Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]==Humour==__NOTOC__ {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom HoltDean Koontz|title=Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of SausagesThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyParanormal|summary=Imagine Benny is having a world where pigs can do quantum mechanics, and where female solicitors turn into chickens. Add a dry cleaner that moves (literally, from the roof tiles to the basement) from town to town every forty-eight hours, a couple of medieval knights who've fought every terrifically bad day for centuries, and a magical ring (or pencil sharpener, depending on the mood it's in). Stir in a bit of property developing He loses his job, a thaumaturgical detective and an old man who lives in a cloud. Result? You haven't even begun to probe the depths of this crazyhe loses his fiancee, absurd, complex and hilarious bookhis house gets trashed.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846552567</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steve Hely|title=How I Became a Famous Novelist|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=With an uncompromising title like 'How I Became a Famous Novelist' Oh, this clearly isn't intended to be a subtle book. So I can hardly complain when a cynical look at the writing industry swings raw punches in every direction. It just isn't my sort of humour, but equally, if you rave about 'The Office' you will likely enjoy this book far more than I have done.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015724</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Charles Lamb|title=Great Food: A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig and Other Essays|rating=4|genre=Cookery|summary=''A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig'' is someone has delivered a collection of food-related essays from the early 19th centuryreally weird, with a humorous bent. They're but a few pages each disturbing coffin- a light read sized object to bring a smile to your facehis home, then on to the next little foodie treat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951003</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=ClientsFromHell.net|title=Clients From Hell|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Everyone whoand it's worked as a freelancer has a story of a client from hell - that person who asked for something possible that whoever or whatever was impossible, wanted it done yesterday for a fraction of inside is the usual pricething that has trashed his house! The thing is, or Benny is just plain angry about the work producedvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. The website [http://www He is a nice person.clientsfromhell A really nice person.net ClientsFromHell.net] has collated a number of such stories over So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the years, and has now published them as a book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0982473931</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Manu Joseph|title=Serious Men|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Ayyan Mani delivery to his house is a Dalit, an untouchablenew friend, stuck in a flat in Mumbai's slums but hoping, somehowbad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a better future for his songood person. Working at the Insitute of Theory and Research he uses all his cunning and wiles Spike is going to stay ahead take care of the game amongst the Brahmin scientists. Does he have the intelligenceBenny, and nerveswill certainly take care of Benny's enemies, to convince everyone that his sonif he, against all oddsBenny, is and Harper (a genius?waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543085</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Saunders1529153050|title=The Vernham ChroniclesBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson

|summary=Set amidst Seeking some light relief from the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale current political turmoil which is the little village coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of Vernham2022''. Anyone who lives in a village Sharp eyes will recognise it immediately, with its cobbled streets and Tudor buildings. There was some damage during the war (which might, or might not have been down to a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on his lake) but the gaps have been filled with some beautiful, er, mock Tudor buildings. Almost unique and nearly beautiful as the village is, itnoted that we's re not yet through the year: the star of The Vernham Chroniclescartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. The stars are Who can imagine what there will be to come in the people who live in Vernham.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin Millar1785633074|title=The Good Fairies of New York|rating=4|genre=Fantasy|summary=In this fairytale of New York, the Cornish fairy King's children are living in exile, hiding in Central Park from a nasty industrial revolution back home. They have friends from Ireland with them, and all have the ability to startle the local squirrels. Elsewhere two innocent scallywag fairies fleeing Scotland have arrived, and adopted a human each. Heather has joined up with Dinnie, the city's worst busker, a fat, alcoholic and lonely fan of TV ads for phone sex, while Morag befriends Kerry, a dying kleptomaniac beauty, just as alone for different reasons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954205</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewStaggering Hubris|author=Gervase Phinn|title=Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=I spent many of my teenage years reading James Herriot's books, and I found that this collection of anecdotes and poems by Gervase Phinn had a real flavour of Herriot about it. Perhaps it was just the setting, for Phinn was a school inspector in the Dales for many years, but I think he also has that knack of capturing a situation, and a character, and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculous. Here he collates stories from his other books, some Christmassy and others not, and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed between.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141036435</amazonuk>}} [[Category:History]]{{newreview|author=Simon Garfield|title=Just My Type: A Book About FontsJosh Berry

|summary=A quality typeface is a bit Members of Parliament like a good referee at a football match in us to believe that you only really notice them if something has gone wrong. A referee the country is there to facilitate the players on the pitchrun by politicians, not to be headed by the star of Prime minister - the show ''primus inter pares'' (though watching Match that's for those of the Day these past few weeks you'd often beg to differwho are Eton and Oxbridge educated). So it but the reality is with typefacesthat the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. A good type helps We are in the privileged position of having access to the readermemoirs of Rafe Hubris, enhances the flow and makes man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the viewing experience easy and simpleend of 2020. Well sort of You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683017</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bob Servant and Neil Forsyth0571365884|title=Bob Servant: Hero My Mess is a Bit of Dundee|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=After [[Delete This at Your PerilLife: One Man's Fearless Exchanges with the Internet Spammers by Bob Servant|bursting into public consciousness]] as the scourge of email spammers, Broughty Ferry's resident polymath Bob Servant has returned. This time, he expands upon the colourful life only hinted at Adventures in his previous oeuvre, Delete this at Your Peril. And what a life it has been. He steers us from his humble beginnings, his broken family and traumatic schooldays, through the rise and fall of his window cleaning empire, and his role in Dundee's brutal cheeseburger wars. Along the way, we witness his struggles with, respectively, women ('skirt'), his simpleton sidekick Frank, and the demon drink.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841589209</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=P K Munroe|title=You Can Stick It|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Literary merit? Absolutely none! Plot, characterisation and all that other stuff you usually talk about? Nope – there's none of that, either. Ah, so it's non-fiction? Well, calling it ''fact'' would be stretching things a little too far... So, come on then. What ''is'' it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007362188</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewAnxiety|author=Axel Scheffler|title=How to Keep a Pet SquirrelGeorgia Pritchett

|genre=HumourAutobiography|summary=SoGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, how do you keep even as a pet squirrel? child. Well, She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the simple answer is that you don'tsort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. They're wild animals and not at all suitable for keeping in captivityOn a visit to a therapist, as an adult, but accepted thinking didn't always run that way. It when she was whilst he completely unable to speak about what was dipping into wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''The ChildrenMy Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety's Encyclopaedia'' of 1910 that Axel Scheffler came across a small but indispensible guide to obtaining and caring for your pet squirrel. His inventive mind came up with these beautiful illustrations to accompany is the text and if you're looking for an amusing gift for an animalresult -loving adult then this book could well be the answeror so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571255981</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=PJ VanstonJohn Boyne|title=CrumpThe Echo Chamber|rating=35

|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first day Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University - an ex-polytechniccriminal record". ItHe starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's the happiest day of carrying his lifechild, and he can't wait to see all that it holdsbut then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, and make who are a difference to all his students. And then it hits him: the relentless pettiness of authority figuressad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, the students a girl who can't string two sentences togetherhangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the lowering world's homeless with out-of standards in search of higher test scores, so more money from foreign students-date food, and political correctness gone (as I believe a fit young lad doing the saying goes) madgay hustle thing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Lennon|title=In His Own Write and A Spaniard Add in the Works|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=During the height of Beatlemaniaa few other characters – therapists, lawyers, John Lennon used random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to doodle or write short poems or nonsense stories to pass the time (his life, and there must you have been a good deal of time something that suggests an almost farcical approach to pass away on tour, if only waiting for screaming fans to leave them alone and go back home)the modern world. Some of them were seen by Tom MaschlerWhat suggests the farcical approach even more, literary editor at Jonathan Capehowever, who encouraged him to produce more. The results were published in two very successful short books in 1964 and 1965is the fact this is bloody funny.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099530422</amazonuk>0857526219

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John LindsayStephen Clarke|title=Emails From An AssholeThe Spy Who Inspired Me

|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=Some classified ads are crying out for trollingThis is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. John Lindsay replies to them, spins them But it features a yarnman called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and strings them along who works for as long as possiblethe secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Sometimes Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the advert is fairly innocuous pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and he emails them anyway. These are emails from an asshole, after all.Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1402778279</amazonuk>2952163855

 {{newreview|author=L C Tyler|title=The Herring In The Library|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Tall, elegant Ethelred is a gentleman, and a third-rate author. Elsie, his literary agent, is short and dumpy, and not afraid to speak her mind. It is Elsie, in fact, who constantly assures her client he only occasionally aspires to the giddy heights of being second-rate. This could be the business partnership from hell, but not only do these two seem to get along, they even manage to solve crimes together. In this, the third outing for L C Tyler's eccentric sleuths, we are provided with a locked room mystery, a cast of possible villains of the most stereotypical type, and a fresh, funny tale which will make you laugh so much you'll get a stitch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230714684</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=A J Jacobs|title=My Experimental Life|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=A J Jacobs has a reputation for setting himself onerous tasks. His first book was about reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica; his second detailed a year spent according to the Biblical precepts. In My Experimental Life, he recounts nine briefer episodes of living outside his comfort zone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547422</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Seth Grahame-Smith|title=Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary='Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.' That quote, on the Statue of Liberty, was probably not designed with the inclusion of vampires in mind. But by some means or another North America is rife with the things – hiding in plain sight, as the older ones can bear sunlight, with the help of darkened glasses. It might just come down to one eager young man to rid his new country of such things, on his way to something he’s a bit more known for.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849014086</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith and Tony Lee|title=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel|rating=3|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie story of any renown will not remain simply a zombie story. Before you can say ''the risen undead'' it will become a series of books, inspiring others, and/or lead to the same story being published in many different guises. Here, then, on its way to Hollywood, is Jane Austen’s story of Lizzie Bennet, the feisty young woman trying to ignore Mr Darcy while fighting off the ''manky unmentionables'' – at least she is until the hidden truths open up to her, just as the soft soils of Hertfordshire do to yield their once-human remains. And this time it’s in graphic novel form.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566948</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Carl McInerney|title=The Funniest Football Joke Book Ever|rating=3.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Who scored the most goals in the Greek Mythology League? The centaur forward. Badoom boom tshhhh. It's a football joke book, packed to the gills with all sorts of cheesiness and silliness. Funniest ever? Perhaps not, but it's not too bad.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849391114</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Paul Magrs|title=Hell's Belles|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=The idea behind this series of novels is quite enchanting and amusing. Frankenstein's daughter is living and sleuthing in Whitby, ably aided and abetted by her sidekick, the enigmatic Effie, and a growing menagerie of younger accomplices, namely Michael and Penny. Whilst the original idea showed huge promise, I felt that the author has rather overdone it in terms of output, in his desire to capitalise on his original success. Book two in the series was quite disappointing, relying on sensationalism rather than adequate plot and character development. Book three was an improvement-and I'm delighted to report that this, the fourth book in the series, shows him returning to form with the promise we saw in the first of the series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755346467</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Valerie Thomas Afonso Cruz and Korky PaulRahul Bery (translator)|title=WinnieKokoschka's JokesDoll

|genre=Confident ReadersLiterary Fiction|summary=Who turns off Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the lights at Halloween? The lights witchget-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. What does an Australian witch ride I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on? A broomerangdarker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. Yep But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it's a joke bookwas not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0192729063</amazonuk>1529402697

{{newreview|author=Nick Wadley|title=Man + Dog|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Throughout my life IYou don've lived with dogs or deeply regretted the fact t get many better opening sentences than that I lacked a canine companion. , do you? Watching a dog – or better still, We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the interaction between dogs – is infinitely better than anything on television Priorities]] and we learned what itwas like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled's sheer joy to see how man rather overstates the situation and their dog interacts and how, so oftenBeagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, they hold a mirror up to each otherdespite being sixteen and deaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1564785521</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ|authortitle=The Harvard LampoonKarma Trap|titleauthor=Nightlight: A Parody of Twilight Lisette Boyd|rating=3.54|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=Most people will have heard George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of the worldwide phenomenon that bad luck is [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. The books Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by Stephenie Meyer and putting something down at the film have made a legend bottom of the romance between vampire Edward Mullen (Robert Pattinson plays stairs to absorb the water - then the movie role) shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and teenage schoolgirl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart)left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013330</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur David C Mason|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global MiseryPandora's Gardener

|genre=HumourCrime|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over John Cranston is a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely that is the wackiestgardener, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for the world. You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite although what he did before he became a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern worldgardener, the entire banking systemhe claims, all those who failed to see it coming, and those millions is classified. That is just seemingly waiting for us all as well because he is about to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalismbe caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, so they where only he can get back on save the expenses train, and back up the rich listsday.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>0956180523

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eoin ColferJester_Forever|title=And Another Thing ... Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyForever After: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6) a dark comedy|author=David Jester|rating=3.54|genre=Science FictionHorror|summary=Of all Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the big books announced for this yearoffer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, this one must have raised more eyebrows than many. Why try a grim reaper and write his friends, Chip (a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, when way before the end, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a task? And why approach an Irishman, Eoin Colfer, when stoner in the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described records department) as Monty Python doing a sci-fi Terry Pratchett, and they grapple with their cups of tea long lives and dressing gowns, could only be described as very English? Well the answer is most evident - Colfer is finding a world-beater when it comes clean surface to knocking up a storysit on in their flat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=The Vampire Miles Proctor1683691172|title=The New VampireWilliam Shakespeare's Handbook|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=I shall start with a prediction. I will not become a vampire, for this imminent Hallowe'en, any festive fancy dress parties, or indeed for life as the lifeless undead. I will not need tips on filing my fangs, or how to divert attention from the fact I cannot eat human food at dinner parties. Me and my reflection in mirrors will remain intact. But for those of you reading this at night, somewhere, flameproof cape at hand, with your distaste of garlic, publicity and presumably the anaemic, this is the sterling how-to lifestyle guide.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086464</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty and Mike Ahern|title=100 Facts Much Ado About Pandas|rating=3.5|genre=HumourMean Girls|summary=Sometimes the title says it all - this is a book with 100 facts about pandas. Sometimes you need to note the author too - David O'Doherty won an Edinburgh Comedy Award, so this is a book of a 100 silly and untrue facts about pandas.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086324</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Richard Horne |title=A is for ArmageddonIan Doescher

|summary=The world is definitely going to hell A long time ago, in a handcart. We're only just preventing lethal global warming by having a credit crunch that has prevented a lot of big buildinggalaxy far away, air travelall the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and consumerismthe marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. The population is getting So much so – so obese there is no room for any more of us - easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and add behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that to the exploding population statisticsproducers tried again, and itwith [[William Shakespeare's never going Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to look betterthe Future]] no less. And donthat worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can't get me started on where all even really remember seeing was transcribed into the bees have goneoriginal Elizabethan lingo.A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, yet oh so ancient, dressing..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086197</amazonuk>Here was the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James May168369094X|title=Car Fever: Dispatches From Behind The Wheel|rating=4|genre=Lifestyle|summary=Now, way back when I was younger, and watched TV a lot, I am sure I remember Top Gear as being a consumer programme. How times change. These days I am sure they destroy more cars than they review, and the three main people from the show are approaching superstar status, with their amenable personalities, awkward wardrobe choices and trenchant laddish charms. TheyWilliam Shakespeare've sprung their media entities from out of the studio, into other TV programmes, and the world of journalism, with chatty columns in s Get Thee Back to the broadsheets allowing them free rein to witter to their heart's desire. And here, in one grandiloquent volume, and in time for Christmas, are many of James May's desires.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994533</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFuture!|author=Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith |title=Pride and Prejudice and ZombiesIan Doescher

|summary=AhA long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the benefits to a good book story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a classic first line. 'Call me Ishmaelclever way they seemed perfectly suited.' 'It was a bright cold day then duly repeated for all the other films in Aprilthe main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the clocks were striking thirteenday before I write.' Who can forget Iain Banks' 'It was In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the day my grandmother exploded'? same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. Or those timeless words by Jane AustenAnd could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession with its tales of brains must be in want of more brains.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594743347<time travel, bullying, and parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry Hill1473669065|title=Tim The Tiny Horse At Large|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=It's been a while since Tim and Fly's [[Tim the Tiny Horse by Harry Hill|last adventures]], and changes are afoot in Tim's tiny world: Fly is getting married to his girlfriend. TimQueenie Malone's a little worried because they've only known each other for a week. The marriage goes ahead, and Tim finds himself kicking his heels, so he gets a pet. And so the brief episodes in the life of a horse who lives in a matchbox continue.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571244157</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Spike Milligan|title=The Magical World of Milligan|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Some people you just have to love. It's the law. Spike Milligan was always fantastic, and he's much missed. He's got the perfect mix of nonsense, heart, and surreal humour. He speaks to people of all ages, and he's just plain lovely. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905264844</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewParadise Hotel|author=Sam Savage|title=The Cry of the SlothRuth Hogan|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet Andrew Whittaker. In some untold time of recent American history, he is forced through a failed marriage and an artistic temperament at odds with so many other people, to let properties to tenants he does not like, for $120 a month. The lodgers might not like the state of the buildings - ceilings falling through and so on - but that's another matter. He would much prefer to be left alone in front of his little Olivetti typewriter and create art. He runs a literary journal, of a kind, called "Soap", which no-one likes, no-one reads (and often, with dodgy, cheap printing, no-one could physically read it anyway), and which makes him poorer in time, money and spirit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856499</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Christopher Moore|title=You Suck|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=You know that old adage about books and covers? Well this is a case in point. The title isn't great, but the cover design for the paperback imprint is, like, duh!, the pits. It is so uncool…so unrep-resent-ative of the book. This is not a cocktail thing. Not even a "Bloody Mary" thing.  Well, except for the tiny bit that is, but you'll discover that in due course.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498092</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Hugh Murr and Sid Nigtures |title=Cyber Sign Offs|rating=2

|summary=I admit I had the wrong end of the stick when it came Tilda returns to this bookBrighton, before I opened it at least. I had assumed it was a collection to tidy away the remains of real-her mother's life on-line signatures - we've all seen themafter her death. Whilst there, those straplines people have on all their forum posts. The obvious response would have been along she returns to the lines of 'fair enoughParadise hotel, but why is this a book in this day haven for eccentrics and agemisfits. A place where people can be themselves, and not let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a website?'child, from this place of wonder. But no. This is a collection With the help of dialogues between two people - shall we call them Sue deNim Queenie Malone, caring, and Allie Byegregarious, who have a line or two Tilda begins to say to each other, pick apart the tricky and a made-up name (sorry, make that May Dupp-Name) uncertain relationship she had with which to sign it off. Much jolly nonsense ensuesher sometimes cruel and distant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312497</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Fitzhigham 1683690346|title=All at Sea: One Man. One Bathtub. One Very Bad Idea: Conquering the Channel in a Piece of Plumbing|rating=4.5|genre=Travel|summary=Once more my life is made easy by saying this book does just what it claims on the cover - takes a narrator of zesty, wacky humour, throws him into an unlikely situation (a bath) and gets him to do something unusual (row it across the Channel - and then beyond). This despite the fact he was the world's worst sculler at University.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090269</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewThe Con Artist|author=Simon Brett|title=Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King's DaughterFred Van Lente

|summary=There can be few Comic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people who have written eighty books without me even having picked up one of them. At least, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at lastSan Diego Comic-Con, I have redressed he's looking for both that fault in and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the case chance of Simon Brettmaybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However, when his rival is found dead, and have come Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the conclusion there are 79 more that will be worth investigating. Here we meet for the first time Blotto (posh idiotic son of a dowager duchess) con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and Twinks (posh brilliant genius sister intrusive fans to Blotto)zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, their familyin doing so, their surroundings, and the corpse inconveniently disturbing may just unravel a dark secret behind a dinner partylegendary industry creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845299353</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karl Pilkington1473669588|title=KarlologyFalling Short|author=Lex Coulton

|summary=The Radio Five film critic Mark Kermode has a rule when reviewing comedies. If he laughs more than five times then the film deserves its billing as a comedy. If that rule was applied to Karl PilkingtonLex Coulton's new book Karlology then it would easily fit into the category for there are laugh aplenty in this strange, amusing and charming little book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140533746X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joe Stretch|title=Wildlife|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=The word ''Twitter'' doesn't occur in Joe Stretch's vocabulary, but that's what his book debut novel is a story about. Life in the blogospheremistakes, massively exaggeratedfailures, where people don't leave their desks but nevertheless come together (but never literally) in satisfying their deepest, darkest desiresand relationships. If I've made it sound even faintly excitingThe main protagonist, believe meFrances Pilgrim, Joe Stretch is a fantasist sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with realist tendencies. What he her best friend Jackson, a work colleague and is after is laughter; what he produces is a virtual simulacrum. Sniggery-pokery, jiggery-jokery, he tinkers grappling with the twilight zone increasingly eccentric behaviour of a future-scenario where, for reasons beyond all understanding, some robotic and literal Dickhead (iher mother.e. a man with a dick fixed to his forehead – I kid you not) decides to target a few selected humans for a make-over in his own image. Given This relationship is complicated by the fact that virtual worlds exist to pull in punters who don't like themselves in the real one, and their main purpose is to make money, oneFrances's only question must be: why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532077</amazonuk>father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Marr1683690133|title=Three Jumpers|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=When Bardolph Middle placed an ad in the paper proclaiming he was a writer, he thought he might get the odd request to write a speech or two. Maybe, if he was very lucky, a company might ask him to conceive an entire marketing plan and advertising campaign. What he never expected was this job offer…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906558485</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Rosy Barnes|title=Sadomasochism for Accountants|rating=3|genre=WomenMy Lady's FictionChoosing|summaryauthor=Humour's very personal, isn't it? If you dig films like ''Shaun of the Dead'' and ''Hot Fuzz'', I predict you'll love this chick lit parody. It's anarchic Kitty Curran and very British comedy tradition. If you're into the conventions of good writing, you may find it a little painful. Nevertheless, I enjoyed plenty of moments in Rosy Barnes' first novel.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0714531812</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Lady Annabel Goldsmith|title=Copper: A Dog's LifeLarissa Zageris

|summary=Copper was one of You are a litter lass of dogs born twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a stray bitch and who was 'adopted' by Lady Annabel Goldsmith suitable suitor - or might it be the other way round?. Here he tells his story in his own words else doom yourself to life as transcribed for him by his owneran eternal spinster. HeAlong your journey, you's got his own priorities – ll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and obedience is not one of them – along with fired by a roving spiritrogueish sense for adventure. ItWhen it comes to suitors though, you's perhaps fortunate that he's a dog as this allows you ll have to call him 'cheeky' make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and 'charming'terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. If he was a human being 'randy' With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it'arrogants clear this isn' would t going to be two of the first words which came to mindan easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751538205</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim MooreStibbe_Xmas|title=I Believe in Yesterday: My Adventures in Living HistoryAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5

|summary=Common opinion has Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the television programme hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it'Time Team'' did a lot for the public image of archaeologists s suitably free-range and organic – bringing them out of their holes in the groundbut not too organic that you can go and visit it, and making them seem like excitingget too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, interesting people with is of course also a good way time of putting their knowledge acrossgreat boons. However It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was clearly always a much harder task when it came godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to those background artistes they have sometimesaunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, walking up and down in Roman centurion gearas for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, or living did they even try and sell them any other time of the historical lifestyle as a re-enactment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224077813</amazonuk>year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=L Vaughan SpencerDoescher_Will|title=DonWilliam Shakespeare't Be Needy Be Succeedys the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh|author=Ian Doescher|rating=4.5

|summary=Are you underperforming in your business and personal lives? Do you underestimate the importance of good hair and moisturised skin in achieving your life goals? Are you stumbling through life A long time ago, in a Fast-Moving Business Environment (FMBE) without galaxy far away, there was a motivational mantra man called William Shakespeare, who was able to guide you? Then you need this bookcreate a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. As You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The A to Zee of MotivitalityForce Doth Awaken'', this is a dictionary of achievement but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from a man who can teach elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you how need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to succeed like a toothless budgie.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681634</amazonuk>part seven – surely making this over twice as good…

{{newreview|author=Mark Crick |title=Sartre's Sink: The Great Writers' Complete Book of DIY|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=''Sartre's Sink'' comprises fourteen short story parodies of some of the world's best known writers – the twist being that the stories are all about undertaking some mundane DIY task such as tiling a bathroom (Dostoevsky) or reglazing a window (Milan Kundera). So far it sounds a bit like some pretentious Oxbridge student twaddle. You can just imagine how the idea came up over an over-ripe Brie and an underrated bottle of 1963 Taylor's port. It also rather smacks of that Radio 4 programme which I detest with an absolute passion - I can't even stand writing its name, ugh - ''Quote Unquote'', in which parodies do feature, read out by smug self-congratulatory writer darlings (you can tell I don't like it, can't you?). However, dear readers, this book is rather enjoyable and I speak as someone who is rather less versed in the writings of this famous lot than I care Move on to admit.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847080472</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Eric Nakagawa|title=I Can Has Cheezburger |rating=4|genre=Pets|summary=''I Can Has Cheezburger'', is a clever and witty anthology of some of the best pictures and captions from the fantastic [http://icanhascheezburger.com/ lolcats website[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]] of the same name. The site has been growing in popularity in recent months, and so it was inevitable that a book would soon hit the shelves. Choosing which pics to include in the book could not have been an easy task, and some of the old favourites are there, alongside some less well known ones.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340977574</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ian Crofton|title=History Without the Boring Bits|rating=5|genre=History|summary=I was never one for history, and in fact left the dregs of a history teacher in tatters when I scraped through with a D. Still, history is an odd thing – written by the winners of course, and annoyingly biased in my mind towards the plain. There's no real reason to remember the order of Henry VIII's six wives, but we can only relish the one credited with polydactylism, a third nipple and whatnot (the second one, in fact – whoever that was).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847243746</amazonuk>}}