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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]==Humour==__NOTOC__[[Category:History]]{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon GarfieldJen Beagin|title=Just My Type: A Book About FontsBig Swiss

|genre=Humour|summary=A quality typeface I found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and fears. How? Her job is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, there's a bit like a good referee confidentiality agreement, as the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that just makes it more exciting. Like we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, as a football match in that you only really notice them if something has gone wrongfly on the wall. A referee That is there , until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the safety of the wall and buzz far too close to facilitate the players on sun. The sun in this analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and who, like the pitchsun, is bright, not blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to be Greta. Suddenly, the star confidentiality agreement, the ethics of the show (though watching Match her professional position, her loyalties to Om, fly out of the Day these past few weeks youwindow. She'd often beg s in too deep.|isbn=0571378579}}{{Frontpage|author=Dean Koontz|title=The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Paranormal|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to differ)his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is with typefacesa new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. A good type helps the reader Spike is going to take care of Benny, enhances the flow and makes the viewing experience easy will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and simple. Well sort ofHarper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846683017</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Bob Servant and Neil Forsyth1529153050|title=Bob Servant: Hero of DundeeBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=3.54

|summary=After [[Delete This at Your Peril: One Man's Fearless Exchanges with Seeking some light relief from the Internet Spammers by Bob Servant|bursting into public consciousness]] as the scourge of email spammerscurrent political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, Broughty FerryI was nudged towards ''Britain's resident polymath Bob Servant has returned. This time, he expands upon the colourful life only hinted at 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 Best Political Cartoons of his window cleaning empire, and his role in Dundee2022''s brutal cheeseburger wars. Along the way, Sharp eyes will have noted that we witness his struggles with, respectively, women ('skirt'), his simpleton sidekick Frank, and re not yet through the year: the demon drinkcartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841589209</amazonuk> Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=P K Munroe1785633074|title=You Can Stick ItStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=34.5

|summary=Literary merit? Absolutely none! PlotMembers of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, characterisation and all headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that other stuff you usually talk about? Nope – there's none for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that, either. Ah, so it's non-fiction? Well, calling it the ''factprime'' would be stretching things a little too farmovers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government... So We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, come on thenthe man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. What ''is'' it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007362188</amazonuk>You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Axel Scheffler0571365884|title=How to Keep My Mess is a Pet SquirrelBit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia 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 trolling. John Lindsay replies to them, spins them This is a yarnspoof spy story, and strings them along for as long as possiblethat isn't about James Bond. Sometimes the advert is fairly innocuous and he emails them anyway Or Ian Fleming. These are emails from an asshole, after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402778279</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=L C Tyler|title=The Herring In The Library|rating=4.5|genre=Crime|summary=Tall, elegant Ethelred is But it features a gentlemanman called Ian Lemming, who dresses well 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 'likes 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 Tylerladies'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 who works 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 Lifesecret service, 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 but in the inclusion planning side of vampires in mind. But by some means or another North America is rife with the things – hiding in plain sight, as more than the older ones can bear sunlight, with the help of darkened glassesactive service. It might just come down to one eager young man to rid his new country of such things, Lemming finds himself put 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 mission with a series of books, inspiring othersfemale spy called Margaux, and/or lead to the same story being published pair end up stranded in many different guises. Here, thenNormandy, with Margaux on its way a desperate mission to Hollywoodunearth traitors in the resistance network, is Jane Austen’s story of Lizzie Bennet, the feisty young woman and Lemming desperately trying to ignore Mr Darcy while fighting off the ''manky unmentionables'' – at least she is until the hidden truths open keep up to with 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.!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849391114</amazonuk>2952163855

 {{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 the lights at Halloween? The lights witch. What does an Australian witch ride on? A broomerang. YepWell, it's this looked very much like a joke book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729063</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nick Wadley|title=Man + Dog|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Throughout my life I've lived with dogs or deeply regretted could love from the fact that I lacked a canine companion. Watching a dog – or better stillget-go, the interaction between dogs – which is infinitely better than anything on television and it's sheer joy to see how man and dog interacts and how, so often, they hold a mirror why I picked my review copy up to each other.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1564785521</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=The Harvard Lampoon|title=Nightlight: A Parody of Twilight |rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Most people will have heard of the worldwide phenomenon that is [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]. The books by Stephenie Meyer and the film have made a legend flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of the romance between vampire Edward Mullen (Robert Pattinson plays the movie role) and teenage schoolgirl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart)it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013330</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur |title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide I found things to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over potentially delight me each time – a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely that is weird section in the wackiest, 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 authorsmiddle on darker stock paper, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast chapter whose number was in the modern world20, the entire banking system000s, all those who failed to see it comingletters used as narrative form, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich lists.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Eoin Colfer|title=And Another Thing ... Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6) |rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Of all It intrigued with the big books announced for this year, this one must have raised more eyebrows than many. Why try and write subterranean voice a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, when way before the end, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such a task? And why approach an Irishman, Eoin Colfer, when the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described as Monty Python doing a sci-fi Terry Pratchett, and with their cups man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of tea and dressing gowns, could only be described as very English? Well the answer is most evident - Colfer is a world-beater when it comes to knocking up a story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=The Vampire Miles Proctor|title=The New Vampire's Handbook|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=I shall start with a prediction. I will not become a vampirementioned, 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 intacttoo. But for those of you reading this at night, somewhere, flameproof cape at hand, with your distaste of garlic, publicity and presumably 've seen 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 About Pandas|star rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Sometimes the title says it all - this is a book that comes 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 Armageddon|rating=2.5|genre=Humour|summary=The world is definitely going to hell in a handcart. We're only just preventing lethal global warming by having a credit crunch that has prevented a lot of big building, air travelreview, and consumerism. The population is getting so obese there is no room for any more of us - and add can tell that to the exploding population statisticsif love was on these pages, and it's never going to look betterwas not actually caused by them. And don't get me started on where all the bees have gone...So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0224086197</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James MayB08KKQ85FN|title=Car Fever: Dispatches From Behind The WheelBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona

|genre=LifestyleShort Stories|summary=Now, way back when I was younger, and watched TV ''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a lotRottweiler in lipstick, I am sure I remember Top Gear as being an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a consumer programme. How times change. These days I am sure they destroy more cars than they review, and pampered peacock about to be released into the three main people from the show are approaching superstar statuscompany of carrion crows or, with their amenable personalities, awkward wardrobe choices and trenchant laddish charms. They've sprung their media entities from out of more to the studiopoint, into other TV programmes, and about to discover the real world of journalism, with chatty columns in the broadsheets allowing them free rein to witter to their heartbus timetables and paying his own gas bills.'s desire. And here, in one grandiloquent volume, and in time for Christmas, are many of James May's desires.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994533</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Jane Austen You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Seth Grahame-Smith Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|title=Pride Sorting the Priorities]] and Prejudice we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and Zombies|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Ah, the benefits for Sandra Aragona to a good book become The Wife of a classic first lineFormer Ambassador.. 'Call me Ishmael.' 'It was a bright cold day They have left The Career and settled in April, and the clocks were striking thirteenRome.' Who can forget Iain BanksWell ' settled'It was rather overstates the day my grandmother exploded'? Or those timeless words by Jane Austensituation and their dog, Beagle, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession has no intention of brains must be in want of more brainsslowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594743347</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry HillB08GFSK2WZ|title=Tim The Tiny Horse At LargeKarma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd

|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=ItGeorge Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's been a while since Tim not had sex for eight months and Flyshe's [[Tim stuck in the Tiny Horse by Harry Hill|last adventures]], karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and changes are afoot in Timshe has a real talent for attracting drama. Her life's tiny worldchaotic: Fly is getting married she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to his girlfriendabsorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. Tim She only has to take her mother's dog out for a little worried because they've only known each other walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a weekphoto being taken by someone who shares it around the office. The marriage goes ahead}} {{Frontpage|author=David C Mason|title=Pandora's Gardener|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary= John Cranston is a gardener, and Tim finds himself kicking his heelsalthough what he did before he became a gardener, so he gets a petclaims, is classified. And so the brief episodes That is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the life of a horse who lives in a matchbox continueday.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571244157</amazonuk>0956180523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Spike MilliganJester_Forever|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>}} {{newreview|author=Sam Savage|title=The Cry of the Sloth|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 Forever After: 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>}} {{newreviewdark comedy|author=Christopher Moore|title=You SuckDavid Jester

|genre=HumourHorror|summary=You know that old adage about books and covers? Well this Michael Holland is a case in pointcocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. The title isn't greatWe follow Michael, but the cover design for the paperback imprint is, like, duh!a grim reaper and his friends, the pits. It is so uncool…so unrep-resent-ative of the book. This is not Chip (a cocktail thing. Not even stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a "Bloody Mary" thing.  Well, except for stoner in the tiny bit that is, but you'll discover that records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in due coursetheir flat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498092</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hugh Murr and Sid Nigtures 1683691172|title=Cyber Sign OffsWilliam Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls|author=Ian Doescher|rating=2.5

|summary=I admit I had the wrong end of the stick when it came to this bookA long time ago, before I opened it at least. I had assumed it was in a collection of real-life on-line signatures - we've all seen themgalaxy far away, those straplines people have on all their forum posts. The obvious response would have been along the lines of 'fair enoughStar Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, but why is this and the marriage seemed a book perfectly suitable one. So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in this day Shakespearean dialogue, and agebehave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the producers tried again, and not a website?with [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to the Future]] no less. And that worked. But nosimultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can't even really remember seeing was transcribed into the original Elizabethan lingo. This is a collection of dialogues between two people - shall we call them Sue deNim and Allie ByeA cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, yet oh so ancient, who have a line or two dressing. Here was the true challenge – would I manage to say to each otherenjoy this, and a made-up name (sorry, make that May Dupp-Name) with which to sign it off. Much jolly nonsense ensues.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312497</amazonuk>based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Fitzhigham 168369094X|title=All at Sea: One Man. One Bathtub. One Very Bad Idea: Conquering William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Channel in a Piece of PlumbingFuture!|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=The Radio Five film critic Mark Kermode has A long time ago, in a rule when reviewing comedies. If he laughs more than five times then publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the film deserves its billing as story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a comedyclever way they seemed perfectly suited. If that rule It was applied to Karl Pilkingtonthen duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's new book Karlology then it would easily fit into buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the category for there are laugh aplenty same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in this strangeiambs. And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, amusing and charming little book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140533746X<parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joe Stretch1473669065|title=Wildlife|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=The word ''Twitter'' doesn't occur in Joe Stretch's vocabulary, but thatQueenie Malone's what his book is about. Life in the blogosphere, massively exaggerated, where people don't leave their desks but nevertheless come together (but never literally) in satisfying their deepest, darkest desires. If I've made it sound even faintly exciting, believe me, Joe Stretch is a fantasist with realist tendencies. What he is after is laughter; what he produces is a virtual simulacrum. Sniggery-pokery, jiggery-jokery, he tinkers with the twilight zone of a future-scenario where, for reasons beyond all understanding, some robotic and literal Dickhead (i.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 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, one's only question must be: why?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532077</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewParadise Hotel|author=Michael Marr|title=Three JumpersRuth Hogan

|summary=Copper was one Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of a litter of dogs born her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a stray bitch haven for eccentrics and who was 'adopted' by Lady Annabel Goldsmith - or might it misfits. A place where people can be the other way round?. Here he tells his story in his own words as transcribed for him by his owner. He's got his own priorities – themselves, and obedience is not one let go of thoughts that torment them – along with a roving spiritelsewhere. It's perhaps fortunate Little wonder that he's Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a dog as child, from this allows you place of wonder. With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to call him 'cheeky' pick apart the tricky and 'charming'. If he was a human being 'randy' uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and 'arrogant' would be two of the first words which came to minddistant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751538205</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim Moore1683690346|title=I Believe in Yesterday: My Adventures in Living HistoryThe Con Artist|author=Fred Van Lente

|summary=Common opinion has it that the television programme ''Time Team'' did Comic-Cons are a lot place of wonder and sanctuary for the public image of archaeologists – bringing them out of their holes in the groundmany people, and making them seem like excitingwhen Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, interesting people he's looking for both that and sanctuary with a good way other fans and creators, plus the chance of putting their knowledge acrossmaybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However it was clearly a much harder task , when it came 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 those background artistes they have sometimeszombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, walking up and down in Roman centurion geardoing so, or living the historical lifestyle as may just unravel a dark secret behind a re-enactmentlegendary industry creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224077813</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=L Vaughan Spencer1473669588|title=Don't Be Needy Be SucceedyFalling Short|author=Lex Coulton

|summary=Are you underperforming in your business and personal lives? Do you underestimate the importance of good hair Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and moisturised skin in achieving your life goals? Are you stumbling through life in a Fast-Moving Business Environment (FMBE) without a motivational mantra to guide you? Then you need this bookrelationships. As ''The A to Zee of Motivitality''main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, this is a dictionary of achievement from a man sixth form English teacher who can teach you how to succeed like has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a toothless budgiework colleague and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681634</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mark Crick 1683690133|title=SartreMy Lady's Sink: The Great Writers' Complete Book of DIYChoosing|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

|summary=''Sartre's Sink'' comprises fourteen short story parodies of some of the world's best known writers – the twist being that the stories You are all about undertaking some mundane DIY task such as tiling a bathroom (Dostoevsky) or reglazing a window (Milan Kundera)lass of twenty-eight. So far it sounds Plucky, penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a bit like some pretentious Oxbridge student twaddle. You can just imagine how the idea came up over an oversuitable suitor -ripe Brie and or else doom yourself to life as an underrated bottle of 1963 Taylor's porteternal spinster. It also rather smacks of that Radio 4 programme which I detest with an absolute passion - I can't even stand writing its nameAlong your journey, ugh - ''Quote Unquoteyou'', in which parodies do feature, read out ll be accompanied by smug selfLady Evangeline Youngblood -congratulatory writer darlings (a fiesty noble eager to save you can tell I don't like from a life alone, and fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When itcomes to suitors though, canyou't you?)ll have to make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. HoweverWith orphans, dear readerswerewolves, this book is rather enjoyable long lost lovers and I speak as someone who is rather less versed in ancient Egyptian artefacts along the writings of way, it's clear this famous lot than I care isn't going to admitbe an easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847080472</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Eric NakagawaStibbe_Xmas|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] 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>}} {{newreviewAn Almost Perfect Christmas|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>}} {{newreview|author=Jim Holt|title=Stop Me If You've Heard This|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=As far as I can remember, my first time in print was when I submitted some jokes to a charity's themed joke collection. Before then, some of my first actions as a child might have been laughing, and what is cuter in a baby than that? But why was that infant laughing – he didn't have a joke he could get, surely?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668109X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=P G Wodehouse |title=Joy in the MorningNina Stibbe

|summary=''Joy in Christmas – the Morning'' is another novel from Ptime of traditional trauma.GYou 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 hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. WodehouseNowadays it's all having to make sure it's wonderful series of books about Bertram Wooster suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and Jeevesget too friendly with it to want to eat it. Bertie Christmas, though, is of course also a young gentleman time of inherited means and no present occupationgreat boons. He is It's cash in hand for a good humoured lot of plump people who can hire red suits and well-meant chapbeards, however clearly not it was always a godsend for postmen with all the smartest tool in the shed. Bertie seems thank-you letters to have aunties you saw twice a talent of getting himself into trouble but decade that is where Jeevesyour parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, his loyal, educated and painfully clever butler comes to his rescue. Jeeves is irreplaceable when it comes to saving Bertie from whatever creativeas for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, complicated did they even try and incredibly funny situations Wodehouse puts his characters through.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099513765</amazonuk>sell them any other time of the year?

 {{newreview|author=P G Wodehouse|title=Thank You, Jeeves|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Bertie Wooster was once engaged to Pauline Stoker. It didn't last very long – about forty eight hours, most of which Bertie spent in bed with a bad cold, if his memory serves him correctly. It's still embarrassing when he meets Pauline and her father, particularly as it was the father who was responsible for breaking off the engagement. Rather than eat at the Savoy Grill where he spotted the Stokers, he goes home to his only consolation. Bertie plays the banjo. Unfortunately, he doesn't play it very well.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099513730</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Holt |title=The Better Mousetrap|rating=4 |genre=Humour|summary=I approached this book with a fair degree of trepidation, as I had never heard of the author, and wondered if, when reading the synopsis, I was about to embark on a Terry Pratchett type novel (and I have to say, much though I admire his achievements, I'm not a fan of Discworld!) However, my fears were unfounded, and from page one I found myself drawn into this clever and erudite novel. Not having read the preceding novels in the series did put me at a slight disadvantage, but didn't detract from my enjoyment, and has certainly ensured that I'll read the others in the near future. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495034</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Moore |title=Utterly Ridiculous|rating=3 |genre=Humour|summary=If I learned nothing else from this book, I now know of a new profession: aircraft cleaner. For that is the trade of Dave, the hero of ''Utterly Ridiculous''. With little but a van and his torpid terrier Biggles, Dave roves the airstrips of southern England, titivating light aircraft.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906221685</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Mole Doescher_Will|title=I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia|rating=1 |genre=Travel|summary=I remember getting this book in post, reading the title and thinking no, even though I am Russian, I will try to be unbiased and judge it like I would judge any other book about a foreign country experience. I now have to regretfully admit I failed. In my defence, John MoleWilliam Shakespeare's focus on mocking the nation and country made that all too easy.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857885090</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Clive Gifford|title=Teenage KicksForce Doth Awaken: 101 Things to Do Before You're 16|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Kids. They're bored all the time, aren't they? Nothing you buy seems to have any longevity. I think they live in alternative dimension in which time passes much more slowly that it does for harassed parents. It's the only explanation. I think Clive Gifford must sympathise, because his latest book, Teenage Kicks, has a whopping 101 ideas to alleviate boredom and a clever challenge too - your bored child has to complete them all before they reach 16. At a measly £5.99, this book could represent the most wonderful value for money any parent could ever wish for.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340950617</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jon Canter |title=A Short Gentleman|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=The narrator of this spoof biography is a civil law barrister. Robert Purcell has been educated at Winchester and Oxford. He has modelled himself on his polite and restrained father, a High Court judge and, as a child, Robert maps out the components his own expected adult life – wife, two children, career – and the respect which he will gain from this, together with his undoubted intellectual superiority. At the age of eight, he writes a future Who's Who entry for himself, with all Star Wars Part the academic and professional accolades he expects to garner.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224077740</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSeventh|author=George Saunders |title=The Brain-dead MegaphoneIan Doescher

|summary=American author George Saunders is known for his short stories and fictionA long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, but he is also who was able to create a journalist series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for publications such as ''The GuardianForce Doth Awaken'', ''The New Yorker Magazine'' 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 ''GQ''people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don''The Brain-Dead Megaphone'' is t forget his first collection audience only demanded three parts of essays and itHenry VI – here the series is so popular we's an interesting proposition: sixteen pieces ranging from travel writing, literary appreciation, political essays, re on to surrealist short fiction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747594260</amazonuk>part seven – surely making this over twice as good…

 {{newreview |title=Tim the Tiny Horse|author=Harry Hill|genre=Humour|rating=4|summary=After doing even tiny bit of research I realised that I must be the only person out there who ever read Tim the Tiny Horse having never heard of the author. Thus, I have Move on to take another reviewer's word that it's "typical Harry Hill" and will make an attempt at reviewing Tim as a stand-alone. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571229565</amazonuk>}}[[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]