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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Kieran CrowleyDean Koontz|title= ShootThe Bad Weather Friend|rating= 4.5|genre= CrimeParanormal|summary= I make something of Benny is having a habit of being late to discover good writersterrifically bad day. He loses his job, in this case getting to Crowley after he is no longer with usloses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. The result is Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that what whoever or whatever was inside is billed as ''an F.X. Shepherd mystery'' with all the optimism of there being more to come thing that has the poignancy of beingtrashed his house! The thing is, if not Benny is the very last of a short line, certainly one of person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a fewnice person. FA really nice person.X. Shepherd – he doesn't like So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his first name and prefers just "Shepherd" house isa new friend, technicallya bad weather friend called Spike, a columnist. He's who has been sacked by one New York newspaper and sent to help him since Benny is writing clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a weekly column for anothergood person. I donSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny't know much about journalisms enemies, but I'm guessing one column a week doesn't pay much as if he, Benny, and Harper (a rule…which explains why Shepherdwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's soap-washed-foul-mouthed editor (read the book, you'll see what I meanwild adventure) expects him to turn in some genuine journalism as well: front page, seat of your pants stuffcan figure out who exactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1783296518</amazonuk>1662500491

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gray Jolliffe1529153050|title=The First Ever Christmas: And Who to BlameBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=54

|summary=If I tell you a secret, will you promise not Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to tell anyone? Wellseem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I really donwas nudged towards 't like Christmas: it'Britain's my least favourite time Best Political Cartoons of year and whilst some people count down to the day itself, I look forward to that point when I can say that it2022's all over for another year. It's all too commercialised for me, with a coating of faux religion. ISharp eyes will have noted that we've never found it in re not yet through the least funny - that is, until I found Gray Jolliffe's ''The First Ever Christmasyear: And Who's the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to Blame''31 August 2022. Amazingly, I'd never encountered Gray Jolliffe either, but I'm a convert to his skills as a cartoonist (if not Who can imagine what there will be to come in the idea of Christmas) after reading this collection of Christmas-themed cartoons from his archive.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1445663503</amazonuk>2023 edition?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Pugh1785633074|title=Pugh's New Year's ResolutionsStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry

|summary=If thereMembers of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the 's one thing 'primus inter pares'' (that's for certain, itthose of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime''s that movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the world is changinggovernment. We're dating online, we're communicating are in ways that make email seem redundantthe privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, 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 usthe man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. 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 You might not, we have to keep up with know the latest fads, and we're supposed to prick our ears up and take note when name now but he will certainly be the proverbial 'they' change their minds about what we're supposed man to eatwatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780722885</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Luke Rhinehart0571365884|title= InvasionMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating= 4.5|genre= Humour Autobiography|summary=Super-intelligent furry aliens suddenly appear from another universeGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. And they've come She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to earth to have fun. Alien Louie follows fisherman Billy Morton home one day, worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and he and his family quickly come to love the playful alienfar between. But when Louie starts using their computer On a visit to hack into government and corporate networksa therapist, as an adult, stealing millions from banks to give when she was completely unable to others, they realise speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that Louie she should write it down and his friends mean trouble. As Billy and his family begin ''My Mess is a roller coaster ride Bit of fame and fortune, as well as a ranking high on the FBILife: Adventures in Anxiety''s most wanted list, is the Government soon decides that these aliens result - or so we 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 given to realise that the Powers that Be don't play games: they make warbelieve. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785651757</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Rod GreenJohn Boyne|title=Only Fools The Echo Chamber|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and Horses: a fit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.|isbn=0857526219}}{{Frontpage|author=Stephen Clarke|title=The Peckham ArchivesSpy Who Inspired Me

|genre=Entertainment General Fiction|summary=We are in the world of one of the countryThis is a spoof spy story, that isn's most famous and well-loved sitcoms – even if it was sort-of killed off for Christmas 2003t about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. Yes, there have been specials sinceBut it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well 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 likes the stony-faced reception of ladies''that'' drop through and who works for the open bar hatch, and ''that'' chandelier scenesecret service, but this is much in the planning side of things more meatythan the active service. Purporting to be Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the family archives, found dumped pair end up stranded in Nelson Mandela HouseNormandy, the documents here were passed from pillar to post, from one council worker in a department with Margaux on a clumsy acronym desperate mission to anotherunearth traitors in the resistance network, from them and Lemming desperately trying 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?keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1849909245</amazonuk>2952163855

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Mara WilsonAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title= Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental FameKokoschka's Doll|rating= 2.5|genre= AutobiographyLiterary Fiction|summary= Mara Wilson has always felt Well, this looked very much like a little young book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a little out of place: as weird section in the only child middle on darker stock paper, a film set full of adults, chapter whose number was in the first daughter in a house full of boys20, the sole clinically depressed member of a cheerleading squad000s, a valley girl in New York and a neurotic in Californialetters used as narrative form, and an adult so on. It intrigued with the world still remembers as subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little girl. Tackling everything from how she first learned about sex on the set I knew of ''Melrose Placeit mentioned,too. But you'' to losing her mother at a young ageve seen the star rating that comes with this review, to getting her first kiss (or and can tell that if love was it kisses?) on a celebrity canoe tripthese pages, to it was 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 belongactually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0143128221</amazonuk>1529402697

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Tony StuartB08KKQ85FN|title= Writing LinesBut Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona|rating= 4.5|genre=HumourShort Stories|summary= George Gordon Wentworth (1946-2011) lived ''If a humdrum life. He was woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a barely adequate teacher Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a fairly pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world renowned independent school in Kent of bus timetables and kept a copious diary of paying his quotidian existenceown gas bills. Most of what he recorded was dross. However'' You don't get many better opening sentences than that, amongst all do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the utterly uninteresting tailings of his life there were some nuggets Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and grains we learned what it was like to catch be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the attention. Author Tony Stuart time has created these amusing anecdotes, panning them out over twenty six episodes which give us the best come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Wentworth – comedy goldFormer Ambassador. From losing all the pupils .. They have left The Career and settled in his charge on a school trip to being arrested on suspicion of terrorism; from waking up in bed between Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the married couple the morning after situation and their weddingdog, to destroying a ski run; from appearing full-frontal naked in a sheep-farmers' gazette to triggering an air-sea rescue; Wentworth wasBeagle, blinkered and befuddledhas no intention of slowing down any time soon, the subject – of these despite being sixteen and so many more unlikely but highly amusing eventsdeaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1524634441</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graham FulbrightB08GFSK2WZ|title=Driving Mad: Maniacs, Morons and the Advanced Motorist's Club|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>}}{{newreviewThe Karma Trap|author=Mario Giordano|title=Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian LionsLisette Boyd

|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, but she felt that John Cranston is a sea view was essential. Once theregardener, new friends, family already resident on the island and the corpse of a young man, his face blown off by although what he did before he became a shotgungardener, whom she found on the local beachhe claims, intervened to give her life some meaningis classified. For That is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a while she was a suspectcriminal / spy / terrorist plot, but that (and her wig) were no obstacle to her falling for Commissario Vito Montana who was assigned to investigate where only he can save 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 concernedday.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908524693</amazonuk>0956180523

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Grady HendrixJester_Forever|title= My Best Friend's ExorcismForever After: a dark comedy|author=David Jester|rating= 54|genre= Horror|summary=1988Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, Charleston, South Carolina. High school sophomores Abby a grim reaper and Gretchen have been best his 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 - Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and by Naff (a stoner in the time records department) as they grapple with their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby long lives and Gretchen will be determined by finding a single question: Is clean surface to sit on in their friendship enough to beat the devil?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594748624</amazonuk>flat.

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Kevin MacNeil1683691172|title=The Brilliant and ForeverWilliam Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls|author=Ian Doescher|rating= 32.5|genre= Humour|summary= You know sometimes when someone tells A long time ago, in a jokegalaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, everyone else laughsand the marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and youbehave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the producers tried again, with [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to the Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can're sat there wondering what t even really remember seeing was transcribed into the original Elizabethan lingo. A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, yet oh so funnyancient, dressing. Here was the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, based on little foreknowledge?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846973376</amazonuk>Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Christopher Fowler168369094X|title= Bryant and May: Strange TideWilliam Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!|author=Ian Doescher|rating= 34.5|genre= CrimeHumour|summary= The thirteenth outing A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a clever way they seemed perfectly suited. It was then duly repeated for Bryant all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and May is looking very much like it will be clearly someone's buffing their lastquills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. Arthur Bryant is on compassionate leave whilst tests are continuingIn the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, which are likely and to confirm that he is suffering from Alzheimer'sriff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. His condition is worsening almost by And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the dayFuture, with its tales of time travel, bullying, memory lapses are morphing into full-scale hallucinations.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857523422<and parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Smith1473669065|title=The Voyage of the DolphinQueenie Malone's Paradise Hotel|author=Ruth Hogan

|genre=Historical FictionHumour|summary=Dublin 1916: Among the unrest and anti-British feeling worsened by the threat of conscription into a war seen as nothing Tilda returns to do with the IrishBrighton, Trinity College faculty has other distractions. They'd like a trophy; to tidy away the skeleton remains of an Irish 'giant' to be precise. The only glitch is that the main trophy contender, Bernard MacNeillher mother's skeleton, is somewhere difficult to access and all seasoned explorers are otherwise engagedlife after her death. There may be hope though. They turn to FitzmauriceWhilst there, a student not good enough for anything else. Fitzmaurice agrees, picking his friends Crozier and Rafferty to go with him. So… ''Gentlemen, lace up your strongest boots and pack your warmest underwear – we're all off she returns to the bloody Arctic!'' Whether battle cry or epitaphParadise hotel, three men and a dog… 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 sticks, haven for eccentrics and the way she moved me from an inner-city flat to slumming it in the suburbs with fewer busses, no takeaways within walking-and-keeping-food-hot distance, and no 'Polish' shops for a can of beer whenever you fancy onemisfits. Things are different with Tony Hawks, as here he has purposefully decided to up sticks from London to Somewhere, Devon – a tiny village A place where the people who built their own homes decades ago still live in them, where slugs are a lot more of a problem for the wannabe lettuce-grower than they are for the metropolitan commutercan be themselves, and where village halls have the power to turn you into both a Pol Pot dictator if you get on their committee and into a quivering, bruise-inducing wreck if you're the wrong gender at a Zumba class…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444794809</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Marian Keyes|title=Making It Up As I Go Along|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 let go of journalism by the wonderful Marian Keyes – but it's a proof copy, so there's no photo of the authorthoughts that torment them elsewhere. Even if over the years I have stopped reading Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her novels, I have always turned to the author picture to remind myself such sights exist in this world. Himself is a lucky man, mother for sure. But beyond sounding like banishing her as a letchchild, what can I say about from this – place of wonder. With the beauty's third large dose help of essaysQueenie Malone, caring, web columns and other journalism? I can start with agreeing that I am not the target audiencegregarious, but it's easy enough Tilda begins 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 pick apart the age tricky and commonality of all things in space to come up uncertain relationship she had 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 her sometimes cruel 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 hitdistant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1510100458</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Spadge Whittaker1683690346|title=Braver Than Britain, OccasionallyThe Con Artist|author=Fred Van Lente

|summary=In which Spadge researches BritainComic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's top ten fears looking for both that and faces them all over sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the course chance of a yearmaybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. We're quite a fearful societyHowever, when his rival is found dead, you know. And Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the things we fear most are, con in order: heights (acrophobia)to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, snakes (ophidiophobia)in doing so, public speaking (glossophobia), spiders (arachnophobia), small spaces (claustrophobia), mice (musophobia), needles (trypanophobia), flying (pteromerhanophobia), crowds (agoraphobia) and clowns (coulrophobia)may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0993429904</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= Mike Bullen1473669588|title= Trust|rating= 4|genre= General Fiction|summary= Greg and Amanda are happy. Unmarried, but together thirteen years and with two young daughters, they are very much in love. Dan and Sarah aren't so fortunate. Their marriage is going through the motions, and they're staying together for the sake of their troubled teenage son. Following a business conference away from home, one bad decision sends a happy couple into turmoil, and turns an unhappy couple into love's young dream. As secrets and betrayals threaten to send both relationships out of control, there's only one thing that can keep everything from falling apart: Trust|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751559253</amazonuk>}}{{newreviewFalling Short|author=Dan Rhodes|title=When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Two people are on a train on 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 is Professor Richard Dawkins, rampant atheist, hectoring scientist chappie, and all-round devotee of ''Deal or No Deal''. The other is Smee, his mono-named assistant, amanuensis or 'male secretary'. Smee will come to the fore when the weather sets in and the train journey has to be abandoned some way short of its ultimate destination, Upper Bottom. Instead the pair fetch up at the isolated yet friendly community of Market Horton, and the only option for accommodation is taken – yes, the died-in-the-wool non-believer has to be housed by a retired vicar and his wife. 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 AbroadLex Coulton

|summary=MeetLex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, if you haven't alreadyfailures, the phenomenon of the Very British Problemand relationships. In this format they're in pithy little comments (ofThe main protagonist, oohFrances Pilgrim, about 140 characters in lengthis a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, for some reason…) a work colleague and detail is grappling with the minor things in life that we like nothing more than to inflate to a major factor increasingly eccentric behaviour of lifeher mother. They can involve manners, staring at things until they mend themselves, hitting things ditto, or This relationship is complicated by 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 abroadFrances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751558494</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Fraser McAlpine1683690133|title=Stuff Brits LikeMy Lady's Choosing|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

|summary= With over 100 chapters on different aspects You are a lass of Britain and Britishnesstwenty-eight. Plucky, this book is both fascinating penniless and hilarious. Just looking at in Regency-era London the list of subjects race is enough on to produce find a sardonic twist of that stiff upper lip: the chapters cover topics that range from offal suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to currylife as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from pedantry a life alone, and fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to bantersuitors though, from conkers you'll have to rugbymake the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. There may be many chapters but this is no academic tome - each chapter is just two to three pages longWith orphans, each is written with endearing affectionwerewolves, each is easy long lost lovers and satisfying - and quirkily funny - ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to readbe an easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857886348</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn= John SamuelStibbe_Xmas|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>}}{{newreviewAn Almost Perfect Christmas|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, 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 KnightsNina Stibbe

|genre=FantasyHumour|summary=Sir Humphrey has been demoted from King Arthur's Round Table to Christmas – the Table time of Lesser Valued Knightstraditional trauma. The You only way have to get his comfier seat back is think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to redeem himself via a questdefrost overnight, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Therefore when damsel Elaine seeks help Nowadays it's all having to find her kidnapped fiancémake sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, Humphrey and his wardget too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, the teenage giant Conradthough, eagerly set forthis of course also a time of great boons. Meanwhile It's cash in the kingdom hand for a lot of Tuftplump people who can hire red suits and beards, new Queen Martha has run away after it was always a disastrous wedding to… a… well… disastrous Prince Edwin. She may not realise it yetgodsend 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, but she too will have a job and as for Humphrey!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555875</amazonuk>the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?

{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tim FlanneryDoescher_Will|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 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 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 author's own admission, his imagining of the Joseph Merrick (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 thatWilliam Shakespeare'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 Dreamland|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Ronald Tonks has reached that stage in life which I call upper middle ageForce Doth Awaken: you've qualified for your pension but not yet got to Star Wars Part 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 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 Hero|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>}}{{newreviewSeventh

|summary= Join usA long time ago, good gentlesin a galaxy far away, for there was a merry reimagining of `Star Wars Episode 1' as only man called William Shakespeare could have written it. 'Tis , who was able to create a true Shakespearean drama, filled with sword fightsseries of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, soliloquies rulers most evil and doomed romance…all in glorious iambic pentameter rebellious heroes and coupled with gorgeous illustrationsheroines most sturdy. Hold on to your midichlorians: The plays You may or may not have noticed the thing, wherein youcinematic version of his original stage play for ''ll catch the rise of Anakin!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594748063</amazonuk>}}{{newreview|author=Attaboy|title=The Book of Hugs|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=A hugForce Doth Awaken''s a hug, OK? 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. You either doAnd if you need further encouragement, or you don't. Some people might be a little more enthusiastic about the process whilst others are more elegant in the execution forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the hug, but basically you just get series is so popular we're on and do it and then forget about it, right?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0867197978</amazonuk>to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…