The Complete and Utter History of the World According to Samuel Stewart Aged 9 by Sarah Burton
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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...
The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg
Edie Middlestein almost has the American dream within her grasp. She trained as a lawyer, has a husband, a daughter who followed her professional footsteps and a son married to an ambitious wife who provided him with two high-achieving children. There are just two flies in the ointment preventing the dream's arrival: 1. Edie is so morbidly obese that she has to undergo surgery; and 2. this is the moment her husband chooses to leave her. Apart from that… Full review...
The Romantic Economist: A Story of Love and Market Forces by William Nicolson
William Nicolson was a student - well a student of economics, to be accurate. He had an uncanny knack of losing girlfriends far too quickly, the last one having departed in a personal best time of six weeks. Actually I don't think that was too bad - I've encountered a lot of men who only ever managed about thirty minutes - but it worried Will and he considered applying what he had learned as an economist to his relationships with the fair sex. Girls were something of a mystery to him but he was sure that if he used his ability to reduce a complex world to a set of rational principles then he should be on to a winner. Or two. Full review...
Whisky Galore by Sir Compton Mackenzie
The inhabitants of Great Todday and neighbouring Little Todday enjoy embrocation provided by a tot or two of whisky. Unfortunately this is war time. To date the sacrifices in the Hebrides have included their young men and a token black-out (the harbour lights remain on so there seems little point) but more follows. The water of life itself is becoming scarcer and they're approaching Lent. The timing is unfortunate as they don't exactly give it up for Lent, but drink extra as Shrove Tuesday approaches in the spirit of the season. So, as supplies dwindle to extinction, imagine their surprise when a ship containing practically a million bottles of it en route to America founders off the coast. The community launch a covert army-like operation to liberate the alcohol fighting, planning to outwit not the Germans but the islands' Home Guard, HM Customs and Excise and an inept British Intelligence officer. Easy then? Well, an easier task than that which local headmaster George Campbell has. He wants to get married but his mum won't let him. Full review...
Jammy Dodger by Kevin Smith
It's 1980s Belfast and Artie McCann has it sorted. Having left uni with a literature degree, a love of poetry and no real urge for hard work, he and his mate Oliver discover the joy of Art Council grants. All they need to do is establish a literary magazine and bring out an issue (very) occasionally. This frees them up for reliving the best bits of their former student lifestyle and discussing the comparable merits of biscuit varieties. However things start to go awry; not all the magazine's would-be contributors are happy (or unarmed) and life begins to appear more unsettled. There is a way out but it will take some hard work, an actor and a remedy for that smell of rotting milk. Full review...
One Dog and His Man by Mike Henley
Oberon is a Labrador with a pedigree as long as your arm and One Dog and His Man is his story about what it's like living with the man he generously refers to as The Boss, about life in general and the ways of the world. Think of him as the canine equivalent of the parliamentary sketch writer, there to highlight the idiosyncrasies of human life and bring a gentle humour to situations which might otherwise be taken far too seriously. Before you wonder how this is possible - how a dog can write a book - let me remind you that dogs are very intelligent animals. After all, dogs and their humans might go to what are laughingly called 'dog training classes', but it's the humans who are trained, not the dogs. Full review...
Boobadoodle by Rosy Sherry
Boobadoodle is a book of doodles. On boobs. Fifty doodles on a variety of boobs, some belonging to the author, some to her friends. Quite good friends, I imagine. Full review...
The Merde Factor by Stephen Clarke
Meet, if you haven't already, Paul West. Before now we've had four chances to meet him and see his struggles with all things French – their cuisine, their language, their social life and their bureaucracy – in order to run an English-styled tea-room in the trendier side of Paris. Four books then, and we might have expected him to have settled down into some form of success – were it not for the fact this is a comedy series. But no, he seems to still be in France on borrowed time, on borrowed (or sub-let) land, and things are certainly not turning out tres belle for him. Full review...
Just My Typo: From 'sinning with the choir' to 'the large hardon collider' by Drummond Moir (compiler)
Warning: this book can seriously damage your reputation. Laughing in pubic will be the least of your worries. You will reach the stage where teas run down your face and you snort in politically incorrect fashion at the disfigured man who has always had a car on his face, or the one who could not find the cash to buy a house and had to burrow. You'll snigger at the charmless who become harmless but it will be up to you as to whether or not you agree that love is just a passing fanny. Personally I felt very sorry for the man who studied and became an unclear physicist. Full review...
I Kick Therefore I am: The Little Book of Premier League Wisdom by Alan Tyers and Beach
You remember Ronnie Matthews, don't you? He's the footballer who celebrated his one – and so far, only – international match by booing his way through the Faroe Islands' national anthem, then getting a red card for chatting up the lineswoman. He still thinks he contributed well to a vital friendly, however. He's the player whose career in piddling his way through continuously lesser and lesser clubs for far too long has only been matched in the recent game by Steve Claridge. And still he's bucking the trend – he's the only author smart enough to realise that four-hundred page, ghost-written biogs are unnecessary, for he's crammed all his life, career, philosophy and response to Twitter into an hour's read. Full review...
Harry Lipkin, Private Eye: The Oldest Detective in the World by Barry Fantoni
Harry Lipkin may not be the fittest private investigator in Florida once you take into account his indigestion and his arthritis, but at 87 he's definitely the oldest. Despite this he still manages to make a steady living, picking up the little jobs that don't interest the police and Norma Weinberger's problem comes into that category. Small but expensive knick-knacks seem to be going missing from around the house so could it be a light-fingered member of staff? The suspects (the gardener, the butler, the maid and the chauffer) each have their own story and motive, leaving Harry to get the four down to a short list of one. A task that's perhaps a little harder than it sounds. Full review...
Rory's Boys by Alan Clark
Rory Blaine, grandson of Lady Sybil Blaine is gay, free, single and loving it, as he tells himself a dozen times a day. He may be middle aged but he's still got it. He's a partner in a successful advertising firm and so, so over having been thrown out of home when he was a teenager; yes, over it – totally and completely. When he hears his grandmother is dying, he decides it's time to remind her (and her considerable wealth) of his existence. The tardy but intensive attention seems to pay off when he's left the ancestral pile. But the stately home wasn't left to him quite in the way that he thought. There are so many strings attached it resembles a marionette: if he wants to keep it he must transform it into the first retirement home for elderly gay gentlemen and he also seems to have acquired his first resident, whether he's wanted or not. Full review...
You are What You Eat: And Other Mealtime Hazards by Serge Bloch
We last saw Serge Bloch's talents in Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey when we saw lots of whimsical advice for the Boy and his dog, Roger. This time he wants us to look at what we eat. Boy's mother has told him that he is what he eats - so he's very careful about what he puts on his plate, because you might end up with a pea-pod mouth and a tomato tummy. Roger looks to have fared rather better - with a bone for a body. He at least seems to have a smile on his face! Full review...
Goblins by Philip Reeve
Poor Skarper. He's such a loser. In the violent and bloodthirsty goblin world where fighting and eating and taking other people's loot are all-time-favourite, number-one activities, he has a terrible handicap. He thinks. In fact, he's pretty clever, for a goblin, to the extent that he uses the goblins' bumwipe heaps for . . . reading. Yup, you heard me. Reading. The foolish hatchling works out that the black squiggles on the mouldering heaps of soft and crinkly stuff left, long ago, by the ancient inhabitants of the tower, are written words, and instead of going out raiding like any sensible goblin, he creeps off to a quiet corner to work out what they mean. Silly, eh? Full review...