Books like 'Things Can Only Get Worse?: Twenty Confusing Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter'
Readers who enjoyed Things Can Only Get Worse?: Twenty Confusing Years in the Life of a Labour Supporter by John O'Farrell also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical comedy humor politics satire communism
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Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty, 1485-1917 by Richard Curtis, Ben Elton
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThen look no further. Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty is the book for you. Here, at last, for the first time, are the full scripts of one of British television's funniest comedies... -
Making Money: The Play by Stephen Briggs, Terry Pratchett
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPlay based on Terry Pratchett's book, Making Money.Lord Vetinari wants to overhaul the banks of Ankh-Morpork so he appoints former con-man Albert Spangler, aka Moist von Lipwig, to the position of Mater of the Royal Mint, attached to a senior post at the Bank of Ankh-Morpork... -
The Best Short Stories of O. Henry by O. Henry
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe more than 600 stories written by O. Henry provided an embarrassment of riches for the compilers of this volume.The final selection of the thirty-eight stories in this collection offers for the reader's delight those tales honored almost unanimously by anthologists and those that represent, in variety and balance, the best work of America's favorite storyteller... -
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... -
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The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovannino Guareschi
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThis tragicomical stories, often politically or socially charged, mostly situated in a fictional village on the Po called Boscaccio, in the period immediately after World War II, paint a clear picture of the post-war Italy. In this period the Italian Communist Party is very strong, but the Second World War and fascism are still vividly remembered. Boscaccio has a communist mayor named Peppone... -
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... -
Woe from Wit: A Verse Comedy in Four Acts by Alexander Griboyedov
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAlexander Griboedov's Woe from Wit is one of the masterpieces of Russian drama. A verse comedy set in Moscow high society after the Napoleonic wars, it offers sharply drawn characters and clever repartee, mixing meticulously crafted banter and biting social critique... -
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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... -
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
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 Man Who Came to Dinner by George S. Kaufman, Moss Hart
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsThe Man Who Came to Dinner...and stayed and stayed and stayed! Sheridan Whiteside, the man who came to dinner, throws out insults with a voluminous precision volley. Maggie Cutler, his secretary, is described by Whiteside as an aging debutante supporting her two-headed brother... -
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... -
The Inspector General by Nikolai Gogol
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsConsidered the high point of Gogol's writing for the stage and a masterpiece of dramatic satire, The Inspector General skewers the stupidity, greed, and venality of Russian provincial officials. When it is announced that the Inspector General is coming to visit incognito, Anton, the chief of police, hastens to clean up the town before his arrival... -
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A Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works by Jonathan Swift
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsThe originality, concentrated power and ‘fierce indignation’ of his satirical writing have earned Jonathan Swift a reputation as the greatest prose satirist in English literature. Gulliver’s Travels is, of course, his world renowned masterpiece in the genre; however, Swift wrote other, shorter works that also offer excellent evidence of his inspired lampoonery... -
The Misanthrope and Other Plays by Molière, Lewis Seifert
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Misanthrope * The Doctor in Spite of Himself * The Miser * The Would-Be Gentleman * The Mischievous Machinations of Scapin * The Learned Women * The Imaginary Invalid“The comedy,” Molière once quipped, “is excellent, and they who deride it deserve to be derided... -
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... -
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists by Gideon Defoe, Richard Murkin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsLondon, 1840: Wagner’s latest opera plays to packed houses while disgruntled workers gather in crowded pubs to eat ice cream and plan the downfall of the bourgeoisie. And the Pirate Captain––his disguise proving something of a letdown––finds himself incarcerated at Scotland Yard, in a case of mistaken identity... -
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... -
Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge, Дмитрий Петров
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsUnforgiving Years is a thrilling and terrifying journey into the disastrous, blazing core of the twentieth century. Victor Serge’s final work, here translated into English for the first time, is at once the most ambitious, bleakest, and most lyrical of this neglected major writer’s works.The novel is arranged into four sections, like the panels of an immense mural or the movements of a symphony... -
The Mouse on the Moon by Leonard Wibberley
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Duchy of Grand Fenwick, the world's smallest country, whose army of 20 longbow men defeated the United States in The Mouse that Roared is back again... -
2028 by Ken Saunders
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings2028. Prime Minister Fitzwilliams' instincts tell him it's time to call a snap election. His cabinet team is adequate (just), the howling protests of the doctors after the GP changes has finally died down and, best of all, the Australian Greens are in receivership... -
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis: Stories by Max Shulman
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThis riotous chronicle of the ins and outs and ups and downs of collegiate romance was the basis for the iconic television show starring Dwayne Hickman, Bob Denver, and Tuesday Weld Including stories first published in Cosmopolitan and the Saturday Evening Post, this bestselling collection follows the romantic escapades of Max Shulman’s famed collegiate Don Juan... -
The Miseducation Years by Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, Paul Howard
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSo there I was, roysh, putting the 'in' in 'in crowd', hanging out, pick of the babes, bills from the old pair to fund the lifestyle I, like, totally deserve. But being a schools rugby legend has its downsides, roysh, like all the total knobs wanting to chill in your, like, reflected glory, and the bunny-boilers who decide they want to be with me and won't take, like, no for an answer... -
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Travesties by Tom Stoppard
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTravesties was born out of Stoppard's noting that in 1917 three of the twentieth century's most crucial revolutionaries -- James Joyce, the Dadaist founder Tristan Tzara, and Lenin -- were all living in Zurich... -
All About H. Hatterr by G.V. Desani
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWildly funny and wonderfully bizarre, All About H. Hatterr is one of the most perfectly eccentric and strangely absorbing works modern English has produced. H. Hatterr is the son of a European merchant officer and a lady from Penang who has been raised and educated in missionary schools in Calcutta... -
At Night She Cries, While He Rides His Steed by Ross Patterson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAt Night She Cries, While He Rides His Steed is a side-splitting satire that perfectly parodies romance novels and western dramas... -
FUBAR by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe waters of renewal sometimes course through the unlikeliest of settings. In the short story, “FUBAR,” we’re taken to a desolate building in a drab industrial complex, where a lonely office worker gains a fresh perspective on life thanks to the intervention of his free-spirited new female assistant... -
The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe NHB Drama Classics series presents the world's greatest plays in affordable, highly readable editions for students, actors and theatregoers. The hallmarks of the series are accessible introductions (focussing on the play's theatrical and historical background, together with an author biography, key dates and suggestions for further reading) and the complete text, uncluttered with footnotes... -
Moscow 2042 by Vladimir Voinovich
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe year is 1982, just two years before that made famous by Orwell. An exiled Soviet writer discovers that a German travel agency is booking flights through a time warp to a variety of tempting sites and dates in the future. Moscow? The year 2042? How can he resist? Afterword by the Author. Translated by Richard Lourie...Categorized as:
humor politics satire 20th-century action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA brilliantly crafted novel about one man's betrayal of his talent, his friends, and his principles-a work of demon energy, startling imagery, and utter originality. At fifty-six, Anatoly Sukhanov has everything a man could want. Nearly twenty-five years ago, he traded his precarious existence as a brilliant underground artist for the perks and comforts of a high-ranking Soviet apparatchik... -
Semi-Tough by Dan Jenkins
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsMade into a hilarious and timeless film starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh, and recently named number seven on Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time, Semi-Tough is Dan Jenkins's masterpiece and considered by many to be the funniest sports book ever written... -
Augustus Carp, Esq. By Himself Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt is customary, I have noticed, in publishing an autobiography to preface it with some sort of apology. But there are times, and surely the present is one of them, when to do so is manifestly unnecessary... -
Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe Right Honourable Leslie Titmuss has clawed his way up the Tory government ranks and is now Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Ecological Affairs and Planning (H.E.A.P.), and in pursuit of beautiful widow Jenny Sidonia. But seismic changes are afoot in the beautiful countryside where a new town threatens to engulf his own back garden... -
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Roscoe by William Kennedy
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe first novel from William Kennedy in more than five years and universally acclaimed as his most powerful work since the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ironweed, Roscoe shows Kennedy at his very best. It's V-J Day, the war is over, and Roscoe Conway, after twenty-six years as the second in command of Albany's notorious political machine, decides to quit politics forever... -
Seven Men by Max Beerbohm
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn Seven Men the brilliant English caricaturist and critic Max Beerbohm turns his comic searchlight upon the fantastic fin-de-siècle world of the 1890s—the age of Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, and the young Yeats, as well of Beerbohm's own first success... -
The Marriage of Bette & Boo by Christopher Durang
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNever have marriage and the family been more scathingly or hilariously savaged than in this brilliant black comedy. The marriage of Bette and Boo brings together two of the maddest families in creation in a portrait album of family life’s uncertainties and confusion... -
The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton
Rated: 3.81 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAn exuberant man as well as a prolific and gifted writer, G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was a man with very strong opinions — and extremely capable of defending them. In this hilarious, satirical romp, Chesterton demonstrates his intense distrust of power and "progressives," railing against Prohibition, vegetarianism, theosophy, and other "dreary and oppressive" forces of modernity... -
Nostradamus Ate My Hamster by Robert Rankin
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDO HOLOGRAMS DREAM OF ELECTRIC CINEMA? He wanted Hollywood. He got Brentford. He wanted Spielberg. He got Fudgepacker. He got who?Fudgepacker. Ernest Fudgepacker. Directed all those weird B-movies back in the Fifties. Whatever happened to him? He retired. Opened Fudgepacker's Emporium, a prop house catering to the more bizarre needs of the film industry. Amazing place... -
Alphabetical Africa by Walter Abish
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAlphabetical Africa, Walter Abish's delightful first novel, is an extraordinary linguistic tour de force, high comedy set in an imaginary dark continent that expands and contracts with ineluctable precision, as one by one the author adds the letters of the alphabet to his book, and then subtracts them... -
An American Daughter by Wendy Wasserstein
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsLyssa Dent Hughes is the privileged, well-educated daughter of a Republican senator. She is the wife of a professor and the owner of a lovely house in Georgetown. She is also the president's nominee for Surgeon General. When the media discovers that once, long ago, she failed to respond for jury duty, this relatively minor misstep is portrayed as a serious moral lapse... -
The Devil's Disciple by George Bernard Shaw
Rated: 3.71 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPurchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. 1st World Library-Literary Society is a non-profit educational organization. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - At the most wretched hour between a black night and a wintry morning in the year 1777, Mrs... -
Love and Garbage by Ivan Klíma
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe narrator of Ivan Klima's novel has temporarily abandoned his work-in-progress -an essay on Kafka -and exchanged his writer's pen for the orange vest of a Prague road-sweeper. As he works, he meditates on Czechoslovakia, on Kafka, on life, on art and, obsessively, on his passionate and adulterous love affair with the sculptress Daria... -
The Doctor in Spite of Himself by Molière
Rated: 3.72 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLe Médecin malgré lui or The Doctor in spite of himself/The Mock Doctor is a comedy-farce in three acts in prose.Sganarelle, an alcoholic woodcutter, is mistaken for a reputable doctor, even though he has no idea what a doctor should know... -
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O scrisoare pierdută by Ion Luca Caragiale
Rated: 3.72 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsO scrisoare pierdută (Romanian for "A Lost Letter") is a play by Ion Luca Caragiale. It premiered in 1884, and arguably represents the high point of his career... -
The Road to Omaha by Robert Ludlum
Rated: 3.72 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsStill a legend in his own lifetime, the Hawk, hero or anti-hero of THE ROAD TO GANDOLFO, is back, irrepressibly maddening, a $500 million caper up his sleeve. Worshipped by the men he once led into battle, General MacKenzie Hawkins is now in his sixties, and shows no sign of retiring from the intrigue and politicking which is his lifeblood... -
Redeye by Clyde Edgerton
Rated: 3.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA New York Times Notable Book. Hang on to your ten gallon hats--Clyde Edgerton has taken his eye for detail, his ear for humor, and his nose for the odor of religious hypocrisy to the Wild West. In REDEYE, he leads us back to turn-of-the-century Colorado, where a motley crew of innocents and scoundrels, visionaries and vultures, tells us How the West Was Made Safe for Free Enterprise... -
Penguin Island by Anatole France
Rated: 3.64 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPenguin Island is a satirical novel by Anatole France first published in 1908. The book details the history of the penguins and is written as a critique of human nature, and is also a satire on France's political history, including the Dreyfus affair... -
Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn
Rated: 3.58 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThis tale is set in the crossword and nature-notes department of an obscure national newspaper during the declining years of Fleet Street... -
Forgetting Elena by Edmund White
Rated: 3.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCombining glittering wit, an atmosphere dense in social paranoia, and a breathtaking elegance and precision of language, White's first novel suggests a hilarious apotheosis of the comedy of manners. For, on the privileged island community where Forgetting Elena takes place, manners are everything...
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