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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]==Humour==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Drummond Moir (compiler)Dean Koontz|title=Just My Typo: From 'sinning with the choir' to 'the large hardon collider'The Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=HumourParanormal|summary=Warning: this book can seriously damage your reputationBenny is having a terrifically bad day. Laughing in pubic will be the least of your worriesHe loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. You will reach the stage where teas run down your face Oh, and you snort in politically incorrect fashion at the disfigured man who someone has always had delivered a car on really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his facehome, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the one who could not find thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the cash very last person to buy deserve all this bad luck. He is a house and had to burrownice person. A really nice person. You'll snigger at So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the charmless delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who become harmless but it will be up has been sent to you as to whether or not you agree that love help him since Benny is just clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a passing fannygood person. Personally I felt very sorry for the man 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 studied and became an unclear physicistexactly they are. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444759973</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Tyers and Beach1529153050|title=I Kick Therefore I am: The Little Book of Premier League WisdomBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson

|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 readershipis classified. Having (obviously) done the obligatory websearch I know understand that being its editor That is just as well because he is considered a reasonable a route about to success be caught up in the Conservative Party or other public office on a right-wing ticket. A sister publication to The Daily Telegraphcriminal / spy / terrorist plot, it is quoted as being Atlanticist, usually supportive of Israel, and Eurosceptic in outlook. This makes me utterly unsuitable as a candidate to review Clarke's bookwhere only he can save the day.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1907595511</amazonuk>0956180523

 {{newreview|author=Guy Kennaway|title=Bird Brain|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary='It began for Basil ''Banger'' Peyton-Crumbe the day 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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Neil ForsythJester_Forever|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 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 a pleasant change to see another location (other than perhaps the predictable Glasgow and Edinburgh) get an airing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270097</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Harry Thompson|title=TintinForever After: 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</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Joseph Heller|title=Catch 22|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=At the heart of the very black dark 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 sane, he can't be grounded. This, his doctor tells him, is catch 22.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=William Giraldi|title=Busy MonstersDavid 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 Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the word "vintage" stopped meaning simply marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So much so – so easily did the wine crop of any given yearplots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and started behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the producers tried again, with [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to mean the wine of a particularly good year, and then Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to mean anything of the Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a past year that real test out. A film I can't even really remember seeing was (is) of outstanding qualitytranscribed into the original Elizabethan lingo. Such is A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the mutability of languagebrand new, yet oh so ancient, dressing. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529130</amazonuk>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…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler and Julia Donaldson168369094X|title=The Gloomster|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=WeWilliam Shakespeare've all been there. Finding fault with everything around us, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant that gets us so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do is invoke "Hell and damnations Get Thee Back to the Future!" down on all creation - including, of course, ourselves. After all, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0571274242</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stella Gibbons|title=Conference at Cold Comfort FarmIan 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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Jose Farmer1683690346|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>}} {{newreviewCon Artist|author=Tom Sharpe|title=The Wilt InheritanceFred Van Lente|rating=3.54

|summary=Wilt is stuck in Comic-Cons are a job he doesn't want – teaching a subject place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's not keen on to people looking for whom he has no affection – at one both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of the new Universitiesmaybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. We used to know them as technical colleges. But he can't afford However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to lose it because navigate every dark corner of the expense of keeping the quads at an expensive school con in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and of maintaining intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his snobbish wifeinnocence and, Eva. It's Eva though who signs him up for a job in the summer holidays – tutoring the step-son of doing so, may just unravel 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 dark secret behind a bus to Cambridgelegendary industry creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099493136</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alain Mabanckou1473669588|title=Memoirs of a PorcupineFalling Short|author=Lex Coulton

|genre=Literary FictionHumour|summary=The protagonist of this Lex Coulton's debut novel is an ordinary Congolese porcupine until Papa Kibandi performs an ancient ritual involving a hallucinogenic cocktail called ''mayamvumbi''story about mistakes, failures, and transforms him into his son's harmful doublerelationships. The insecure younger Kibandi becomes more and more embittered as his life goes onmain protagonist, and sends his porcupine to 'eat' anybody he feels the least bit threatened byFrances Pilgrim, is a process whereby that person's life essence is sucked sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen outwith her best friend Jackson, killing them instantly. Over one hundred victims later a work colleague and following his master's death at is grappling with the hands increasingly eccentric behaviour of a vengeful baby, our narrator retires to the hollow of a baobab tree where he writes this confessionalher mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687675</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Holt|title=Life, Liberty and This relationship is complicated by 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 fact 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 itFrances's in). Stir in a bit of property developing, a thaumaturgical detective and an father disappeared at sea when she was five years 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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Steve Hely1683690133|title=How I Became a Famous NovelistMy Lady's Choosing|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

|genre=General FictionHumour|summary=With 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 uncompromising title like eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'How I Became ll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a Famous Novelistfiesty 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 clearly isn't intended going to be a subtle bookan easy decision. 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>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charles LambStibbe_Xmas|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>}} {{newreviewAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=ClientsFromHell.net|title=Clients From HellNina Stibbe|rating=4.5

|summary=Everyone who's worked as a freelancer has a story Christmas – the time of a client from hell - that person who asked traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for something that – once upon a time it was impossible, wanted leaving it done yesterday for a fraction of sat on the usual pricedownstairs loo to defrost overnight, or is just plain angry about and if that failed the work producedhair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. The website [http://wwwNowadays 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.clientsfromhellChristmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons.net ClientsFromHell.net] has collated It's cash in hand for a number lot of such stories over plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the yearsthank-you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and has now published as for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them as a book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0982473931</amazonuk>any other time of the year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Manu JosephDoescher_Will|title=Serious Men|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Ayyan Mani is a Dalit, an untouchable, stuck in a flat in MumbaiWilliam Shakespeare's slums but hoping, somehow, for a better future for his son. Working at the Insitute of Theory and Research he uses all his cunning and wiles to stay ahead of the game amongst the Brahmin scientists. Does he have Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the intelligence, and nerves, to convince everyone that his son, against all odds, is a genius?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543085</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSeventh|author=John Saunders|title=The Vernham ChroniclesIan Doescher|rating=4.5

|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale is the little village of Vernham. Anyone A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who lives in was able to create a village will recognise it immediatelyseries of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, with its cobbled streets rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and Tudor buildingsheroines most sturdy. There was some damage during the war (which might, You may or might may not have been down to a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on noticed the cinematic version of his lake) original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the gaps have been filled actual script, complete with some beautifulannoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, erreturning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, mock Tudor buildingsand people keeping it in the family til it hurts. Almost unique and nearly beautiful as the village isAnd if you need further encouragement, itdon's not the star t forget his audience only demanded three parts of The Vernham Chronicles. The stars are Henry VI – here the people who live in Vernham.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907499598</amazonuk>series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…

{{newreview|author=Martin Millar|title=The Good Fairies of New York|rating=4|genre=Fantasy|summary=In this fairytale of New York, the Cornish fairy King's children are living in exile, hiding in Central Park from a nasty industrial revolution back home. They have friends from Ireland with them, and all have the ability Move on to startle the local squirrels. Elsewhere two innocent scallywag fairies fleeing Scotland have arrived, and adopted a human each. Heather has joined up with Dinnie, the city'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 reasons.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954205</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Gervase Phinn|title=Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=I spent many of my teenage years reading James Herriot's books, and I found that this collection of anecdotes and poems by Gervase Phinn had a real flavour of Herriot about it. Perhaps it was just the setting, for Phinn was a school inspector in the Dales for many years, but I think he also has that knack of capturing a situation, and a character, and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculous. Here he collates stories from his other books, some Christmassy and others not, and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed between.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141036435</amazonuk>}}[[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]