“More than a national treasure, he’s a secret weapon. If we had had Gilbert Gottfried in World War II, Hitler would have given up in 1942.” —Stephen KingIn the early 1970s, as our nation’s youth railed against every conceivable societal norm, a funny-looking teenage Jew started turning up at open mike nights in various New York City comedy clubs. Surprisingly, he didn’t suck. That funny-looking teenage Jew is now the even funnier-looking middle-aged comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who despite his transparent shortcomings has managed to carve out a hardly-respectable career—and a reputation for shock and awe unrivaled outside the Bush administration. With this scathingly funny book of rants and musings, Gottfried sullies an entirely new medium with his dysfunctional worldview.Hilarious highlights include:Gut-wrenching stories from his bizarre childhoodA list of celebrities Gilbert would like to have sex withA somewhat shorter list of celebrities who would like to have sex with GilbertAn even shorter list of Gilbert’s comely co-stars who have been forced to have sex with him on-screenSide-splitting tales of the worst gigs he’s ever performedIncredibly awkward encounters with famous people from Gilbert’s years as a celebrity (of sorts), including Harrison Ford, Kiefer Sutherland, Hugh Hefner and one wildly offensive exchange with Marlee Matlin that left the actress speechlessSignature takes on timeless jokes, presented in a clip ‘n’ save format so humorless readers can commit them to memory or tear them from the book’s spine and carry them around in their wallets to amuse their friendsThe story behind Gilbert’s infamous retelling of the classic “Aristocrats” routine that defined the most recent phase of his careerAnd much more!

"Boyle’s satire has lost none of its edge over the course of a nearly half-century literary career . . . [Blue Skies is] an expert blend of suspense, terror and, occasionally, very black humor . . . this fiercely honest writer shows us what he sees and invites his readers to draw their own conclusions." —Wendy Smith, Washington PostFrom best-selling novelist T. C. Boyle, a satirical yet ultimately moving send-up of contemporary American life in the glare of climate change.“Boyle has long been one of the most exciting and intelligent storytellers in the United States.” —Ron Charles, Washington PostDenied a dog, a baby, and even a faithful fiancé, Cat suddenly craves a snake: a glistening, writhing creature that can be worn like “jewelry, living jewelry” to match her black jeans. But when the budding social media star promptly loses the young “Burmie” she buys from a local pet store, she inadvertently sets in motion a chain of increasingly dire and outrageous events that comes to threaten her very survival.“Brilliantly imaginative . . . in a terrifying way” (Annie Proulx), Blue Skies follows in the tradition of T. C. Boyle’s finest novels, combining high-octane plotting with mordant wit and shrewd social commentary. Here Boyle, one of the most inventive voices in contemporary fiction, transports us to water-logged and heat-ravaged coastal America, where Cat and her hapless, nature-loving family—including her eco-warrior parents, Ottilie and Frank; her brother, Cooper, an entomologist; and her frat-boy-turned-husband, Todd—are struggling to adapt to the “new normal,” in which once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters happen once a week and drinking seems to be the only way to cope.But there’s more than meets the eye to this compulsive family drama. Lurking beneath the banal façade of twenty-first-century Californians and Floridians attempting to preserve normalcy in the face of violent weather perturbations is a caricature of materialist American society that doubles as a prophetic warning about our planet’s future. From pet bees and cricket-dependent diets to massive species die-off and pummeling hurricanes, Blue Skies deftly explores the often volatile relationships between humans and their habitats, in which “the only truism seems to be that things always get worse.”An eco-thriller with teeth, Boyle’s Blue Skies is at once a tragicomic satire and a prescient novel that captures the absurdity and “inexpressible sadness at the heart of everything.”

A “vividly, chillingly current” (The Washington Post) novel by the author of The New Me, one of the boldest voices in American fiction“So searingly precise in [its] ability to capture a certain moment or experience that you have to stop every few pages to send another perfect quote to your group chat.”—The New York Times“So funny, so smart, utterly vicious—just brilliant.”—Zadie Smith“Butler has crafted a novel in which every character proves to be completely, uniquely crazy. Her perverse sense of humor should be studied and celebrated.”—David SedarisMargaret Anne “Moddie” Yance had just returned to her native land in the Midwestern town of X, to mingle with the friends of her youth, to get back in touch with her roots, and to recover from a stressful decade of living in the city in a small apartment with a man she now believed to be a megalomaniac or perhaps a covert narcissist.So begins Halle Butler’s sadistically precise and hilarious Banal Nightmare, which follows Moddie as she abruptly ends her long-term relationship and moves back to her hometown, throwing herself at the mercy of her old friends as they, all suddenly tipping toward middle age, go to parties, size each other up, obsess over past slights, dream of wild triumphs, and indulge in elaborate revenge fantasies. When her friend Pam invites a mysterious East Coast artist to take up a winter residency at the local university, Moddie has no choice but to confront the demons of her past and grapple with the reality of what her life has become. As the day of reckoning approaches, friends will become enemies, enemies will become mortal enemies, and old loyalties will be tested to their extreme.Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their decisions. Halle Butlersingularly captures the volatile, angry, aggrieved, surreal, and entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.