Book 2 of the fun and witty mystery series by Molly MacRae, the book takes place in a quaint Scottish town. Janet Marsh is a librarian turned bookshop owner excited about hosting a special book signing for the prolific environmentalist Daphne Wood, but the murder of a young man on the night Daphne comes to town puts a damper on the excitement. When Daphne, too, turns up dead (thanks to a poisoned scone), Janet and company must don their own detective hats.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Texas

Book 2: The Highland Bookshop Mystery Series 

Scones & Scoundrels

#hardcover #nonfiction #humor #diaries #hilarious #witty 

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Louisiana

Diaries (1977-2002)

One of the most anticipated books of 2017: Boston Globe, New York Times Book Review, New York's "Vulture", The Week, Bustle, BookRiot An NPR Best Book of 2017An AV Club Favorite Book of 2017A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2017A Goodreads Choice Awards nominee David Sedaris tells all in a book that is, literally, a lifetime in the making. For forty years, David Sedaris has kept a diary in which he records everything that captures his attention-overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and through them he has honed his cunning, surprising sentences. Now, Sedaris shares his private writings with the world. Theft by Finding, the first of two volumes, is the story of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet. Written with a sharp eye and ear for the bizarre, the beautiful, and the uncomfortable, and with a generosity of spirit that even a misanthropic sense of humor can't fully disguise, Theft By Finding proves that Sedaris is one of our great modern observers. It's a potent reminder that when you're as perceptive and curious as Sedaris, there's no such thing as a boring day.

Theft by Finding

4493c800-917b-467e-a2f4-66b30f965561-1

Adam Wilson

One small flaw on edge. Book is like new otherwise! 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Michigan

A razor-sharp, darkly funny, and deeply human rendering of a Post-Trump America in economic free fall Michael and Wendy Mixner are a Brooklyn-based couple whose marriage is failing in the wake of a personal tragedy. Michael, a Wall Street trader, is meanwhile keeping a secret: he lost the couple’s life savings when a tanking economy caused a major market crash. And Wendy, a digital marketing strategist, has been hired onto a data-mining project of epic scale, whose mysterious creator has ambitions to solve a national crisis of mass unemployment and reshape America’s social and political landscapes. When Michael’s best friend is murdered, the evidence leads back to Wendy’s client, setting off a dangerous chain of events that will profoundly change the couple—and the country. Set in an economic dystopia that’s just around the corner, Sensation Machines is both an endlessly twisty novel of big ideas, and a brilliantly observed human drama that grapples with greed, automation, universal basic income, wearable tech, revolutionary desires, and a broken justice system. Adam Wilson implicates not only the powerbrokers gaming the system and getting rich at the intersection of Wall Street, Madison Avenue, Silicon Valley, and Capitol Hill, but all of us: each one of us playing our parts, however willingly or unwillingly, in the vast systems that define and control our lives.

Sensation Machines

bf8008e5-05c8-4bde-b1b9-6328ba1aa61a-1

Gail Honeyman

A Novel

A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick "Beautifully written and incredibly funny, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is about the importance of friendship and human connection. I fell in love with Eleanor, an eccentric and regimented loner whose life beautifully unfolds after a chance encounter with a stranger; I think you will fall in love, too!" --Reese Witherspoon "This wacky, charming novel. . . draws you in with humor, then turns out to contain both a suspenseful subplot and a sweet romance. . . Hilarious and moving."--People No one's ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one. Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . . The only way to survive is to open your heart.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

3b2106ae-81b0-4401-961c-f2d7d9303a1f-1

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Maryland

In the Greenwich Village of 1964, eleven-year-old Fin moves in with his glamorous, careless older sister, and it's hard to tell who's raising whom.

Fin and Lady

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A “modern folktale” that is funny, witty, imaginative and wild. 

Indiana

A story of love and adventure in an imaginary Slavic nation on the brink of historic change-the debut of a ribald and raucous new literary voice. Set in the quaint (though admittedly backward) fictional nation of Scalvusia in 1939, The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel follows the exploits of a young swineherd with romantic delusions of grandeur. Desperate to attract the voluptuous Roosha, the Gypsy concubine of the local boot-and-shoe magnate, Barnabas and his short-legged steed Wilhelm get embroiled in a series of scandals and misadventures, as every attempt at wooing ends in catastrophe. After the mysterious death of an important figure in the community, a witch-hunt ensues, and a stranger falls from the sky. Barnabas begins to see the terrible tide of history turning in his beloved hometown. The wonderfully eccentric supporting cast includes a priest driven mad by a fig tree, a gang of louts who taunt our reluctant hero at every turn, and a dim-witted vagabond with a goat for a wife. Even as her characters brush up against one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century, Magdalena Zyzak's humor and prose delight in the absurdities of the human animal.

The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel

abeae2c0-fcde-4705-9ca8-e11a015813be-1

Madeleine Wickham

Madeleine Wickham, who writes the internationally bestselling Shopaholic series as Sophie Kinsella, has penned an irresistibly dishy and entertaining novel about three savvy young women and the secrets they share over monthly drinks.

Roxanne: glamorous, self-confident, with a secret lover -- a married man

Maggie: capable and high-achieving, until she finds the one thing she can't cope with -- motherhood

Candice: honest, decent, or so she believes -- until a ghost from her past turns up

At the first of every month, when the office has reached its pinnacle of hysteria, Maggie, Roxanne, and Candice meet at London's swankiest bar for an evening of cocktails and gossip. Here, they chat about what's new at The Londoner, the glossy fashion magazine where they all work, and everything else that's going on in their lives. Or almost everything. Beneath the girl talk and the laughter, each of the three has a secret. And when a chance encounter at the cocktail bar sets in motion an extraordinary chain of events, each one will find their biggest secret revealed.

In Cocktails for Three, Madeleine Wickham combines her trademark humor with remarkable insight to create an edgy, romantic tale of secrets, strangers, and a splash of scandal.

Cocktails for Three

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#hardcover #manandboy #witty #heart-wrenching #poignant #singleparent

Alabama

A witty, often eye-dabbing, always heartwarming love story between a father and his four-year-old son. Set in London, this is the not-to-be-forgotten saga of Harry Silver, who has it all: a beautiful wife, a wonderful son, and a great job in the media. But in one night of infidelity, he throws it all away. His wife leaves to take a chance on a new life. Harry is left at home with the daunting and exhilarating task of raising his son by himself. How Harry Silver learns to love his own father, finds a new love and makes the hardest decision of his thirty-plus years provides the magic and tension of this novel.

Man and Boy

8b3c04c6-9f8e-45fb-b25d-76fc7e9b55ae-1

Camryn Garrett

New York

It's too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if Mahalia had a coming-out party? A love letter to romantic comedies, sweet sixteen blowouts, Black joy, and queer pride.

"A perfect ode to romantic comedies, wrapped in a dazzling rainbow dress." --Rachael Lippincott, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Five Feet Apart and She Gets the Girl

Mahalia Harris wants.

She wants a big Sweet Sixteen like her best friend, Naomi.
She wants the super-cute new girl Siobhan to like her back.
She wants a break from worrying--about money, snide remarks from white classmates, pitying looks from church ladies . . . all of it.

Then inspiration strikes: It's too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if she had a coming-out party? A singing, dancing, rainbow-cake-eating celebration of queerness on her own terms.

The idea lights a fire beneath her, and soon Mahalia is scrimping and saving, taking on extra hours at her afterschool job, trying on dresses, and awkwardly flirting with Siobhan, all in preparation for the coming out of her dreams. But it's not long before she's buried in a mountain of bills, unfinished schoolwork, and enough drama to make her English lit teacher blush. With all the responsibility on her shoulders, will Mahalia's party be over before it's even begun?

A novel about finding yourself, falling in love, and celebrating what makes you you.

"Mahalia's story lives, breathes and glows. I'm in love with it every day of the week!" --Becky Albertalli, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda




Friday I'm in Love

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#paperback #fiction #jamespreller #jigsawjones #kidsmystery #witty 

Iowa

A jigsaw jones mystery 

The case of the mummy mystery 

#hardcover #witty #crime #theft #Italy #artmuseum #killer 

Arizona

From the acclaimed author of An Instance of the Fingerpost (may well be the best 'historical mystery' ever written, said The Boston Globe) comes a luminous new Jonathan Argyll/Flavia di Stefano crime novel set against the richly evocative backdrop of Rome and Tuscany. In his first new novel since An Instance of the Fingerpost became an international bestseller, Iain Pears transports us to Rome, where an impudent thief has stolen a politically sensitive painting on loan from a foreign museum. Summoned to see the prime minister, Flavia di Stefano, acting head of Italy's Art Theft Squad, is told to retrieve the painting without publicity or payment of ransom. But does the prime minister mean what he says? And why was this particular painting stolen? Faced with a case sure to cause her grief, Flavia turns to her mentor, General Taddeo Bottando, who has a wholly unexpected view of the situation. Flavia's husband of four weeks, art historian Jonathan Argyll, is busy, meanwhile, with a mission of his own. As a gift to the soon-to-retire Bottando, Jonathan will track down the provenance of a small Renaissance painting, an Immaculate Conception, now hanging on Bottando's wall. Who owned the painting over the years, and how did it come into Bottando's hands? Flavia's search for an art thief soon becomes a hunt for a killer, while Jonathan's probe uncovers some startling secrets and an unlikely alliance as poignant as it is surprising. Absorbing, witty, ingeniously plotted, The Immaculate Deception is stylish entertainment from a justly celebrated author.

The Immaculate Deception

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#witty #absurd #family #delightful #sheeprancher #nevada #rampagingpoodles #wildromp #ostrich hilarious commentary on family, friends, and trying to wrangle it all. Crease line on front cover (see photo)

Georgia

A cast of memorable human characters, a supporting cast of realistic animal personalities, and a colorful setting in Nevada's rangeland

Ostrich

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Amber Royer

Washington

In the far future, chocolate is Earth’s only unique commodity one that everyone else in the galaxy is willing to kill to get their hands, paws and tentacles on Latina culinary arts student, Bo Benitez, becomes a fugitive when she’s caught stealing a cacao pod from one of the heavily-defended plantations that keep chocolate, Earth’s sole valuable export, safe from a hungry galaxy. Forces array against her including her alien boyfriend and a reptilian cop. But when she escapes onto an unmarked starship things go from bad to worse: it belongs to the race famed throughout the galaxy for eating stowaways! Surrounded by dangerous yet hunky aliens, Bo starts to uncover clues that the threat to Earth may be bigger than she first thought. File Under: Science Fiction [ Heiress Apparent | Sticky Fingers | Pod People | The Milky Way ]

Free Chocolate

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Jenn McKinlay

When her introverted mathematician father announces he's getting remarried, Chelsea is forced to acknowledge that her life stopped after her mother died, and that the last time she can remember being happy, in love, or enjoying her life was on her gap year. Inspired to retrace her steps - to find Colin in Ireland, Jean Claude in France, and Marcelino in Italy - Chelsea hopes that one of these three men who stole her heart so many years ago, can help her find it again.

Paris Is Always a Good Idea

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#hardcover #adventure #humor #witty #spy #smartmouth #ridiculous #richdad #murder #crime #romance 

Florida

In this sequel to Finding Lubchenko, Evan Macalister once again has a big problem. When an anonymous caller warns him that his father's partner has smuggled live smallpox virus into Europe to sell to a terrorist group, Evan jets off with best friend Ruben and new girlfriend Erika to save the day. 224 pop.

The Rise of Lubchenko

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#hardcover #mystery #heist #romance #catandmouse #witty #humor

California

A Fox & O’hare novel

The Heist

1520b8f4-df36-4343-b457-f4dd870f4488

Missouri

Karen Joy Fowler

Wisconsin

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A book club discuss the works of Jane Austen and experience their own affairs of the heart in this charming “tribute to Austen that manages to capture her spirit” (The Boston Globe). In California’s central valley, five women and one man join to discuss Jane Austen’s novels. Over the six months they get together, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens. With her eye for the frailties of human behavior and her ear for the absurdities of social intercourse, Karen Joy Fowler has never been wittier nor her characters more appealing. The result is a delicious dissection of modern relationships. Dedicated Austenites will delight in unearthing the echoes of Austen that run through the novel, but most readers will simply enjoy the vision and voice that, despite two centuries of separation, unite two great writers of brilliant social comedy.

The Jane Austen Book Club

480b9efb-a7b1-4f28-8f94-3386c52f354a-1

Susan Choi

WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION “Electrifying” (People) • “Masterly” (The Guardian) • “Dramatic and memorable” (The New Yorker) • “Magic” (TIME) • “Ingenious” (The Financial Times) • "A gonzo literary performance” (Entertainment Weekly) • “Rare and splendid” (The Boston Globe) • “Remarkable” (USA Today) • “Delicious” (The New York Times) • “Book groups, meet your next selection" (NPR) In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley. The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence. As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi's Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.

Trust Exercise

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Mardy Grothe

This book has the best, wittiest, funniest, and most hilarious, laugh inducing banter, dialogue, insults, and jokes that have ever been recorded in book form. This book will make you burst out in laughter. For a hilarious good time, don't miss this book! 

Clever Comebacks and Witty Retorts from History's Great Wits and Wordsmiths

For most of us, that perfect retort or witty reply often escapes us when we need it most, only to come to mind with perfect clarity when it's too late to be useful. The twentieth-century writer Heywood Broun described this all-too-common phenomenon when he wrote "Repartee is what we wish we'd said."

In Viva la Repartee, Dr. Mardy Grothe, author of Oxymoronica, has lovingly assembled a collection of masterfully composed -- and perfectly timed -- replies that have turned the tables on opponents and adversaries. This delightful volume is a celebration of the most impressive retorts, ripostes, rejoinders, comebacks, quips, ad-libs, bon mots, off-the-cuff comments, wisecracks, and other clever remarks ever to come out of the mouths -- and from the pens -- of people throughout history. Touching on all areas of human endeavor, including politics, the arts, literature, sports, relationships, and even the risqué, the book features contributions from Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, Mae West, Groucho Marx, Winston Churchill, Dolly Parton, and scores more.

As entertaining as it is intellectually enriching, Viva la Repartee is sure to capture the attention of language lovers and is the perfect antidote for anyone who's ever thought I wish I'd said that!

Viva la Repartee

7cd00212-9abe-4842-92dd-83546b1c36c5-1

#paperback #fiction #romance #love #witty #youngadult #parisisalwaysagoodidea #amazing 

New Jersey

"From the internationally bestselling author of The Windfall. . . . What could go wrong at a lavish Indian wedding with your best friend and your entire family? Tina Das wants to belong, but she just isn't sure where. India or America? Brooklyn or Bombay? Manhattan or Delhi? Or start from scratch in London--she still has fond memories of her one-night stand with Rocco Gallagher, the handsome Australian, as they traipsed through Covent Garden and Seven Dials, but he never called back so maybe it's time to let that dream go, and focus on finding the next big story for her streaming network instead. She's hoping she'll find it at her cousin's lavish, weeklong Delhi wedding, and has taken her best friend Marianne Laing along for the ride to Delhi's poshest country club, Colebrookes. Marianne has always had international tastes, in life and in love, yet can't help but think of sweet, steady, khaki-clad Tom back home in New York. Also in attendance are Tina's divorced parents: her mother, Radha, who's bringing her American "boyfriend," David, to the wedding, and her father, Neel, who's using the visit to India to explore the idea of dating again, only to discover it and he have both changed completely in the decades he's been away. Infused with warmth, charm, and wicked humor, Destination Wedding grapples with the challenges of work, love, and finding the people who make a place feel like home"--

Destination Wedding

3ef43eee-530b-4c59-a342-bcdbad4b2df4-1

#paperback #fiction #bythebook #romance #contemporary #comedy #humor #witty 

Rhode Island

A Book Club Recommendation!

An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiancé has just become the president of her college—and her new boss—in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Persuasion. Anne Corey is about to get schooled. An English professor in California, she’s determined to score a position on the coveted tenure track at her college. All she’s got to do is get a book deal, snag a promotion, and boom! She’s in. But then Adam Martinez—her first love and ex-fiancé—shows up as the college’s new president. Anne should be able to keep herself distracted. After all, she’s got a book to write, an aging father to take care of, and a new romance developing with the college’s insanely hot writer-in-residence. But no matter where she turns, there’s Adam, as smart and sexy as ever. As the school year advances and her long-buried feelings begin to resurface, Anne begins to wonder whether she just might get a second chance at love. Funny, smart, and full of heart, this modern ode to Jane Austen’s classic explores what happens when we run into the demons of our past...and when they turn out not to be so bad, after all.

By the Book

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#paperback #fiction #contemporary #janeausten #drama #witty #romance 

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Molly MacRae

Scones & Scoundrels

David Sedaris

Theft by Finding

Adam Wilson

Sensation Machines

Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Cathleen Schine

Fin and Lady

Magdalena Zyzak

The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel

Madeleine Wickham

Cocktails for Three

Tony Parsons

Man and Boy

Camryn Garrett

Friday I'm in Love

James preller

The case of the mummy mystery

Iain Pears

The Immaculate Deception

Michael A. Thomas

Ostrich

Amber Royer

Free Chocolate

Jenn McKinlay

Paris Is Always a Good Idea

Michael Simmons

The Rise of Lubchenko

Janet Evanovich; Lee Goldberg

The Heist

Madeleine Wickham

Cocktails for Three

Karen Joy Fowler

The Jane Austen Book Club

Susan Choi

Trust Exercise

Mardy Grothe

Viva la Repartee

Jenn McKinlay

Paris Is Always a Good Idea

Diksha Basu

Destination Wedding

Julia Sonneborn

By the Book

Karen Joy Fowler

The Jane Austen Book Club