Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]==Humour==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom SharpeJen Beagin|title=The Wilt InheritanceBig Swiss|rating=34.5|genre=Humour|summary=Wilt is stuck in a job he doesn't want – teaching a subject he's not keen on to people for whom he has no affection – at one I found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the new Universities. We used power to know them as technical colleges. But he can't afford to lose it because of the expense population of keeping the quads at an expensive school Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and of maintaining his snobbish wifefears. How? Her job is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, Eva. Itthere's Eva though a confidentiality agreement, as the sex coach who signs him up 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 job in fly on the summer holidays – tutoring wall. That is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the step-son safety of a local aristocrat in the hope of getting him into Cambridge – wall and particularly Porterhouse Collegebuzz far too close to the sun. ItThe sun in this analogy is the sex coach's not long before Wilt discovers that the boy totes a gun a shoots at anything which moves – or even doesnnewest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss't move – , and that he's an idiot who would probably struggle , like the sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to get a bus Greta. Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the ethics of her professional position, her loyalties to CambridgeOm, fly out of the window. She's in too deep.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099493136</amazonuk>0571378579

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alain MabanckouDean Koontz|title=Memoirs of a PorcupineThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=Literary FictionParanormal|summary=The protagonist of this novel Benny is an ordinary Congolese porcupine until Papa Kibandi performs an ancient ritual involving having a hallucinogenic cocktail called ''mayamvumbi''terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and transforms him into his son's harmful doublehouse gets trashed. The insecure younger Kibandi becomes more Oh, and more embittered as someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his life goes onhome, and sends his porcupine to it'eat' anybody he feels s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the least bit threatened by, a process whereby thing that person's life essence has trashed his house! The thing is sucked out, killing them instantly. Over one hundred victims later and following his master's death at Benny is the hands of a vengeful baby, our narrator retires very last person to the hollow of deserve all this bad luck. He is a baobab tree where he writes this confessionalnice person. A really nice person.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687675</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Holt|title=Life, Liberty and So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the Pursuit of Sausages|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Imagine delivery to his house is a world where pigs can do quantum mechanicsnew friend, and where female solicitors turn into chickens. Add a dry cleaner that moves (literallybad weather friend called Spike, from the roof tiles who has been sent to the basement) help him since Benny is clearly under attack from town nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to town every forty-eight hourstake care of Benny, a couple and will certainly take care of medieval knights whoBenny've fought every day for centuriess enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a magical ring (or pencil sharpener, depending on the mood itwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's inwild adventure). Stir in a bit of property developing, a thaumaturgical detective and an old man can figure out who lives in a cloud. Result? You haven't even begun to probe the depths of this crazy, absurd, complex and hilarious bookexactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841495077</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Hely1529153050|title=How I Became a Famous NovelistBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson

|genre=General FictionHumour|summary=With Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an uncompromising title like 'How adrenaline sport, I Became a Famous Novelistwas nudged towards ', 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 isnBritain't my sort s Best Political Cartoons of humour, but equally, if you rave about 2022'The Office' you . Sharp eyes will likely enjoy this book far more than I have donenoted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015724</amazonuk> Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles Lamb1785633074|title=Great Food: A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig and Other EssaysStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=CookeryHumour|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig'(that' s for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is a collection that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of food-related essays from having access to the early 19th centurymemoirs of Rafe Hubris, with a humorous bentthe man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. They're You might not know the name now but a few pages each - a light read he will certainly be the man to bring a smile to your face, then on to the next little foodie treatwatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951003</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=ClientsFromHell.net0571365884|title=Clients From HellMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett

|genre=HumourAutobiography|summary=Everyone who's worked as a freelancer Georgia Pritchett has a story of a client from hell - that person who asked for something that was impossiblealways been anxious, wanted it done yesterday for even as a fraction of child. She would worry about whether the usual price, or is just plain angry about monsters under the work produced. The website [httpbed were comfortable://wwwit was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between.clientsfromhell.net ClientsFromHell.net] has collated On a visit to a number of such stories over the yearstherapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and has now published them as ''My Mess is a Bit of a bookLife: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0982473931</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Manu JosephJohn Boyne|title=Serious MenThe Echo Chamber|rating=45

|summary=Ayyan Mani Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a Dalit, an untouchable, stuck in criminal record". He starts this book a flat in Mumbaibit worried when his mistress tells him she's slums carrying his child, but hopingthen his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, somehowwho are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, for a better future for his son. Working at girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the Insitute world's homeless with out-of Theory -date food, and Research he uses a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his cunning life, and wiles you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to stay ahead of the game amongst the Brahmin scientistsmodern world. Does he have What suggests the intelligencefarcical approach even more, and nerves, to convince everyone that his son, against all oddshowever, is a genius?the fact this is bloody funny.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848543085</amazonuk>0857526219

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John SaundersStephen Clarke|title=The Vernham ChroniclesSpy Who Inspired Me

|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale This is the little village of Vernhama spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. Anyone who lives in But it features a village will recognise it immediatelyman called Ian Lemming, with its cobbled streets who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and Tudor buildings. There was some damage during who works for the war (which mightsecret service, or might not have been down to a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on his lake) but in the planning side of things more than the gaps have been filled active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with some beautifula female spy called Margaux, er, mock Tudor buildings. Almost unique and nearly beautiful as the village ispair end up stranded in Normandy, it's not with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the star of The Vernham Chronicles. The stars are the people who live in Vernham.resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>2952163855

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Martin MillarAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Good Fairies of New YorkKokoschka's Doll|rating=42.5|genre=FantasyLiterary Fiction|summary=In Well, this fairytale of New York, looked very much like a book I could love from the Cornish fairy King's children are living in exileget-go, hiding in Central Park from a nasty industrial revolution back homewhich is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. They have friends from Ireland with themI found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, and all have a chapter whose number was in the ability to startle the local squirrels. Elsewhere two innocent scallywag fairies fleeing Scotland have arrived20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and adopted a human eachso on. Heather has joined up It intrigued with Dinnie, the city's worst busker, subterranean voice a fat, alcoholic and lonely fan man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of TV ads for phone sexit mentioned, while Morag befriends Kerrytoo. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, a dying kleptomaniac beautyand can tell that if love was on these pages, just as alone for different reasonsit was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0749954205</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gervase PhinnB08KKQ85FN|title=Twinkle, Twinkle, Little StarsBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona

|genre=HumourShort Stories|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 'If a real flavour of Herriot about it. Perhaps it was just woman approaching the setting, for Phinn was menopause can be likened to a school inspector Rottweiler in the Dales for many yearslipstick, but I think he also has that knack of capturing an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles 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 Fonts|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=A quality typeface is a bit like a good referee at a football match in that you only really notice them if something has gone wrong. A referee is there to facilitate the players on the pitch, not pampered peacock about to be the star of the show (though watching Match of the Day these past few weeks you'd often beg to differ). So it is with typefaces. A good type helps the reader, enhances the flow and makes the viewing experience easy and simple. Well sort of.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683017</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bob Servant and Neil Forsyth|title=Bob Servant: Hero of Dundee|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=After [[Delete This at Your Peril: One Man's Fearless Exchanges with the Internet Spammers by Bob Servant|bursting released into public consciousness]] as the scourge company of email spammerscarrion crows or, Broughty Ferry's resident polymath Bob Servant has returned. This time, he expands upon more to the colourful life only hinted at in his previous oeuvrepoint, 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 about to discover the rise and fall real world of his window cleaning empire, bus timetables and paying 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, eitherown gas bills. Ah, so it's non-fiction? Well, calling it ''fact'' would be stretching things a little too far...

SoYou 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 Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come on thenfor HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador... What They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled'is'' it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007362188</amazonuk>rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Axel SchefflerB08GFSK2WZ|title=How to Keep a Pet SquirrelThe Karma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd

|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=SoGeorge Jackson is thirty-three years old, how do you keep a pet squirrel? Well, the simple answer is that you don'tabsolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. TheyShe're wild animals and s not at all suitable had sex for keeping eight months and she's stuck in captivity, but accepted thinking didn't always run that waythe karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. It was whilst he was dipping into ''The ChildrenHer life's Encyclopaedia'' chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of 1910 that Axel Scheffler came across a small but indispensible guide the stairs to obtaining absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and caring for your pet squirrelleft her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. His inventive mind came up with these beautiful illustrations She only has to accompany the text and if youtake her mother're looking s dog out for an amusing gift a walk for an animalher to end up with dog poo spattered across her face -loving adult then this book could well be and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the answeroffice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571255981</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=PJ VanstonDavid C Mason|title=CrumpPandora's Gardener

|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first day as John Cranston is a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University - an ex-polytechnic. It's the happiest day of his lifegardener, and although what he can't wait to see all that it holds, and make did before he became a difference to all his students. And then it hits him: the relentless pettiness of authority figuresgardener, the students who can't string two sentences togetherhe claims, the lowering of standards in search of higher test scores, so more money from foreign students, and political correctness gone (is classified. That is just as I believe the saying goes) mad.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Lennon|title=In His Own Write and A Spaniard well because he is about to be caught up in the Works|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=During the height of Beatlemania, John Lennon used to doodle or write short poems or nonsense stories to pass the time (and there must have been a good deal of time to pass away on tourcriminal / spy / terrorist plot, if where only waiting for screaming fans to leave them alone and go back home). Some of them were seen by Tom Maschler, literary editor at Jonathan Cape, who encouraged him to produce more. The results were published in two very successful short books in 1964 and 1965he can save the day.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099530422</amazonuk>0956180523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John LindsayJester_Forever|title=Emails From An AssholeForever After: a dark comedy|author=David Jester

|genre=HumourHorror|summary=Some classified ads are crying out for trollingMichael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. John Lindsay replies to themWe follow Michael, spins them a yarngrim reaper and his friends, Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and strings them along for Naff (a stoner in the records department) as they grapple with their long as possible. Sometimes the advert is fairly innocuous lives and he emails them anyway. These are emails from an asshole, after allfinding a clean surface to sit on in their flat.|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 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith and Tony Lee1683691172|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. ItWilliam Shakespeare'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>}} {{newreviewMuch Ado About Mean Girls|author=Paul Magrs|title=Hell's BellesIan Doescher|rating=32.5

|summary=The idea behind this series of novels is quite enchanting and amusing. Frankenstein's daughter is living and sleuthing A long time ago, in Whitby, ably aided and abetted by her sidekicka galaxy far away, all the enigmatic EffieStar Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a growing menagerie of younger accomplices, namely Michael and Pennyperfectly suitable one. Whilst So much so – so easily did the original idea showed huge promiseplots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, I felt and behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the author has rather overdone it in terms of outputproducers tried again, in his desire with [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to capitalise on his the Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can't even really remember seeing was transcribed into the original successElizabethan lingo. Book two in A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the series was quite disappointingbrand new, yet oh so ancient, relying on sensationalism rather than adequate plot and character developmentdressing. Book three Here was an improvement-and the true challenge – would I'm delighted manage to report that enjoy 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>}} {{newreview|author=Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul|title=Winnie's Jokes|rating=2.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Who turns off the lights at Halloween? The lights witch. What does an Australian witch ride based onlittle foreknowledge? A broomerang. Yep, it's a joke book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729063</amazonuk>Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Wadley168369094X|title=Man + DogWilliam Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=Throughout my life I've lived with dogs or deeply regretted A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the fact that I lacked story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a canine companionclever way they seemed perfectly suited. Watching a dog – or better stillIt was then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, the interaction between dogs – is infinitely better than anything on television and itclearly someone's sheer joy 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 how man and dog interacts if the same shtick works with other texts, and how, so often, they hold a mirror up to each riff on otherseemingly unlikely source materials in iambs.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1564785521< And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=The Harvard Lampoon1473669065|title=Nightlight: A Parody of Twilight Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel|author=Ruth Hogan|rating=3.5

|summary=Most Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people will have heard can be themselves, and let go of the worldwide phenomenon thoughts that is [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]torment them elsewhere. The books by Stephenie Meyer and the film have made Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a legend child, from this place of wonder. With the romance between vampire Edward Mullen (Robert Pattinson plays help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the movie role) tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and teenage schoolgirl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart)distant mother.|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 to Unremitting Global Misery|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.'' Surely that is 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 authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it coming, 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 the big books announced for this year, this one must have raised more eyebrows than many. Why try and write 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 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=The Vampire Miles Proctor1683690346|title=The New Vampire'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>}} {{newreviewCon Artist|author=David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty and Mike Ahern|title=100 Facts About Pandas|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|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 ArmageddonFred Van Lente|rating=2.54

|summary=The world is definitely going to hell in Comic-Cons are a handcart. Weplace of wonder and sanctuary for many people, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he're only just preventing lethal global warming by having a credit crunch s looking for both that has prevented a lot and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of big buildingmaybe, air traveljust maybe reuniting with his ex. However, and consumerism. The population when his rival is getting so obese there found dead, Mike is no room for any more forced to navigate every dark corner of us - the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and add that intrusive fans to the exploding population statisticszombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, and it's never going to look better. And don't get me started on where all the bees have gone..may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086197</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=James May1473669588|title=Car Fever: Dispatches From Behind The WheelFalling Short|author=Lex Coulton

|summary=Ah, the benefits to a good book of a classic first line. Lex Coulton'Call me Ishmael.' 'It was s debut novel is a bright cold day in Aprilstory about mistakes, failures, and the clocks were striking thirteenrelationships.' Who can forget Iain Banks' 'It was the day my grandmother exploded'? Or those timeless words by Jane AustenThe main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a zombie in possession work colleague and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of brains must be in want of more brainsher mother. This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances'|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594743347</amazonuk>s father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Harry Hill1683690133|title=Tim The Tiny Horse At LargeMy Lady's Choosing|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

|summary=It's been You are a while since Tim and Fly's [[Tim the Tiny Horse by Harry Hill|last adventures]]lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and changes are afoot in Tim's tiny world: Fly Regency-era London the race is getting married on to his girlfriendfind a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. TimAlong your journey, you's ll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and fired by a little worried because they've only known each other rogueish sense for a weekadventure. The marriage goes aheadWhen it comes to suitors though, you'll have to make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and Tim finds himself kicking his heelscaring Captain Angus MacTaggart, so he gets a petor the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. And so With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the brief episodes in the life of a horse who lives in a matchbox continueway, it's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571244157</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Spike MilliganStibbe_Xmas|title=The Magical World of MilliganAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe

|summary=Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You know only have to think about the turkey for that old adage about books – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and covers? Well this is a case in pointif that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. The title isnNowadays it't great, s all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but the cover design for the paperback imprint isnot too organic that you can go and visit it, likeand get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, duh!though, the pits. It is so uncool…so unrep-resent-ative of the book. This is not course also a cocktail thingtime of great boons. Not even It's cash in hand for a "Bloody Mary" thing.  Welllot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, except it was always a godsend for postmen with all the tiny bit thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that is, but your parents made you'll discover that write out in due course.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498092</amazonuk>long-hand as a child, and as for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Hugh Murr and Sid Nigtures Doescher_Will|title=Cyber Sign OffsWilliam Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh|author=Ian Doescher|rating=24.5

|summary=I admit I had the wrong end of the stick when it came to this bookA long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, before I opened it at least. I had assumed it who was able to create a collection series of dramatic histories full of real-life on-line signatures - we've all seen themmachinations most foul, those straplines people have on all their forum postsrulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. The obvious response would You may or may not have been along noticed the lines cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken''fair enough, but why is this a book here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in this day and age, and not a website?'. But no. This is a collection of dialogues between two people - shall we call them Sue deNim and Allie Bye, who have a line or two to say to each other, and a madedifferent-up name (sorry, make that May Duppways-Name) with which to sign it off. Much jolly nonsense ensues.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312497</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tim Fitzhigham |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 zestybefore droids anew, wacky humourreturning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, throws him into an unlikely situation (a bath) and gets him to do something unusual (row people keeping it across in the Channel - and then beyond)family til it hurts. This despite And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the fact he was the worldseries is so popular we's worst sculler at University.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090269</amazonuk>re on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…

{{newreview|author=Simon Brett|title=Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King's Daughter|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=There can be few people who have written eighty books without me even having picked up one of them. At least, and at last, I have redressed that fault in the case of Simon Brett, and have come Move on to 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) and Twinks (posh brilliant genius sister to Blotto), their family, their surroundings, and the corpse inconveniently disturbing a dinner party.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845299353</amazonuk>}}[[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]