Recommendations based on "Hollywood"

From Holden Caulfield to Moses Herzog, our best literature has been narrated by malcontents. To this lineage add Peter Jernigan, who views the world with ferocious intelligence, grim rapture, and a chainsaw wit that he turns, with disastrous consequences, on his wife, his teenaged son, his dangerously vulnerable mistress—and, not least of all, on himself. This novel is a bravura performance: a funny, scary, mesmerizing study of a man walking off the edge with his eyes wide open—wisecracking all the way.

The author writes: The two long pieces in this book originally came out in The New Yorker ? RAISE HIGH THE ROOF BEAM, CARPENTERS in 1955, SEYMOUR ? An Introduction in 1959. Whatever their differences in mood or effect, they are both very much concerned with Seymour Glass, who is the main character in my still-uncompleted series about the Glass family. It struck me that they had better be collected together, if not deliberately paired off, in something of a hurry, if I mean them to avoid unduly or undesirably close contact with new material in the series. There is only my word for it, granted, but I have several new Glass stories coming along ? waxing, dilating ? each in its own way, but I suspect the less said about them, in mixed company, the better. Oddly, the joys and satisfactions of working on the Glass family peculiarly increase and deepen for me with the years. I can't say why, though. Not, at least, outside the casino proper of my fiction.

Another hilarious and moving novel from David Walliams, number one bestseller and fastest growing children’s author in the country. A story of prejudice and acceptance, funny lists and silly words, this new book has all the hallmarks of David’s previous bestsellers.Our hero Ben is bored beyond belief after he is made to stay at his grandma’s house. She’s the boringest grandma ever: all she wants to do is to play Scrabble, and eat cabbage soup. But there are two things Ben doesn’t know about his grandma.1) She was once an international jewel thief.2) All her life, she has been plotting to steal the Crown Jewels, and now she needs Ben’s help…

'... a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food...' Swift's devastating short satire on how to solve a famine Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). Swift's works available in Penguin Classics are Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal and Other Writings.

In one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adams’s beloved Hitchhiker series. Now celebrating the pivotal 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read) Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe The moment before annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat. Life, the Universe and Everything The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky– so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription thrusts him back to reality. So to speak. Mostly Harmless Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself? Includes the bonus story “Young Zaphod Plays It Safe” “With droll wit, a keen eye for detail and heavy doses of insight . . . Adams makes us laugh until we cry.”—San Diego Union-Tribune “Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written . . . ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain.”—The Atlantic

Suddenly, condemned arch-swindler Moist von Lipwig found himself with a noose around his neck and dropping through a trapdoor into ... a government job?By all rights, Moist should be meeting his maker rather than being offered a position as Postmaster by Lord Vetinari, supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork. Getting the moribund Postal Service up and running again, however, may prove an impossible task, what with literally mountains of decades-old undelivered mail clogging every nook and cranny of the broken-down post office. Worse still, Moist could swear the mail is talking to him. Worst of all, it means taking on the gargantuan, greedy Grand Trunk clacks communication monopoly and its bloodthirsty piratical headman. But if the bold and undoable are what's called for, Moist's the man for the job -- to move the mail, continue breathing, get the girl, and specially deliver that invaluable commodity that every being, human or otherwise, requires: hope.

Lemony Snicket's work is filled with bitter truths, like: 'It is always cruel to laugh at people, of course, although sometimes if they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself.' Or: 'It is very easy to say that the important thing is to try your best, but if you are in real trouble the most important thing is not trying your best, but getting to safety.'For all of life's ups and downs, its celebrations and its sorrows, here is a book to commemorate it all – especially for those not fully soothed by chicken soup. Witty and irreverent, Horseradish is a book with universal appeal, a delightful vehicle to introduce Snicket's uproariously unhappy observations to a crowd not yet familiar with the Baudelaires' misadventures.

Head Over Heels in the Dales is the third volume in Gervase Phinn's bestselling Dales Series 'Could you tell me how to spell "sex" please?' Gervase Phinn thinks he's heard just about everything in his two years as a school inspector, but a surprising enquiry from an angelic six-year-old reminds him never to take children for granted. This year Gervase has lots of important things on his mind - his impending marriage to Christine Bentley (the prettiest headteacher for miles around), finding somewhere idyllic to live in the Yorkshire Dales, and the chance of a promotion. All of which generate their fair share of excitement, aided and abetted as usual by his colleagues in the office. In Head Over Hells in the Dales, join Gervase Phinn in the classroom where he faces his greatest challenge: keeping a straight face as teachers and children alike conspire to have him laughing out loud. 'Gervase Phinn's memoirs have made him a hero in school staff-rooms' Daily Telegraph Gervase Phinn is an author and educator from Rotherham who, after teaching for fourteen years in a variety of schools, moved to North Yorkshire to be a school inspector. He has written autobiographies, novels, plays, collections of poetry and stories, as well as a number of books about education. He holds five fellowships, honorary doctorates from Hull, Leicester and Sheffield Hallam universities, and is a patron of a number of children's charities and organizations. He is married with four adult children. His books include The Other Side of the Dale, Over Hill and Dale, Head Over Heels in the Dales, The Heart of the Dales, Up and Down in the Dales and Trouble at the Little Village School.

Wodehouse died before finishing this novel, first published in 1977. Containing the bare-bones narrative and dialogue of the first 16 chapters, its story keeps to the Blandings formula: a pretty niece brought to the castle to separate her from an "impossible" (ie poor) suitor in London.

'brilliant. A Citizen Kane Of A Novel' Daily Telegraph __________________________________ Meet John James Todd: Scotsman, Auteur, Rousseau-fanatic - And 'subversive Element' Born In 1899, John James Todd Is One Of The Great, Failed Geniuses Of The Last Century. His Reminiscences, Collected In The New Confessions, Take Us From Edinburgh To The Western Front, The Berlin Film-world In The Twenties To Hollywood In The Thirties, Forties And Beyond. Suffering Imprisonment, Shooting, Marriage, Fatherhood, Divorce And Mccarthyism, Todd Is A Hostage To Good Fortune, Ill-judgement, Bad Luck, The Vast Sweep Of History And The Cruel, Cruel Hand Of Fate . . . __________________________________ 'a Magnificent Feat Of Storytelling And Panoramic Reconstruction' Observer 'paced And Plotted With Sinewy, Unfailing Skill . . . Boyd Has Given Us A Work Of Rich, Ripe And Immensely Enjoyable Entertainment' Sunday Times 'simply The Best Realistic Storyteller Of His Generation' Independent