Newest Humour Reviews

The Rev Diaries by Reverend Adam Smallbone

Humour

Adam Smallbone wasn’t always a vicar. He used to work for the Bristol Housing Department, enabling his father-in-law to tell everyone he worked 'in property'. From there, his initial calling was to a rural church in Suffolk which did nothing to prepare him for this, his current London inner city parish. Indeed, he's not prepared for Adoha (the Nigerian parishioner with 19 grandchildren and 'the bottom of God') or Colin, the homeless alcoholic who has adopted Adam and his wife Alex (Mrs Vicarage to Colin). But then Alex also has a lot to get used to; after all, she didn't actually marry a vicar. Full review...

Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes

General Fiction

Hitler Youth Ronaldo! Which way to the street? With these words a very misguided Nazi Fuhrer asks for his first directions in the Berlin of 2011. Mistakenly believing the lad to be a party junior member with his own name on his football shirt, he also thinks for a while it is still 1945. He's soon informed of the truth, but still makes some unfortunate conclusions – that the street kiosks selling Turkish language newspapers are a sign of a Soviet-beating alliance between the two countries, that people eat granola bars because the war still leads to a bread shortage, and that people making an ironic speech bubble with their fingers in the air is all that is left of the Hitler salute. But yes, after a long hiatus neither he nor our author is particularly concerned with explaining, that man is back – and if he has his way he's going to be just as popular this time round… Full review...

The Bluffer's Guide to Golf (Bluffer's Guides) by Adam Ruck

Sport

The fly leaf suggests that this Bluffer's Guide is the way to instantly acquire all the knowledge which you need to pass as an expert in the arcane and labyrinthine world of golf. There's quite a bit there that I'd agree on - the rules (and to an unfortunate extent the attitudes) are arcane and they seem to take a lifetime to master, but there's a surprising amount of information tucked away inside this little book. What I might quibble with is whether or not you would pass as an expert (which suggests that you're something of a con man): there's enough detail here to give you a solid grounding without needing to bluff. Full review...

The Collected Works of A J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

General Fiction

A J Fikry is not having a good time. He's lost his wife to a car crash, and he's not making that much money. The book store he runs, stuck out on a limb on a quiet island community, is too remote to turn a profit year-round, and he has just dismissed the latest publisher's rep to turn up at his door, partly because her previous counterpart, an inconsequential part of A J's life when all is said and done, had died and he didn't know about it. But his bad time is about to get a lot worse, as the one thing he owns worth the most – a rare book, more valuable than his house, his business, anything – is about to vanish. Which bizarrely will cause several major changes to his one-person household… Full review...

The Bluffer's Guide to Etiquette (Bluffer's Guides) by William Hanson

Lifestyle

If you ask people what they fear most in any social situation most will tell you that it's not knowing how to behave. They'll be fine about the basics, but it's those little niceties - how to introduce yourself, what to ask for as an aperitif, how to address someone, for instance which can suddenly reveal you as a parvenu. William Hanson gives us a quick trip through the essentials in a book which is very readable and - in places - hilariously funny. Full review...

Horrid Henry's Biggest and Best Ever Joke Book - 3-in-1 by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross

Humour

It is easy to see why Horrid Henry remains such an enduring and well-liked children’s character. The adventures of this cheeky, irreverent schoolboy and a cast of extreme characters including Miss Battle Axe, The Demon Dinner Lady, Rabid Rebecca and arch-nemesis Moody Margaret are incredibly funny and a perfect way to encourage reluctant young readers to cultivate a love of reading. It is no surprise then, that the series has spawned a set of three spin-off joke books, which have now been combined to create a single volume: Horrid Henry’s Biggest and Best Ever Joke Book. Full review...

Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other Musings by Ron Burgundy

Humour

This book is a testament to my giant balls. But it's also a lot more. The story we've never been able to discern from either of the Anchorman films is one of surprising hardship, unsurprising hardness, and great hair. It's a rags-to-riches tale, as Ron Burgundy comes from a Hicksville town in the middle of the outskirts of somewhere the arse end of nowhere (a town perpetually on fire due to the accidents in the mines underneath) and struggles against all the odds – and many of the evens in the shape of women's legs – to get where he is today, thrusting himself and his news at us nightly. Full review...

Outraged of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle England by Nigel Cawthorne

Humour

It was ever thus… cyclists go too fast, without using a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one looks, and no public conveniences; people pretend to have qualifications and degrees they haven't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors already, cooking for their working menfolk… It's a very clever idea to show exactly what is behind the 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' tag, and as a book to be shelved alongside those with the wackier letters sent to the Daily Telegraph, these selections from the Royal town's press itself make a great eye-opener to the complaints and complainants of Kent. Full review...

Books by Charlie Hill

Humour

Neurology professor Lauren Furrows witnesses the sudden untimely death of two tourists in a bar while on holiday. Birmingham bookshop owner Richard Anger happens to be in the same bar so together our single holiday makers decide to team up as an investigatory force to be reckoned with. (Well, Lauren teams up for that. Richard's reasons are more physical than intellectual to begin with.) The murders seem to emanate from author Gary Sayles, a legend in his own mind and, apparently, fatal to read. Elsewhere hippy exhibitionists (in an over-18 way) Zeke and Pippa, are planning the art installation to end all art installations and, are determined to make Gary the centrepiece, whether he realises it or not. Full review...

The Facebook Diet: 50 Funny Signs of Facebook Addiction and Ways to Unplug With a Digital Detox by Gemini Adams

Humour

Everywhere you look and question this book, it is a success – more or less. Does it do what it purports to – show evidence of a Facebook addiction and provide a dietary way out? Yes, more or less. Does it engage with its combination of cartoon images and captions? Yes, more or less. Does it have some cult Internet pedigree to make it a hit gift book for the techie? Yes, more or less – it might not have been borne from a webpage somewhere online, but the Kindle version was launched several months before the paperback. Is it then a worthwhile addition to your comedy book shelves? Yes – more or less. Full review...

Sad Monsters by Frank Lesser

Humour

If you thought you had it bad… Here is the chupacabra writing to the newspapers for better press – notices that don't universally mention his goat-sucking habits before his chess-playing, dancing or debating record. Here is a banshee struggling with high school life, knowing the end of everyone that comes across her path. Here is King Kong, being defended in court by a lawyer with a revelation to the jury about his bipolarity and how wrong it was to get his hopes up with a Broadway show in a strange city. Did you honestly think Godzilla enjoyed the way his life ended up? Full review...

The Brinkmeyers by Michael Cameron

Humour

Hymie Brinkmeyer, New Yorker transplanted in the UK is 50 years old on a good day. He lives with his wife Maggie and teenage children Kevin and Karrie. Hymie thinks Kevin is great, while given that, if he gets picked up for drug possession once more, Hymie will have to admit that Kevin may have a problem. Karrie, a burgeoning poet, is also wonderful in her dad's eyes and is about to give birth to her second child outside a relationship. It's her body so she has the right... hasn't she? Everything is fine and life is great. Ok, Kevin's plotting to kill his mother and Hymie's leather-clad secretary seems to have a crush on her boss and Hymie seems to have a lump somewhere delicately crucial but everything's just fine. Full review...

Dedicated to...: The Forgotten Friendships, Hidden Stories and Lost Loves found in Second-hand Books by W B Gooderham

Entertainment

I have found many strange and unusual things in second-hand bookshops. I have done one or two strange and unusual things in them as well, but that's a different story. Twice now I have managed to find a second-hand book, completely signed and dedicated by the author, yet discarded by the recipient, and have been able to present the author with the edition at hand and get it re-dedicated. (If I'm not mistaken, the discarders were a neighbouring babysitter, and a teacher of the author's children.) I'll admit that's rarefied, however, and on the whole the scribble you find in second-hand books is from the person who bought it, and gave it as a gift, not the person who wrote it. But even so, the dedication of the donor can be immensely fascinating and open to all kinds of interpretation, as these examples show perfectly clear. Full review...

Wallace and Gromit - The Complete Newspaper Strips - Volume 1 by Nick Park

Humour

One man and his dog never had such a famous theme tune. One Man and His Dog had a piddly little melody, but the triumphal, old-fashioned and charming parp of the theme tune to Wallace and Gromit has resounded out for decades now. While Aardman moved away from the near-silent classic animations the series first gave us, the plasticine creations mutated into incredibly popular characters, which included a daily strip in the nation's biggest-selling tabloid. Here is the first lump of them, 312 daily doses of tomfoolery, collected for everyone to enjoy. Even if you thought the franchise had travelled its course a long time ago… Full review...

Demon Dentist by David Walliams

Confident Readers

He ought to have realised she was evil from the start. After all, how many dentists do you know who love — yes, really love — rotten teeth? Brown, yellow, cracked, full of cavities, diseased, covered in plaque . . . you get the picture. And for Alfie, a boy who loathes dentists from the bottom of his heart and whose teeth are so rotten they ought to be a tourist attraction, danger definitely looms. You can practically hear the background music when the two meet at a school assembly: dum-dum-DUUUUMMMMMM!!!! Full review...

Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern Manners by Sandi Toksvig

Politics and Society

Dear Sandi

You are my all time favourite celebrity lesbadyke, and one of the reasons I’m so very excited to be heading to Denmark this coming weekend (are all people there like you? Please say yes). For this alone, I had to get my mitts on your latest offering. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining a book on manners previously, having always thought mine were quite ok, but I knew your take on the matter would be suitably hilarious and well worth a read. I was not wrong. Full review...

Deaf at Spiral Park by Kieran Devaney

Humour

Deaf at Spiral Park is a bizarre take on the philosophy of what it is to be human, attempted through the portrayal of a bear who shaves of his fur to appear as a human. The story combines philosophy with comedy using a range of stock characters including a clown and a farmer to show the world of the bear and to consider how his humanity may be more than that of the humans themselves. Full review...

Very British Problems: Making Life Awkward for Ourselves, One Rainy Day at a Time by Rob Temple

Humour

Are you compelled to apologise multiple times a day – even when you are not at fault, or even to inanimate objects? Would you subject yourself to great inconvenience rather than confront someone who is sitting in your reserved seat on a train? Have you been known to commit desperate acts in the search for your next cup of tea? If so, you may be suffering from Very British Problems. Full review...

The Reluctant Cannibals by Ian Flitcroft

General Fiction

Over a truffled turkey at their college Christmas dinner in 1964, a group of Oxford dons decide to join their love of fine food and drink with their mutual appreciation for nineteenth-century French philosopher of food Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (author of the 1825 classic La Physiologie du Goût, or The Physiology of Taste) by forming a secret dining society. Together these fellows of St Jerome's College form the Shadow Faculty of Gastronomic Science, a group that will continue meeting to share new and daring culinary experiences until Oxford agrees to set up a proper gastronomic school of its own. Full review...

The Best Book in the World by Peter Stjernstrom and Rod Bradbury (translator)

Literary Fiction

Titus Jensen may not have written many great novels for a while (if ever) but his festival readings of others' works are renowned. Why, his rendition of The Diseases of the Swedish Monarchs from Gustavas Vasa to Gustav V has been compared favourably to his offerings from Handbook for Volvo 245. However, one drunken night he and romantic poet Eddie X agree that their fame on the festival circuit would be insignificant by comparison if they could write the best book in the world; a combination of all genres, appealing to all tastes and making all the best seller categories. They start work on it the next day but, rather than collaborate, each wants the lone glory. The race (or should that be battle?) to the publishing date is on! Full review...

The Complete and Utter History of the World According to Samuel Stewart Aged 9 by Sarah Burton

Humour

Nobody knows where history ends, according to the cover illustration of this little book, but if anybody knows what it involves it is nine year old Samuel Stewart. He captivatingly summarises it all on these pages, bringing us in ninety minutes from the times cavemen didn't write history down as they didn't realise it had started yet, up to the time of his birth. That of course is a time that passed most of us by, but heralded the arrival of a very individual, entertaining and amusing voice. Full review...

Freedom from Bosses Forever by Tony Robinson OBE

Humour

When we first meet Canadian businesswoman Leonora Soculitherz (don't struggle - it's pronounced 'so cool it hurts') she's on her way from Manchester Airport to Scarborough, the home of her agent, Tony Robinson OBE. You get the measure of the woman straight away as she lets her irritation show about the problems you find in the First Class carriage on the train. (She is so right - I was once grateful to spend the journey perched on a luggage rack.) Her mission is a piece of investigative journalism that's going to introduce her to some very superior people as she searches for information about why people in small businesses don't get the help they need. Full review...

Muddle Your Way Through Being a Grandparent: How to Fool People into Thinking You're a Competent Granny or Grandpa by Paul Merrill

Humour

It seems to be accepted wisdom that being a grandparent is a great deal easier than being a parent. The trials and tribulations have largely been ignored by wrinklies grateful for contact with their children and grandchildren - and by the children who are grateful (or otherwise) for free childcare - or so Paul Merrill would have us believe. Published for Grandparents' Day his book takes us through a series of scientifically-questionable quizzes, flow charts (that's often of money, by the way - and you can guess which way it's flowing), checklists and advice from celebrities, some of whom you might even have heard of. Full review...

Expo 58 by Jonathan Coe

Humour

It's 1958 and Thomas Foley works for the British Government Central Office of Information but feels an outsider. He's ex-grammar school rather than establishment public school and his mother is Belgian (that's foreign you know) so there are definite impediments to his promotion. Thomas is therefore thrilled when chosen to oversee one of Britain's exhibits at the big, exciting international Expo in Belgium. So bring on the experience… and a little brush with espionage… and some beautiful women. (Sylvia is a little less thrilled, being his wife and all.) Full review...

Save Our Shop by Michael Roll

Humour

William Bridge was a talented artist - just a little too talented, as it turned out because the sub-editor could see exactly who the cartoon character was meant to be and that was why he ceased to be a journalist rather suddenly. He wasn't exactly spoiled for choice when it came to his next employment and that was how he found himself helping his Uncle Albert in the village shop, but there were pluses and minuses about the job. The biggest plus was that he met and fell in love with Sally, who was also helping Uncle Albert. The first of the minuses was that there was more than a little opposition to the match from Sally's stepmother, the redoubtable Lady Courtney. And then there was the armed robbery, the arrival of Albert's brother Neil who for urgent and perfectly valid reasons needed to be known as Aunt Isabel, the American security expert and his daughter whose expertise was in an entirely different area and some dodgy dealings about the future of the shop. No real problems there, then. Full review...

Straight White Male by John Niven

Humour

In Kill Your Friends, John Niven delivered a scathing and hugely entertaining satire on the music industry. In Straight White Male he's turned his attention to Hollywood and academia with similarly impressive results. Full review...

Unfaithfully Yours by Nigel Williams

General Fiction

When Nigel Williams first really burst on to the best-seller list, a couple of decades ago, it was with a book set in Wimbledon that really quite tickled a younger me – and my mother. But then he produced two more in the same series, and we soon decided he was a bit of a one-trick pony, and could never be sure how much of the trilogy we'd read, or be too eager to read more. Flash forward, and Williams has certainly branched out – his setting this time is Putney. Wimbledon Common is now Putney Heath, and so on. But here he provides an epistolatory novel – and if there's one kind of novel to make me prick up my ears it is one built from letters. It is the blatant two-and-fro timing of the narrative, and the succinctness that characters are formed with, that strike me as obvious benefits of such a book – and Unfaithfully Yours has those and many more. Full review...

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

General Fiction

Ben hasn't worked for a while and so, deciding on a career change, trains to become a caregiver. His first client is Trev, a 20 year old Duchene Muscular Dystrophy sufferer who hasn't the sunniest of dispositions. In fact Trev is angry, self-centred and goes through caregivers like a knife through milk. However, Ben, needing a job, holds on tight and tries to encourage Trev to live a little. Eventually Trev complies and dictates a way forward: a road trip. A road trip with a housebound, ill, angry person is not what Ben had in mind at all. Meanwhile it gradually becomes clear to us that Trev isn't the only one who has to learn to live a little differently. Full review...

The Satanic Diaries by Krister Jones

Humour

We travel with Satan through a morose time in his lengthy existence. His wife has divorced him and his Chief of Security (Himmler) seems to be going even madder. To top it off, his therapist is insisting that his anger issues need to be dealt with and is forcing him to keep a diary. Following a disastrous holiday and an even worse attempt to get back into dating, he takes the diary with him as he goes on the lam in disguise and lives for a while paycheck to paycheck as a security guard for a cash and carry. Full review...

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Humour

Australian Professor of Genetics Don Tillman is passably good looking, successful and tall. If he were an animal he'd be highly sought after for breeding purposes. Unfortunately he's human and although popular (well… he has two friends anyway) he can't get a second date… from anyone… at all. Being a scientist he sets out on a logical quest for a mate. The Wife Project begins and seems to be progressing… until Rosie. Full review...