Changes

|author=Graham FulbrightDavid Jester|title=Driving MadForever After: Maniacs, Morons and the Advanced Motorist's Cluba dark comedy|rating=3.54|genre=HumourParanormal|summary=I passed my driving test when John F Kennedy was in Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the White House and I've recently had to reapply for my driving licence having achieved a venerable ageoffer of his lifetime; immortality. When I started driving the roads were kinderWe follow Michael, more forgiving places - or put another way, the idiots were fewer a grim reaper and further between. I don't know how long Graham Fulbright has been driving, but he certainly knows his motoring morons friends Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in ''Driving Mad'' he brings us the records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a fictional sample of clean surface to sit on in their eccentricities. Well, I'm pretty certain that they're fictional - but these days you never know..flat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17830625841510704361</amazonuk>

|author=Mario GiordanoNina Stibbe|title=Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian LionsAn Almost Perfect Christmas|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeHumour |summary=Poldi had not long been widowed when she decided to move from Bavaria to Sicily with Christmas – the intention time of drinking herself to deathtraditional trauma. She could, of course, You only have done this in Germany, but she felt to think about the turkey for that – once upon a sea view time it was essential. Once there, new friends, family already resident leaving it sat on the island downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the corpse of a young manhair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, his face blown off by a shotgunand get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, whom she found on the local beachthough, intervened to give her life some meaningis of course also a time of great boons. For It's cash in hand for a while she lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a suspect, but that (and her wig) were no obstacle to her falling godsend for Commissario Vito Montana who was assigned to investigate postmen with all the case. Assisting him (or having him assist her) came naturally thank-you letters to Poldi and before aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long there was an investigative -hand as a child, and personal partnership. At least so far as Poldi was concerned.for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19085246930241309824</amazonuk>

|author= Grady HendrixIan Doescher|title= My Best FriendWilliam Shakespeare's Exorcismthe Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh|rating= 4.5|genre= HorrorScience Fiction|summary=1988A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, Charlestonthere was a man called William Shakespeare, South Carolinawho was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen You may or may not have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening noticed the cinematic version of skinny-dipping goes disatrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act...different. Shehis original stage play for 's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever sheThe Force Doth Awaken's nearby. Abby's investigation leads her , but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to some startling discoveries - before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and by people keeping it in the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusionfamily til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship enough series is so popular we're on to beat the devil?part seven – surely making this over twice as good…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594748624159474985X</amazonuk>

|author= Kevin MacNeilJames Goss and Russell T Davies|title=The Brilliant and ForeverDoctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who)|rating= 34.5|genre= HumourChildren's Rhymes and Verse |summary= You know sometimes when someone tells Consider the Doctor. Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were he to keep in touch with even half of his companions? He would certainly need a jokefew novelty gifts for some of them, say, everyone else laughsfor example, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a Time Lord and that of some of his friends and enemies. As luck would have it, he has the space in his TARDIS to stock up in advance, so my advice to him – sorry, her – would be to pop along to his local Earth-based book emporium and get himself ready. And if you're sat there wondering what was so funny?working on a shorter timescale, with a shorter lifespan, and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the same.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18469733761785942719</amazonuk>

|author= Christopher FowlerAnnie Ingram|title= Bryant and May: Strange TideConversations with Kammie|rating= 3.54|genre= CrimePets|summary= The thirteenth outing for Bryant It was something of a relief when I encountered Annie Ingram and May is looking very much like it will be their lasther cocker spaniel Kammie. Arthur Bryant is on compassionate leave whilst tests are continuingYou see, Annie knows something which has been self-evident to me for a long time: dogs are likely perfectly capable of communicating with humans and not just on a level of ''food!'', ''walk!'' or ''play!''. You do require extensive training to become fluent, but most dogs will be perfectly willing to give their time to teach you and all you have to confirm that he do is suffering from Alzheimer'slisten. His condition is worsening almost by Annie has studied hard: Kammie has trained her well and the day, memory lapses are morphing into full-scale hallucinationspair have allowed us to share some of their conversations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08575234221785451995</amazonuk>

|author=Kevin SmithCharles Harris|title=The Voyage Breaking of the DolphinLiam Glass|rating=53|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=Dublin 1916: Among the unrest and anti-British feeling worsened by the threat of conscription into a war seen as nothing to do with the Irish, Trinity College faculty has other distractionsA flawed but reasonably entertaining swipe at modern media. TheyThere'd s plenty here to like a trophy; the skeleton of an Irish 'giant' to be precise. The only glitch is that the main trophy contender, Bernard MacNeill's skeleton, is somewhere difficult to access and all seasoned explorers are otherwise engaged. There may be hope though. They turn to Fitzmaurice, a student plenty not good enough for anything else. Fitzmaurice agrees, picking his friends Crozier and Rafferty to go with him. So… ''Gentlemen, lace up your strongest boots But good structure and pack your warmest underwear – we're all off scramjet pace keep this one flying to the bloody Arctic!'' Whether battle cry or epitaph, three men and a dog… and an iguana… are going anywayfinal page.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19101248261908943823</amazonuk>|amazonus=<amazonus>1910124826</amazonus>

|author=Tony HawksFred Van Lente|title=Once Upon a Time in the West… CountryTen Dead Comedians: A Murder Mystery|rating=34|genre=TravelHumour|summary=I have often complained in Nine comedians are invited to a remote Caribbean island under the guise of working with Dustin Walker, a jokey voice to my partner about life in comedic legend. Each fits neatly into one of the sticksarchetypal comic stereotypes: Steve, and the way she moved me washed-up has-been who has fallen far from an innerhis early days; Zoe, the rising female star with a new stand-city flat up special coming soon; Dante, who went from being a kid on the streets to slumming it the hardest working road comic in the suburbs with fewer bussesbusiness; Oliver, no takeaways within walkingthe child-and-keeping-food-hot distance, and no like prop comic who can'Polish' shops for a can of beer whenever you fancy one. Things are different with Tony Hawks, as here he has purposefully decided to up sticks t get any respect from London to Somewherehis peers; Janet, Devon – a tiny village where the people insult comic who built their own homes decades ago still live in themis past her prime; TJ, where slugs are a lot more of the nightly variety show host with a problem reputation for harassing his female colleagues and guest acts; Ruby, the wannabe lettuceultra-grower than they are for the metropolitan commuterfeminist YouTuber and Blogger with a chip on her shoulder; and William, and where village halls have whose redneck character ''Billy the power to turn you into both Contractor'' is a far cry from his real personality as a Pol Pot dictator if you get posh millionaire. Of course, all nine agree because ''when God almighty walks down on their committee a beam of light and into a quiveringasks for your help, bruise-inducing wreck if what the hell else are yougoing to say?''re the wrong gender at a Zumba class…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14447948091594749744</amazonuk>

|author=Marian KeyesS Lynn Scott|title=Making It Up As I Go AlongElizabeth, William... and Me

|genre=EntertainmentHumour|summary=Oh, how the book reviewing gods like to giveAlly is an ordinary woman with teenage children, a husband and equally like to take awaya job. Here before me is a brand, spanking new collection Then comes the day when ordinariness flies out of journalism by the wonderful Marian Keyes – but itwindow. It's not a proof copy, so therecoincidence that it's no photo of the author. Even if over same day she finds Queen Elizabeth I in the years I have stopped reading her novels, I have always turned to pantry and the author picture to remind myself such sights exist Bard of Avon in this world. Himself is a lucky man, for sureher bath. But beyond sounding like a letch, what can I say about this – the beauty's third large dose of essays, web columns and other journalism? I can start with agreeing that I am not the target audience, but itWhat's easy enough she going to see from these pages exactly what the target is. do? So much like that test you do – you know the oneWell, that formulates decisions about the age Elizabeth and commonality of all things in space to come up with how many billions of planets are likely to Will have alien life on – you can narrow things down quite readily here, and still come up with a huge number.their own ideas about that!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07181825291788037006</amazonuk>

|author= Jean-Yves FerriE G Rodford|title= Asterix and the Missing Scroll (Album 36)The Surgeon's Case: George Kocharyan Mystery 2|rating= 54|genre= For SharingCrime |summary=Asterix is those rarest In the second instalment of book this series; one designed for kids which is actually even funnier when you are an adult, Private Investigator George Kocharyan has been hired by a well-known local man to track down some missing valuables. I used to love Asterix as Bill Galbraith, a world-famous surgeon at Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital who hosts a childpopular medical television programme, but now that I reread them I can't help but wonder whyhas had his briefcase stolen by his live-in domestic servant, Aurora. According to Galbraith, because they are so full this briefcase contains confidential notes concerning an important patient of hilarious jokes that I definitely wouldn't have understood when I was youngerhis at the hospital. I laughed loud and hard George agrees to myself twice within look into the first two pages of Asterix theft, assuming it will be a relatively easy and the Missing Scrollstraightforward case – little does he know, so Ihe'd definitely say that this was s about to enter a hitworld of deceit and dysfunction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1510100458178565005X</amazonuk>

|author=Spadge WhittakerToni Jordan|title=Braver Than BritainOur Tiny, OccasionallyUseless Hearts|rating=45|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=In which Spadge researches BritainAs predicted by Caroline and Janice's top ten fears mother on Caroline and faces them all over the course of a year. WeHenry're quite a fearful societys wedding day, you know. And the things we fear most are, in order: heights (acrophobia), snakes (ophidiophobia), public speaking (glossophobia), spiders (arachnophobia), small spaces (claustrophobia), mice (musophobia), needles (trypanophobia), flying (pteromerhanophobia), crowds (agoraphobia) and clowns (coulrophobia).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993429904</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Mike Bullen|title= Trust|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= Greg and Amanda are happy. Unmarriedtheir marriage is over, but together thirteen albeit 15 years and with two young daughtersfurther along than predicted. Indeed, they are very much in lovethis is definitely not a good weekend for Janice to be babysitting at Caroline's house. Dan and Sarah aren There't so fortunate. Their marriage is going through s the motions, split and theythe awkwardness of the girls're staying together schoolteacher being the other woman for the sake of their troubled teenage sona start. Following a business conference away from home, one bad decision sends a happy couple into turmoil, and turns an unhappy couple into love Then there's young dreamthat mistaken identity moment involving the neighbours. As secrets At least Janice is well adjusted and betrayals threaten to send both relationships out over her ex-husband Alec. She still dreams of controlhim, thereyes, but it's so over! Just as well really… guess who's only one thing that can keep everything from falling apart: Trustat the door?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07515592531760293814</amazonuk>

|author=Dan RhodesColin Taylor|title=When the Professor Got Stuck in the SnowThe Life of a Scilly Sergeant

|genre=General FictionTravel|summary= Two people are on a train on their way to, of all things, a WI meeting where Meet the ladies Isles of All Bottoms will Scilly. (I know they should be lectured on called that – the author provides a handy guide to the non-existence etiquette of Godtheir name, their nature and location, etc. ) One For our more distant readers, they're several chunks of granite rock out in the two people Atlantic, where Cornwall is Professor Richard Dawkinspointing, rampant atheistwith just 2, hectoring scientist chappie, and all-round devotee of ''Deal or No Deal''200 permanent residents. The other is SmeeThey're big on tourism, his mono-named assistant, amanuensis or 'male secretary'. Smee will come to and big on growing flowers in the tropical climate the fore when Gulf Stream bequeaths them – although the weather sets in and the train journey has is bad enough to turn any car to be abandoned some way short of its ultimate destination, Upper Bottoma rust bucket within years. Instead the pair fetch up They're so wee, and so idyllic-seeming, especially at the isolated yet friendly community of Market Hortonnight, and the only option you can be mistaken for thinking there would be no need for accommodation a police presence. But there is taken – yes, the died-in-the-wool non-believer has to be housed by a retired vicar and his wifeat least two working at any one time. This clash And one of titanic opinionsthem in recent years has been Colin Taylor, peppered with social faux pas aplenty will provide for who has done his official duty – alongside maintaining a particularly English kind of farcical comedywell-known online existence, but one with the legs which has brought to go as far as any other Good Books have reached in life all the past…whimsical comedy of his work.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709018178475515X</amazonuk>

|author=Rob TempleJosie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees|title=Very British Problems Abroad'Twas the Fight Before Christmas: A Parody|rating=43.5

|summary=Meet, if you havenIt't already, s Christmas Eve and Mum has arranged everything. All she now has to do is await the phenomenon arrival of the Very British Problem. In this format they're in pithy little comments (of, ooh, about 140 characters in length, for some reason…) relatives and detail the minor things in life that we like nothing more than to inflate to a major factor of lifefood shopping delivery. They can involve manners, staring at things until they mend themselves, hitting things ditto, or Little does Mum know that those two elements alone have the fact that nobody apart from you and I know how potential to queue properly. And if the idea hits the world outside our shores, then – well, you certainly have a book full of content regarding our attitude and ineptitude abroadruin everything.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07515584941472125118</amazonuk>

|author=Fraser McAlpineRyan North|title=Stuff Brits LikeRomeo and/or Juliet|rating=43.5

|summary= With over 100 chapters on different aspects of Britain For all those who think tragedy plots are too restricted and Britishnessprescribed, this book is both fascinating and hilariousread on. Just looking at the list In these pages you too will see that Romeo had lots of subjects is enough options en route to produce a sardonic twist of that stiff upper lip: hitting the chapters cover topics that range bottle. Likewise, she could have turned away from offal her predestined path at no end of junctures. And to currywhat result? Well, from pedantry to banterhappy marriage and a kid called Ben, from conkers to rugby. There may be many chapters but this is no academic tome - each chapter is because the leads have just two to three pages banged people's heads together and stopped the quarrelling, or Death by Tybalt (him) or a longlife running an establishment curing murderous women, each is written with endearing affection, each is easy and satisfying - and quirkily funny - to readsuch as a Lady M (her).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18578863480356508536</amazonuk>

|author= John SamuelGervase Phinn|title= What I Tell You in the DarkThe Virgin Mary's Got Nits|rating= 34.5

|summary=A man called Will Christmas in our house is fighting fiercely against corruption – desperate the time we tend to expose his company's dodgy dealings get on a plane and head to the press. Overcome with doubt and feareither sun or snow, he goes to kill himself. Butanywhere that is far, far away from the madness at the exact moment he attaches his noose home, last minute dashes to the back of the doorshops on Christmas Eve, he is saved. By and food cupboard stockpiles that would imply supermarkets are shutting for a curious housemate or month, nor a concerned girlfriend? No, by an Angelmere 36 hours. Not But I do remember the white-feathered guardian Angel you may expectfeeling of Christmas when I was younger, but one who wishes to help Will achieve his endsback when it was magical, and so possess back when you knew exactly what the body season would bring with carol concerts and school nativities and Christmas parties. This book is an anthology of the hapless Will in order those moments, and it took me right back to finish what he started. It goes without saying that the Angel is hoping things go better than they did with the last guy he possessed – wonder of Christmas as a hapless young man from Galilee called Jesus…child.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07156505051444779400</amazonuk>

|author= John NivenKieran Crowley|title= The Sunshine Cruise CompanyShoot|rating= 4.5|genre= HumourCrime|summary= Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham live in I make something of a small Dorset town. Friends since schoolhabit of being late to discover good writers, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has a lovely house and a lengthy marriage in this case getting to accountant Barry, whereas Julie Crowley after he is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat and working in an old people's homeno longer with us. When Barry The result is found dead trussed up in a sex dungeon, it transpires that he what is billed as ''an F.X. Shepherd mystery'' with all the optimism of there being more to come has been leading the poignancy of being, if not the last of a hidden life for yearsshort line, certainly one of a few. F.X. Shepherd – he doesn't like his first name and his expensive fetishes lead to the bank moving to take Susanprefers just "Shepherd" is, technically, a columnist. He's home. Struck been sacked by both desperation one New York newspaper and is writing a sense of injusticeweekly column for another. I don't know much about journalism, Sue and Julie conspire to rob but I'm guessing one column a week doesn't pay much as a bankrule…which explains why Shepherd's soap-washed-foul-mouthed editor (read the book, taking along their friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due you'll see what I mean) expects him to lack of money and a terminally ill grandsonturn in some genuine journalism as well: front page, and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident seat of the nursing home longing for adventureyour pants stuff.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>04340231831783296518</amazonuk>

|author=Marie PhillipsGray Jolliffe|title=The Table Of Less Valued KnightsFirst Ever Christmas: And Who to Blame|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyHumour|summary=Sir Humphrey has been demoted from King ArthurIf I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell anyone? Well, I really don't like Christmas: it's Round Table my least favourite time of year and whilst some people count down to the Table of Lesser Valued Knights. The only way day itself, I look forward to get his comfier seat back is to redeem himself via a questthat point when I can say that it's all over for another year. Therefore when damsel Elaine seeks help to find her kidnapped fiancéIt's all too commercialised for me, Humphrey and his ward, the teenage giant Conrad, eagerly set forthwith a coating of faux religion. Meanwhile I've never found it in the kingdom of Tuftleast funny - that is, new Queen Martha has run away after a disastrous wedding to… a… well… disastrous Prince Edwinuntil I found Gray Jolliffe's ''The First Ever Christmas: And Who's to Blame''. She may not realise it yetAmazingly, I'd never encountered Gray Jolliffe either, but she too will have I'm a convert to his skills as a job for Humphrey!cartoonist (if not to the idea of Christmas) after reading this collection of Christmas-themed cartoons from his archive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00995558751445663503</amazonuk>

|author=Tim FlanneryJonathan Pugh|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island FetishPugh's New Year's Resolutions|rating=34.5|genre=Historical FictionHumour|summary=Meet Archie Meek. HeIf there's about to leave the Venus Islands, where heone thing that's lived for the last five years, and return to Sydneycertain, where he'll take his office in the museum and fill it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked or pickledthat the world is changing. ThatWe's not to ignore the fact here dating online, we'll count as something quite alien himselfre communicating in ways that make email seem redundant, with his filled-out frameand when we're shopping we just tell a website where and when it can be delivered, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes how much leeway they have to his bodyswap our wishes for whatever it is they do bring us. But whatthose changes are also supposed to be affecting us – we's this? When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts that caused him re supposed to go there in the first place, use a hugesmart watch to tell us if we're moving or not, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork. And some of the curators he wishes we have to work alongside have vanished. Is keep up with the weird society of the museum helatest fads, and we's returning re supposed to, perchance, even weirder, stranger prick our ears up and more violent than take note when the cannibalistic society heproverbial 'they' change their minds about what we's waving farewell re supposed to?eat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19220793081780722885</amazonuk>

|author=Roman DirgeLuke Rhinehart|title=The Cat with a Really Big HeadInvasion|rating=34.5|genre=Graphic NovelsHumour |summary= How many picture books are there about cats? Super-intelligent furry aliens suddenly appear from another universe. And how many do you know that you would really NOT prefer your children they've come to earth to have fun. Alien Louie follows fisherman Billy Morton home one day, and he and his family quickly come to see? If love the answer playful alien. But when Louie starts using their computer to hack into government and corporate networks, stealing millions from banks to give to the second question is 'none – yet'others, scratch they realise that last wordLouie and his friends mean trouble. The title piece in this collection isAs Billy and his family begin a roller coaster ride of fame and fortune, by as well as a ranking high on the authorFBI's own admissionmost wanted list, his imagining of the Joseph Merrick (Government soon decides that these aliens are terrorists, and must be eliminated. Whilst the 'Elephant Man') of the feline world – who struggles aliens are playing games they hope will help humans to sneak up behind a mouse when see the shadow insanity of his head is a total giveawaythe American political, economic and who can hardly even eat with dignity as bending down military systems, they soon come to his bowl would break his neck. If realise that's too dark or oddball for you, try the second major piece, which has a most revealing foreword – 'Powers that Be don'Dedicated to a certain girl… I hope your life is filled with wonderful accomplishments, love and all the magic you desire… - But I hope your death is slow and horriblet play games: they make war.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17827628761785651757</amazonuk>

|author=Val HennessyRod Green|title=Not Far From DreamlandOnly Fools and Horses: The Peckham Archives|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionEntertainment |summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage We are in life which I call upper middle age: youthe world of one of the country've qualified s most famous and well-loved sitcoms – even if it was sort-of killed off for your pension Christmas 2003. Yes, there have been specials since, and more repeats to clog up the BBC schedules than is really pukka, but not yet got very few people failed to the free television licence barriersuccumb to its charms at one time or another. What Ronald I'm sure there have been books before now celebrating the stony-faced reception of 'has'' got is a roof that leaks (there's good reason why his home is called 'drop through the shack')open bar hatch, a dog who is going bald (in patches) and money ''that's in very short supply' chandelier scene, but this is much more meaty. On Purporting to be the plus side he has friendsfamily archives, mostly platonic and usually found dumped in much Nelson Mandela House, the same boat as Ronald. But are they downhearted? Welldocuments here were passed from pillar to post, they are occasionallyfrom one council worker in a department with a clumsy acronym to another, but mostly they're generously optimistic and out from them to make the most of what police – and now here they've got, usually bought from charity shops and jumble salesare being published for their social history worth. ''Not Far From Dreamland'' is the story Will enough readers find them of a year (2012) in worth, as the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relatives.series quietly celebrates its 35th birthday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07043738741849909245</amazonuk>

|author=Harry HarrisonMara Wilson|title=Bill, the Galactic HeroWhere Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame|rating=3.5|genre=Science FictionAutobiography|summary=Meet Bill. He's Mara Wilson has always felt a little young and a little out of place: as the only child on a film set full of adults, the first daughter in a house full of boys, the sole clinically depressed member of a simple farmer – wellcheerleading squad, he ''is'' taking a correspondence course valley girl in being New York and a Technical Fertiliser Operator – but fate has something else neurotic in storeCalifornia, and an adult the world still remembers as a little girl. And so does Tackling everything from how she first learned about sex on the mechanisedset of ''Melrose Place, technological'' to losing her mother at a young age, industrial militaryto getting her first kiss (or was it kisses?) on a celebrity canoe trip, which needs several billion grunts to fight not being cute enough to make it in Hollywood, these essays tell the Chingers, in mankindstory of one young woman's first inter-galactic war. Stilljourney from accidental fame to relative obscurity, at least he gets medals just for signing up. After that it's all downhillbut also illuminate a universal struggle: learning to accept yourself, and the likes of Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang can only make that a straight line downfiguring out who you are and where you belong. Really, what hope is there?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320531X0143128221</amazonuk>

|author=Ian DoescherTony Stuart|title=William Shakespeare's The Phantom of MenaceWriting Lines|rating=4.5

|summary= Join us, good gentles, for George Gordon Wentworth (1946-2011) lived a humdrum life. He was a barely adequate teacher in a fairly world renowned independent school in Kent and kept a merry reimagining copious diary of `Star Wars Episode 1' as only Shakespeare could have written ithis quotidian existence. Most of what he recorded was dross. 'Tis a true Shakespearean dramaHowever, filled with sword fightsamongst all the utterly uninteresting tailings of his life there were some nuggets and grains to catch the attention. Author Tony Stuart has created these amusing anecdotes, soliloquies and doomed romance…all panning them out over twenty six episodes which give us the best of Wentworth – comedy gold. From losing all the pupils in glorious iambic pentameter and coupled with gorgeous illustrations. Hold his charge on a school trip to your midichlorians: The plays being arrested on suspicion of terrorism; from waking up in bed between the thingmarried couple the morning after their wedding, wherein youto destroying a ski run; from appearing full-frontal naked in a sheep-farmers'll catch gazette to triggering an air-sea rescue; Wentworth was, blinkered and befuddled, the rise subject – of Anakin!these and so many more unlikely but highly amusing events.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>15947480631524634441</amazonuk>

|author=AttaboyGraham Fulbright|title=The Book of HugsDriving Mad: Maniacs, Morons and the Advanced Motorist's Club|rating=43.5

|summary=A hugI passed my driving test when John F Kennedy was in the White House and I's ve recently had to reapply for my driving licence having achieved a hug, OK? venerable age. You either doWhen I started driving the roads were kinder, more forgiving places - or you put another way, the idiots were fewer and further between. I don'tknow how long Graham Fulbright has been driving, but he certainly knows his motoring morons and in ''Driving Mad'' he brings us a fictional sample of their eccentricities. Some people might be a little more enthusiastic about the process whilst others are more elegant in the execution of the hugWell, I'm pretty certain that they're fictional - but basically these days you just get on and do it and then forget about it, right?never know...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08671979781783062584</amazonuk>

|author= Christopher FowlerMario Giordano|title= Bryant Auntie Poldi and May – The Burning Manthe Sicilian Lions

|summary= The Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) has a new set Poldi had not long been widowed when she decided to move from Bavaria to Sicily with the intention of overlordsdrinking herself to death. For reasons that were explored in the previous couple She could, of outings they course, have been transferred to the City Of London Police. The Met are still the big players done this in the areaGermany, but she felt that a sea view was essential. City of London Police only police the old cityOnce there, the square milenew friends, family already resident on the financial district in other words, that has very little in island and the way corpse of street crimea young man, because no-one lives there anymore and his face blown off by a shotgun, whom she found on the people who work there arelocal beach, intervened to give her life some meaning. For a while she was a suspect, by but that (and large, either too rich her wig) were no obstacle to need her falling for Commissario Vito Montana who was assigned to steal, investigate the case. Assisting him (or too smart having him assist her) came naturally to have to do Poldi and before long there was an investigative and personal partnership. At least so on the streetsfar as Poldi was concerned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08575220431908524693</amazonuk>

|author=Catharina Ingelman-SundbergGrady Hendrix|title=The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! My Best Friend's Exorcism|rating=3.5|genre=HumourHorror|summary=Following the success 1988, Charleston, South Carolina. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disatrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act...different. She's moody. She'The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Ruless irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby. Abby', s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries - and by the League of Pensioners are back – and this timetheir story reaches its terrifying conclusion, they’re in Vegas! I haven’t read the first book but it was on my list when the opportunity arose to review this one. The idea of the League fate of Pensioners marching towards Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a fairer world through fun and frolics was hugely appealing single question: Is their friendship enough to me and this is a stand alone novel so I thought I would dive straight in with this one.beat the devil?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14472749031594748624</amazonuk>

|author=WinshlussKevin MacNeil|title=In God We TrustThe Brilliant and Forever|rating=43.5|genre=Graphic NovelsHumour|summary=To start withYou know sometimes when someone tells a joke, a rhetorical test. How about God and Adam playing badminton day in and day outeveryone else laughs, until one gets bored and decides to create Eve? Or the defeater of Goliath and the saviour of the Israelites being one Conan the Barbarianyou're sat there wondering what was so funny? Or this as a test – Jesus Himself failing to have a successful session of tequila slammers with Gabriel due to the holes through His hands? I barely need mention that in these pages God does battle with Superman, for you to have answered the test and put yourself firmly in one of two camps for this book – one very much opposed to buying it, and one very much in favour.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08616623501846973376</amazonuk>

|author=David Walliams and Tony RossChristopher Fowler|title=The Queen's Orang-UtanBryant and May: Strange Tide|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingCrime|summary=The Queen felt trapped in the palace with all those stuffed animals which she has been given on foreign tours. There are mountains of them thirteenth outing for Bryant and every night she would dream of escaping. When her birthday drew near the family dutifully asked her what she would May is looking very much like as a presentit will be their last. The Prince was thinking of a gold, diamond encrusted stairlift Arthur Bryant is on compassionate leave whilst the Duke was considering a great big bottle of brandy. The Royal Baby had some decorated thimbles in mindtests are continuing, but the Queen became just a little snappish as she explained which are likely to confirm that what she really wanted was 'Onehe is suffering from Alzheimer's own orang-utan'. And she didn't mean a stuffed oneHis condition is worsening almost by the day, eithermemory lapses are morphing into full-scale hallucinations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00081351340857523422</amazonuk>

|author=Jack SheffieldKevin Smith|title=Silent NightThe Voyage of the Dolphin|rating=3.5|genre=General Historical Fiction|summary=I read Dublin 1916: Among the unrest and anti-British feeling worsened by the threat of conscription into a war seen as nothing to do with the Irish, Trinity College faculty has other distractions. They'd like a couple trophy; the skeleton of Jack Sheffield’s books about five years agoan Irish 'giant' to be precise. The only glitch is that the main trophy contender, Bernard MacNeill's skeleton, is somewhere difficult to access and enjoyed them very muchall seasoned explorers are otherwise engaged. There may be hope though. They were written in a similar style turn to those popularised byFitzmaurice, a student not good enough for instanceanything else. Fitzmaurice agrees, James Herriot or [[:Category:Gervase Phinn|Gervase Phinn]]picking his friends Crozier and Rafferty to go with him. So… ''Gentlemen, told mostly in lace up your strongest boots and pack your warmest underwear – we're all off to the first personbloody Arctic!'' Whether battle cry or epitaph, describing the author’s first couple of years as Headmaster at three men and a small village primary school in Yorkshire. The village of Ragley is fictional, as are most of the characters, but the incidents dog… and situations encountered an iguana… are based on the author’s experiencegoing anyway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>05521670451910124826</amazonuk>|amazonus=<amazonus>1910124826</amazonus>

|author=J Robert LennonTony Hawks|title=See You In ParadiseOnce Upon a Time in the West… Country

|genre=Short StoriesTravel|summary=Lennon writes with I have often complained in a relaxed, easy style and his characters are instantly recognisable as people from everyday walks of jokey voice to my partner about life, without being in any way stereotypical. Many of the people in these stories are dealing with normal frustrationssticks, and Lennon is cleverly detached enough not the way she moved me from an inner-city flat to make them individuals that you're obviously supposed to root for (the only exception is the industrialist slumming it in the eponymous talesuburbs with fewer busses, who is an archetypal capitalist fat cat). There are some very clever characterisations – in ''Weber’s Head''no takeaways within walking-and-keeping-food-hot distance, for example, the narrator is a flawed individual whose opinions of his housemate are gradually revealed to be unreliable and unfair. For me, the most unsettling story is no 'Polish'No Life'', because it portrays shops for a decent couple at the mercy can of people more powerful and influential than them. There is no supernatural or bizarre element at work here, just ordinary characters at the mercy of social power.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781253358</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Lynne Truss|title=Cat out of Hell|rating=3|genre=Horror|summary=Meet Alec Charlesworthbeer whenever you fancy one. He's retired and decamped to an isolated coastal cottage Things are different with just his dog and loving memories of his colleague wifeTony Hawks, now that she as here he has died before her time. But purposefully decided to up sticks from London to Somewhere, Devon – a tiny village where the fusty librarian cannot rest too long before engaging people who built their own homes decades ago still live in exploring some unusual computer files that were pinged across by someone at the college he worked atthem, just before he left. Bizarrely they show photographic and audio evidence where slugs are a lot more of a talking cat called Roger, replete with Vincent Price voice – although problem for the wannabe lettuce-grower than they are also damaged by being included alongside some bad screenplay attempts about said cat. Worryinglyfor the metropolitan commuter, we soon see what at and where village halls have the most only power to turn you into both a few of the characters canPol Pot dictator if you get on their committee and into a quivering, that this cat is being accompanied by unusual and unexpected death – much like Alecbruise-inducing wreck if you's wife. It's only when Roger testifies to having been pushed through re the ends of endurance and out the other side that we begin to doubt where the true evil in this story lies…wrong gender at a Zumba class…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00995853401444794809</amazonuk>