Difference between revisions of "Newest Humour Reviews"

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[[Category:Humour|*]]
 
[[Category:Humour|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]__NOTOC__
==Humour==
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{{Frontpage
__NOTOC__
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|author=Dean Koontz
{{newreview
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|title=The Bad Weather Friend
|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur
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|rating=4.5
|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery
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|genre=Paranormal
|rating=3
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|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day.  He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house!  The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luckHe is a nice person.  A really nice person.  So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person.  Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.
|genre=Humour
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|isbn=1662500491
|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.''  Surely that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for the worldYou won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich lists.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529153050
|author=Eoin Colfer
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|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022
|title=And Another Thing ... Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6)
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|author=Tim Benson
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Of all the big books announced for this year, this one must have raised more eyebrows than many.  Why try and write a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, when way before the end, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such a task?  And why approach an Irishman, Eoin Colfer, when the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described as Monty Python doing a sci-fi Terry Pratchett, and with their cups of tea and dressing gowns, could only be described as very English?  Well the answer is most evident - Colfer is a world-beater when it comes to knocking up a story.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=The Vampire Miles Proctor
 
|title=The New Vampire's Handbook
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=I shall start with a prediction.  I will not become a vampire, for this imminent Hallowe'en, any festive fancy dress parties, or indeed for life as the lifeless undead.  I will not need tips on filing my fangs, or how to divert attention from the fact I cannot eat human food at dinner parties.  Me and my reflection in mirrors will remain intact.  But for those of you reading this at night, somewhere, flameproof cape at hand, with your distaste of garlic, publicity and presumably the anaemic, this is the sterling how-to lifestyle guide.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086464</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty and Mike Ahern
 
|title=100 Facts About Pandas
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Sometimes the title says it all - this is a book with 100 facts about pandas. Sometimes you need to note the author too - David O'Doherty won an Edinburgh Comedy Award, so this is a book of a 100 silly and untrue facts about pandas.
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|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''.  Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086324</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1785633074
|author=Richard Horne
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|title=Staggering Hubris
|title=A is for Armageddon
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|author=Josh Berry
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=The world is definitely going to hell in a handcart.  We're only just preventing lethal global warming by having a credit crunch that has prevented a lot of big building, air travel, and consumerism.  The population is getting so obese there is no room for any more of us - and add that to the exploding population statistics, and it's never going to look better.  And don't get me started on where all the bees have gone...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086197</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=James May
 
|title=Car Fever: Dispatches From Behind The Wheel
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Lifestyle
 
|summary=Now, way back when I was younger, and watched TV a lot, I am sure I remember Top Gear as being a consumer programme.  How times change.  These days I am sure they destroy more cars than they review, and the three main people from the show are approaching superstar status, with their amenable personalities, awkward wardrobe choices and trenchant laddish charms.  They've sprung their media entities from out of the studio, into other TV programmes, and the world of journalism, with chatty columns in the broadsheets allowing them free rein to witter to their heart's desire.  And here, in one grandiloquent volume, and in time for Christmas, are many of James May's desires.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340994533</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
 
|title=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Ah, the benefits to a good book of a classic first line.  'Call me Ishmael.' 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.' Who can forget Iain Banks' 'It was the day my grandmother exploded'?  Or those timeless words by Jane Austen, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.'
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|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government.  We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020.  You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594743347</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0571365884
|author=Harry Hill
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|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety
|title=Tim The Tiny Horse At Large
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|author=Georgia Pritchett
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary=It's been a while since Tim and Fly's [[Tim the Tiny Horse by Harry Hill|last adventures]], and changes are afoot in Tim's tiny world: Fly is getting married to his girlfriend. Tim's a little worried because they've only known each other for a week. The marriage goes ahead, and Tim finds himself kicking his heels, so he gets a pet. And so the brief episodes in the life of a horse who lives in a matchbox continue.
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|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child.  She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571244157</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Boyne
|author=Spike Milligan
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|title=The Echo Chamber
|title=The Magical World of Milligan
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Some people you just have to love. It's the law. Spike Milligan was always fantastic, and he's much missed. He's got the perfect mix of nonsense, heart, and surreal humour. He speaks to people of all ages, and he's just plain lovely.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1905264844</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sam Savage
 
|title=The Cry of the Sloth
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Meet Andrew Whittaker. In some untold time of recent American history, he is forced through a failed marriage and an artistic temperament at odds with so many other people, to let properties to tenants he does not like, for $120 a month.  The lodgers might not like the state of the buildings - ceilings falling through and so on - but that's another matter.  He would much prefer to be left alone in front of his little Olivetti typewriter and create art. He runs a literary journal, of a kind, called "Soap", which no-one likes, no-one reads (and often, with dodgy, cheap printing, no-one could physically read it anyway), and which makes him poorer in time, money and spirit.
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|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297856499</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0857526219
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Stephen Clarke
|author=Christopher Moore
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|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me
|title=You Suck
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=You know that old adage about books and covers? Well this is a case in pointThe title isn't great, but the cover design for the paperback imprint is, like, duh!, the pits.  It is so uncool…so unrep-resent-ative of the bookThis is not a cocktail thing.  Not even a "Bloody Mary" thing.
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|summary=This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian FlemingBut it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active serviceLemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!
 
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|isbn=2952163855
Well, except for the tiny bit that is, but you'll discover that in due course.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498092</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
|author=Hugh Murr and Sid Nigtures
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|title=Kokoschka's Doll
|title=Cyber Sign Offs
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|rating=2.5
|rating=2
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|genre=Humour
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|summary=Well, this looked very much like a 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 weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on.  It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too.  But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by themSo what happened?
|summary=I admit I had the wrong end of the stick when it came to this book, before I opened it at least.  I had assumed it was a collection of real-life on-line signatures - we've all seen them, those straplines people have on all their forum postsThe obvious response would have been along the lines of 'fair enough, but why is this a book in this day and age, and not a website?'.  But no.  This is a collection of dialogues between two people - shall we call them Sue deNim and Allie Bye, who have a line or two to say to each other, and a made-up name (sorry, make that May Dupp-Name) with which to sign it offMuch jolly nonsense ensues.
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|isbn=1529402697
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1904312497</amazonuk>
 
 
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B08KKQ85FN
 +
|title=But Never For Lunch
 +
|author=Sandra Aragona
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Short Stories
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|summary=''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.''
  
{{newreview
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You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador...  They have left The Career and settled in RomeWell 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.
|author=Tim Fitzhigham  
 
|title=All at Sea: One Man. One Bathtub. One Very Bad Idea: Conquering the Channel in a Piece of Plumbing
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=Once more my life is made easy by saying this book does just what it claims on the cover - takes a narrator of zesty, wacky humour, throws him into an unlikely situation (a bath) and gets him to do something unusual (row it across the Channel - and then beyond)This despite the fact he was the world's worst sculler at University.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848090269</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ
|author=Simon Brett
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|title=The Karma Trap
|title=Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King's Daughter
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|author=Lisette Boyd
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=There can be few people who have written eighty books without me even having picked up one of themAt least, and at last, I have redressed that fault in the case of Simon Brett, and have come to the conclusion there are 79 more that will be worth investigatingHere we meet for the first time Blotto (posh idiotic son of a dowager duchess) and Twinks (posh brilliant genius sister to Blotto), their family, their surroundings, and the corpse inconveniently disturbing a dinner party.
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|summary=George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and singleShe's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama.  Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postmanShe only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845299353</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
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|author=David C Mason
 +
|title=Pandora's Gardener
 +
|rating=3
 +
|genre=Crime
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|summary= John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classified.  That is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the day.  
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|isbn=0956180523
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Jester_Forever
|author=Karl Pilkington
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|title=Forever After: a dark comedy
|title=Karlology
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|author=David Jester
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Horror
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|summary=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.
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1683691172
 +
|title=William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls
 +
|author=Ian Doescher
 +
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=The Radio Five film critic Mark Kermode has a rule when reviewing comedies. If he laughs more than five times then the film deserves its billing as a comedy. If that rule was applied to Karl Pilkington's new book Karlology then it would easily fit into the category for there are laugh aplenty in this strange, amusing and charming little book.
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|summary=A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and behave 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'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 ancient, dressing. Here was the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140533746X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=168369094X
|author=Joe Stretch
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|title=William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!
|title=Wildlife
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|author=Ian Doescher
|rating=3
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=The word ''Twitter'' doesn't occur in Joe Stretch's vocabulary, but that's what his book is about. Life in the blogosphere, massively exaggerated, where people don't leave their desks but nevertheless come together (but never literally) in satisfying their deepest, darkest desires. If I've made it sound even faintly exciting, believe me, Joe Stretch is a fantasist with realist tendencies. What he is after is laughter; what he produces is a virtual simulacrum. Sniggery-pokery, jiggery-jokery, he tinkers with the twilight zone of a future-scenario where, for reasons beyond all understanding, some robotic and literal Dickhead (i.e. a man with a dick fixed to his forehead – I kid you not) decides to target a few selected humans for a make-over in his own image. Given that virtual worlds exist to pull in punters who don't like themselves in the real one, and their main purpose is to make money, one's only question must be: why?
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|summary=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 all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/child strife like no other?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099532077</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1473669065
|author=Michael Marr
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|title=Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel
|title=Three Jumpers
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|author=Ruth Hogan
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=When Bardolph Middle placed an ad in the paper proclaiming he was a writer, he thought he might get the odd request to write a speech or two. Maybe, if he was very lucky, a company might ask him to conceive an entire marketing plan and advertising campaign. What he never expected was this job offer…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906558485</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Rosy Barnes
 
|title=Sadomasochism for Accountants
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Women's Fiction
 
|summary=Humour's very personal, isn't it? If you dig films like ''Shaun of the Dead'' and ''Hot Fuzz'', I predict you'll love this chick lit parody.  It's anarchic and very British comedy tradition. If you're into the conventions of good writing, you may find it a little painful. Nevertheless, I enjoyed plenty of moments in Rosy Barnes' first novel.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0714531812</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Lady Annabel Goldsmith
 
|title=Copper: A Dog's Life
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Copper was one of a litter of dogs born to a stray bitch and who was 'adopted' by Lady Annabel Goldsmith - or might it be the other way round?.  Here he tells his story in his own words as transcribed for him by his owner.  He's got his own priorities – and obedience is not one of them – along with a roving spirit. It's perhaps fortunate that he's a dog as this allows you to call him 'cheeky' and 'charming'.  If he was a human being 'randy' and 'arrogant' would be two of the first words which came to mind.
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|summary=Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, from this place of wonder. With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751538205</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1683690346
|author=Tim Moore
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|title=The Con Artist
|title=I Believe in Yesterday: My Adventures in Living History
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|author=Fred Van Lente
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Common opinion has it that the television programme ''Time Team'' did a lot for the public image of archaeologists – bringing them out of their holes in the ground, and making them seem like exciting, interesting people with a good way of putting their knowledge across. However it was clearly a much harder task when it came to those background artistes they have sometimes, walking up and down in Roman centurion gear, or living the historical lifestyle as a re-enactment.
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|summary=Comic-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 looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of maybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224077813</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1473669588
|author=L Vaughan Spencer
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|title=Falling Short
|title=Don't Be Needy Be Succeedy
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|author=Lex Coulton
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Are you underperforming in your business and personal lives? Do you underestimate the importance of good hair and moisturised skin in achieving your life goals? Are you stumbling through life in a Fast-Moving Business Environment (FMBE) without a motivational mantra to guide you? Then you need this book. As ''The A to Zee of Motivitality'', this is a dictionary of achievement from a man who can teach you how to succeed like a toothless budgie.
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|summary=Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleague and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother.  This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846681634</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1683690133
|author=Mark Crick
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|title=My Lady's Choosing
|title=Sartre's Sink: The Great Writers' Complete Book of DIY
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|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=''Sartre's Sink'' comprises fourteen short story parodies of some of the world's best known writers – the twist being that the stories are all about undertaking some mundane DIY task such as tiling a bathroom (Dostoevsky) or reglazing a window (Milan Kundera). So far it sounds a bit like some pretentious Oxbridge student twaddle. You can just imagine how the idea came up over an over-ripe Brie and an underrated bottle of 1963 Taylor's port. It also rather smacks of that Radio 4 programme which I detest with an absolute passion - I can't even stand writing its name, ugh - ''Quote Unquote'', in which parodies do feature, read out by smug self-congratulatory writer darlings (you can tell I don't like it, can't you?). However, dear readers, this book is rather enjoyable and I speak as someone who is rather less versed in the writings of this famous lot than I care to admit.
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|summary=You are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to suitors though, you'll have to make 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. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847080472</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas
|author=Eric Nakagawa
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|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas
|title=I Can Has Cheezburger
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|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4
 
|genre=Pets
 
|summary=''I Can Has Cheezburger'', is a clever and witty anthology of some of the best pictures and captions from the fantastic [http://icanhascheezburger.com/ lolcats website] of the same name. The site has been growing in popularity in recent months, and so it was inevitable that a book would soon hit the shelves. Choosing which pics to include in the book could not have been an easy task, and some of the old favourites are there, alongside some less well known ones.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340977574</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ian Crofton
 
|title=History Without the Boring Bits
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=History
 
|summary=I was never one for history, and in fact left the dregs of a history teacher in tatters when I scraped through with a D.  Still, history is an odd thing – written by the winners of course, and annoyingly biased in my mind towards the plain.  There's no real reason to remember the order of Henry VIII's six wives, but we can only relish the one credited with polydactylism, a third nipple and whatnot (the second one, in fact – whoever that was).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847243746</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jim Holt
 
|title=Stop Me If You've Heard This
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=As far as I can remember, my first time in print was when I submitted some jokes to a charity's themed joke collection.  Before then, some of my first actions as a child might have been laughing, and what is cuter in a baby than that?  But why was that infant laughing – he didn't have a joke he could get, surely?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184668109X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=P G Wodehouse
 
|title=Joy in the Morning
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=''Joy in the Morning'' is another novel from P.G. Wodehouse's wonderful series of books about Bertram Wooster and Jeeves. Bertie is a young gentleman of inherited means and no present occupation. He is a good humoured and well-meant chap, however clearly not the smartest tool in the shed. Bertie seems to have a talent of getting himself into trouble but that is where Jeeves, his loyal, educated and painfully clever butler comes to his rescue. Jeeves is irreplaceable when it comes to saving Bertie from whatever creative, complicated and incredibly funny situations Wodehouse puts his characters through.
+
|summary=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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099513765</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Doescher_Will
|author=P G Wodehouse
+
|title=William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh
|title=Thank You, Jeeves
+
|author=Ian Doescher
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=Bertie Wooster was once engaged to Pauline Stoker.  It didn't last very long – about forty eight hours, most of which Bertie spent in bed with a bad cold, if his memory serves him correctly.  It's still embarrassing when he meets Pauline and her father, particularly as it was the father who was responsible for breaking off the engagement.  Rather than eat at the Savoy Grill where he spotted the Stokers, he goes home to his only consolation.  Bertie plays the banjo.  Unfortunately, he doesn't play it very well.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099513730</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tom Holt
 
|title=The Better Mousetrap
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=I approached this book with a fair degree of trepidation, as I had never heard of the author, and wondered if, when reading the synopsis, I was about to embark on a Terry Pratchett type novel (and I have to say, much though I admire his achievements, I'm not a fan of Discworld!) However, my fears were unfounded, and from page one I found myself drawn into this clever and erudite novel. Not having read the preceding novels in the series did put me at a slight disadvantage, but didn't detract from my enjoyment, and has certainly ensured that I'll read the others in the near future.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495034</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Philip Moore
 
|title=Utterly Ridiculous
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=If I learned nothing else from this book, I now know of a new profession: aircraft cleaner. For that is the trade of Dave, the hero of ''Utterly Ridiculous''. With little but a van and his torpid terrier Biggles, Dave roves the airstrips of southern England, titivating light aircraft.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906221685</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Mole 
 
|title=I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia
 
|rating=1 
 
|genre=Travel
 
|summary=I remember getting this book in post, reading the title and thinking no, even though I am Russian, I will try to be unbiased and judge it like I would judge any other book about a foreign country experience. I now have to regretfully admit I failed. In my defence, John Mole's focus on mocking the nation and country made that all too easy.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1857885090</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Clive Gifford
 
|title=Teenage Kicks: 101 Things to Do Before You're 16
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Kids. They're bored all the time, aren't they? Nothing you buy seems to have any longevity. I think they live in alternative dimension in which time passes much more slowly that it does for harassed parents. It's the only explanation. I think Clive Gifford must sympathise, because his latest book, Teenage Kicks, has a whopping 101 ideas to alleviate boredom and a clever challenge too - your bored child has to complete them all before they reach 16. At a measly £5.99, this book could represent the most wonderful value for money any parent could ever wish for.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340950617</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jon Canter 
 
|title=A Short Gentleman
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=The narrator of this spoof biography is a civil law barrister. Robert Purcell has been educated at Winchester and Oxford. He has modelled himself on his polite and restrained father, a High Court judge and, as a child, Robert maps out the components his own expected adult life – wife, two children, career – and the respect which he will gain from this, together with his undoubted intellectual superiority. At the age of eight, he writes a future Who's Who entry for himself, with all the academic and professional accolades he expects to garner.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224077740</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=George Saunders 
 
|title=The Brain-dead Megaphone
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=American author George Saunders is known for his short stories and fiction, but he is also a journalist for publications such as ''The Guardian'', ''The New Yorker Magazine'' and ''GQ''.  ''The Brain-Dead Megaphone'' is his first collection of essays and it's an interesting proposition: sixteen pieces ranging from travel writing, literary appreciation, political essays, to surrealist short fiction.
+
|summary=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 hurtsAnd 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0747594260</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
+
Move on to [[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]
{{newreview
 
|title=Tim the Tiny Horse
 
|author=Harry Hill
 
|genre=Humour
 
|rating=4
 
|summary=After doing even tiny bit of research I realised that I must be the only person out there who ever read Tim the Tiny Horse having never heard of the author. Thus, I have to take another reviewer's word that it's "typical Harry Hill" and will make an attempt at reviewing Tim as a stand-alone.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571229565</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 13:11, 2 January 2024

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Review of

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

4.5star.jpg Paranormal

Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Full Review

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Review of

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022 by Tim Benson

4star.jpg Humour

Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022. Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition? Full Review

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Review of

Staggering Hubris by Josh Berry

4.5star.jpg Humour

Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the primus inter pares (that's for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the prime movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch. Full Review

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Review of

My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety by Georgia Pritchett

4star.jpg Autobiography

Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and far between. On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and My Mess is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety is the result - or so we are given to believe. Full Review

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Review of

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne

5star.jpg General Fiction

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 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. Full Review

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Review of

The Spy Who Inspired Me by Stephen Clarke

4star.jpg General Fiction

This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her! Full Review

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Review of

Kokoschka's Doll by Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)

2.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Well, this looked very much like a 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 weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened? Full Review

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Review of

But Never For Lunch by Sandra Aragona

4star.jpg Short Stories

If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.

You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in Sorting the Priorities and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf. Full Review

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Review of

The Karma Trap by Lisette Boyd

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office. Full Review

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Review of

Pandora's Gardener by David C Mason

3star.jpg Crime

John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classified. That is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the day. Full Review

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Review of

Forever After: a dark comedy by David Jester

4star.jpg Horror

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. Full Review

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Review of

William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls by Ian Doescher

2.5star.jpg Humour

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the producers tried again, with Back to the Future no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can'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 ancient, dressing. Here was the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away… Full Review

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Review of

William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher

4.5star.jpg Humour

A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, 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 all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/child strife like no other? Full Review

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Review of

Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan

5star.jpg Humour

Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, from this place of wonder. With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother. Full Review

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Review of

The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente

4star.jpg Humour

Comic-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 looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of maybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator. Full Review

1473669588.jpg

Review of

Falling Short by Lex Coulton

4star.jpg Humour

Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleague and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old. Full Review

1683690133.jpg

Review of

My Lady's Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

4star.jpg Humour

You are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to suitors though, you'll have to make 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. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision... Full Review

Stibbe Xmas.jpg

Review of

An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe

4.5star.jpg Humour

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? Full Review

Doescher Will.jpg

Review of

William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher

4.5star.jpg 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… Full Review

Move on to Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews