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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->*[[image:Jester_Forever.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1510704361?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1510704361]] ===[[Forever After: a dark comedy by David Jester]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Paranormal|Paranormal]], [[:Category:Horror|Horror]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fasntasy]] Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, a grim reaper and his friends Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in the records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat. [[Forever After: a dark comedy by David Jester|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Stibbe -->*[[image:Stibbe_Xmas.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0241309824?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0241309824]] ===[[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. 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, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as 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? [[An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Doescher -->*[[image:Doescher_Will.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/159474985X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=159474985X]] ===[[William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good… [[William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Goss -->*[[image:Goss_600.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785942719?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785942719]] ===[[Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Children's Rhymes and Verse|Children's Rhymes and Verse]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] 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 few novelty gifts for some of them, say, for 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 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. [[Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies|Full Review]]<br> <!-- Ingram -->*[[image:Ingram_Kammie.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785451995?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785451995]] ===[[Conversations with Kammie by Annie Ingram]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Pets|Pets]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] It was something of a relief when I encountered Annie Ingram and her cocker spaniel Kammie. You see, 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 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 do is listen. Annie has studied hard: Kammie has trained her well and the pair have allowed us to share some of their conversations. [[Conversations with Kammie by Annie Ingram|Full Review]]<br> 

|author=Jonathan PughCharles Harris|title=Pugh's New Year's Resolutions|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=If there's one thing that's for certain, it's that the world is changing. We're dating online, we're communicating in ways that make email seem redundant, and when we're shopping we just tell a website where and when it can be delivered, and 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, we have to keep up with the latest fads, and we're supposed to prick our ears up and take note when the proverbial 'they' change their minds about what we're supposed to eat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722885</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Luke Rhinehart|title= Invasion|rating= 4.5|genre= Humour |summary=Super-intelligent furry aliens suddenly appear from another universe. And 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 love the playful alien. But when Louie starts using their computer to hack into government and corporate networks, stealing millions from banks to give to others, they realise that Louie and his friends mean trouble. As Billy and his family begin a roller coaster ride of fame and fortune, as well as a ranking high on the FBI's most wanted list, the Government soon decides that these aliens are terrorists, and must be eliminated. Whilst the aliens are playing games they hope will 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't play games: they make war. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785651757</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Rod Green|title=Only Fools and Horses: The Peckham Archives|rating=4|genre=Entertainment |summary=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 Breaking of ''that'' drop through the open bar hatch, and ''that'' chandelier scene, but this is much more meaty. Purporting to be the family archives, found dumped in Nelson Mandela House, the documents here were passed from pillar to post, from one council worker in a department with a clumsy acronym to another, from them to the police – and now here they are being published for their social history worth. Will enough readers find them of worth, as the series quietly celebrates its 35th birthday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849909245</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= 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 a film set full of adults, the first daughter in a house full of boys, the sole clinically depressed member of a cheerleading squad, a valley girl in New York and a neurotic in California, and an adult the world still remembers as a little girl. Tackling everything from how she first learned about sex on the set of ''Melrose Place,'' to losing her mother at a young age, to getting her first kiss (or was it kisses?) on a celebrity canoe trip, to not being cute enough to make it in Hollywood, these essays tell the story of one young woman's journey from accidental fame to relative obscurity, but also illuminate a universal struggle: learning to accept yourself, and figuring out who you are and where you belong. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0143128221</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Tony Stewart|title= Writing Lines|rating= 4.5|genre=Humour|summary= 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 quotidian existence. Most of what he recorded was dross. However, amongst 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, panning them out over twenty six episodes which give us the best of Wentworth – comedy gold. From losing all the pupils in his charge on a school trip to being arrested on suspicion of terrorism; from waking up in bed between the married couple the morning after their wedding, to 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 subject – of these and so many more unlikely but highly amusing events.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524634441</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Graham Fulbright|title=Driving Mad: Maniacs, Morons and the Advanced Motorist's ClubLiam Glass|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=I 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. When I started driving the roads were kinder, more forgiving places - or put another way, the idiots were fewer and further between. I don't know 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. Well, I'm pretty certain that they're fictional - but these days you never know...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783062584</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Mario Giordano|title=Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions|rating=4

|summary=Poldi had not long been widowed when she decided to move from Bavaria to Sicily with the intention of drinking herself to death. She could, of course, have done this in Germany, A flawed but she felt that a sea view was essentialreasonably entertaining swipe at modern media. Once thereThere's plenty here to like, new friends, family already resident on the island and the corpse of a young man, his face blown off by a shotgun, whom she found on the local beach, intervened plenty not to give her life some meaning. For a while she was a suspect, but that (But good structure and her wig) were no obstacle to her falling for Commissario Vito Montana who was assigned scramjet pace keep this one flying to investigate the case. Assisting him (or having him assist her) came naturally to Poldi and before long there was an investigative and personal partnership. At least so far as Poldi was concernedfinal page.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19085246931908943823</amazonuk>

|author= Grady HendrixFred Van Lente|title= My Best Friend's Exorcism|rating= 5|genre= Horror|summary=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's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby. Abby's investigation leads her to some startling discoveries - and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single questionTen Dead Comedians: Is their friendship enough to beat the devil?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594748624</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Kevin MacNeil|title=The Brilliant and ForeverA Murder Mystery|rating= 3.54

|summary= You know sometimes when someone tells a joke, everyone else laughs, and you're sat there wondering what was so funny?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973376</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= Christopher Fowler|title= Bryant and May: Strange Tide|rating= 3.5|genre= Crime|summary= The thirteenth outing for Bryant and May is looking very much like it will be their last. Arthur Bryant is on compassionate leave whilst tests Nine comedians are continuing, which are likely invited to confirm that he is suffering from Alzheimer's. His condition is worsening almost by a remote Caribbean island under the dayguise of working with Dustin Walker, memory lapses are morphing a comedic legend. Each fits neatly into full-scale hallucinations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857523422</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Kevin Smith|title=The Voyage one of the Dolphin|rating=5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Dublin 1916archetypal comic stereotypes: Among Steve, the unrest and antiwashed-up has-British feeling worsened by been who has fallen far from his early days; Zoe, the threat of conscription into rising female star with a war seen as nothing to do with the Irishnew stand-up special coming soon; Dante, Trinity College faculty has other distractions. They'd like who went from being a trophy; kid on the skeleton of an Irish 'giant' streets to be precise. The only glitch is that the main trophy contenderhardest working road comic in the business; Oliver, Bernard MacNeillthe child-like prop comic who can's skeletont get any respect from his peers; Janet, the insult comic who is somewhere difficult to access and all seasoned explorers are otherwise engaged. There may be hope though. past her prime; They turn to FitzmauriceTJ, the nightly variety show host with a student not good enough reputation for anything else. Fitzmaurice agrees, picking harassing his friends Crozier female colleagues and Rafferty to go with him. So… ''Gentlemenguest acts; Ruby, lace up your strongest boots and pack your warmest underwear – we're all off to the bloody Arctic!'' Whether battle cry or epitaph, three men ultra-feminist YouTuber and Blogger with a dog… chip on her shoulder; and an iguana… are going anyway.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910124826</amazonuk>|amazonus=<amazonus>1910124826</amazonus>}}{{newreview|author=Tony Hawks|title=Once Upon a Time in the West… Country|rating=3|genre=Travel|summary=I have often complained in a jokey voice to my partner about life in the sticksWilliam, and the way she moved me from an inner-city flat to slumming it in whose redneck character ''Billy the suburbs with fewer busses, no takeaways within walking-and-keeping-food-hot distance, and no Contractor'Polish' shops for is a can of beer whenever you fancy one. Things are different with Tony Hawks, far cry from his real personality as here he has purposefully decided to up sticks from London to Somewhere, Devon – a tiny village where the people who built their own homes decades ago still live in themposh millionaire. Of course, where slugs are all nine agree because ''when God almighty walks down on a lot more beam of a problem light and asks for your help, what the wannabe lettuce-grower than they hell else are for the metropolitan commuter, and where village halls have the power you going to turn you into both a Pol Pot dictator if you get on their committee and into a quivering, bruise-inducing wreck if yousay?''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

|summary=In which Spadge researches Britain's top ten fears Ally is an ordinary woman with teenage children, a husband and faces them all over a job. Then comes the course day when ordinariness flies out of a yearthe window. We It're quite s not a fearful society, you know. And coincidence that it's the same day she finds Queen Elizabeth I in the pantry and the things we fear most are, Bard of Avon in order: heights (acrophobia)her bath. What's she going to do? Well, snakes (ophidiophobia), public speaking (glossophobia), spiders (arachnophobia), small spaces (claustrophobia), mice (musophobia), needles (trypanophobia), flying (pteromerhanophobia), crowds (agoraphobia) Elizabeth and clowns (coulrophobia).Will have their own ideas about that!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>09934299041788037006</amazonuk>

|author= Mike BullenE G Rodford|title= TrustThe Surgeon's Case: George Kocharyan Mystery 2

|genre= General FictionCrime |summary= Greg and Amanda are happyIn the second instalment of this series, Private Investigator George Kocharyan has been hired by a well-known local man to track down some missing valuables. UnmarriedBill Galbraith, but together thirteen years and with two young daughtersa world-famous surgeon at Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital who hosts a popular medical television programme, they are very much has had his briefcase stolen by his live-in lovedomestic servant, Aurora. Dan and Sarah aren't so fortunate. Their marriage is going through the motionsAccording to Galbraith, and they're staying together for this briefcase contains confidential notes concerning an important patient of his at the sake of their troubled teenage sonhospital. Following a business conference away from homeGeorge agrees to look into the theft, one bad decision sends assuming it will be a happy couple into turmoilrelatively easy and straightforward case – little does he know, and turns an unhappy couple into lovehe's young dream. As secrets and betrayals threaten about to send both relationships out enter a world of control, there's only one thing that can keep everything from falling apart: Trustdeceit and dysfunction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559253178565005X</amazonuk>

|author=Dan RhodesToni Jordan|title=When the Professor Got Stuck in the SnowOur Tiny, Useless Hearts|rating=4.5|genre=General Women's Fiction|summary= Two people are on a train As predicted by Caroline and Janice's mother on Caroline and Henry's wedding day, their way tomarriage is over, of all thingsalbeit 15 years and two daughters further along than predicted. Indeed, this is definitely not a WI meeting where the ladies of All Bottoms will good weekend for Janice to be lectured on the non-existence of Godbabysitting at Caroline's house. One of There's the two people is Professor Richard Dawkins, rampant atheist, hectoring scientist chappie, split and all-round devotee the awkwardness of the girls''Deal or No Deal''schoolteacher being the other woman for a start. The other is Smee, his mono-named assistant, amanuensis or Then there'male secretary'. Smee will come to the fore when the weather sets in and s that mistaken identity moment involving the train journey has to be abandoned some way short of its ultimate destination, Upper Bottomneighbours. Instead the pair fetch up at the isolated yet friendly community of Market Horton, At least Janice is well adjusted and the only option for accommodation is taken – yes, the died-in-the-wool nonover her ex-believer has to be housed by a retired vicar and his wifehusband Alec. This clash She still dreams of titanic opinionshim, peppered with social faux pas aplenty will provide for a particularly English kind of farcical comedyyes, but one with the legs to go it's so over! Just as far as any other Good Books have reached in well really… guess who's at the past…door?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19107090181760293814</amazonuk>

|author=Rob TempleColin Taylor|title=Very British Problems AbroadThe Life of a Scilly Sergeant|rating=4.5|genre=HumourTravel|summary=Meet, if you haven't already, the phenomenon Isles of Scilly. (I know they should be called that – the author provides a handy guide to the Very British Problemetiquette of their name, their nature and location, etc. ) In this format For our more distant readers, they're several chunks of granite rock out in pithy little comments (ofthe Atlantic, where Cornwall is pointing, oohwith just 2, about 140 characters in length200 permanent residents. They're big on tourism, for some reason…) and detail big on growing flowers in the tropical climate the Gulf Stream bequeaths them – although the minor things in life that we like nothing more than weather is bad enough to inflate turn any car to a major factor of liferust bucket within years. They can involve manners're so wee, and so idyllic-seeming, staring especially at things until they mend themselvesnight, hitting things ditto, or the fact that nobody apart from you and I know how to queue properlycan be mistaken for thinking there would be no need for a police presence. But there is – at least two working at any one time. And if the idea hits the world outside our shoresone of them in recent years has been Colin Taylor, then who has done his official duty – alongside maintaining a well-known online existence, you certainly have a book full which has brought to life all the whimsical comedy of content regarding our attitude and ineptitude abroadhis work.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751558494178475515X</amazonuk>

|author=Fraser McAlpineJosie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees|title=Stuff Brits Like'Twas the Fight Before Christmas: A Parody|rating=43.5

|summary= With over 100 chapters on different aspects of Britain and Britishness, this book is both fascinating and hilarious. Just looking at the list of subjects is enough to produce a sardonic twist of that stiff upper lip: the chapters cover topics that range from offal to curry, from pedantry to banter, from conkers to rugby. There may be many chapters but this is no academic tome - each chapter is just two to three pages long, each is written with endearing affection, each is easy and satisfying - and quirkily funny - to read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857886348</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= John Samuel|title= What I Tell You in the Dark|rating= 3.5|genre= Humour|summary=A man called Will is fighting fiercely against corruption – desperate to expose his company's dodgy dealings to the press. Overcome with doubt and fear, he goes to kill himself. But, at the exact moment he attaches his noose to the back of the door, he is saved. By a curious housemate or a concerned girlfriend? No, by an Angel. Not the white-feathered guardian Angel you may expect, but one who wishes to help Will achieve his ends, and so possess the body of the hapless Will in order 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 – a hapless young man from Galilee called Jesus…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715650505</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author= John Niven|title= The Sunshine Cruise Company|rating= 4.5|genre= Humour|summary= Susan Frobisher and Julie Wickham live in a small Dorset town. Friends since school, they live fairly uneventful lives – Susan has a lovely house and a lengthy marriage to accountant Barry, whereas Julie is doing slightly less well – living in a council flat and working in an old people's home. When Barry is found dead trussed up in a sex dungeon, it transpires that he has been leading a hidden life for years, Christmas Eve and his expensive fetishes lead to the bank moving to take Susan's home. Struck by both desperation and a sense of injustice, Sue and Julie conspire to rob a bank, taking along their friend Jill – a devout Christian conflicted due to lack of money and a terminally ill grandson, and Ethel – a foul mouthed resident of the nursing home longing for adventure.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023183</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Marie Phillips|title=The Table Of Less Valued Knights|rating=4.5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Sir Humphrey Mum has been demoted from King Arthur's Round Table to the Table of Lesser Valued Knightsarranged everything. The only way All she now has to get his comfier seat back do is to redeem himself via a quest. Therefore when damsel Elaine seeks help to find her kidnapped fiancé, Humphrey and his ward, the teenage giant Conrad, eagerly set forth. Meanwhile in await the kingdom arrival of Tuft, new Queen Martha has run away after a disastrous wedding to… a… well… disastrous Prince Edwin. She may not realise it yet, but she too will have a job for Humphrey!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555875</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Tim Flannery|title=The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish|rating=3|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Meet Archie Meek. He's about to leave the Venus Islands, where he's lived for the last five years, relatives and return to Sydney, 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 pickledfood shopping delivery. That's not to ignore the fact he'll count as something quite alien himself, with his filled-out frame, nearly all-over suntan and totemic tattoo, in amongst other changes to his body. But what's this? When he gets back, he finds one of the main Venus Islands artefacts Little does Mum know that caused him to go there in those two elements alone have the first place, a huge, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork. And some of the curators he wishes potential to work alongside have vanishedruin everything. Is the weird society of the museum he's returning to, perchance, even weirder, stranger and more violent than the cannibalistic society he's waving farewell to?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>19220793081472125118</amazonuk>

|author=Roman DirgeRyan North|title=The Cat with a Really Big HeadRomeo and/or Juliet

|genre=Graphic NovelsHumour|summary= How many picture books For all those who think tragedy plots are there about cats? too restricted and prescribed, read on. And how many do In these pages you know too will see that you would really NOT prefer your children Romeo had lots of options en route to see? hitting the bottle. If the answer to the second question is 'none – yet'Likewise, scratch that last wordshe could have turned away from her predestined path at no end of junctures. The title piece in this collection isAnd to what result? Well, by happy marriage and a kid called Ben, because the authorleads have just banged people's own admissionheads together and stopped the quarrelling, his imagining of the Joseph Merrick or Death by Tybalt (the 'Elephant Man'him) of the feline world – who struggles to sneak up behind or a mouse when the shadow of his head is a total giveawaylong life running an establishment curing murderous women, and who can hardly even eat with dignity such 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 horribleLady M (her).''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17827628760356508536</amazonuk>

|author=Val HennessyKieran Crowley|title=Not Far From DreamlandShoot|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage I make something of a habit of being late to discover good writers, in life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got this case getting to the free television licence barrierCrowley after he is no longer with us. What Ronald The result is that what is billed as ''hasan F.X. Shepherd mystery'' got is a roof that leaks (with all the optimism of there's good reason why his home is called 'being more to come has the shack')poignancy of being, if not the last of a dog who is going bald (in patches) and money that's in very short supplyline, certainly one of a few. On the plus side F.X. Shepherd – he has friends, mostly platonic doesn't like his first name and usually in much the same boat as Ronald. But are they downhearted? Wellprefers just "Shepherd" is, they are occasionallytechnically, but mostly theya columnist. He're generously optimistic s been sacked by one New York newspaper and out to make the most of what they've got, usually bought from charity shops and jumble salesis writing a weekly column for another. I don't know much about journalism, but I'Not Far From Dreamlandm guessing one column a week doesn't pay much as a rule…which explains why Shepherd' is s soap-washed-foul-mouthed editor (read the story of a year (2012book, you'll see what I mean) expects him to turn in the life some genuine journalism as well: front page, seat of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relativesyour pants stuff.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>07043738741783296518</amazonuk>

|author=Harry HarrisonGray Jolliffe|title=Bill, the Galactic HeroThe First Ever Christmas: And Who to Blame|rating=3.5|genre=Science FictionHumour|summary=Meet Bill. If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell anyone? HeWell, I really don't like Christmas: it's a simple farmer – wellmy least favourite time of year and whilst some people count down to the day itself, he I look forward to that point when I can say that it's all over for another year. It'is'' taking s all too commercialised for me, with a correspondence course in being a Technical Fertiliser Operator – but fate has something else in storecoating of faux religion. And so does I've never found it in the mechanisedleast funny - that is, technological, industrial military, which needs several billion grunts until I found Gray Jolliffe's ''The First Ever Christmas: And Who's to fight the Chingers, in mankindBlame''s first inter-galactic war. StillAmazingly, at least he gets medals just for signing up. After that itI's all downhilld never encountered Gray Jolliffe either, and but I'm a convert to his skills as a cartoonist (if not to the likes idea of Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang can only make that a straight line downChristmas) after reading this collection of Christmas-themed cartoons from his archive. Really, what hope is there?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320531X1445663503</amazonuk>

|author=Ian DoescherJonathan Pugh|title=William ShakespearePugh's The Phantom of MenaceNew Year's Resolutions

|summary= Join usIf there's one thing that's for certain, good gentlesit's that the world is changing. We're dating online, for we're communicating in ways that make email seem redundant, and when we're shopping we just tell a merry reimagining of `Star Wars Episode 1' as only Shakespeare could website where and when it can be delivered, and how much leeway they have written to swap our wishes for whatever itis they do bring us. But those changes are also supposed to be affecting us – we'Tis re supposed to use a true Shakespearean dramasmart watch to tell us if we're moving or not, filled we have to keep up with sword fightsthe latest fads, soliloquies and doomed romance…all in glorious iambic pentameter we're supposed to prick our ears up and coupled with gorgeous illustrations. Hold on to your midichlorians: The plays take note when the thing, wherein youproverbial 'they' change their minds about what we'll catch the rise of Anakin!re supposed to eat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>15947480631780722885</amazonuk>

|author=AttaboyLuke Rhinehart|title=The Book of HugsInvasion|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=A hugSuper-intelligent furry aliens suddenly appear from another universe. And 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 love the playful alien. But when Louie starts using their computer to hack into government and corporate networks, stealing millions from banks to give to others, they realise that Louie and his friends mean trouble. As Billy and his family begin a roller coaster ride of fame and fortune, as well as a ranking high on the FBI's a hugmost wanted list, OK? You either dothe Government soon decides that these aliens are terrorists, or you don'tand must be eliminated. Some people might be a little more enthusiastic about Whilst the process whilst others aliens are more elegant in playing games they hope will help humans to see the execution insanity of the hugAmerican political, but basically you just get on economic and do it and then forget about itmilitary systems, right?they soon come to realise that the Powers that Be don't play games: they make war. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>08671979781785651757</amazonuk>

|author= Christopher FowlerRod Green|title= Bryant Only Fools and May – Horses: The Burning ManPeckham Archives

|genre=CrimeEntertainment |summary= The Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) has a new set We are in the world of one of the country's most famous and well-loved sitcoms – even if it was sort-of overlordskilled off for Christmas 2003. For reasons that were explored in the previous couple of outings they Yes, there have been transferred specials since, and more repeats to clog up the City Of London PoliceBBC schedules than is really pukka, but very few people failed to succumb to its charms at one time or another. The Met are still I'm sure there have been books before now celebrating the big players in stony-faced reception of ''that'' drop through the areaopen bar hatch, and ''that'' chandelier scene, but this is much more meaty. City of London Police only police the old city, Purporting to be the square milefamily archives, the financial district found dumped in other wordsNelson Mandela House, that has very little in the way of street crimedocuments here were passed from pillar to post, because no-from one lives there anymore and the people who work there are, by and large, either too rich council worker in a department with a clumsy acronym to need to stealanother, or too smart from them to have to do so on the streetspolice – and now here they are being published for their social history worth. Will enough readers find them of worth, as the series quietly celebrates its 35th birthday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08575220431849909245</amazonuk>

|author=Catharina Ingelman-SundbergMara Wilson|title=The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame|rating=3.5|genre=HumourAutobiography|summary=Following Mara Wilson has always felt a little young and a little out of place: as the success only child on a film set full of ''The Little Old Lady Who Broke All adults, the Rules''first daughter in a house full of boys, the League sole clinically depressed member of Pensioners are back – a cheerleading squad, a valley girl in New York and this timea neurotic in California, they’re in Vegas! I haven’t read and an adult the world still remembers as a little girl. Tackling everything from how she first learned about sex on the set of ''Melrose Place,'' to losing her mother at a young age, to getting her first book but kiss (or was it was kisses?) on my list when the opportunity arose a celebrity canoe trip, to not being cute enough to review this one. The idea of make it in Hollywood, these essays tell the League story of Pensioners marching towards one young woman's journey from accidental fame to relative obscurity, but also illuminate a fairer world through fun universal struggle: learning to accept yourself, and frolics was hugely appealing to me figuring out who you are and this is a stand alone novel so I thought I would dive straight in with this onewhere you belong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14472749030143128221</amazonuk>