In the words of Alexander McCall Smith: 'You feel the rocking of the train, you hear the sound of its wheels on the rails; you are in the world rather than suspended somewhere above it. And sometimes there are conversations to be had, which is what the overarching story in this collection is all about. It is a simple device: people brought together entertain one another with tales of what happened to them on trains. It takes place on a journey I frequently...

On the run as suspected murderers, the unlucky Baudelaire orphans find themselves trapped in the Caligari Carnival, where they must masquerade as freaks in order to hide from the evil Count Olaf.

"Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ-the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents,...

Ever since the monster apocalypse hit town, average thirteen year old Jack Sullivan has been living in his tree house, which he's armed to the teeth with catapults and a moat, not to mention video games and an endless supply of Oreos and Mountain Dew scavenged from abandoned stores. But Jack alone is no match for the hordes of Zombies and Winged Wretches and Vine Thingies, and especially not for the eerily intelligent monster known only as Blarg.......

The misadventures of two terrible old people who enjoy playing nasty tricks and are finally outwitted by a family of monkeys.

In the perilous Mortmain Mountains, Klaus and Violet Baudelaire meet another well-read person, who helps them try to rescue Sunny from the villainous Count Olaf and his henchmen as they all near "the last safe place."

The unexpected delivery of a large crate containing an Antarctic penguin changes the life and fortunes of Mr. Popper, a house painter obsessed by dreams of the Polar regions.

Pigeon is very angry when the duckling gets a cookie just by asking politely.

Outraged over the mounting Social Security debt, Cassandra Devine, a charismatic 29-year-old blogger and member of Generation Whatever, incites massive cultural warfare when she politely suggests that Baby Boomers be given government incentives to kill themselves by age 75. Her modest proposal catches fire with millions of citizens, chief among them "an ambitious senator seeking the presidency." With the help of Washington's greatest spin doctor,...

The enormous crocodile devises secret plans and a few clever tricks to secure his lunch only to have them foiled by his neighbors. The other jungle animals thwart the ferocious crocodile's plans to eat some "nice juicy children" for lunch. The Enormous Crocodile decides that he wants a nice juicy child for lunch, horrifying the other animals in the jungle--his friend, the Notsobig One; Humpy-Rumpy, the hippopotamus; Trunky, the elephant; Muggle-Wump,...