Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]==Humour==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Barry FantoniDean Koontz|title=Harry Lipkin, Private Eye: The Oldest Detective in the WorldBad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=Harry Lipkin may not be the fittest private investigator in Florida once you take into account Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his indigestion fiancee, and his arthritis, but at 87 he's definitely the oldesthouse gets trashed. Despite this he still manages Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to make a steady livinghis home, picking up the little jobs that don't interest the police and Norma Weinbergerit's problem comes into possible that category. Small but expensive knick-knacks seem to be going missing from around whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house so could it be a light-fingered member of staff? ! The suspects (thing is, Benny is the gardener, 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 butlerdelivery to his house is a new friend, the maid and the chauffer) each have their own story and motivea bad weather friend called Spike, leaving Harry to get the four down who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a short list of onegood person. A task thatSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's perhaps enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a little harder than it soundswaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846972272</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Clark1529153050|title=RoryBritain's BoysBest Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson|rating=54

|summary=Rory Blaine, grandson of Lady Sybil Blaine Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is gay, free, single coming to seem more and loving itmore like an adrenaline sport, as he tells himself a dozen times a day. He may be middle aged but heI was nudged towards ''s still got it. HeBritain's a partner in a successful advertising firm and so, so over having been thrown out Best Political Cartoons of home when he was a teenager; yes, over it – totally and completely. When he hears his grandmother is dying, he decides it2022''s time to remind her (and her considerable wealth) of his existence. The tardy but intensive attention seems to pay off when heSharp eyes will have noted that we's left re not yet through the ancestral pile. But year: the stately home wasn't left cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to him quite in the way that he thought31 August 2022. There are so many strings attached it resembles a marionette: if he wants Who can imagine what there will be to keep it he must transform it into come in the first retirement home for elderly gay gentlemen and he also seems to have acquired his first resident, whether he's wanted or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1906413886</amazonuk>2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Serge Bloch1785633074|title=You are What You Eat: And Other Mealtime HazardsStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=34.5

|summary=We last saw Serge BlochMembers of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's talents in [[Reach for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the Stars and Other Advice for Lifereality is that the ''prime''s Journey by Serge Bloch|Reach for movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey]] when we saw lots of whimsical advice for driving force behind the Boy and his dog, Rogergovernment. This time he wants us We are in the privileged position of having access to look at what we eat. Boy's mother has told him that he is what he eats - so he's very careful about what he puts on his platethe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, because you might the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end up with a pea-pod mouth and a tomato tummyof 2020. Roger looks You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to have fared rather better - with a bone for a bodywatch. He at least seems to have a smile on his face!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402797605</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Reeve0571365884|title=Goblins|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Poor Skarper. He's such My Mess is a loser. In the violent and bloodthirsty goblin world where fighting and eating and taking other people's loot are all-time-favourite, number-one activities, he has a terrible handicap. He thinks. In fact, he's pretty clever, for a goblin, to the extent that he uses the goblins' bumwipe heaps for . . . reading. Yup, you heard me. Reading. The foolish hatchling works out that the black squiggles on the mouldering heaps Bit of soft and crinkly stuff left, long ago, by the ancient inhabitants of the tower, are written words, and instead of going out raiding like any sensible goblin, he creeps off to a quiet corner to work out what they mean. Silly, eh?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1407115278</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewLife: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Etgar Keret|title=Suddenly, a Knock on the Door Georgia Pritchett

|genre=Short StoriesAutobiography|summary=In the opening, titular story, Keret is forced by several people to create, and alterGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a short short storychild. It's a plain metaphor for She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the history sort of Israel, life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but it proves that this modern Scheherazade is not too such occasions were few and far removed geographically from the originalbetween. And On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what follows are probably the sort was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of short, tantalising, open-ended, rough-round-a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is theresult -edges and surreal results of being compelled or so we are given to carry on telling tall tales on a nightly basisbelieve.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186674</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Nicky HarlowJohn Boyne|title=Amelia and the VirginThe Echo Chamber

|summary=The country might be at war over the Falklands but life Meet George Cleverley. He is hardly straightself-forward in defined as "one of the few television personalities over the Mole householdage of fifty without a criminal record". AdrianHe starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's parents are back together after both had disastrous affairs and it's not long before Adrian is shocked to learn that carrying his child, but then his mother author wife is pregnantgetting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. HeThey 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 equally shocked to see his father helping Doreen (homeless with out-of-date food, and afit young lad doing the gay hustle thing.k.Add in a. the 'stick insect') along a path which isn't particularly slippyfew other characters – therapists, lawyers, although he does notice random transgender types – that she seems all have two very different connections to his life, and you have put on quite a bit of weightsomething that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. Pandora Braithwaite is as fickleWhat suggests the farcical approach even more, but adorablehowever, as ever and Adrian's hormones are still playing hop-scotch with his brainis the fact this is bloody funny. So, what's new?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141046430</amazonuk>0857526219

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=John NivenStephen Clarke|title=The Second ComingSpy Who Inspired Me

|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=God has come back from This is a holiday and has some catching up to dospoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. What’s been happening on Earth But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the last couple of hundred years? The realisation hits him hard... it makes him sick secret service, but in fact. So what’s the answer? To quote planning side of things more than the religious cliché, Jesus isactive service. After Lemming finds himself put on a board meeting mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the senior saintspair end up stranded in Normandy, God decides that his son must be torn away from jamming with Hendrix to go back Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the streets of the world resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to remind the sinners of the way.keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535521</amazonuk>2952163855

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sue TownsendAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾Kokoschka's Doll|rating=42.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole was just three months away Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from his fourteenth birthday when he began writing his diary on New Year's Day. He's just on the edge of true adolescence get- pimples are appearing as go, which is a little bit why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of interest in the opposite sexit. He's thinking about what he might like I found things to do ''eventually''potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, but his first major challenge is a chapter whose number was in the breakdown of his parents' marriage20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. He writes It intrigued with the subterranean voice a wonderful mixture man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you''knowingness'' ve seen the star rating that comes with this review, and innocence and usually manages to get things just ever-so-slightly wrongcan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141046422</amazonuk>1529402697

{{newreview|author=Bruce Robinson|title=You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Rum Diary - A Screenplay|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Kemp has lied his way onto a failing newspaper Ambassador's Wife in San Juan, Puerto Rica, as [[Sorting the only candidate for Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the job, Priorities]] and in a semi-comatose state induced we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by too many miniatures from the hotel minibar, stumbles into a conspiracy Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of epic proportions, via classic bar room brawls Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and nightclub mayhemsettled in Rome. On Well 'settled' rather overstates the way he (almost) writes horoscopes situation and bowling championship storiestheir dog, meets the fantastically erotic girlfriend of the evil businessmanBeagle, and teams up with a proto-Nazi out has no intention of his mind on a cocktail of hootch and LSDslowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and a photographer side kickdeaf. There is no question that this is Hunter S Thompson territory, especially when all the above is combined with a witty, slow-talking hero who in spite of his alcoholic haze sees clearly through the exploitation of a third world country by its massive first world near neighbour. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555697</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Francesca SimonB08GFSK2WZ|title=Horrid Henry's A - Z of Everything HorridThe Karma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd

|genre=Confident ReadersWomen's Fiction|summary=Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry George Jackson is a very popular little boythirty-three years old, although you might have a different opinion if you actually had absolutely gorgeous to put up with his antics yourselflook at - and single. A slightly modernised embodiment of She'slugs s not had sex for eight months and snails and puppy dogsshe' tails' concept s stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of boyhood, Henry bad luck is naughtiness personified, combining irreverence being visited on her and she has a real talent for authority attracting drama. Her life's chaotic: she dealt with a huge dose the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of grossthe stairs to absorb the water -out crude humour that really appeals to then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, staring at the target readership of early primary school childrenpervy postman. Add She only has to take her mother's dog out for a somewhat nostalgic, timeless feel, trademark alliterations, subtle (and not so subtle) digs at family dynamics, sibling rivalry and particularly at modern middlewalk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face -class manners and sensibilities and you have a winning character and a base for a very successful edutainment franchisephoto being taken by someone who shares it around the office.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002260</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeremy ClarkeDavid C Mason|title=Low LifePandora's Gardener

|genre=HumourCrime|summary=I'm not John Cranston is a Spectator reader – indeed other than seeing on the shelves I'm ashamed to say that gardener, although what he did before starting to write this article I knew absolutely nothing about the magazinehe became a gardener, its stylehe claims, ethos or readership. Having (obviously) done the obligatory websearch I know understand that being its editor is considered a reasonable a route to success in the Conservative Party or other public office on a right-wing ticketclassified. A sister publication to The Daily Telegraph, it That is quoted as being Atlanticist, usually supportive of Israel, and Eurosceptic in outlook. This makes me utterly unsuitable just as a candidate to review Clarke's book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595511</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Guy Kennaway|title=Bird Brain|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary='It began for Basil ''Banger'' Peyton-Crumbe the day well because he died in a pheasant shooting incident'. If you were in any doubt as to the nature of the novel given the cover jacket and the author's disclaimer to the effect that any similarity between the human characters and any real person is entirely coincidental, but he feels safe from any threats of libel action on behalf of the dead animals whose characters he has mercilessly manipulated for narrative effect, then its opening sentence should put you straight.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093991</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Neil Forsyth|title=Why Me? The Very Important Emails of Bob Servant|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Catchy title and catchy front cover graphics. What's not about to like? It takes a lot to make me laugh generally, but as I had an initial flick through this book, things looked promising. And I was also thinking that it's be caught up in a pleasant change to see another location (other than perhaps the predictable Glasgow and Edinburgh) get an airing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270097<criminal /amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Harry Thompson|title=Tintin: Herge and His Creation|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=I love Tintin. I love his quiff and his innocence, his plus-fours and his foreign adventures, I love Snowy the dog and most of all I love Captain Haddock and the flamboyance of his blistering barnacles language. So I was thrilled to see a biography of the character and Hergé, his creator, and I picked it up with enthusiasm. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546726<spy /amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Heller|title=Catch 22|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At the heart of the very black comedy that is ''Catch 22'' is Captain Yossarian, a World War II American bombardier, who wants to survive the war. Flying repeated combat missions is undermining his sanity, and surely a mad man should be grounded? But if he asks to be grounded, he demonstrates an absolutely sane concern for his own safety. If he is saneterrorist plot, where only he can't be grounded. This, his doctor tells him, is catch 22save the day.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>0956180523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William GiraldiJester_Forever|title=Busy MonstersForever After: a dark comedy|author=David Jester

|genre=General FictionHorror|summary=Charles Homar loves his Gillian. He's proved it to us, if not to her, by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper of an ex with the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing Michael Holland is a cat instead. But lo cocky and brash young man who dies and behold, she's declared she's off to discover gets made the real love offer of her life - the giant squidhis lifetime; immortality. Failing to stop thisWe follow Michael, Charlie spends too long with a Nessie obsessive, then goes on a hunt of grim reaper and his own - for Bigfootfriends, all the while, chapter by chapter, sending his narrative of the same to Chip (a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographical, frivolous columns.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Kevin Wilson|title=The Family Fang|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Annie Fang stoner tooth fairy) and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be again. But it has come to this - her film actress career is on Naff (a stoner in the rocks with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and he - well, he's here because of a jumbo spud gun. Neither want life back at home, records department) as throughout their childhood they were used by grapple with their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in long lives and finding a whole career of performance art pieces, designed clean surface to enact a point of life or just cause havoc.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Zadie Smith|title=White Teeth|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Some books sneak up sit on you. Others are thrown at you from every corner of the media to the extent that you almost make a conscious decision NOT to read them, or at least, not yet. Let the furore die down. If they're still around in a few years, your subconscious whispers, maybe we'll go see what all the fuss was abouttheir flat. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241954576</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Lodge1683691172|title=The Campus TrilogyWilliam Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls|author=Ian Doescher|rating=42.5

|summary=Somewhere along A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the line the word "vintage" stopped meaning simply the wine crop of any given yearStar Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and started to mean the wine of marriage seemed a particularly good yearperfectly suitable one. So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and then to mean anything of a past year behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that was (is) of outstanding quality. Such is the mutability of language. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529130</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Ludwig Bechsteinproducers tried again, Axel Sceffler and Julia Donaldsonwith [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|title=The Gloomster|rating=4Back to the Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=WeA film I can've all been theret even really remember seeing was transcribed into the original Elizabethan lingo. Finding fault with everything around usA cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant that gets us yet oh so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do is invoke "Hell and damnation!" down on all creation - includingancient, of course, ourselvesdressing. After allHere was the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Gibbons168369094X|title=Conference at Cold Comfort FarmWilliam Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=There are no Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. To those of you who've not read Stella Gibbons' magnificient A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons:Category:Ian Doescher|original novelsomeone]]thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, this is hardly likely to be colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a major shock - to clever way they seemed perfectly suited. It was then duly repeated for all the other films in the Gibbons fans amongst usmain Star Wars cycle, though, this is chilling news indeed. And when RobertPosteand clearly someone's child Flora returns to buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the farm - now a modernised monstrosity full of members title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the International Thinkers' Group – sixteen years after her original visithiatus, however, the news get graver and graver, as effort has been made to see if the cows Feckless, Graceless, Pointlesssame shtick works with other texts, and Aimless to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. And could we have passed away of shame due anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the disgrace Future, with its tales of the bull Big Business. With the menfolk trying to make their fortunes abroadtime travel, bullying, and the women struggling, it's left to Flora to try to save the day once again.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528681<parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Gibbons1473669065|title=Cold Comfort FarmQueenie Malone's Paradise Hotel|author=Ruth Hogan

|summary=Orphaned at 19Tilda returns to Brighton, Flora Poste – a London sophisticate – is led to retreat to deepest Sussex tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to live off her relatives the Starkadders at the aptly named Cold Comfort FarmParadise hotel, a mournful bunch who take 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 in as they couldn't refuse anything of 'Robert Poste's a child', but seem less than happy with having to do sofrom this place of wonder. As she meets With the preacher Amoshelp of Queenie Malone, his over-sexed younger son Seth, his flighty sister Elphinecaring, and the hugely memorable – if barely seen – Aunt Ada Doomgregarious, the first person in literature Tilda begins to see 'something nasty in pick apart the woodshed' – tricky and uncertain relationship she resolves to take the family in hand had with her sometimes cruel and solve their problemsdistant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141441593</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Philip Jose Farmer|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Peerless Peer|rating=4.5|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=It's World War One, and Britain has got wind of some brilliant scientific research, that has created a new bacterial weapon capable of wiping out the world's supply of sauerkraut. But a dastardly German has stolen the formula. Before he can give a variant based on boiled meat, cabbage and potatoes to the kaiser, his most recent nemesis - Sherlock Holmes, no less - must be brought out of beekeeping retirement. Cue an adventure and a half, as he and Watson take to the skies for the first time in their hectic lives, end up in darkest Africa, and encounter a certain yodelling, long-haired nobleman, more than up to the name of King of the Jungle...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857681206</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Sharpe|title=The Wilt Inheritance|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Wilt is stuck in a job he doesn't want – teaching a subject he's not keen on to people for whom he has no affection – at one of the new Universities. We used to know them as technical colleges. But he can't afford to lose it because of the expense of keeping the quads at an expensive school and of maintaining his snobbish wife, Eva. It's Eva though who signs him up for a job in the summer holidays – tutoring the step-son of a local aristocrat in the hope of getting him into Cambridge – and particularly Porterhouse College. It's not long before Wilt discovers that the boy totes a gun and shoots at anything which moves – or even doesn't move – and that he's an idiot who would probably struggle to get a bus to Cambridge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099493136</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Alain Mabanckou|title=Memoirs of a Porcupine|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=The protagonist of this novel is an ordinary Congolese porcupine until Papa Kibandi performs an ancient ritual involving a hallucinogenic cocktail called ''mayamvumbi'', and transforms him into his son's harmful double. The insecure younger Kibandi becomes more and more embittered as his life goes on, and sends his porcupine to 'eat' anybody he feels the least bit threatened by, a process whereby that person's life essence is sucked out, killing them instantly. Over one hundred victims later and following his master's death at the hands of a vengeful baby, our narrator retires to the hollow of a baobab tree where he writes this confessional.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687675</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom Holt1683690346|title=Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages|rating=5|genre=Fantasy|summary=Imagine a world where pigs can do quantum mechanics, and where female solicitors turn into chickens. Add a dry cleaner that moves (literally, from the roof tiles to the basement) from town to town every forty-eight hours, a couple of medieval knights who've fought every day for centuries, and a magical ring (or pencil sharpener, depending on the mood it's in). Stir in a bit of property developing, a thaumaturgical detective and an old man who lives in a cloud. Result? You haven't even begun to probe the depths of this crazy, absurd, complex and hilarious book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495077</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Steve Hely|title=How I Became a Famous Novelist|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=With an uncompromising title like 'How I Became a Famous Novelist', this clearly isn't intended to be a subtle book. So I can hardly complain when a cynical look at the writing industry swings raw punches in every direction. It just isn't my sort of humour, but equally, if you rave about 'The Office' you will likely enjoy this book far more than I have done.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015724</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Charles Lamb|title=Great Food: A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig and Other Essays|rating=4|genre=Cookery|summary=''A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig'' is a collection of food-related essays from the early 19th century, with a humorous bent. They're but a few pages each - a light read to bring a smile to your face, then on to the next little foodie treat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951003</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewCon Artist|author=ClientsFromHell.net|title=Clients From HellFred Van Lente

|summary=Everyone who's worked as Comic-Cons are a freelancer has a story place of a client from hell - that person who asked wonder and sanctuary for something that was impossible, wanted it done yesterday for a fraction of the usual price, or is just plain angry about the work produced. The website [http://www.clientsfromhell.net ClientsFromHell.net] has collated a number of such stories over the yearsmany people, and has now published them as a when Comic book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0982473931</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Manu Joseph|title=Serious Men|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Ayyan Mani is a Dalitartist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, an untouchable, stuck in a flat in Mumbaihe's slums but hopinglooking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, somehowplus the chance of maybe, for a better future for just maybe reuniting with his sonex. Working at the Insitute of Theory and Research he uses all However, when his cunning and wiles rival is found dead, Mike is forced to stay ahead navigate every dark corner of the game amongst the Brahmin scientists. Does he have the intelligence, con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and nerves, intrusive fans to convince everyone that zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his soninnocence and, against all oddsin doing so, is may just unravel a dark secret behind a genius?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543085</amazonuk>legendary industry creator.

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John Saunders1473669588|title=The Vernham ChroniclesFalling Short|author=Lex Coulton

|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale Lex Coulton's debut novel is the little village of Vernham. Anyone who lives in a village will recognise it immediately, with its cobbled streets and Tudor buildings. There was some damage during the war (which might, or might not have been down to a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on his lake) but the gaps have been filled with some beautifulstory about mistakes, erfailures, mock Tudor buildings. Almost unique and nearly beautiful as the village is, it's not the star of The Vernham Chroniclesrelationships. The stars are the people who live in Vernham.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Martin Millar|title=The Good Fairies of New York|rating=4|genre=Fantasy|summary=In this fairytale of New Yorkmain protagonist, the Cornish fairy King's children are living in exileFrances Pilgrim, hiding in Central Park from is a nasty industrial revolution back home. They have friends from Ireland sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with themher best friend Jackson, a work colleague and all have is grappling with the ability to startle the local squirrelsincreasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. Elsewhere two innocent scallywag fairies fleeing Scotland have arrived, and adopted a human each. Heather has joined up with Dinnie, This relationship is complicated by the cityfact that Frances's worst busker, a fat, alcoholic and lonely fan of TV ads for phone sex, while Morag befriends Kerry, a dying kleptomaniac beauty, just as alone for different reasonsfather disappeared at sea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954205</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gervase Phinn1683690133|title=Twinkle, Twinkle, Little StarsMy Lady's Choosing|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

|summary=I spent many You are a lass of my teenage years reading James Herriottwenty-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's booksll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and I found that this collection of anecdotes and poems fired by Gervase Phinn had a real flavour of Herriot about itrogueish sense for adventure. Perhaps When it was just comes to suitors though, you'll have to make the settingultimate decision between witty, for Phinn was a school inspector in the Dales for many yearspretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, but I think he also has that knack of capturing a situationwholesome, rugged and a charactercaring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculousterrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. Here he collates stories from his other booksWith orphans, werewolves, some Christmassy long lost lovers and others notancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed betweenit's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141036435</amazonuk>

 [[Category:History]]{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Simon GarfieldStibbe_Xmas|title=Just My Type: A Book About FontsAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe

|summary=A quality typeface is a bit like a good referee at a football match in that you Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only really notice them if something has gone wrong. A referee is there have to facilitate think about the players turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the pitch, not to be the star of the show (though watching Match of the Day these past few weeks you'd often beg downstairs loo to differ). So it is with typefaces. A good type helps the readerdefrost overnight, enhances the flow and makes if that failed the viewing experience easy and simplehair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Well sort of.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683017</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bob Servant and Neil Forsyth|title=Bob Servant: Hero of Dundee|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=After [[Delete This at Your Peril: One ManNowadays it's Fearless Exchanges with the Internet Spammers by Bob Servant|bursting into public consciousness]] as the scourge of email spammers, Broughty Ferry's resident polymath Bob Servant has returned. This time, he expands upon the colourful life only hinted at in his previous oeuvre, Delete this at Your Peril. And what a life all having to make sure it has been. He steers us from his humble beginnings, his broken family and traumatic schooldays, through the rise and fall of his window cleaning empire, and his role in Dundee's brutal cheeseburger wars. Along the way, we witness his struggles with, respectively, women ('skirt'), his simpleton sidekick Frank, suitably free-range and the demon drink.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841589209</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=P K Munroe|title=You Can Stick It|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Literary merit? Absolutely none! Plot, characterisation and all organic – but not too organic that other stuff you usually talk about? Nope – there's none of that, either. Ah, so can go and visit it's non-fiction? Well, calling it ''fact'' would be stretching things a little and get too far... So, come on then. What ''is'' friendly with it?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007362188</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Axel Scheffler|title=How to Keep a Pet Squirrel|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Sowant to eat it. Christmas, how do you keep a pet squirrel? Wellthough, the simple answer is that you don't. They're wild animals and not at all suitable for keeping in captivity, but accepted thinking didn't always run that way. It was whilst he was dipping into ''The Children's Encyclopaedia'' of 1910 that Axel Scheffler came across course also a small but indispensible guide to obtaining and caring for your pet squirrel. His inventive mind came up with these beautiful illustrations to accompany the text and if you're looking for an amusing gift for an animal-loving adult then this book could well be the answertime of great boons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571255981</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=PJ Vanston|title=Crump|rating=3|genre=General Fiction|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first day as cash in hand for a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University - an ex-polytechnic. It's the happiest day lot of his lifeplump people who can hire red suits and beards, and he can't wait to see all that it holds, and make was always a difference to godsend for postmen with all his students. And then it hits him: the relentless pettiness of authority figures, the students who can't string two sentences together, the lowering of standards thank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in search of higher test scores, so more money from foreign studentslong-hand as a child, and political correctness gone (as I believe for the saying goes) mad.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Lennon|title=In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=During the height makers of BeatlemaniaMeltis Newberry Fruits – well, John Lennon used to doodle or write short poems or nonsense stories to pass the time (did they even try and there must have been a good deal of sell them any other time to pass away on tour, if only waiting for screaming fans to leave them alone and go back home). Some of them were seen by Tom Maschler, literary editor at Jonathan Cape, who encouraged him to produce more. The results were published in two very successful short books in 1964 and 1965.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099530422</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Lindsay|title=Emails From An Asshole|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Some classified ads are crying out for trolling. John Lindsay replies to them, spins them a yarn, and strings them along for as long as possible. Sometimes the advert is fairly innocuous and he emails them anyway. These are emails from an asshole, after all.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402778279</amazonuk>year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=L C TylerDoescher_Will|title=The Herring In The LibraryWilliam Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=A J Jacobs has long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a reputation for setting himself onerous tasksseries of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. His first book was about reading You may or may not have noticed the entire Encyclopedia Britannica; cinematic version of his second detailed a year spent according 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 Biblical preceptsfamily til it hurts. In My Experimental Life And if you need further encouragement, he recounts nine briefer episodes don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of living outside his comfort zone.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547422</amazonuk>Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…

{{newreview|author=Seth Grahame-Smith|title=Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary='Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.' That quote, on the Statue of Liberty, was probably not designed with the inclusion of vampires in mind. But by some means or another North America is rife with the things – hiding in plain sight, as the older ones can bear sunlight, with the help of darkened glasses. It might just come down to one eager young man to rid his new country of such things, Move on his way to something he’s a bit more known for.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849014086</amazonuk>}}[[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]