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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]==Humour==__NOTOC__{{newreview|author=Serge Bloch|title=You are What You Eat: And Other Mealtime Hazards|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=We last saw Serge Bloch's talents in [[Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey by Serge Bloch|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!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402797605</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Reeve|title=Goblins|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=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?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407115278</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Etgar Keret|title=Suddenly, a Knock on the Door |rating=4|genre=Short Stories|summary=In the opening, titular story, Keret is forced by several people to create, and alter, a short short story. It's a plain metaphor for the history of Israel, but it proves that this modern Scheherazade is not too far removed geographically from the original. And what follows are probably the sort of short, tantalising, open-ended, rough-round-the-edges and surreal results of being compelled to carry on telling tall tales on a nightly basis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186674</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicky Harlow|title=Amelia and the Virgin|rating=5|genre=Humour|summary=Amelia is 13 years old and lives with her mother, brother and extended family in 1980s Liverpool. Con, her great-uncle, is a psychiatrist with prestigious patients and a bit of a drink problem, Great-Aunt Edith is a devout Catholic with an inclination towards eccentricity and her brother, Julian, is a junky. Amelia's mother tries to hold everyone together but becomes slightly distracted when she inherits a convent in Ireland, complete with nuns. Amelia has her own problems, though. She sees visions of the Goddess Irena and is pregnant with the next Messiah. (A girl this time as the original male Messiah didn't have much luck.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095600539X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendJen Beagin|title=The Growing Pains of Adrian MoleBig Swiss

|genre=General FictionHumour |summary=The country might be at war over I found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the Falklands but life is hardly straight-forward in power to know the Mole household. Adrianpopulation of Hudson, New York's parents are back together after both had disastrous affairs darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and it's not long before Adrian fears. How? Her job is shocked to learn that his mother is pregnanttranscribe their sex therapy sessions. HeSure, there's equally shocked to see his father helping Doreen (a.k.a. confidentiality agreement, as the 'stick insect') along a path which isn't particularly slippysex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, although he does notice but that she seems to have put on quite a bit of weightjust makes it more exciting. Pandora Braithwaite is as fickleLike we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, but adorableplacidly, as ever and Adrian's hormones are still playing hop-scotch with his braina fly on the wall. SoThat is, what's new?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046430</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Niven|title=The Second Coming|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=God has come back until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from a holiday the safety of the wall and has some catching up buzz far too close to dothe sun. What’s been happening on Earth for the last couple of hundred years? The realisation hits him hard... it makes him sick sun in fact. So what’s this analogy is the answer? To quote sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and who, like the religious clichésun, Jesus isbright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to Greta. After a board meeting with Suddenly, the senior saintsconfidentiality agreement, God decides that his son must be torn away from jamming with Hendrix to go back to the streets ethics of the world her professional position, her loyalties to remind the sinners Om, fly out of the waywindow. She's in too deep.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535521</amazonuk>0571378579

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendDean Koontz|title=The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾Bad Weather Friend

|genre=General FictionParanormal|summary=Adrian Mole was just three months away from Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his fourteenth birthday when job, he began writing loses his fiancee, and his diary on New Year's Dayhouse gets trashed. He Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's just on possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the edge of true adolescence - pimples are appearing as thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is a little bit of interest in the opposite sexvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. He's thinking about what he might like is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to do ''eventually''his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, but his first major challenge who has been sent to help him since Benny is the breakdown of his parents' marriageclearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. He writes with a wonderful mixture Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny'knowingness'' and innocence and usually manages to get things just ever-so-slightly wrongs wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141046422</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bruce Robinson1529153050|title=The Rum Diary - A Screenplay|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Kemp has lied his way onto a failing newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rica, as the only candidate for the job, and in a semi-comatose state induced by too many miniatures from the hotel minibar, stumbles into a conspiracy of epic proportions, via classic bar room brawls and nightclub mayhem. On the way he (almost) writes horoscopes and bowling championship stories, meets the fantastically erotic girlfriend of the evil businessman, and teams up with a proto-Nazi out of his mind on a cocktail of hootch and LSD, and a photographer side kick. There is no question that this is Hunter S Thompson territory, especially when all the above is combined with a witty, slow-talking hero who in spite of his alcoholic haze sees clearly through the exploitation of a third world country by its massive first world near neighbour. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555697</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Francesca Simon|title=Horrid Henry's A - Z of Everything HorridTim Benson

|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, Iwas nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022'm not a Spectator reader – indeed other than seeing on the shelves I'm ashamed to say . Sharp eyes will have noted that before starting to write this article I knew absolutely nothing about we're not yet through the magazine, its style, ethos or readership. Having (obviously) done year: the obligatory websearch I know understand that being its editor is considered a reasonable a route cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to success in the Conservative Party or other public office on a right-wing ticket31 August 2022. A sister publication Who can imagine what there will be to The Daily Telegraph, it is quoted as being Atlanticist, usually supportive of Israel, and Eurosceptic come in outlook. This makes me utterly unsuitable as a candidate to review Clarke's book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595511</amazonuk>the 2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guy Kennaway1785633074|title=Bird BrainStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry

|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the 'It began for Basil 'primus inter pares'Banger'(that' Peyton-Crumbe the day he died in a pheasant shooting incident'. If s for those of you were in any doubt as to who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the nature of reality is that the novel given ''prime'' movers are the cover jacket and special advisers - the author's disclaimer to SPADS - who are the effect that any similarity between driving force behind the human characters and any real person is entirely coincidental, but he feels safe from any threats of libel action on behalf of the dead animals whose characters he has mercilessly manipulated for narrative effect, then its opening sentence should put you straightgovernment.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093991</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil Forsyth|title=Why Me? The Very Important Emails We are in the privileged position of Bob Servant|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Catchy title and catchy front cover graphics. What's not having access to like? It takes a lot to make me laugh generallythe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, but as I had an initial flick through this book, things looked promising. And I the man who was also thinking that it's a pleasant change to see another location (other than perhaps behind the predictable Glasgow and Edinburgh) get an airing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270097</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Harry Thompson|title=Tintin: Herge and His Creation|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=I love Tintin. I love his quiff and his innocence, his plus-fours and his foreign adventures, I love Snowy skilful control of the dog and most of all I love Captain Haddock and Covid crisis which was completely contained by the flamboyance end of his blistering barnacles language2020. So I was thrilled You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to see a biography of the character and Hergé, his creator, and I picked it up with enthusiasmwatch. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546726</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joseph Heller0571365884|title=Catch 22|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At the heart of the very black comedy that My Mess is ''Catch 22'' is Captain Yossarian, a World War II American bombardier, who wants to survive the war. Flying repeated combat missions is undermining his sanity, and surely a mad man should be grounded? But if he asks to be grounded, he demonstrates an absolutely sane concern for his own safety. If he is sane, he can't be grounded. This, his doctor tells him, is catch 22.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewBit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=William Giraldi|title=Busy MonstersGeorgia Pritchett

|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=Charles Homar loves his GillianGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. He's proved She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it to us, if not to her, by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper was the sort of an ex with the intent to kill - life where if only ended up rescuing a cat instead. But lo and behold, she's declared had nothing to worry about she's off to discover the real love of her life - the giant squidwould become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. Failing On a visit to stop this, Charlie spends too long with a Nessie obsessivetherapist, then goes on a hunt of his own - for Bigfoot, all the while, chapter by chapter, sending his narrative of the same to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographicalan adult, frivolous columns.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kevin Wilson|title=The Family Fang|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Annie Fang and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be again. But it has come when she was completely unable to this - speak about what was wrong with her film actress career is on the rocks with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, it was suggested that she should write it down and he - well, he's here because 'My Mess is a Bit of a jumbo spud gun. Neither want life back at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in a whole career of performance art pieces, designed so we are given to enact a point of life or just cause havocbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Zadie SmithJohn Boyne|title=White TeethThe Echo Chamber

|summary=We've all been thereMeet George Cleverley. Finding fault with everything around us, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant that gets us so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do He is invoke self-defined as "Hell and damnation!one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record" down on all creation - including, of course, ourselves. After all, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stella Gibbons|title=Conference at Cold Comfort Farm|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=There are no Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. To those of you who've not read Stella Gibbons' magnificient [[Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons|original novel]], He starts this is hardly likely to be book a major shock - to the Gibbons fans amongst us, though, this is chilling news indeed. And bit worried when RobertPostehis mistress tells him she's carrying his child Flora returns to the farm - now a modernised monstrosity full of members of the International Thinkers' Group – sixteen years after her original visit, the news get graver and graver, as the cows Feckless, Graceless, Pointless, and Aimless have passed away of shame due to the disgrace of the bull Big Business. With the menfolk trying to make their fortunes abroad, and the women struggling, it's left to Flora to try to save the day once again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528681</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|but then his author=Stella Gibbons|title=Cold Comfort Farm|rating=5|genre=Humour|summary=Orphaned at 19, Flora Poste – a London sophisticate – wife is led to retreat to deepest Sussex to live off getting her relatives kicks with the Starkadders at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, a mournful bunch who take Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her in as they couldn't refuse anything of 'Robert Poste's child', but seem less than happy with having to do so. As she meets the preacher AmosThey have three children, his overwho are a sad-sexed younger son Sethsack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, his flighty sister Elphinea girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, and the hugely memorable – if barely seen – Aunt Ada Doom, the first person in literature keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to see 'something nasty in save the woodshed' – she resolves to take the family in hand and solve their problems.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141441593</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Jose Farmer|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Peerless Peer|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Itworld's World War One, and Britain has got wind of some brilliant scientific research, that has created a new bacterial weapon capable of wiping homeless with out the world's supply -of sauerkraut. But a dastardly German has stolen the formula. Before he can give a variant based on boiled meat, cabbage and potatoes to the kaiser, his most recent nemesis - Sherlock Holmesdate food, no less - must be brought out of beekeeping retirement. Cue an adventure and a half, as he and Watson take to the skies for the first time in their hectic lives, end up in darkest Africa, and encounter a certain yodelling, long-haired nobleman, more than up to fit young lad doing the name of King of the Junglegay hustle thing...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857681206</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Sharpe|title=The Wilt Inheritance|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Wilt is stuck Add in a job he doesn't want few other characters – teaching a subject he's not keen on to people for whom he has no affection – at one of the new Universities. We used to know them as technical colleges. But he can't afford to lose it because of the expense of keeping the quads at an expensive school and of maintaining his snobbish wifetherapists, lawyers, Eva. It's Eva though who signs him up for a job in the summer holidays random transgender types – tutoring the step-son of a local aristocrat in the hope of getting him into Cambridge – and particularly Porterhouse College. It's not long before Wilt discovers that the boy totes a gun and shoots at anything which moves – or even doesn't move – and that he's an idiot who would probably struggle to get a bus all have two very different connections to Cambridge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099493136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alain Mabanckou|title=Memoirs of a Porcupine|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The protagonist of this novel is an ordinary Congolese porcupine until Papa Kibandi performs an ancient ritual involving a hallucinogenic cocktail called ''mayamvumbi'', and transforms him into his son's harmful double. The insecure younger Kibandi becomes more and more embittered as his life goes on, and sends his porcupine to 'eat' anybody he feels the least bit threatened by, a process whereby you have something that person's life essence is sucked out, killing them instantly. Over one hundred victims later and following his master's death at the hands of a vengeful baby, our narrator retires suggests an almost farcical approach to the hollow of a baobab tree where he writes this confessional.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687675</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Holt|title=Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Imagine a modern world where pigs can do quantum mechanics, and where female solicitors turn into chickens. Add a dry cleaner that moves (literally, from What suggests the roof tiles to the basement) from town to town every forty-eight hours, a couple of medieval knights who've fought every day for centuriesfarcical approach even more, and a magical ring (or pencil sharpenerhowever, depending on is the mood it's in). Stir in a bit of property developing, a thaumaturgical detective and an old man who lives in a cloud. Result? You haven't even begun to probe the depths of fact this crazy, absurd, complex and hilarious bookis bloody funny.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841495077</amazonuk>0857526219

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Steve HelyStephen Clarke|title=How I Became a Famous NovelistThe Spy Who Inspired Me

|summary=With an uncompromising title like 'How I Became This is a Famous Novelist'spoof spy story, this clearly that isn't intended to be a subtle bookabout James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. So I can hardly complain when But it features a cynical look at man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the writing industry swings raw punches in every direction. It just isnladies't my sort of humourand who works for the secret service, but equally, if you rave about 'The Office' you will likely enjoy this book far in the planning side of things more than I have donethe active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849015724</amazonuk>2952163855

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles LambAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=Great Food: A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig and Other EssaysKokoschka's Doll|rating=42.5|genre=CookeryLiterary Fiction|summary=''A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig'' is Well, this looked very much like a collection of food-related essays book I could love from the early 19th centuryget-go, with a humorous bentwhich is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. They're but a few pages I found things to potentially delight me each - time – a light read to bring weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a smile to your facechapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, then and so on to . It intrigued with the next subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little foodie treatI knew of it mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0241951003</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=ClientsFromHell.netB08KKQ85FN|title=Clients From HellBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona

|genre=HumourShort Stories|summary=Everyone who's worked as 'If a freelancer has a story of woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a client from hell - that person who asked for something that was impossibleRottweiler in lipstick, wanted it done yesterday for an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a fraction pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the usual pricepoint, or is just plain angry about to discover the work produced. The website [http://www.clientsfromhell.net ClientsFromHell.net] has collated a number real world of such stories over the years, bus timetables and has now published them as a bookpaying his own gas bills.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0982473931</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Manu Joseph|title=Serious Men|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Ayyan Mani is a DalitYou don't get many better opening sentences than that, an untouchable, stuck in a flat in Mumbaido you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's slums but hoping, somehow, for a better future for his son. Working at Wife in [[Sorting the Insitute of Theory Priorities: Ambassadress and Research he uses all his cunning Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and wiles we learned what it was like to stay ahead of be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the game amongst Italian Government but the Brahmin scientiststime has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador... Does he They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the intelligence, situation and nervestheir dog, to convince everyone that his sonBeagle, against all oddshas no intention of slowing down any time soon, is a genius?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543085</amazonuk>despite being sixteen and deaf.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John SaundersB08GFSK2WZ|title=The Vernham ChroniclesKarma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd

|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale 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 little village karma trap: an awful lot of Vernhambad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. Anyone who lives Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in a village will recognise it immediatelyand left her, stark naked, with its cobbled streets and Tudor buildingsstaring at the pervy postman. There was some damage during the war (which might, or might not have been down 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 lighthouse folly constructed photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office.}} {{Frontpage|author=David C Mason|title=Pandora's Gardener|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary= John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a local landowner on his lake) but the gaps have been filled with some beautifulgardener, erhe claims, mock Tudor buildingsis classified. Almost unique and nearly beautiful That is just as the village well because he isabout to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, it's not where only he can save the star of The Vernham Chronicles. The stars are the people who live in Vernhamday.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>0956180523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Martin MillarJester_Forever|title=The Good Fairies of New YorkForever After: a dark comedy|author=David Jester

|genre=FantasyHorror|summary=In this fairytale of New York, the Cornish fairy King's children are living in exile, hiding in Central Park from Michael Holland is a nasty industrial revolution back home. They have friends from Ireland with them, cocky and brash young man who dies and all have gets made the ability to startle the local squirrelsoffer of his lifetime; immortality. Elsewhere two innocent scallywag fairies fleeing Scotland have arrivedWe follow Michael, a grim reaper and adopted a human each. Heather has joined up with Dinnie, the city's worst buskerhis friends, Chip (a fat, alcoholic stoner tooth fairy) and lonely fan of TV ads for phone sex, while Morag befriends Kerry, Naff (a dying kleptomaniac beauty, just stoner in the records department) as alone for different reasonsthey grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954205</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gervase Phinn1683691172|title=Twinkle, Twinkle, Little StarsWilliam Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls|author=Ian Doescher|rating=42.5

|summary=I spent many of my teenage years reading James Herriot's booksA long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and I found behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that this collection of anecdotes and poems the producers tried again, with [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Gervase Phinn had Ian Doescher|Back to the Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real flavour of Herriot about ittest out. Perhaps it A film I can't even really remember seeing was just transcribed into the setting, for Phinn original Elizabethan lingo. A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was a school inspector in given the Dales for many years, but I think he also has that knack of capturing a situationbrand new, and a characteryet oh so ancient, and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculousdressing. Here he collates stories from his other bookswas the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, some Christmassy and others not, and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed between.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141036435</amazonuk>based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…

 [[Category:History]]{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon Garfield168369094X|title=Just My Type: A Book About FontsWilliam Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=A quality typeface is long time ago, in a bit like a good referee at publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a football match in that you only really notice them if something has gone wrongclever way they seemed perfectly suited. A referee is there to facilitate It was then duly repeated for all the players on other films in the pitchmain Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, not to be the star title of which became public knowledge the show (though watching Match of the Day these past few weeks you'd often beg to differ)day before I write. So it is with typefaces. A good type helps In the readerhiatus, however, enhances the flow and makes effort has been made to see if the viewing experience easy same shtick works with other texts, and simpleto riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. Well sort And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683017<time travel, bullying, and parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bob Servant and Neil Forsyth1473669065|title=Bob Servant: Hero of DundeeQueenie Malone's Paradise Hotel|author=Ruth Hogan|rating=3.5

|summary=After [[Delete This at Your Peril: One Man's Fearless Exchanges with the Internet Spammers by Bob Servant|bursting into public consciousness]] as Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the scourge remains of email spammers, Broughty Ferryher mother's resident polymath Bob Servant has returnedlife after her death. This timeWhilst there, he expands upon she returns to the colourful life only hinted at in his previous oeuvreParadise hotel, Delete this at Your Peril. And what a life it has beenhaven for eccentrics and misfits. He steers us from his humble beginningsA place where people can be themselves, his broken family and traumatic schooldayslet go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, through from this place of wonder. With the rise and fall help of his window cleaning empireQueenie Malone, caring, and his role in Dundee's brutal cheeseburger wars. Along gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the way, we witness his struggles tricky and uncertain relationship she had with, respectively, women ('skirt'), his simpleton sidekick Frank, her sometimes cruel and the demon drinkdistant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841589209</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=P K Munroe1683690346|title=You Can Stick ItThe Con Artist|author=Fred Van Lente|rating=3.54

|summary=Literary merit? Absolutely none! PlotComic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, characterisation and all when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's looking for both that and sanctuary with other stuff you usually talk about? Nope – there's none fans and creators, plus the chance of thatmaybe, eitherjust maybe reuniting with his ex. AhHowever, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so it's non-fiction? Well, calling it ''fact'' would be stretching things may just unravel a dark secret behind a little too far... So, come on thenlegendary industry creator. What ''is'' it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007362188</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Axel Scheffler1473669588|title=How to Keep a Pet SquirrelFalling Short|author=Lex Coulton

|summary=SoLex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, how do you keep a pet squirrel? Wellfailures, the simple answer is that you don't. They're wild animals and not at all suitable for keeping in captivity, but accepted thinking didn't always run that wayrelationships. It was whilst he was dipping into ''The Children's Encyclopaedia'' of 1910 that Axel Scheffler came across main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a small but indispensible guide to obtaining work colleague and caring for your pet squirrelis grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. His inventive mind came up with these beautiful illustrations to accompany This relationship is complicated by the text and if youfact that Frances're looking for an amusing gift for an animal-loving adult then this book could well be the answers father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571255981</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=PJ Vanston1683690133|title=Crump|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first day as a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University - an ex-polytechnic. ItMy Lady's the happiest day of his life, and he can't wait to see all that it holds, and make a difference to all his students. And then it hits him: the relentless pettiness of authority figures, the students who can't string two sentences together, the lowering of standards in search of higher test scores, so more money from foreign students, and political correctness gone (as I believe the saying goes) mad.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewChoosing|author=John Lennon|title=In His Own Write Kitty Curran and A Spaniard in the WorksLarissa Zageris|rating=34

|summary=During the height You are a lass of Beatlemaniatwenty-eight. Plucky, John Lennon used penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to doodle find a suitable suitor - or write short poems or nonsense stories else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to pass the time (save you from a life alone, and there must have been fired by a good deal of time rogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to pass away on toursuitors though, if only waiting for screaming fans you'll have to leave them alone make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and go back home)terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. Some of them were seen by Tom MaschlerWith orphans, literary editor at Jonathan Capewerewolves, who encouraged him long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to produce morebe an easy decision.. The results were published in two very successful short books in 1964 and 1965.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099530422</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John LindsayStibbe_Xmas|title=Emails From An AssholeAlmost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5

|summary=Some classified ads are crying out Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for trollingthat – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. John Lindsay replies Nowadays it's all having to themmake sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, spins them is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a yarnlot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, and strings them along it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as long a child, and as possible. Sometimes for the advert is fairly innocuous makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and he emails sell them anyway. These are emails from an asshole, after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402778279</amazonuk>any other time of the year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=L C TylerDoescher_Will|title=The Herring In The LibraryWilliam Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=A J Jacobs has long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a reputation for setting himself onerous tasksseries of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. His first book was about reading You may or may not have noticed the entire Encyclopedia Britannica; cinematic version of his second detailed a year spent according original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to -before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the Biblical preceptsfamily til it hurts. In My Experimental Life And if you need further encouragement, he recounts nine briefer episodes don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of living outside his comfort zone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547422</amazonuk>Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…

{{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, Move on his way to something he’s a bit more known for.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849014086</amazonuk>}}[[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]