Most Popular Books by Christopher Moore

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.

Being undead sucks. Literally. Just ask C. Thomas Flood. Waking up after a fantastic night unlike anything he''s ever experienced, he discovers that his girlfriend, Jody, is a vampire. And surprise! Now he''s one, too. For some couples, the whole biting-and-blood thing would have been a deal breaker. But Tommy and Jody are in love, and they vow to work through their issues. But word has it that the vampire who initially nibbled on Jody wasn''t supposed to be recruiting. Even worse, Tommy''s erstwhile turkey-bowling pals are out to get him, at the urging of a blue-dyed Las Vegas call girl named (duh) Blue. And that really sucks.

Everyone knows about the immaculate conception and the crucifixion. But what happened to Jesus between the manger and the Sermon on the Mount? In this hilarious and bold novel, the acclaimed Christopher Moore shares the greatest story never told: the life of Christ as seen by his boyhood pal, Biff. Just what was Jesus doing during the many years that have gone unrecorded in the Bible? Biff was there at his side, and now after two thousand years, he shares those good, bad, ugly, and miraculous times. Screamingly funny, audaciously fresh, Lamb rivals the best of Tom Robbins and Carl Hiaasen, and is sure to please this gifted writer’s fans and win him legions more.

The city of San Francisco is being stalked by a huge shaved vampyre cat named Chet, and only I, Abby Normal, emergency back-up mistress of the great Bay Area night, and my mangahaired love monkey, Foo Dog, stand between the ravenous monster and a bloody massacre of the general public. Whoa. And this is a love story? Yup. See, while some lovers were born to run, Jody and Tommy were born to bite. Well, reborn, that is, now that they''re vampires. Good thing theirs is an undying love, since they''re imprisoned in a bronze statue. Their Goth Girl Friday, Abby Normal, wants to be a bloodsucking fiend, too, but right now she''s really busy with other stuff like Chet, who''s getting bigger and smarter—and thirstier—by the minute. Before you can say "OMG! WTF?" Tommy and Jody are sprung from captivity, and join forces with Abby and the entire crew to hunt big cat and save the city. And that''s when the fun really begins.

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.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have read—and reread—Christopher Moore''s irreverent, iconoclastic, and divinely funny tale of the early life of Jesus Christ as witnessed by his boyhood pal Levi bar Alphaeus (a.k.a. Biff). Now, in this special (check out the cool red ribbon marker, gilt-edged pages, and gold lettering) gift edition of Christopher Moore''s bestselling Lamb, you, too, can find out what really happened between the manger and the Sermon on the Mount. And, in a new afterword written expressly for this edition, Christopher Moore addresses some of the most frequently asked questions he''s received from readers since Lamb''s initial publication, about the book and himself. Fresh, funny, poignant, and wise, this special gift edition of Lamb is cause for rejoicing among readers everywhere.

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.

''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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

''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.

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.

After reverently lambasting the most cherished rites and credos of virtually every one of the world''s major religions in his transcendently hilarious novel Lamb, the one and only Christopher Moore returns with a wild look at interspecies communication, adventure on the high seas, and an eons-old mystery. Marine behavioral biologist Nate Quinn is in love -- with the salt air and sun-drenched waters off Maui ... and especially with the majestic ocean-dwelling behemoths that have been bleeping and hooting their haunting music for more than twenty million years. But just why do the humpback whales sing? That''s the question that has Nate and his crew poking, charting, recording, and photographing any large marine mammal that crosses their path. 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. No one on Nate''s team has ever seen such a thing; not his longtime partner, photographer Clay Demodocus, not their saucy young research assistant, Amy. Not even spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman, Kona (the former Preston Applebaum of New Jersey), could boast such a sighting in one of his dope-induced hallucinations. And when a roll of film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot -- and their research facility is summarily trashed -- Nate realizes that something very fishy indeed is going on. This, apparently, is big, involving dangerously interested other parties -- competitive researchers, the cutthroat tourist industry, perhaps even the military. The weirdness only gets weirder when a call comes in from Nate''s big-bucks benefactor saying that a whale has made contact -- by phone. And it''s asking for a hot pastrami and Swiss on rye. Suddenly the answer to the question that has daunted and driven Nate throughout his adult life is within his reach. But it''s waiting for him in the form of an amazing adventure beneath the waves, 623 feet down, somewhere off the coast of Chile. And it''s not what anyone would think. It must be said: Christopher Moore''s Fluke is a whale of a novel.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

New York Times Bestseller “Smart and funny and all sorts of raunchy in the best way.” — San Francisco Chronicle Repeat New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore returns to the mean streets of San Francisco in this outrageous follow-up to his madcap novel Noir. San Francisco, 1947. Bartender Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin and the rest of the Cookie’s Coffee Irregulars—a ragtag bunch of working mugs last seen in Noir—are on the hustle: they’re trying to open a driving school; shanghai an abusive Swedish stevedore; get Mable, the local madam, and her girls to a Christmas party at the State Hospital without alerting the overzealous head of the S.F.P.D. vice squad; all while Sammy’s girlfriend, Stilton (a.k.a. the Cheese), and her “Wendy the Welder” gal pals are using their wartime shipbuilding skills on a secret project that might be attracting the attention of some government Men in Black. And, oh yeah, someone is murdering the city’s drag kings and club owner Jimmy Vasco is sure she’s next on the list and wants Sammy to find the killer. Meanwhile, Eddie “Moo Shoes” Shu has been summoned by his Uncle Ho to help save his opium den from Squid Kid Tang, a vicious gangster who is determined to retrieve a priceless relic: an ancient statue of the powerful Rain Dragon that Ho stole from one of the fighting tongs forty years earlier. And if Eddie blows it, he just might call down the wrath of that powerful magical creature on all of Fog City. Strap yourselves in for a bit of the old razzmatazz, ladies and gentlemen. It’s Christopher Moore time.

In this book, the first systematic study of Socrates'' reflections on self-knowledge, Christopher Moore examines the ancient precept ''Know yourself'' and, drawing on Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon, and others, reconstructs and reassesses the arguments about self-examination, personal ideals, and moral maturity at the heart of the Socratic project. What has been thought to be a purely epistemological or metaphysical inquiry turns out to be deeply ethical, intellectual, and social. Knowing yourself is more than attending to your beliefs, discerning the structure of your soul, or recognizing your ignorance - it is constituting yourself as a self who can be guided by knowledge toward the good life. This is neither a wholly introspective nor a completely isolated pursuit: we know and constitute ourselves best through dialogue with friends and critics. This rich and original study will be of interest to researchers in the philosophy of Socrates, selfhood, and ancient thought.

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.