First published in English in 1927, "Elmer Gantry" is Sinclair Lewis' novel which satirizes the Christian fundamentalist and evangelistic movements of the early part of the 20th century. From the 17th century onward there have been a number of efforts to reassert the influence of Christianity on social, cultural, and political life. In America, Christian Revivalism, as it is often referred to, has come in four waves, or "Great Awakenings" starting...

"If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?" - CANDIDE Candide is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It is the absurdly melodramatic story of a young man, Candide, living a sheltered life who clings desperately to "the best of all possible worlds," one which is abruptly interrupted by a series of painfully disillusioning events that set him off on a wide-ranging journey....

Arrowsmith tells the story of bright and scientifically minded Martin Arrowsmith of Elk Mills, Winnemac (the same fictional state in which several of Lewis's other novels are set), as he makes his way from a small town in the Midwest to the upper echelons of the scientific community at a prestigious foundation in New York City. Along the way he begins medical school. He becomes engaged to one woman, cheats on her with another woman, becomes engaged...

Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication. Northanger Abbey follows seventeen-year-old Gothic novel aficionado Catherine Morland and family friends Mr. and Mrs. Allen as they visit Bath. It is Catherine's first visit there. She meets new friends, such as Isabella Thorpe, and goes to balls. Catherine finds herself pursued by Isabella's brother, the rough-mannered, slovenly John Thorpe, and by her real love...

One of the greatest satires in American literature, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court begins when Hank Morgan, a skilled mechanic in a nineteenth-century New England arms factory, is struck on the head during a quarrel and awakens to find himself among the knights and magicians of King Arthur's Camelot. The 'Yankee' vows brashly to "boss the whole country inside of three weeks" and embarks on an ambitious plan to modernize Camelot...

"From "China's foremost literary satirist" (Financial Times) comes a captivating new novel set at a religious training center in Beijing, focusing on the love story of a Buddhist nun and a Daoist priest. At the Religious Training Center on the campus of Beijing's National Politics University, disciples of China's five main religions-Buddhism, Daoism, Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam-gather for a year of intensive study and training. In this hallowed...

Originally banned in Paris and published by the Olympia Press under the pseudonym Maxwell Kenton, Candy is the scandalous 1958 novel cowritten by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, now reissued with an introduction by B. J. Novak. Candy was greeted in America by white-hot controversy, becoming a bestseller and helping to cement Southern's reputation as a legendary absurdist comic. The book centers on the sexual misadventures of a young girl named...

"Just a few minutes before, Teddy Haswell had been helping his friend Donald break into the math teacher's office. Now, limbs terminally akimbo, Teddy's body lies in a pool of blood in Jessup Quadrangle. And at the center of the investigation at the prestigious New Jersey Military Academy is young Donald. Surely blame for Teddy's accidental death should not rest with him, Donald reasons. But how? Can people be convinced that Teddy took his own life?...

In this first collection of his Consent Factory essays, C. J. Hopkins irreverently covers the improbable rise of Donald Trump, the political dynamics that led to his presidency, and the media-generated mass hysteria that swept America during his first term in office.

When her oldest childhood friend hatches a plan for her to restore her reputation, hilarity ensues as former social media sensation Sasha Marcus becomes the resident female leader of a group of washed up, desperate men who need to be rid of their toxic masculinity.