle by Betty MacDonald
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsEveryone loves Mrs. Piggle-WiggleMrs. Piggle-Wiggle lives in an upside-down house and smells like cookies. She was even married to a pirate once. Most of all, she knows everything about children. She can cure them of any ailment. Patsy hates baths. Hubert never puts anything away. Allen eats v-e-r-y slowly. Mrs Piggle-Wiggle has a treatment for all of them.The incomparable Mrs...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century audiobook book children children-books -
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 73 ratingsThis is not a fairy-tale. This is about real witches. Real witches don't ride around on broomsticks. They don't even wear black cloaks and hats. They are vile, cunning, detestable creatures who disguise themselves as nice, ordinary ladies...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook book -
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsIn six stories and the novella, Bounty, Saunders introduces readers to people struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world...Categorized as:
humor magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook civil-war -
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 89 ratingsCharlie Bucket's wonderful adventure begins when he finds one of Mr. Willy Wonka's precious Golden Tickets and wins a whole day inside the mysterious chocolate factory...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book children -
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Monday Begins on Saturday by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsWhen young programmer Aleksandr Ivanovich Privalov picks up two hitchhikers while driving in Karelia, he is drawn into the mysterious world of the Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry, where research into magic is serious business... -
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... -
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm by Betty MacDonald
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsMs. Piggle-Wiggle's left her upside-down town house and has moved to a farm in the country. With the help of her cows and pigs and horses, she's still curing girls and boys of their bad habits. So whatever the problem-from pet forgetter-itis to fraidycat-ness-the parents all exclaim, "Better call Mrs... -
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAstrid Lindgren's story of feisty, red-haired Pippi has been given a sparkling new translation by award-winning Tiina Nunnally and engaging pictures by acclaimed Lauren Child.Pippi Longstocking was first published in the United States in 1950, and has been translated from the original Swedish into ninety-one languages...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure animals audiobook book -
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... -
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThe American poet John Shade is dead. His last poem, 'Pale Fire', is put into a book, together with a preface, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade's editor, Charles Kinbote... -
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
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... -
Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Курт Воннегут
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 49 ratingsWelcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision... -
The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, Jefferson Mays
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe definitive edition of Calvino’s cosmicomics, bringing together all of these enchanting stories—including some never before translated—in one volume for the first timeIn Italo Calvino’s cosmicomics, primordial beings cavort on the nearby surface of the moon, play marbles with atoms, and bear ecstatic witness to Earth’s first dawn...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook -
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Math Curse by Jon Scieszka
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsDid you ever wake up to one of those days where everything is a problem? You have 10 things to do, but only 30 minutes until your bus leaves. Is there enough time? You have 3 shirts and 2 pairs of pants... -
Franz Kafka's The Castle (Dramatization) by David Fishelson, Aaron Leichter
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsNote - This is not the novel by Franz Kafka! For the novel see The... -
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... -
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsWhen a passenger check-in desk at London's Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the explosion is deemed an act of God...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook book -
Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H.F. Saint
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA freak accident renders an ordinary stock analyst invisible, and though invisibility has its pitfalls, he is able to eavesdrop his way into amassing a fortune in this side-splitting, tear-jerking mixture of fantasy and nightmare... -
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... -
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... -
Kneller's Happy Campers by Etgar Keret
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsKneller's Happy Campers is a strange, dark but funny tale set in a world very much like our own but it's an afterlife populated by people who have killed themselves - many of them are young, and most of them bear the marks of their death... bullet wounds, broken necks...(those who have over-dosed are known as 'Juliets')... -
Indecent Exposure by Tom Sharpe
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsA blazing satire of South African apartheid, Indecent Exposure is Tom Sharpe's brilliant follow-up to his Riotous Assembly. Once again the setting is Piemburg, the deceptively peaceful looking capital of Zululand, where Kommandant van Heerden, Konstabel Els, and Luitenant Verkramp continue to terrorize true Englishmen and even truer Zulus in their relentless search for a perfect South Africa... -
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Riotous Assembly by Tom Sharpe
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOffering all the qualities of his general bestselling fiction, this is Tom Sharpe's blazing satire of South African apartheid, companion to Indecent Exposure... -
Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRupert Venables is a Magid.It's a Magid's job to oversee what goes on in the vast Multiverse. Actually, Rupert is really only a junior Magid. But he's got a king-sized problem. Rupert's territory includes Earth and the Empire of Korfyros. When his mentor dies Rupert must find a replacement. But there are hundreds of candidates...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy 20th-century action-adventure alternate-universe audiobook book children -
Archer's Goon by Diana Wynne Jones
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe trouble started when Howard Sykes came home from school and found the "goon" sitting in the kitchen. He said he'd been sent by Archer. But who was Archer? It had to do with the 2,000 words that Howard's author father had failed to deliver...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure book children children-books -
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"... -
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 40 ratingsIn this darkly comic short story collection, Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spoke Indian Reservation...Categorized as:
humor magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure anthologies children classics comedy -
Pastoralia by George Saunders
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsWith this new collection, George Saunders takes us even further into the shocking, uproarious and oddly familiar landscape of his imagination.The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed version of America, where elements of contemporary life have been merged, twisted, and amplified, casting their absurdity-and our humanity-in a startling new light...Categorized as:
humor magical-realism 20th-century 21st-century adult anthologies audiobook classics -
Kiss Kiss by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsIn these dark, disturbing stories Roald Dahl explores the sinister side of human nature: the cunning, sly selfish part of each of us that leads into the territory of the unexpected and unsettling.Originally published in 1960, Kiss Kiss brings together 11 of Roald's macabre adult tales...Categorized as:
humor magical-realism 20th-century anthologies audiobook children children-books classics -
Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsThis is a gutsy, fun-loving, and provocative novel in which a bean can philosophises, a dessert spoon mystifies, a young waitress takes on the New York art world, and a rowdy redneck welder discovers the lost god of Palestine... -
George's Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 60 ratingsGeorge's grouchy grandma needs a taste of her own medicine -- and George knows just the right ingredients to put into...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century action-adventure audiobook book british-isles -
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... -
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Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years by Sue Townsend
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhen we last heard from Adrian, he had fallen in love with Daisy Flowers and they had embarked on a new life with their baby, Gracie. Fast-forward four years and Adrian's life is in turmoil again. Living in the Piggeries is far from ideal, middle age is beckoning and the ups and downs of parenthood are still plaguing him... -
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 War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts by Louis de Bernières
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThis rambunctious first novel by the author of the bestselling Corelli's Mandolin is set in an impoverished, violent, yet ravishingly beautiful country somewhere in South America. When the haughty Dona Constanza decides to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, the consequences are at once tragic, heroic, and outrageously funny... -
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 78 ratingsA little magic can take you a long way...Roald Dahl was a champion of the underdog and all things little—in this case, an orphaned boy oppressed by two nasty, self-centered aunts. How James escapes his miserable life with the horrible aunts and becomes a hero is a Dahlicious fantasy of the highest order...Categorized as:
humor low-fantasy magical-realism 20th-century abuse action-adventure animals anthropomorphism -
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
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...
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