Changes

|author=Marie PhillipsDavid Jester|title=The Table Of Less Valued KnightsForever After: a dark comedy|rating=4.5|genre=FantasyParanormal|summary=Sir Humphrey has been demoted from King Arthur's Round Table to Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the Table offer of Lesser Valued Knights. The only way to get his comfier seat back is to redeem himself via a questlifetime; immortality. Therefore when damsel Elaine seeks help to find her kidnapped fiancéWe follow Michael, Humphrey a grim reaper and his ward, the teenage giant Conrad, eagerly set forth. Meanwhile friends Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in the kingdom of Tuft, new Queen Martha has run away after records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a disastrous wedding to… a… well… disastrous Prince Edwinclean surface to sit on in their flat. She may not realise it yet, but she too will have a job for Humphrey!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00995558751510704361</amazonuk>

|author=Tim FlanneryNina Stibbe|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island FetishAn Almost Perfect Christmas|rating=34.5|genre=Historical FictionHumour |summary=Meet Archie MeekChristmas – the time of traditional trauma. He's You only have to think about to leave the Venus Islands, where he's lived turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the last five yearsdownstairs loo to defrost overnight, and return to Sydney, where he'll take his office in if that failed the museum and fill hair-dryer shoved inside it with all the cultural artefacts he's found and wildlife he's plucked or pickledtreatment was your next best bet. ThatNowadays it's not all having to ignore the fact hemake sure it'll count as something quite alien himselfs suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with his filled-out frameit to want to eat it. Christmas, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoothough, in amongst other changes to his bodyis of course also a time of great boons. But whatIt's this? When he gets backcash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, he finds one of it was always a godsend for postmen with all the main Venus Islands artefacts thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that caused him to go there your parents made you write out in the first place, long-hand as a hugechild, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined and as corporate artwork. And some of for the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished. Is the weird society makers of the museum he's returning to, perchanceMeltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even weirder, stranger try and more violent than sell them any other time of the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell toyear?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19220793080241309824</amazonuk>

|author=Roman DirgeIan Doescher|title=The Cat with a Really Big Head|rating=3.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary= How many picture books are there about cats? And how many do you know that you would really NOT prefer your children to see? If the answer to the second question is 'none – yet', scratch that last word. The title piece in this collection is, by the authorWilliam Shakespeare's own admission, his imagining of the Joseph Merrick (Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the 'Elephant Man') of the feline world – who struggles to sneak up behind a mouse when the shadow of his head is a total giveaway, and who can hardly even eat with dignity as bending down to his bowl would break his neck. If that's too dark or oddball for you, try the second major piece, which has a most revealing foreword – ''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 horrible.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782762876</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Val Hennessy|title=Not Far From DreamlandSeventh

|summary=Meet Bill. He's A long time ago, in a simple farmer – wellgalaxy far away, he ''is'' taking there was a correspondence course in being man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a Technical Fertiliser Operator – but fate has something else in storeseries of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. And so does You may or may not have noticed the mechanisedcinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', technological, industrial military, which needs several billion grunts to fight but here at last we get the Chingersactual script, complete with annoying-in mankind's first inter-galactic war. Stilldifferent-ways-to-before droids anew, at least he gets medals just for signing up. After that it's all downhillreturning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the likes of Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang can only make that a straight line downfamily til it hurts. ReallyAnd if you need further encouragement, what hope don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is there?so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320531X159474985X</amazonuk>

|author=Ian DoescherJames Goss and Russell T Davies|title=William Shakespeare's The Phantom Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of MenaceTime Lord Verse (Dr Who)

|genre=HumourChildren's Rhymes and Verse |summary= Join usConsider the Doctor. Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, good gentleswere he to keep in touch with even half of his companions? He would certainly need a few novelty gifts for some of them, say, for example, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a merry reimagining Time Lord and that of `Star Wars Episode 1' as only Shakespeare could some of his friends and enemies. As luck would have written 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'Tis re working on a true Shakespearean dramashorter timescale, filled with sword fightsa shorter lifespan, soliloquies and doomed romance…all in glorious iambic pentameter and coupled with gorgeous illustrations. Hold on to your midichlorians: The plays the thingthinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, wherein you'll catch well my advice is pretty much the rise of Anakin!same.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>15947480631785942719</amazonuk>

|author=AttaboyAnnie Ingram|title=The Book of HugsConversations with Kammie

|genre=HumourPets|summary=A hug's It was something of a hug, OK? relief when I encountered Annie Ingram and her cocker spaniel Kammie. You either dosee, Annie knows something which has been self-evident to me for a long time: dogs are perfectly capable of communicating with humans and not just on a level of ''food!'', ''walk!'' or you don't'play!''. Some people might be a little more enthusiastic about the process whilst others are more elegant in the execution of the hugYou do require extensive training to become fluent, but basically most dogs will be perfectly willing to give their time to teach you just get on and all you have to do it is listen. Annie has studied hard: Kammie has trained her well and then forget about it, right?the pair have allowed us to share some of their conversations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08671979781785451995</amazonuk>

|author= Christopher FowlerCharles Harris|title= Bryant and May – The Burning ManBreaking of Liam Glass|rating=43

|summary= The Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) has a new set of overlordsA flawed but reasonably entertaining swipe at modern media. For reasons that were explored in the previous couple of outings they have been transferred There's plenty here to the City Of London Police. The Met are still the big players in the area. City of London Police only police the old city, the square mile, the financial district in other words, that has very little in the way of street crimelike, because no-one lives there anymore and the people who work there are, by plenty not to. But good structure and large, either too rich to need to steal, or too smart to have scramjet pace keep this one flying to do so on the streetsfinal page.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08575220431908943823</amazonuk>

|author=Catharina Ingelman-SundbergFred Van Lente|title=The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! Ten Dead Comedians: A Murder Mystery|rating=3.54|genre=Humour|summary=Following Nine comedians are invited to a remote Caribbean island under the success guise of working with Dustin Walker, a comedic legend. Each fits neatly into one of ''The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules''archetypal comic stereotypes: Steve, the League of Pensioners are back – and this timewashed-up has-been who has fallen far from his early days; Zoe, they’re in Vegas! I haven’t read the first book but it was rising female star with a new stand-up special coming soon; Dante, who went from being a kid on my list when the opportunity arose streets to review this one. The idea of the League of Pensioners marching towards hardest working road comic in the business; Oliver, the child-like prop comic who can't get any respect from his peers; Janet, the insult comic who is past her prime; TJ, the nightly variety show host with a fairer world through fun reputation for harassing his female colleagues and frolics was hugely appealing to me guest acts; Ruby, the ultra-feminist YouTuber and Blogger with a chip on her shoulder; and this William, whose redneck character ''Billy the Contractor'' is a stand alone novel so I thought I would dive straight in with this onefar cry from his real personality as a posh millionaire.Of course, all nine agree because ''when God almighty walks down on a beam of light and asks for your help, what the hell else are you going to say?''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14472749031594749744</amazonuk>

|author=WinshlussS Lynn Scott|title=In God We TrustElizabeth, William... and Me

|genre=Graphic NovelsHumour|summary=To start Ally is an ordinary woman withteenage children, a rhetorical testhusband and a job. How about God and Adam playing badminton day in and Then comes the day when ordinariness flies out, until one gets bored and decides to create Eve? Or the defeater of Goliath and the saviour of the Israelites being one Conan the Barbarian? window. Or this as It's not a test – Jesus Himself failing to have a successful session of tequila slammers with Gabriel due to coincidence that it's the holes through His hands? same day she finds Queen Elizabeth I barely need mention that in these pages God does battle with Superman, for you to have answered the test pantry and put yourself firmly the Bard of Avon in one of two camps for this book – one very much opposed her bath. What's she going to buying itdo? Well, Elizabeth and one very much in favour.Will have their own ideas about that!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08616623501788037006</amazonuk>

|author=David Walliams and Tony RossE G Rodford|title=The QueenSurgeon's Orang-UtanCase: George Kocharyan Mystery 2|rating=54|genre=For SharingCrime |summary=The Queen felt trapped in In the palace with all those stuffed animals which she second instalment of this series, Private Investigator George Kocharyan has been given on foreign tourshired by a well-known local man to track down some missing valuables. There are mountains of them and every night she would dream of escaping. When her birthday drew near the family dutifully asked her what she would like as Bill Galbraith, a present. The Prince was thinking of world-famous surgeon at Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital who hosts a goldpopular medical television programme, diamond encrusted stairlift whilst the Duke was considering a great big bottle of brandy. The Royal Baby has had some decorated thimbles his briefcase stolen by his live-in minddomestic servant, Aurora. According to Galbraith, but this briefcase contains confidential notes concerning an important patient of his at the Queen became just hospital. George agrees to look into the theft, assuming it will be a relatively easy and straightforward case – little snappish as she explained that what she really wanted was 'Onedoes he know, he's own orang-utan'. And she didn't mean about to enter a stuffed one, eitherworld of deceit and dysfunction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0008135134178565005X</amazonuk>

|author=Jack SheffieldToni Jordan|title=Silent NightOur Tiny, Useless Hearts|rating=3.5|genre=General Women's Fiction|summary=I read a couple of Jack Sheffield’s books about five As predicted by Caroline and Janice's mother on Caroline and Henry's wedding day, their marriage is over, albeit 15 years ago, and enjoyed them very muchtwo daughters further along than predicted. They were written in Indeed, this is definitely not a similar style good weekend for Janice to those popularised by, for instance, James Herriot or [[:Category:Gervase Phinn|Gervase Phinn]], told mostly in be babysitting at Caroline's house. There's the first person, describing split and the author’s first couple awkwardness of years as Headmaster at the girls' schoolteacher being the other woman for a small village primary school in Yorkshirestart. Then there's that mistaken identity moment involving the neighbours. The village At least Janice is well adjusted and over her ex-husband Alec. She still dreams of Ragley is fictionalhim, as are most of the charactersyes, but it's so over! Just as well really… guess who's at the incidents and situations encountered are based on the author’s experience.door?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>05521670451760293814</amazonuk>

|author=J Robert LennonColin Taylor|title=See You In ParadiseThe Life of a Scilly Sergeant|rating=34.5|genre=Short StoriesTravel|summary=Lennon writes with Meet the Isles of Scilly. (I know they should be called that – the author provides a relaxedhandy guide to the etiquette of their name, easy style their nature and his characters are instantly recognisable as people from everyday walks of lifelocation, without being in any way stereotypicaletc. Many ) For our more distant readers, they're several chunks of granite rock out in the people in these stories are dealing Atlantic, where Cornwall is pointing, with normal frustrationsjust 2, and Lennon is cleverly detached enough not to make them individuals that you200 permanent residents. They're obviously supposed to root for (big on tourism, and big on growing flowers in the only exception is tropical climate the industrialist in Gulf Stream bequeaths them – although the eponymous tale, who weather is an archetypal capitalist fat cat)bad enough to turn any car to a rust bucket within years. There are some very clever characterisations – in ''Weber’s Head' They're so wee, and so idyllic-seeming, especially at night, you can be mistaken for thinking there would be no need for example, the narrator is a flawed individual whose opinions of his housemate are gradually revealed to be unreliable and unfairpolice presence. For me, the most unsettling story But there is ''No Life'', because it portrays a decent couple – at least two working at the mercy any one time. And one of people more powerful and influential than them. There is no supernatural or bizarre element at work herein recent years has been Colin Taylor, who has done his official duty – alongside maintaining a well-known online existence, just ordinary characters at which has brought to life all the mercy whimsical comedy of social powerhis work.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781253358178475515X</amazonuk>

|author=Lynne TrussJosie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees|title=Cat out of Hell'Twas the Fight Before Christmas: A Parody|rating=3.5|genre=HorrorHumour|summary=Meet Alec Charlesworth. HeIt's retired Christmas Eve and decamped to an isolated coastal cottage with just his dog and loving memories of his colleague wife, now that she Mum has died before her timearranged everything. But All she now has to do is await the fusty librarian cannot rest too long before engaging in exploring some unusual computer files that were pinged across by someone at arrival of the college he worked at, just before he left. Bizarrely they show photographic relatives and audio evidence of a talking cat called Roger, replete with Vincent Price voice – although they are also damaged by being included alongside some bad screenplay attempts about said cat. Worryingly, we soon see what at the most only a few of the characters can, that this cat is being accompanied by unusual and unexpected death – much like Alec's wifefood shopping delivery. It's only when Roger testifies to having been pushed through the ends of endurance and out Little does Mum know that those two elements alone have the other side that we begin potential to doubt where the true evil in this story lies…ruin everything.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00995853401472125118</amazonuk>

|author=Jimmy Hansen and Mychailo KazybirdRyan North|title=Wallace & Gromit : The Complete Newspaper Strips Collection Vol 2Romeo and/or Juliet|rating=43.5

|summary=For me there all those who think tragedy plots are two important areas of the cover of this book where three letters are arranged in meaningful waystoo restricted and prescribed, read on. The first is with In these pages you too will see that Romeo had lots of options en route to hitting the S-U-N in their obligatory red and white fontbottle. No minor paper Likewise, she could hold Wallace and Gromit, their adventures have turned away from her predestined path at no end of junctures. And to be in what is (unfortunately) the most widely read tabloid in the country. result? And elsewhere is C-B-EWell, suggesting that even the storytellers at Aardman Animations who are not household names are feted happy marriage and revered as artistic expertsa kid called Ben, raising many laughs and much money for because the country courtesy of their creative output. Together these short collections of letters show leads have just how much WaG are major creations, banged people's heads together and if stopped the proof was needed this much longer collection of their daily comic strips provides it in spadesquarrelling, or Death by Tybalt (him) or a long life running an establishment curing murderous women, such as a Lady M (her).|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17827608220356508536</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Dear Committee MembersGervase Phinn|authortitle=Julie SchumacherThe Virgin Mary's Got Nits|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionHumour|summary=Jason Fitger (Jay) Christmas in our house is the time we tend to get on a Professor of creative writing plane and literature head to either sun or snow, anywhere that is far, far away from the madness at home, last minute dashes to the shops on Christmas Eve, and food cupboard stockpiles that would imply supermarkets are shutting for a month, nor a small university in mere 36 hours. But I do remember the feeling of Christmas when I was younger, back when it was magical, and back when you knew exactly what the American mid-westseason would bring with carol concerts and school nativities and Christmas parties. He This book is also a frustrated novelist with a colourful personal historyan anthology of those moments, much and it took me right back to the wonder of which bleeds into his professional life, with interesting resultsChristmas as a child.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00075863451444779400</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Mapp and Lucia OmnibusKieran Crowley|authortitle=E F BensonShoot|rating=3.54|genre=HumourCrime|summary=Miss Elizabeth Mapp rules I make something of a habit of being late to discover good writers, in this case getting to Crowley after he is no longer with us. The result is that what is billed as ''an F.X. Shepherd mystery'' with all the town optimism of Tilling - she is there being more to come has the centre poignancy of being, if not the social lifelast of a short line, certainly one of a few. F.X. Shepherd – he doesn't like his first name and spends her days enjoying bridgeprefers just "Shepherd" is, technically, polite conversation a columnist. He's been sacked by one New York newspaper and civilised paintingis writing a weekly column for another. When Mrs Emmeline Lucas arrives in town (known to all as Lucia), Miss Mapp finds her life truly shaken up I don't know much about journalism, but I'm guessing one column a week doesn't pay much as a rule…which explains why Shepherd's soap-washed-foul-mouthed editor (read the culturedbook, fashionable and progressive Lucia makes her home you'll see what I mean) expects him to turn in the townsome genuine journalism as well: front page, and swiftly rises to the top seat of the ranks amongst the social scene in Tillingyour pants stuff.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18499084781783296518</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Encyclopedia ParanoiacaGray Jolliffe|authortitle=Henry Beard and Christopher CerfThe First Ever Christmas: And Who to Blame|rating=45|genre=Popular ScienceHumour|summary=We're screwed. If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell anyone? Wherever we look, whatever we think of doingWell, there is a reason why we shouldnI really don't be doing like Christmas: it, 's my least favourite time of year and whilst some people count down to the day itself, I look forward to back that reason up with scientific datapoint when I can say that it's all over for another year. Take any aspect of your daily life – what you eatIt's all too commercialised for me, how you work, how you rest even, what you touch – all have problems that could provoke with a serious illness or worsecoating of faux religion. I've never found it in the least funny - that is, until I found Gray Jolliffe's ''The First Ever Christmas: And outside that daily sphere there are economic disastersWho's to Blame''. Amazingly, nuclear meltdownsI'd never encountered Gray Jolliffe either, errant AI scientists and passing comets that could turn our world upside down at but I'm a convert to his skills as a cartoonist (if not to the blink idea of an eyeChristmas) after reading this collection of Christmas-themed cartoons from his archive. Perhaps then you better read this book first – for it may well turn out to be your last…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07156492131445663503</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Diary of a Mad DivaJonathan Pugh|authortitle=Joan RiversPugh's New Year's Resolutions|rating=34.5

|summary=The late Joan Rivers wasIf there's one thing that's for certain, without a doubt, a characterit's that the world is changing. Actress We're dating online, comedianwe're communicating in ways that make email seem redundant, writerand when we're shopping we just tell a website where and when it can be delivered, directorand how much leeway they have to swap our wishes for whatever it is they do bring us. But those changes are also supposed to be affecting us – we're supposed to use a smart watch to tell us if we're moving or not, presenterwe have to keep up with the latest fads, she was well known in the USA and beyond for her sharp tongue we're supposed to prick our ears up and no holds barred persona. This was take note when the last of the dozen books she published, her final title before her death in September 2014proverbial 'they' change their minds about what we're supposed to eat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>04252690271780722885</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - The Nearly Definitive EditionLuke Rhinehart|authortitle=Douglas AdamsInvasion|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionHumour |summary=There are few series that have garnered such a cult following as Super-intelligent furry aliens suddenly appear from another universe. And they'The Hitchhikers Guide ve come to earth to the Galaxy'have fun. Whether the fans have Alien Louie follows fisherman Billy Morton home one day, and he and his family quickly come from to love the radio series, the (impossibly hard) playful alien. But when Louie starts using their computer gameto hack into government and corporate networks, or the (well intentioned but not particularly good) filmstealing millions from banks to give to others, they are everywhererealise that Louie and his friends mean trouble. Ask As Billy and his family begin a room roller coaster ride of people what fame and fortune, as well as a ranking high on the meaning of life isFBI's most wanted list, the Government soon decides that these aliens are terrorists, and you can must be pretty sure a good few eliminated. Whilst the aliens are playing games they hope will pipe up with help humans to see the insanity of the American political, economic and military systems, they soon come to realise that the Powers that Be don'42' as the answert play games: they make war.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>04340233961785651757</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Quick Pint After WorkRod Green|authortitle=Luke LewisOnly Fools and Horses: The Peckham Archives

|genre=HumourEntertainment |summary=BuzzFeed We are in the world of one of the country's most famous and well-loved sitcoms – even if it was sort-of killed off for Christmas 2003. Yes, there have been specials since, and more repeats to clog up the BBC schedules than is really pukka, but very few people failed to succumb to its charms at one time or another. I'm sure there have been books before now celebrating the stony-faced reception of ''that'' drop through the world’s best time sucksopen bar hatch, and I’m regularly directed ''that'' chandelier scene, but this is much more meaty. Purporting to be the site by links family archives, found dumped in Nelson Mandela House, the documents here were passed from Facebook and Twitterpillar to post, from one council worker in between browsing a department with a clumsy acronym to another, from them to the app on my phonepolice – and now here they are being published for their social history worth. According to Will enough readers find them of worth, as the series quietly celebrates its 35th birthday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849909245</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author bio = Mara Wilson|title= Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame|rating= 5|genre= Autobiography|summary= Mara Wilson has always felt a little young and a little out of place: as the only child on this booka film set full of adults, the first daughter in a house full of boys, the sole clinically depressed member of a cheerleading squad, BuzzFeed is 'a social news valley girl in New York and entertainment company'a neurotic in California, which is and an adult the world still remembers as a fancy way little girl. Tackling everything from how she first learned about sex on the set of describing lots of fun lists that speak ''Melrose Place,'' to the readership (20 words that have losing her mother at a completely different meaning in Manchesteryoung age, 30 Things all ex-gymnasts know to be true, 40 Very British problems, yadda yadda yaddagetting her first kiss (or was it kisses?). These list work well on line when you want a quick distractioncelebrity canoe trip, and they’re easy to flip throughnot being cute enough to make it in Hollywood, looking at these essays tell the attached photos or video clips. The question thenstory of one young woman's journey from accidental fame to relative obscurity, but also illuminate a universal struggle: learning to accept yourself, is whether or not BuzzFeed the book will have the same appealand figuring out who you are and where you belong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07515577300143128221</amazonuk>

|author=Graeme SimsionTony Stuart|title=The Rosie EffectWriting Lines|rating=4.5

|summary=Following inadvertent success with the Wife Project, Professor Don Tillman 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 copious diary of his new bride Rosie have moved from Australia to New Yorkquotidian existence. Most of what he recorded was dross. Although Don's position on However, amongst all the autistic scale is subjective, he still operates on a daily basis utterly uninteresting tailings of structured procedures, lists his life there were some nuggets and logicgrains to catch the attention. Rosie can generally handle that but there are choppy waters aheadAuthor Tony Stuart has created these amusing anecdotes, panning them out over twenty six episodes which give us the best of Wentworth – comedy gold. With From losing all the patter pupils in his charge on a school trip to being arrested on suspicion of tiny feet imminent logic goes out terrorism; from waking up in bed between the married couple the window as she struggles with her PhD while Don struggles morning after their wedding, to find his place destroying a ski run; from appearing full-frontal naked in a sheep-farmers' gazette to triggering an air-sea rescue; Wentworth was, blinkered and befuddled, the baby production process. At least he has his drinking buddies to support him subject – an aging rock drummer of these and a friend whose wife has thrown him out for infidelityso many more unlikely but highly amusing events. What could possibly go wrong?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07181794711524634441</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Short StoriesGraham Fulbright|authortitle=Chuck PalahniukDriving Mad: Maniacs, Dennis Widmyer Morons and Richard Thomasthe Advanced Motorist's Club|rating=43.5|genre=Short StoriesHumour|summary=Saying certain things out loud just don’t sound rightI passed my driving test when John F Kennedy was in the White House and I've recently had to reapply for my driving licence having achieved a venerable age. Some things are so disturbing When I started driving the roads were kinder, more forgiving places - or politically incorrect that you are best off leaving them inside your headput another way, the idiots were fewer and further between. I don't know how long Graham Fulbright has been driving, or better yet not thinking but he certainly knows his motoring morons and in ''Driving Mad'' he brings us a fictional sample of them at alltheir eccentricities. When Well, I'm pretty certain that they're fictional - but these words are spoken they could lead to the sensation of Burnt Tongue; an aftereffect of knowing what days you said was wrongnever know... Are you prepared to enter the world of Transgressive Fiction that aims to disturb, alienate, disgust and question?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329552X1783062584</amazonuk>

|author=Sammy LookerMario Giordano|title=Something Nasty in Auntie Poldi and the SlushpileSicilian Lions

|genre=HumourCrime|summary=I couldn't resist Poldi had not long been widowed when she decided to move from Bavaria to Sicily with the title - a neat play on [[Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons|Cold Comfort Farm]] and I'm sure that you'll understand that I was expecting some examples intention of the horrors drinking herself to be found amongst the mountain death. She could, of unsolicited manuscripts which every publisher accumulatescourse, have done this in Germany, but she felt that a sea view was essential. I'll confess I was expecting to giggleOnce there, even to groan - unkindnew friends, I know - family already resident on the island and I'd mentally shelved the book with corpse of a young man, his face blown off by a shotgun, whom she found on the trivialocal beach, intervened to give her life some meaning. For a while she was a suspect, or but that (hopefullyand her wig) were no obstacle to her falling for Commissario Vito Montana who was assigned to investigate the humourcase. There is that element Assisting him (or having him assist her) came naturally to the book, but Poldi and before long there's also something far more usefulwas an investigative and personal partnership. If you're thinking about publishing a book this should be required reading ''before'' you even go near a publisherAt least so far as Poldi was concerned.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14721110281908524693</amazonuk>

|author=The QueenGrady Hendrix|title=Still ReigningMy Best Friend's Exorcism|rating=45|genre=HumourHorror|summary=Anyone who frequents Twitter will know that it's a mixed blessing1988, Charleston, South Carolina. It's a mine of wonderful information High school sophomores Abby and supportive camaraderieGretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. It's also But after an evening of skinny- unfortunately - home dipping goes disatrously wrong, Gretchen begins to a lot of people who take great pleasure in causing pain to othersact... But in amongst all this are a few gems and one of them is [https://twitterdifferent.com/Queen_UK @Queen_UK], a delightful satire on members of the royal family, celebrities, the political classes and the state of Her MajestyShe's nationmoody. Or, She''ones irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nation'' as Ma'am would saynearby. Abby''Still Reigning'' is s investigation leads her second bookto some startling discoveries - and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, after ''Gin O'Clock'' and it's the sort fate of parody which leaves you wondering if the writer might not Abby and Gretchen will be someone ''very'' close determined by a single question: Is their friendship enough to beat the original.devil?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07156491321594748624</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Last Days of the Bus ClubKevin MacNeil|authortitle=Chris StewartThe Brilliant and Forever|rating=43.5|genre=Humour|summary=I could well have been You know sometimes when someone tells a near-neighbour of Chris Stewart. Not, of course, near his current primary occupancy, an ecological farmstead just beyond the turning off from the back end of nowhere in the most rural of corners of southern Spain, but back when he lived in the south-east of Englandjoke, being Genesis' first ever drummereveryone else laughs, and building bridges in the North Downs. The fact I learnt the latter from this book shows up several of the features of this warm-hearted you'travelogue' – the fact that Stewart is never shy about portraying family details and history – given a good map and a prevailing wind one could find where he lives and descend on the farm, if one wished; and that while this might be on the travel shelves, the narrative is re sat there wondering what was so fragmented it actually moves a lot more than any of the characters do.funny?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19087454361846973376</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=Summer HalfChristopher Fowler|authortitle=Angela ThirkellBryant and May: Strange Tide|rating=43.5|genre=HumourCrime|summary=If one didn’t know of Angela Thirkell’s distinguished background as a granddaughter of Sir Edward Burne-Jones The thirteenth outing for Bryant and daughter of a classicist, May is looking very much like it would will be tempting to describe her as a kind of country cousin of [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|Ptheir last.G. Wodehouse’s]]. An unaffected and intelligent one, whose humour Arthur Bryant is less sophisticated but bubbles over with just as much glee. The middle-class world she has createdon compassionate leave whilst tests are continuing, where young men come from families that which are comfortably wealthy rather than outrageously so, offers a counterpoint likely to confirm that he is suffering from Alzheimer's. His condition is worsening almost by the Mitford or Wodehouse worlds with their aristocratic characters who travel the world and mingle with more loucheday, bohemian onesmemory lapses are morphing into full-scale hallucinations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184408969X0857523422</amazonuk>

|titleauthor=The Bojeffries SagaKevin Smith|authortitle=Alan Moore and Steve ParkhouseThe Voyage of the Dolphin

|genre=Graphic NovelsHistorical Fiction|summary=A very truncated history Dublin 1916: Among the unrest and anti-British feeling worsened by the threat of comics will start conscription into a war seen as nothing to do with the idea that they should be funny strips – one jape then youIrish, Trinity College faculty has other distractions. They're out; then that they should have more – perhaps d like a superherotrophy; then that you can have so much more than just a superhero – witness the works skeleton of [[:Category:Alan Moore|Alan Moore]]an Irish 'giant' to be precise. But you mustnThe only glitch is that the main trophy contender, Bernard MacNeill't s skeleton, is somewhere difficult to access and all seasoned explorers are otherwise engaged. There may be too surprised hope though. They turn to see the whole thing come around in Fitzmaurice, a full cyclestudent not good enough for anything else. Because Alan Moore hasFitzmaurice agrees, picking his friends Crozier and Rafferty to go with this volume, concluded his own funny strip japeryhim. So… ''Gentlemen, lace up your strongest boots and whatever history pack your warmest underwear – we're all off to the bloody Arctic!'' Whether battle cry or greater opinions about the canon of comix might sayepitaph, it's just about his best ever bookthree men and a dog… and an iguana… are going anyway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08616623181910124826</amazonuk>|amazonus=<amazonus>1910124826</amazonus>

|author=Reverend Adam SmallboneTony Hawks|title=The Rev DiariesOnce Upon a Time in the West… Country|rating=4.53|genre=HumourTravel|summary=Adam Smallbone wasn’t always I have often complained in a vicar. He used jokey voice to work for my partner about life in the Bristol Housing Departmentsticks, enabling his fatherand the way she moved me from an inner-city flat to slumming it inthe suburbs with fewer busses, no takeaways within walking-and-law to tell everyone he worked keeping-food-hot distance, and no 'in propertyPolish'shops for a can of beer whenever you fancy one. From thereThings are different with Tony Hawks, his initial calling was as here he has purposefully decided to up sticks from London to Somewhere, Devon – a rural church tiny village where the people who built their own homes decades ago still live in Suffolk which did nothing to prepare him for thisthem, his current London inner city parish. Indeed, he's not prepared where slugs are a lot more of a problem for Adoha (the Nigerian parishioner with 19 grandchildren and 'wannabe lettuce-grower than they are for the bottom of God') or Colinmetropolitan commuter, and where village halls have the homeless alcoholic who has adopted Adam and his wife Alex (Mrs Vicarage power to Colin). But then Alex also has turn you into both a lot to Pol Pot dictator if you get used to; after allon their committee and into a quivering, she didnbruise-inducing wreck if you't actually marry re the wrong gender at a vicar.Zumba class…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07181783941444794809</amazonuk>