This debut collection of stories holds a fun house mirror to the everyday lives of characters as empathetic as they are absurd.You’ve met the characters in The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure. They’re the quirky visionaries and misguided dreamers we all know. . .and might even be. These characters are absurd, hilarious, and completely believable.From the self-appointed historian of the title piece to the frustrated wage slaves of "Our Spring Catalog" and "The Pipe," these are individualists who don’t quite adhere to mainstream ideals. Pendarvis draws his humor from the world of high school ambitions and misunderstood intentions allowed to breathe and take shape. Always original but somehow familiar, these are stories plugged into the collective unconscious of our imaginary lives.Jack Pendarvis’s work is difficult to describe but a pleasure to experience, infused with humanity and laugh-out-loud funny. Comedic literary talent of this caliber is rare.

The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure: Curious Stories by Jack Pendarvis

Literature & Fiction

Pendarvis, Jack

Short Stories & Anthologies

Anchor Canada

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. 
 Smokers, survivalists, teenagers, collectors…. The cigarette lighter is a charged, complex, yet often entirely disposable object that moves across these various groups of people, acquiring and emitting different meanings while always supplying its primary function, that of ignition. While the lighter may seem at first a niche object-only for old fashioned cigarette smokers-in this book Jack Pendarvis explodes the lighter as something with deep history, as something with quirky episodes in cultural contexts, and as something that dances with wide ranging taboos and traditions. Pendarvis shows how the lighter tarries with the cheapest ends of consumer culture as much as it displays more profound dramas of human survival, technological advances, and aesthetics.
Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.

Cigarette Lighter (Object Lessons)

History & Criticism

Bloomsbury Academic

Laugh-out-loud funny and dripping with style, this debut collection of stories holds a fun house mirror to the everyday lives of characters as empathetic as they are absurd. From the self-appointed historian of the title piece to the wage slaves of "Our Spring Catalog" and "The Pipe," these are characters you’ve met before. They’re quirky visionaries and misguided dreamers sprung from a world of high school ambitions and misunderstood intentions. Laugh-out-loud funny, absurd, and always human, Jack Pendarvis’s debut collection is the work of a writer of rare comedic literary talent.

The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure

Contemporary

Lawson Library

Laugh-out-loud funny and dripping with style, this debut collection of stories holds a fun house mirror to the everyday lives of characters as empathetic as they are absurd. 
From the self-appointed historian of the title piece to the wage slaves of "Our Spring Catalog" and "The Pipe," these are characters you’ve met before. They’re quirky visionaries and misguided dreamers sprung from a world of high school ambitions and misunderstood intentions. Laugh-out-loud funny, absurd, and always human, Jack Pendarvis’s debut collection is the work of a writer of rare comedic literary talent.

MACADAM/CAGE.

Glittering with mischief and perversity, Pushcart Prize-winner Jack Pendarvis s latest collection introduces readers to a world of dreamers poised on the brink of all sorts of disaster a world only a wink and a nod away from our own. In the title novella a fundamentalist teenager must single-handedly confront the challenges of a spiritual quest involving secular humanists, an apocalyptic folk artist, and his own misguided hormones. The other stories deal poignantly with among other things a young millionaire pretending to be a detective, the good folks who invented the diarrhea-inducing chewing gum, and a tollbooth operator who becomes an impromptu drug mule. Underlying each comedic gem and neurotic twist is an intelligence and empathy rarely found in modern satire. Your Body Is Changing will invite you in with its zany humor and indict you with its moving truths.

Your Body Is Changing

Fresh new hilarity from the author of The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure.Glittering with mischief and perversity, Pushcart Prize — winner Jack Pendarvis’s latest collection introduces readers to a world of losers poised on the brink of all sorts of disaster – a world only a wink and a nod away from our own. In the title novella a fundamentalist teenager must single-handedly confront the horrors of a spiritual quest filled with secular humanists, an apocalyptic folk artist, and a malfunctioning breast. The other stories deal poignantly with – among other things – a young millionaire pretending to be a detective, the good folks who invented the diarrhea-inducing chewing gum, and a tollbooth operator who becomes an impromptu drug mule.Underlying each comedic gem and neurotic twist is an intelligence and empathy rarely found in modern satire. Like the best guidebooks, Your Body Is Changing will invite you in with its zany humor and indict you with its moving truths.

Your Body is Changing

These stories are linked by humor, setting, themes and recurring characters — cat lovers, murderers, gamblers, ghosts and fools — but mostly by the movie stars, gods and goddesses who look down on us struggling mortals with a mixture of benevolence and wrath. From Scarlett Johansson to Joan Crawford, Clint Eastwood to Jerry Lewis, they represent the impossible ideals to which lesser beings turn for hope in an otherwise baffling world.

Movie Stars

Humor & Satire

Dzanc Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pendarvis, Jack. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Pendarvis, Jack

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pendarvis, Jack. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure: Curious Stories by Jack Pendarvis

Cigarette Lighter (Object Lessons)

The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure

The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure

Your Body Is Changing

Your Body is Changing

Movie Stars