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[[Category:Humour|*]]
[[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> 
{{newreview
|author= Kevin MacNeilCharles Harris|title=The Brilliant and ForeverBreaking of Liam Glass|rating= 3.5|genre= HumourCrime|summary= You know sometimes when someone tells a joke, everyone else laughsA flawed but reasonably entertaining swipe at modern media. There's plenty here to like, and you're sat there wondering what was so funny?plenty not to. But good structure and scramjet pace keep this one flying to the final page.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18469733761908943823</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Christopher FowlerFred Van Lente|title= Bryant and MayTen Dead Comedians: Strange TideA Murder Mystery|rating= 3.54|genre= CrimeHumour|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 are continuing, which Nine comedians 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>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Marian KeyesS Lynn Scott|title=Making It Up As I Go AlongElizabeth, William... and Me
|rating=4.5
|genre=Entertainment
|summary=Oh, how the book reviewing gods like to give, and equally like to take away. Here before me is a brand, spanking new collection of journalism by the wonderful Marian Keyes – but it's a proof copy, so there's no photo of the author. Even if over the years I have stopped reading her novels, I have always turned to the author picture to remind myself such sights exist in this world. Himself is a lucky man, for sure. 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 it's easy enough to see from these pages exactly what the target is. So much like that test you do – you know the one, that formulates decisions about the age and commonality of all things in space to come up with how many billions of planets are likely to have alien life on – you can narrow things down quite readily here, and still come up with a huge number.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718182529</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Jean-Yves Ferri
|title= Asterix and the Missing Scroll (Album 36)
|rating= 5
|genre= For Sharing
|summary=Asterix is those rarest of book series; one designed for kids which is actually even funnier when you are an adult. I used to love Asterix as a child, but now that I reread them I can't help but wonder why, because they are so full of hilarious jokes that I definitely wouldn't have understood when I was younger. I laughed loud and hard to myself twice within the first two pages of Asterix and the Missing Scroll, so I'd definitely say that this was a hit.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1510100458</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Spadge Whittaker
|title=Braver Than Britain, Occasionally
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
|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>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Mike BullenE G Rodford|title= TrustThe Surgeon's Case: George Kocharyan Mystery 2
|rating= 4
|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>
}}
{{newreview
|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 to, of all things, a WI meeting where the ladies of All Bottoms will be lectured on the non-existence of God. One of the two people marriage is Professor Richard Dawkins, rampant atheist, hectoring scientist chappieover, albeit 15 years and all-round devotee of ''Deal or No Deal''two daughters further along than predicted. The other Indeed, this is Smee, his mono-named assistant, amanuensis or 'male secretarydefinitely not a good weekend for Janice to be babysitting at Caroline's house. Smee will come to the fore when There's the weather sets in split and the train journey has to be abandoned some way short awkwardness of its ultimate destination, Upper Bottom. Instead the pair fetch up at girls' schoolteacher being the isolated yet friendly community of Market Horton, and the only option other woman for accommodation is taken – yes, the died-in-the-wool non-believer has to be housed by a retired vicar and his wifestart. This clash of titanic opinions, peppered with social faux pas aplenty will provide for a particularly English kind of farcical comedy, but one with the legs to go as far as any other Good Books have reached in the past…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1910709018</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Rob Temple|title=Very British Problems Abroad|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Meet, if you havenThen there't already, the phenomenon of s that mistaken identity moment involving the Very British Problemneighbours. In this format they're in pithy little comments (of, ooh, about 140 characters in length, for some reason…) At least Janice is well adjusted and detail the minor things in life that we like nothing more than to inflate to a major factor of lifeover her ex-husband Alec. They can involve mannersShe still dreams of him, staring at things until they mend themselvesyes, hitting things ditto, or the fact that nobody apart from you and I know how 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 abroad.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751558494</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Fraser McAlpine|title=Stuff Brits Like|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary= With but it's so over 100 chapters on different aspects of Britain and Britishness, this book is both fascinating and hilarious. ! Just looking as well really… guess who's 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.door?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18578863481760293814</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 NivenColin Taylor|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, 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 Life 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 KnightsScilly Sergeant
|rating=4.5
|genre=FantasyTravel|summary=Sir Humphrey has been demoted from King Arthur's Round Table Meet the Isles of Scilly. (I know they should be called that – the author provides a handy guide to the Table etiquette of their name, their nature and location, etc.) For our more distant readers, they're several chunks of Lesser Valued Knightsgranite rock out in the Atlantic, where Cornwall is pointing, with just 2,200 permanent residents. The only way They're big on tourism, and big on growing flowers in the tropical climate the Gulf Stream bequeaths them – although the weather is bad enough to get his comfier seat back is turn any car to redeem himself via a questrust bucket within years. Therefore when damsel Elaine seeks help to find her kidnapped fiancéThey're so wee, Humphrey and his wardso idyllic-seeming, the teenage giant Conradespecially at night, eagerly set forthyou can be mistaken for thinking there would be no need for a police presence. Meanwhile But there is – at least two working at any one time. And one of them in the kingdom of Tuftrecent years has been Colin Taylor, new Queen Martha who has run away after done his official duty – alongside maintaining a disastrous wedding to… a… well… disastrous Prince Edwinwell-known online existence, which has brought to life all the whimsical comedy of his work. She may not realise it yet, but she too will have a job for Humphrey!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555875178475515X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tim FlanneryJosie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees|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, 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 pickled. That's not to ignore Twas 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 that caused him to go there in the first place, a huge, macabre ceremonial fetish mask, purloined as corporate artwork. And some of the curators he wishes to work alongside have vanished. 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>1922079308</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Roman Dirge|title=The Cat with a Really Big HeadFight Before Christmas: A Parody
|rating=3.5
|genre=Graphic NovelsHumour|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 It'none – yet', scratch that last words Christmas Eve and Mum has arranged everything. The title piece in this collection All she now has to do is, by await the author's own admission, his imagining arrival of the Joseph Merrick (the 'Elephant Man') of the feline world – who struggles to sneak up behind a mouse when relatives and 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 neckfood shopping delivery. If Little does Mum know that's too dark or oddball for you, try those two elements alone have the second major piece, which has a most revealing foreword – ''Dedicated potential 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 horribleruin everything.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17827628761472125118</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Val HennessyRyan North|title=Not Far From Dreamland|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage in life which I call upper middle age: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got to the free television licence barrier. What Ronald ''has'' got is a roof that leaks (there's good reason why his home is called 'the shack'), a dog who is going bald (in patches) and money that's in very short supply. On the plus side he has friends, mostly platonic and usually in much the same boat as Ronald. But are they downhearted? Well, they are occasionally, but mostly they're generously optimistic Romeo and out to make the most of what they've got, usually bought from charity shops and jumble sales. ''Not Far From Dreamland'' is the story of a year (2012) in the life of Ronald Tonks, his friends and relatives.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0704373874</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Harry Harrison|title=Bill, the Galactic Heroor Juliet
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Meet Bill. He's a simple farmer – well, he ''is'' taking a correspondence course in being a Technical Fertiliser Operator – but fate has something else in store. And so does the mechanised, technological, industrial military, which needs several billion grunts to fight the Chingers, in mankind's first inter-galactic war. Still, at least he gets medals just for signing up. After that it's all downhill, and the likes of Petty Chief Officer Deathwish Drang can only make that a straight line down. Really, what hope is there?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320531X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ian Doescher
|title=William Shakespeare's The Phantom of Menace
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary= Join usFor all those who think tragedy plots are too restricted and prescribed, good gentlesread on. In these pages you too will see that Romeo had lots of options en route to hitting the bottle. Likewise, for a merry reimagining of `Star Wars Episode 1' as only Shakespeare she could have written itturned away from her predestined path at no end of junctures. 'Tis And to what result? Well, happy marriage and a true Shakespearean dramakid called Ben, filled with sword fights, soliloquies because the leads have just banged people's heads together and doomed romance…all in glorious iambic pentameter and coupled with gorgeous illustrations. Hold on to your midichlorians: The plays stopped the thingquarrelling, wherein you'll catch the rise of Anakin!or Death by Tybalt (him) or a long life running an establishment curing murderous women, such as a Lady M (her). |amazonuk=<amazonuk>15947480630356508536</amazonuk>
}}
 
<!-- Phinn -->
*[[image:Phinn_Virgin.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1444779400/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
 
===[[The Virgin Mary's Got Nits by Gervase Phinn]]===
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Anthologies|Anthologies]]
 
Christmas in our house is the time we tend to get on a plane and 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 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 season would bring with carol concerts and school nativities and Christmas parties. This book is an anthology of those moments, and it took me right back to the wonder of Christmas as a child. [[The Virgin Mary's Got Nits by Gervase Phinn|Full Review]]
<br>
 
{{newreview
|author=AttaboyKieran Crowley|title=The Book of HugsShoot|rating=4|genre=HumourCrime|summary=A hug's I make something of a hughabit of being late to discover good writers, OK? in this case getting to Crowley after he is no longer with us. You either do, or you donThe result is that what is billed as ''tan F.X. Some people might be a little more enthusiastic about Shepherd mystery'' with all the process whilst others are optimism of there being more elegant in to come has the execution poignancy of being, if not the huglast of a short line, but basically you certainly one of a few. F.X. Shepherd – he doesn't like his first name and prefers just get on "Shepherd" is, technically, a columnist. He's been sacked by one New York newspaper and do it and then forget is writing a weekly column for another. I don't know much about itjournalism, right?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 book, you'll see what I mean) expects him to turn in some genuine journalism as well: front page, seat of your pants stuff. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>08671979781783296518</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author= Christopher FowlerGray Jolliffe|title= Bryant and May – The Burning Man|rating=4|genre=Crime|summary= The Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) has a new set of overlords. For reasons that were explored in the previous couple of outings they have been transferred 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 crime, because no-one lives there anymore and the people who work there are, by and large, either too rich to need First Ever Christmas: And Who to steal, or too smart to have to do so on the streets.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857522043</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg|title=The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! Blame|rating=3.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Following the success of If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell anyone? Well, I really don't like Christmas: it'The Little Old Lady Who Broke All s my least favourite time of year and whilst some people count down to the Rulesday itself, I look forward to that point when I can say that it's all over for another year. It's all too commercialised for me, the League with a coating of Pensioners are back – and this time, they’re in Vegas! faux religion. I haven’t read the first book but 've never found it was on my list when in the opportunity arose least funny - that is, until I found Gray Jolliffe's ''The First Ever Christmas: And Who's to review this oneBlame''. The idea of the League of Pensioners marching towards Amazingly, I'd never encountered Gray Jolliffe either, but I'm a fairer world through fun and frolics was hugely appealing convert to me and this is his skills as a stand alone novel so I thought I would dive straight in with cartoonist (if not to the idea of Christmas) after reading this onecollection of Christmas-themed cartoons from his archive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>14472749031445663503</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=WinshlussJonathan Pugh|title=In God We TrustPugh's New Year's Resolutions
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic NovelsHumour|summary=To start withIf there's one thing that's for certain, a rhetorical testit's that the world is changing. How about God We're dating online, we're communicating in ways that make email seem redundant, and Adam playing badminton day in when we're shopping we just tell a website where and day outwhen it can be delivered, until one gets bored and decides how much leeway they have to create Eve? swap our wishes for whatever it is they do bring us. Or the defeater of Goliath and the saviour of the Israelites being one Conan the Barbarian? Or this as a test But those changes are also supposed to be affecting us Jesus Himself failing we're supposed to have use a successful session of tequila slammers with Gabriel due smart watch to the holes through His hands? I barely need mention that in these pages God does battle with Supermantell us if we're moving or not, for you we have to have answered keep up with the test latest fads, and put yourself firmly in one of two camps for this book – one very much opposed we're supposed to buying it, prick our ears up and one very much in favourtake note when the proverbial 'they' change their minds about what we're supposed to eat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>08616623501780722885</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=David Walliams and Tony RossLuke Rhinehart|title=The Queen's Orang-UtanInvasion|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingHumour |summary=The Queen felt trapped in 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 palace with all those stuffed animals which she has been given on foreign toursplayful alien. There are mountains of them 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 every night she would dream of escapinghis friends mean trouble. When her birthday drew near the As Billy and his family dutifully asked her what she would like as begin a present. The Prince was thinking roller coaster ride of fame and fortune, as well as a goldranking high on the FBI's most wanted list, diamond encrusted stairlift whilst the Duke was considering a great big bottle 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 brandy. The Royal Baby had some decorated thimbles in mindthe American political, economic and military systems, but they soon come to realise that the Queen became just a little snappish as she explained Powers that what she really wanted was 'One's own orang-utan'. And she didnBe don't mean a stuffed one, eitherplay games: they make war.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>00081351341785651757</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|author=Jack SheffieldRod Green|title=Silent Night|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I read a couple of Jack Sheffield’s books about five years ago, and enjoyed them very much. They were written in a similar style to those popularised by, for instance, James Herriot or [[:Category:Gervase Phinn|Gervase Phinn]], told mostly in the first person, describing the author’s first couple of years as Headmaster at a small village primary school in Yorkshire. The village of Ragley is fictional, as are most of the characters, but the incidents and situations encountered are based on the author’s experience.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0552167045</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=J Robert Lennon|title=See You In Paradise|rating=3|genre=Short Stories|summary=Lennon writes with a relaxed, easy style and his characters are instantly recognisable as people from everyday walks of life, without being in any way stereotypical. Many of the people in these stories are dealing with normal frustrations, and Lennon is cleverly detached enough not to make them individuals that you're obviously supposed to root for (the only exception is the industrialist in the eponymous tale, who is an archetypal capitalist fat cat). There are some very clever characterisations – in ''Weber’s Head'', 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 Life'', because it portrays a decent couple at the mercy of people more powerful Only Fools 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 Charlesworth. He's retired and decamped to an isolated coastal cottage with just his dog and loving memories of his colleague wife, now that she has died before her time. But the fusty librarian cannot rest too long before engaging in exploring some unusual computer files that were pinged across by someone at the college he worked at, just before he left. Bizarrely they show photographic 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 wife. It's only when Roger testifies to having been pushed through the ends of endurance and out the other side that we begin to doubt where the true evil in this story lies…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099585340</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Jimmy Hansen and Mychailo Kazybird|title=Wallace & Gromit Horses: The Complete Newspaper Strips Collection Vol 2Peckham Archives
|rating=4
|genre=HumourEntertainment |summary=For me there We are two important areas in the world of one of the cover country's most famous and well-loved sitcoms – even if it was sort-of this book where three letters are arranged in meaningful wayskilled off for Christmas 2003. The first Yes, there have been specials since, and more repeats to clog up the BBC schedules than is with 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 Sstony-U-N in their obligatory red faced reception of ''that'' drop through the open bar hatch, and white font''that'' chandelier scene, but this is much more meaty. No minor paper could hold Wallace and Gromit, their adventures have Purporting to be the family archives, found dumped in what is (unfortunately) Nelson Mandela House, the most widely read tabloid documents here were passed from pillar to post, from one council worker in the country. And elsewhere is C-B-Ea department with a clumsy acronym to another, suggesting that even from them to the storytellers at Aardman Animations who police – and now here they are not household names are feted and revered as artistic experts, raising many laughs and much money being published for the country courtesy of their creative outputsocial history worth. Together these short collections Will enough readers find them of letters show just how much WaG are major creationsworth, and if as the proof was needed this much longer collection of their daily comic strips provides it in spades.series quietly celebrates its 35th birthday?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>17827608221849909245</amazonuk>
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{{newreview
|titleauthor=Dear Committee MembersMara Wilson|authortitle=Julie SchumacherWhere Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionAutobiography|summary=Jason Fitger (Jay) is Mara Wilson has always felt a Professor of creative writing little young and literature at a small university in little out of place: as the American mid-west. He is also only child on a frustrated novelist with film set full of adults, the first daughter in a colourful personal historyhouse full of boys, much the sole clinically depressed member of which bleeds into his professional lifea cheerleading squad, a valley girl in New York and a neurotic in California, with interesting results.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007586345</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|title=Mapp and Lucia Omnibus|author=E F Benson|rating=3an adult the world still remembers as a little girl.5|genre=Humour|summary=Miss Elizabeth Mapp rules the town of Tilling - Tackling everything from how she is first learned about sex on the centre set of the social life''Melrose Place, and spends '' to losing her days enjoying bridgemother at a young age, polite conversation and civilised painting. When Mrs Emmeline Lucas arrives in town to getting her first kiss (known to all as Luciaor was it kisses?)on a celebrity canoe trip, Miss Mapp finds her life truly shaken upto not being cute enough to make it in Hollywood, as these essays tell the culturedstory of one young woman's journey from accidental fame to relative obscurity, but also illuminate a universal struggle: learning to accept yourself, fashionable and progressive Lucia makes her home in the town, figuring out who you are and swiftly rises to the top of the ranks amongst the social scene in Tillingwhere you belong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>18499084780143128221</amazonuk>
}}

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