Most Popular Books by Christopher Moore

Take a wonderfully crazed excursion into the demented heart of a tropical paradise—a world of cargo cults, cannibals, mad scientists, ninjas, and talking fruit bats. Our bumbling hero is Tucker Case, a hopeless geek trapped in a cool guy''s body, who makes a living as a pilot for the Mary Jean Cosmetics Corporation. But when he demolishes his boss''s pink plane during a drunken airborne liaison, Tuck must run for his life from Mary Jean''s goons. Now there''s only one employment opportunity left for him: piloting shady secret missions for an unscrupulous medical missionary and a sexy blond high priestess on the remotest of Micronesian hells. Here is a brazen, ingenious, irreverent, and wickedly funny novel from a modern master of the outrageous.

“Christopher Moore is a very sick man, in the very best sense of the word.” —Carl Hiaasen The undead rise again in Bite Me, the third book in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore’s wonderfully twisted vampire saga. Joining his farcical gems Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck, Moore’s latest in continuing story of young, urban, nosferatu style love, is no Twilight—but rather a tsunami of the irresistible outrageousness that has earned him the appellation, “Stephen King with a whoopee cushion and a double-espresso imagination” from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and inspired Denver’s Rocky Mountain News to declare him, “the 21st century’s best satirist.”

Waking up after a fantastic night only to discover that his girlfriend is a vampire and has transformed him into one, C. Thomas Flood adapts to his new powers while dealing with a dangerous faction of bloodsuckers trying to kill off all other vampires.

Jody never asked to become a vampire. But when she wakes up under an alley Dumpster with a badly burned arm, an aching back, superhuman strength, and a distinctly Nosferatuan thirst, she realizes the decision has been made for her. Making the transition from the nine-to-five grind to an eternity of nocturnal prowlings is going to take some doing, however, and that''s where C. Thomas Flood fits in. A would-be Kerouac from Incontinence, Indiana, Tommy (to his friends) is biding his time night-clerking and frozen-turkey bowling in a San Francisco Safeway. But all that changes when a beautiful undead redhead walks through the door...and proceeds to rock Tommy''s life—and afterlife—in ways he never thought possible.

A man of infinite jest, Pocket has been Lear''s cherished fool for years, from the time the king''s grown daughters—selfish, scheming Goneril, sadistic (but erotic-fantasy-grade-hot) Regan, and sweet, loyal Cordelia—were mere girls. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege''s side when Lear—at the insidious urging of Edmund, the bastard (in every way imaginable) son of the Earl of Gloucester—demands that his kids swear their undying love and devotion before a collection of assembled guests. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father''s request is kind of . . . well . . . stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot. Well, now the bangers and mash have really hit the fan. The whole damn country''s about to go to hell in a handbasket because of a stubborn old fart''s wounded pride. And the only person who can possibly make things right . . . is Pocket, a small and slight clown with a biting sense of humor. He''s already managed to sidestep catastrophe (and the vengeful blades of many an offended nobleman) on numerous occasions, using his razor-sharp mind, rapier wit . . . and the equally well-honed daggers he keeps conveniently hidden behind his back. Now he''s going to have to do some very fancy maneuvering—cast some spells, incite a few assassinations, start a war or two (the usual stuff)—to get Cordelia back into Daddy Lear''s good graces, to derail the fiendish power plays of Cordelia''s twisted sisters, to rescue his gigantic, gigantically dim, and always randy friend and apprentice fool, Drool, from repeated beatings . . . and to shag every lusciously shaggable wench who''s amenable to shagging along the way. Pocket may be a fool . . . but he''s definitely not an idiot.

A bold, hilarious, speculative novel fills in the lost years of Jesus life, told from the perspective of Biff, Christ''s childhood best buddy. By the author of The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.

''Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit. But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he''s not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn''t run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead. But hold on! There''s an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It''s none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel''s not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle," he''s botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen. Move over, Charles Dickens -- it''s Christopher Moore time.

In Christopher Moore''s ingenious debut novel, we meet one of the most memorably mismatched pairs in the annals of literature. The good-looking one is one-hundred-year-old ex-seminarian and "roads" scholar Travis O''Hearn. The green one is Catch, a demon with a nasty habit of eating most of the people he meets. Behind the fake Tudor façade of Pine Cove, California, Catch sees a four-star buffet. Travis, on the other hand, thinks he sees a way of ridding himself of his toothy traveling companion. The winos, neo-pagans, and deadbeat Lotharios of Pine Cove, meanwhile, have other ideas. And none of them is quite prepared when all hell breaks loose.

From the master of subversive humor Christopher Moore comes a quirky, irreverent novel of love, myth, metaphysics, outlaw biking, angst, and outrageous redemption. As a boy, he was Samson Hunts Alone—until a deadly misunderstanding with the law forced him to flee the Crow reservation at age fifteen. Today he is Samuel Hunter, a successful Santa Barbara insurance salesman with a Mercedes, a condo, and a hollow, invented life. Then one day, destiny offers him the dangerous gift of love—in the exquisite form of Calliope Kincaid—and a curse in the unheralded appearance of an ancient god by the name of Coyote. Coyote, the trickster, has arrived to reawaken the mystical storyteller within Sam...and to seriously screw up his existence in the process.

In San Francisco, the souls of the dead are mysteriously disappearing—and you know that can’t be good—in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore’s delightfully funny sequel to A Dirty Job. Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone—or something—is stealing them and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He’s trapped in the body of a fourteen-inch-tall “meat puppet” waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host. To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together: the seven-foot-tall death merchant Minty Fresh; retired policeman turned bookseller Alphonse Rivera; the Emperor of San Francisco and his dogs, Bummer and Lazarus; and Lily, the former Goth girl. Now if only they can get little Sophie to stop babbling about the coming battle for the very soul of humankind . . .

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy. A little hapless, somewhat neurotic, sort of a hypochondriac. He''s what''s known as a Beta Male: the kind of fellow who makes his way through life by being careful and constant -- you know, the one who''s always there to pick up the pieces when the girl gets dumped by the bigger/taller/stronger Alpha Male. But Charlie''s been lucky. He owns a building in the heart of San Francisco, and runs a secondhand store with the help of a couple of loyal, if marginally insane, employees. He''s married to a bright and pretty woman who actually loves him for his normalcy. And she, Rachel, is about to have their first child. Yes, Charlie''s doing okay for a Beta. That is, until the day his daughter, Sophie, is born. Just as Charlie -- exhausted from the birth -- turns to go home, he sees a strange man in mint-green golf wear at Rachel''s hospital bedside, a man who claims that no one should be able to see him. But see him Charlie does, and from here on out, things get really weird. . . . People start dropping dead around him, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death. It''s a dirty job. But hey, somebody''s gotta do it. Christopher Moore, the man whose Lamb served up Jesus'' "missing years" (with the funny parts left in), and whose Fluke found the deep humor in whale researchers'' lives, now shines his comic light on the undiscovered country we all eventually explore -- death and dying -- and the results are hilarious, heartwarming, and a hell of a lot of fun.

Just 50,000 years ago, our hunter-gatherer ancestors ventured off the African savannah and into the wider world. Now, our technology reaches far out into the cosmos. How did we get to where we are today? With lively text and colorful illustrations, From Then to Now explains how individual societies struggled to find their own paths, despite war, disease, slavery, natural disasters, and the relentless growth of human knowledge. From Hammurabi to Henry Ford, from Incan couriers to the Internet, from the Taj Mahal to the Eiffel Tower, from Marco Polo to Martin Luther King, from Cleopatra to Catherine the Great, from boiled haggis to fried tarantulas – this is no less than the story of humanity. It’s the story of how we grew apart over all those years of migration and division, and how – as we recognize our common heritage and our often mixed ancestry – we can come together. An index, maps, and notes make this a must-have reference, as well as a delight to read and to discuss. From Then to Now is bound to create a generation of history buffs!

“Christopher Moore is a very sick man, in the very best sense of that word.” —Carl Hiassen A magnificent “Comedy d’Art” from the author of Lamb, Fool, and Bite Me, Moore’s Sacré Bleu is part mystery, part history (sort of), part love story, and wholly hilarious as it follows a young baker-painter as he joins the dapper Henri Toulouse-Lautrec on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the supposed “suicide” of Vincent van Gogh. It is the color of the Virgin Mary''s cloak, a dazzling pigment desired by artists, an exquisite hue infused with danger, adventure, and perhaps even the supernatural. It is . . . Sacré Bleu In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself. Or did he? Why would an artist at the height of his creative powers attempt to take his own life . . . and then walk a mile to a doctor''s house for help? Who was the crooked little "color man" Vincent had claimed was stalking him across France? And why had the painter recently become deathly afraid of a certain shade of blue? These are just a few of the questions confronting Vincent''s friends—baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec—who vow to discover the truth about van Gogh''s untimely death. Their quest will lead them on a surreal odyssey and brothel-crawl deep into the art world of late nineteenth-century Paris. Oh là là, quelle surprise, and zut alors! A delectable confection of intrigue, passion, and art history—with cancan girls, baguettes, and fine French cognac thrown in for good measure—Sacré Bleu is another masterpiece of wit and wonder from the one, the only, Christopher Moore.

The town psychiatrist has decided to switch everybody in Pine Cove, California, from their normal antidepressants to placebos, so naturally—well, to be accurate, artificially—business is booming at the local blues bar. Trouble is, those lonely slide-guitar notes have also attracted a colossal sea beast named Steve with, shall we say, a thing for explosive oil tanker trucks. Suddenly, morose Pine Cove turns libidinous and is hit by a mysterious crime wave, and a beleaguered constable has to fight off his own gonzo appetites to find out what''s wrong and what, if anything, to do about it.

Just why do humpback whales sing? That''s the question that has marine behavioral biologist Nate Quinn and his crew poking, charting, recording, and photographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. Until the extraordinary day when a whale lifts its tail into the air to display a cryptic message spelled out in foot-high letters: Bite me. Trouble is, Nate''s beginning to wonder if he hasn''t spent just a little too much time in the sun. ''Cause no one else on his team saw a thing—not his longtime partner; not their saucy young research assistant; not even the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (neé Preston Applebaum). But later, when a roll of film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot—and his research facility is trashed—Nate realizes that something very fishy indeed is going on.

Madcap, zany noir set on the mean streets of post-World War II San Francisco. Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin is the bartender in a scruffy gin joint, with street connections that make him the go-to guy for just about everything. When one of his schemes goes south and his lady vanishes, Sammy follows a tortuous trail from Chinatown to Telegraph Hill to a hidden forest enclave in a desperate search to find his girl. Meanwhile, a suspicious flying object has been spotted by the Pacific Coast near Mount Ranier, followed by a mysterious plane crash in Roswell, New Mexico ... but the real weirdness is happening in the City by the Bay.

For a limited time, devour a heartwarming tale of Christmas terror in Christopher Moore''s The Stupidest Angel, for a special price. Also included is a sneak peek at his forthcoming novel, Sacre Bleu, A Comedy d''Art. In The Stupidest Angel, ''Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit. But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he''s not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn''t run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead. But hold on! There''s an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It''s none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel''s not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle," he''s botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen. Move over, Charles Dickens -- it''s Christopher Moore time.

By the end of the Revolutionary War there were a great number of Loyalists--people who could not support the Revolution. In 1783 and 1784, some 50,000 of these Loyalists headed north, forcing the British authorities in Halifax and Quebec to provide for the wave of refugees that far outnumbered the resident population. Those Loyalists went on to change the face of the Canadian colonies.

“If there’s a funnier writer out there, step forward.” —Playboy The always outrageous Christopher Moore—New York Times bestselling author of Bite Me, Lamb, You Suck, The Stupidest Angel, and a host of other prime cuts of literary hilarity—joins forces with award-winning screenwriter and director Ian Corson to bring you The Griff. An absurdly entertaining graphic novel about alien invasion—in the grand tradition of Cowboys and Aliens, but considerably more ridiculous—The Griff is vintage Chris Moore…with pictures! Get ready for thrills, chills, and a chain-smoking professional squirrel, in this high-octane tale of the infestation of Earth by extraterrestrial interlopers and the motley crew of humans who save the world…sort of.

Venice, a long time ago. Three prominent Venetians await their most loathsome and foul dinner guest, the erstwhile envoy from the Queen of Britain: the rascal-Fool Pocket. This trio of cunning plotters—the merchant, Antonio; the senator, Montressor Brabantio; and the naval officer, Iago—have lured Pocket to a dark dungeon, promising an evening of sprits and debauchery with a rare Amontillado sherry and Brabantio''s beautiful daughter, Portia. But their invitation is, of course, bogus. The wine is drugged. The girl isn''t even in the city limits. Desperate to rid themselves once and for all of the man who has consistently foiled their grand quest for power and wealth, they have lured him to his death. (How can such a small man, be such a huge obstacle?). But this Fool is no fool . . . and he''s got more than a few tricks (and hand gestures) up his sleeve. Greed, revenge, deception, lust, and a giant (but lovable) sea monster combine to create another hilarious and bawdy tale from modern comic genius, Christopher Moore.

Learn the story of Canada in this beautiful new edition, fully updated! Who better than award-winning writer Janet Lunn and historian Christopher Moore to tell our country''s story through rich narrative, recreations of daily life, folk tales and intriguing facts. Coupled with Alan Daniel''s evocative original paintings, as well as dozens of historical photographs, maps, paintings, documents and cartoons, The Story of Canada is as splendid to look at as it is fascinating to read. Includes new material to bring us to the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

An original and provocative book that illuminates the origins of philosophy in ancient Greece by revealing the surprising early meanings of the word "philosopher" Calling Philosophers Names provides a groundbreaking account of the origins of the term philosophos or "philosopher" in ancient Greece. Tracing the evolution of the word''s meaning over its first two centuries, Christopher Moore shows how it first referred to aspiring political sages and advice-givers, then to avid conversationalists about virtue, and finally to investigators who focused on the scope and conditions of those conversations. Questioning the familiar view that philosophers from the beginning "loved wisdom" or merely "cultivated their intellect," Moore shows that they were instead mocked as laughably unrealistic for thinking that their incessant talking and study would earn them social status or political and moral authority. Taking a new approach to the history of early Greek philosophy, Calling Philosophers Names seeks to understand who were called philosophoi or "philosophers" and why, and how the use of and reflections on the word contributed to the rise of a discipline. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, the book demonstrates that a word that began in part as a wry reference to a far-flung political bloc came, hardly a century later, to mean a life of determined self-improvement based on research, reflection, and deliberation. Early philosophy dedicated itself to justifying its own dubious-seeming enterprise. And this original impulse to seek legitimacy holds novel implications for understanding the history of the discipline and its influence.

Little Joshua Barker is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old prays for Santa to come back from the dead. There''s an angel waiting in the wings, but he''s botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos.

Christmas crept into Pine Cove like a creeping Christmas thing: dragging garland, ribbon, and sleigh bells, oozing eggnog, reeking of pine, and threatening festive doom like a cold sore under the mistletoe. ''Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit. It is the hap-hap-happiest time of the year, after all. But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he''s not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn''t run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead. But hold on! There''s an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It''s none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel''s not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle," he''s botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen. Only Christopher Moore, the man who brought you the outrageous lost gospel Lamb and the hysterical fish tale Fluke could have devised a new holiday classic that tugs at the heartstrings and serves up a healthy slice of fruitcake to boot. Move over, Charles Dickens -- it''s Christopher Moore time.