Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]==Humour==__NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Kevin SmithDean Koontz|title=Jammy DodgerThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=HumourParanormal|summary=It's 1980s Belfast Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and Artie McCann has it sortedhis house gets trashed. Having left uni with Oh, and someone has delivered a literature degreereally weird, a love of poetry and no real urge for hard workdisturbing coffin-sized object to his home, he and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his mate Oliver discover house! The thing is, Benny is the joy of Art Council grantsvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. All they need to do He is establish a literary magazine and bring out an issue (very) occasionallynice person. A really nice person. This frees them up So fortunately for reliving the best bits of their former student lifestyle and discussing Benny it turns out that the comparable merits of biscuit varieties. However things start delivery to go awry; not all the magazine's would-be contributors are happy (or unarmed) and life begins his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to appear more unsettledhelp him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. There Spike is a way out but it going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take some hard workcare of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, an actor and Harper (a remedy for that smell of rotting milkwaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908737085</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mike Henley1529153050|title=One Dog and His ManBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson

|summary=Boobadoodle Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is a book coming to seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of doodles2022''. On boobs. Fifty doodles on a variety of boobs, some belonging to Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the year: the author, some cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to her friends31 August 2022. Quite good friends, I Who can imagine.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846059267</amazonuk>what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Clarke1785633074|title=The Merde FactorStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5

|summary=MeetMembers of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, if headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you havenwho are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime''t already, Paul Westmovers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. Before now we've had four chances We are in the privileged position of having access to meet him and see his struggles with all things French – their cuisinethe memoirs of Rafe Hubris, their language, their social life and their bureaucracy – in order to run an English-styled tea-room in the trendier side man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of Paris2020. Four books then, and we You might have expected him to have settled down into some form of success – were it not for know the fact this is a comedy series. But no, name now but he seems will certainly be the man to still be in France on borrowed time, on borrowed (or sub-let) land, and things are certainly not turning out tres belle for himwatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780890338</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Drummond Moir (compiler)0571365884|title=Just My TypoMess is a Bit of Life: From 'sinning with the choir' to 'the large hardon collider'Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett

|genre=HumourAutobiography|summary=Warning: this book can seriously damage your reputationGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. Laughing in pubic will be She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the least sort of your worries. You will reach the stage life where teas run down your face and you snort in politically incorrect fashion at the disfigured man who has always if she had a car on his face, or the one who could not find the cash nothing to buy a house worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and had to burrowfar between. You'll snigger at the charmless who become harmless but it will be up On a visit to you a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to whether or not you agree speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that love she should write it down and ''My Mess is just a passing fanny. Personally I felt very sorry for Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the man who studied and became an unclear physicistresult - or so we are given to believe. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444759973</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=Alan Tyers and Beach|title=I Kick Therefore I am: The Little Book of Premier League Wisdom|rating=4|genre=Sport|summary=You remember Ronnie Matthews, don't you? He's the footballer who celebrated his one – and so far, only – international match by booing his way through the Faroe Islands' national anthem, then getting a red card for chatting up the lineswoman. He still thinks he contributed well to a vital friendly, however. He's the player whose career in piddling his way through continuously lesser and lesser clubs for far too long has only been matched in the recent game by Steve Claridge. And still he's bucking the trend – he's the only author smart enough to realise that four-hundred page, ghost-written biogs are unnecessary, for he's crammed all his life, career, philosophy and response to Twitter into an hour's read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408832763</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Barry FantoniJohn Boyne|title=Harry Lipkin, Private Eye: The Oldest Detective in the WorldEcho Chamber

|genre=CrimeGeneral Fiction|summary=Harry Lipkin may not be Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the fittest private investigator in Florida once you take into account age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his indigestion and mistress tells him she's carrying his arthritischild, but at 87 he's definitely then his author wife is getting her kicks with the oldestUkrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. Despite this he still manages to make They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a steady livingvirtue-signalling, picking up keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the little jobs that don't interest the police and Norma Weinbergerworld's problem comes into that category. Small but expensive knickhomeless with out-of-knacks seem to be going missing from around date food, and a fit young lad doing the house so could it be gay hustle thing. Add in a light-fingered member of staff? The suspects (the gardenerfew other characters – therapists, lawyers, the butlerrandom transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, the maid and the chauffer) each you have their own story and motive, leaving Harry something that suggests an almost farcical approach to get the four down to a short list of onemodern world. A task that's perhaps a little harder than it soundsWhat suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846972272</amazonuk>0857526219

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Alan ClarkStephen Clarke|title=Rory's BoysThe Spy Who Inspired Me|rating=54|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=Rory Blaine, grandson of Lady Sybil Blaine This is gaya spoof spy story, free, single and loving it, as he tells himself a dozen times a daythat isn't about James Bond. He may be middle aged but he's still got itOr Ian Fleming. He's a partner in a successful advertising firm and so, so over having been thrown out of home when he was But it features a teenager; yesman called Ian Lemming, over it – totally who dresses well and completely. When he hears his grandmother is dying, he decides it's time to remind her (likes the ladies' and her considerable wealth) who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of his existence. The tardy but intensive attention seems to pay off when he's left things more than the ancestral pileactive service. But Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the stately home wasn't left to him quite pair end up stranded in the way that he thought. There are so many strings attached it resembles Normandy, with Margaux on a marionette: if he wants desperate mission to keep it he must transform it into unearth traitors in the first retirement home for elderly gay gentlemen resistance network, and he also seems Lemming desperately trying to have acquired his first resident, whether he's wanted or not.keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1906413886</amazonuk>2952163855

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Serge BlochAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=You are What You Eat: And Other Mealtime HazardsKokoschka's Doll|rating=32.5|genre=HumourLiterary Fiction|summary=We last saw Serge Bloch's talents in [[Reach for Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the Stars get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and Other Advice for Life's Journey by Serge Bloch|Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey]] when we saw lots flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of whimsical advice for the Boy and his dog, Rogerit. This I found things to potentially delight me each time he wants us 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 – a weird section in the middle on his platedarker stock paper, because you might end up with a pea-pod mouth chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and a tomato tummyso on. Roger looks to have fared rather better - It intrigued with the subterranean voice a bone for a bodyman hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. He at least seems to have a smile on his face!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402797605</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Reeve|title=Goblins|rating=5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=Poor Skarper. HeBut you's such a loser. In ve seen 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 star rating that he uses the goblins' bumwipe heaps for . . . reading. Yupcomes with this review, you heard me. Reading. The foolish hatchling works out and can tell that the black squiggles if love was on the mouldering heaps of soft and crinkly stuff left, long agothese pages, it was not actually caused 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 them. So what they mean. Silly, ehhappened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1407115278</amazonuk>1529402697

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Etgar KeretB08KKQ85FN|title=Suddenly, a Knock on the Door But Never For Lunch|author=Sandra Aragona

|summary=In ''If a woman approaching the opening, titular story, Keret is forced by several people menopause can be likened to create, and altera Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a short short story. It's a plain metaphor for pampered peacock about to be released into the history company of Israelcarrion crows or, but it proves that this modern Scheherazade is not too far removed geographically from the original. And what follows are probably more to the sort of short, tantalising, open-endedpoint, rough-round-the-edges and surreal results of being compelled about to carry on telling tall tales on a nightly basis.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0701186674</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Nicky Harlow|title=Amelia and discover the Virgin|rating=5|genre=Humour|summary=Amelia is 13 years old and lives with her mother, brother and extended family in 1980s Liverpool. Con, her great-uncle, is a psychiatrist with prestigious patients and a bit real world of a drink problem, Great-Aunt Edith is a devout Catholic with an inclination towards eccentricity bus timetables and her brother, Julian, is a junkypaying his own gas bills. Amelia's mother tries to hold everyone together but becomes slightly distracted when she inherits a convent in Ireland, complete with nuns. Amelia has her own problems, though. She sees visions of the Goddess Irena and is pregnant with the next Messiah. (A girl this time as the original male Messiah didn't have much luck.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095600539X</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Sue Townsend|title=You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Growing Pains of Adrian MoleAmbassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=The country might Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be at war over moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Falklands Italian Government but life is hardly straight-forward in the Mole household. Adrian's parents are back together after both had disastrous affairs time has come for HE to retires and it's not long before Adrian is shocked for Sandra Aragona to learn that his mother is pregnantbecome The Wife of Former Ambassador. He's equally shocked to see his father helping Doreen (a.k.a They have left The Career and settled in Rome. the Well 'stick insectsettled') along a path which isn't particularly slippyrather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, although he does notice that she seems to have put on quite a bit has no intention of weight. Pandora Braithwaite is as fickle, but adorableslowing down any time soon, as ever despite being sixteen and Adrian's hormones are still playing hop-scotch with his braindeaf. So, what's new?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046430</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=John NivenB08GFSK2WZ|title=The Second ComingKarma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd

|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=God has come back from a holiday George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and has some catching up to dosingle. What’s been happening on Earth She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the last couple karma trap: an awful lot of hundred years? The realisation hits him hard... it makes him sick in factbad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. So what’s 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 answer? To quote shower fell through the religious clichéroof whilst she was in it and left her, stark naked, Jesus isstaring at the pervy postman. After She only has to take her mother's dog out for a board meeting 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 senior saintsoffice.}} {{Frontpage|author=David C Mason|title=Pandora's Gardener|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary= John Cranston is a gardener, God decides that his son must although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classified. That is just as well because he is about to be torn away from jamming with Hendrix to go back to the streets of the world to remind the sinners of caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the wayday.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535521</amazonuk>0956180523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Sue TownsendJester_Forever|title=The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Adrian Mole was just three months away from his fourteenth birthday when he began writing his diary on New Year's Day. He's just on the edge of true adolescence - pimples are appearing as is Forever After: a little bit of interest in the opposite sex. He's thinking about what he might like to do ''eventually'', but his first major challenge is the breakdown of his parents' marriage. He writes with a wonderful mixture of ''knowingness'' and innocence and usually manages to get things just ever-so-slightly wrong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046422</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewdark comedy|author=Bruce Robinson|title=The Rum Diary - A Screenplay|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Kemp has lied his way onto a failing newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rica, as the only candidate for the job, and in a semi-comatose state induced by too many miniatures from the hotel minibar, stumbles into a conspiracy of epic proportions, via classic bar room brawls and nightclub mayhem. On the way he (almost) writes horoscopes and bowling championship stories, meets the fantastically erotic girlfriend of the evil businessman, and teams up with a proto-Nazi out of his mind on a cocktail of hootch and LSD, and a photographer side kick. 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>}} {{newreview|author=Francesca Simon|title=Horrid Henry's A - Z of Everything HorridDavid Jester

|genre=Confident ReadersHorror|summary=Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry Michael Holland is a very popular little boy, although you might have a different opinion if you actually had to put up with his antics yourself. A slightly modernised embodiment of 'slugs cocky and snails brash young man who dies and puppy dogs' tails' concept of boyhood, Henry is naughtiness personified, combining irreverence for authority with a huge dose of gross-out crude humour that really appeals to gets made the target readership offer of early primary school childrenhis lifetime; immortality. Add We follow Michael, a somewhat nostalgicgrim reaper and his friends, timeless feel, trademark alliterations, subtle Chip (and not so subtlea stoner tooth fairy) digs at family dynamics, sibling rivalry and particularly at modern middle-class manners and sensibilities and you have Naff (a winning character stoner in the records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a base for a very successful edutainment franchiseclean surface to sit on in their flat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002260</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeremy Clarke1683691172|title=Low LifeWilliam Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls|author=Ian Doescher|rating=32.5

|summary=I'm not A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a Spectator reader perfectly suitable one. So much so – indeed other than seeing on so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the shelves Iproducers tried again, with [[William Shakespeare'm ashamed s Get Thee Back to say that before starting the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to write this article I knew absolutely nothing about the magazine, its style, ethos or readershipFuture]] no less. Having (obviously) done the obligatory websearch I know understand And that being its editor is considered worked. But simultaneously they put a reasonable a route to success in real test out. A film I can't even really remember seeing was transcribed into the Conservative Party or other public office on a right-wing ticketoriginal Elizabethan lingo. A sister publication to The Daily Telegraphcult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, it is quoted as being Atlanticistyet oh so ancient, usually supportive of Israel, and Eurosceptic in outlookdressing. This makes me utterly unsuitable as a candidate Here was the true challenge – would I manage to review Clarke's book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595511</amazonuk>enjoy this, based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the game away…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Guy Kennaway168369094X|title=Bird BrainWilliam Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!|author=Ian Doescher

|summary='It began for Basil ''Banger'' Peyton-Crumbe the day he died A long time ago, in a pheasant shooting incident'. If you were in any doubt as publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the nature 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 novel given other films in the cover jacket main Star Wars cycle, and the authorclearly someone's disclaimer to the effect that any similarity between the human characters and any real person is entirely coincidentalbuffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, 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 graphicswhich became public knowledge the day before I write. What's not to like? It takes a lot to make me laugh generallyIn the hiatus, but as I had an initial flick through this bookhowever, things looked promising. And I was also thinking that it's a pleasant change the effort has been made to see another location (if the same shtick works with other than perhaps the predictable Glasgow texts, and Edinburgh) get an airing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270097</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Harry Thompson|title=Tintin: Herge and His Creation|rating=3.5|genre=Biography|summary=I love Tintinto riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. I love his quiff and his innocence, his plusAnd could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-fours and his foreign adventuresseeming than Back to the Future, I love Snowy the dog and most of all I love Captain Haddock and the flamboyance with its tales of his blistering barnacles language. So I was thrilled to see a biography of the character and Hergétime travel, his creatorbullying, and I picked it up with enthusiasm. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546726<parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Joseph Heller1473669065|title=Catch 22Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel|author=Ruth Hogan

|genre=Literary FictionHumour|summary=At Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the heart remains of the very black comedy that is her mother''Catch 22'' is Captain Yossarians life after her death. Whilst there, a World War II American bombardier, who wants she returns to survive the warParadise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. Flying repeated combat missions is undermining his sanityA place where people can be themselves, and surely let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a mad man should be grounded? But if he asks to be groundedchild, he demonstrates an absolutely sane concern for his own safetyfrom this place of wonder. If he is saneWith the help of Queenie Malone, he can't be grounded. Thiscaring, his doctor tells himand gregarious, is catch 22Tilda begins to pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Giraldi1683690346|title=Busy MonstersThe Con Artist|author=Fred Van Lente

|summary=Somewhere along the line the word "vintage" stopped meaning simply the wine crop Comic-Cons are a place of any given yearwonder and sanctuary for many people, and started to mean 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 wine chance of a particularly good yearmaybe, 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 then intrusive fans to mean anything of zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a past year that was (is) of outstanding quality. Such is the mutability of languagelegendary industry creator. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529130</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler and Julia Donaldson1473669588|title=The Gloomster|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=We'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 damnation!" 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>}} {{newreviewFalling Short|author=Stella Gibbons|title=Conference at Cold Comfort FarmLex Coulton|rating=4.5

|summary=There are no Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. To those of you whoLex Coulton've not read Stella Gibbons' magnificient [[Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons|original s debut novel]], this is hardly likely to be a major shock - to the Gibbons fans amongst usstory about mistakes, failures, and relationships. The main protagonist, thoughFrances Pilgrim, this is chilling news indeed. And when RobertPoste's child Flora returns to the farm - now a modernised monstrosity full of members of the International Thinkers' Group – sixteen years after sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her original visitbest friend Jackson, the news get graver a work colleague and graver, as the cows Feckless, Graceless, Pointless, and Aimless have passed away of shame due to is grappling with the disgrace increasingly eccentric behaviour of the bull Big Businessher mother. With This relationship is complicated by the menfolk trying to make their fortunes abroad, and the women struggling, itfact that Frances's left to Flora to try to save the day once againfather disappeared at sea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528681</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stella Gibbons1683690133|title=Cold Comfort FarmMy Lady's Choosing|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris|rating=54

|summary=Orphaned at 19You are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, Flora Poste – a penniless and in Regency-era London sophisticate – the race is led on to retreat find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to deepest Sussex life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to live off her relatives the Starkadders at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farmsave you from a life alone, and fired by a mournful bunch who take her in as they couldn't refuse anything of 'Robert Posterogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to suitors though, you's child', but seem less than happy with having ll have to do so. As she meets make the preacher Amosultimate decision between witty, his over-sexed younger son Sethpretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, his flighty sister Elphinewholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the hugely memorable – if barely seen – Aunt Ada Doommad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the first person in literature to see way, it'something nasty in the woodsheds clear this isn' – she resolves t going to take the family in hand and solve their problemsbe an easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141441593</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Jose FarmerStibbe_Xmas|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Peerless PeerAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe

|summary=Wilt is stuck in a job he doesn't want Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – teaching once upon a subject he's not keen time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to people for whom he has no affection – at one of defrost overnight, and if that failed the new Universitieshair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. We used Nowadays it's all having to know them as technical colleges. But he make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can't afford go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to lose eat it because . Christmas, though, is of the expense of keeping the quads at an expensive school and course also a time of maintaining his snobbish wife, Evagreat boons. It's Eva though cash in hand for a lot of plump people who signs him up can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for a job in postmen with all the summer holidays – tutoring the stepthank-son of you letters to aunties you saw twice a local aristocrat decade that your parents made you write out in the hope of getting him into Cambridge – and particularly Porterhouse College. It's not long before Wilt discovers that the boy totes -hand as a gun child, and shoots at anything which moves as for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – or well, did they even doesn't move – try and that he's an idiot who would probably struggle to get a bus to Cambridge.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099493136</amazonuk>sell them any other time of the year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alain MabanckouDoescher_Will|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 sonWilliam Shakespeare'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>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Holt|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 Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part 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>}} {{newreviewSeventh|author=Charles Lamb|title=Great Food: A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig and Other EssaysIan Doescher|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>}} {{newreview|author=ClientsFromHell.net|title=Clients From Hell|rating=45

|summary=Everyone who's worked as A long time ago, in a freelancer has galaxy far away, there was a story of a client from hell - that person man called William Shakespeare, who asked for something that was impossible, wanted it done yesterday for able to create a fraction series of dramatic histories full of the usual pricemachinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or is just plain angry about may not have noticed the work produced. cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The website [http://www.clientsfromhell.net ClientsFromHell.net] has collated a number of such stories over Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the yearsactual script, and has now published them as a book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0982473931</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Manu Joseph|title=Serious Men|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Ayyan Mani is a Dalitcomplete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, an untouchable, stuck returning heroes from elsewhere in a flat in Mumbai's slums but hoping, somehowhis oeuvre, 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 people keeping it in the game amongst the Brahmin scientistsfamily til it hurts. Does he have the intelligenceAnd if you need further encouragement, and nerves, to convince everyone that don't forget his son, against all odds, audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is a genius?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543085</amazonuk>so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…

{{newreview|author=John Saunders|title=The Vernham Chronicles|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale 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 Move on his lake) but the gaps have been filled with some beautiful, er, mock Tudor buildings. Almost unique and nearly beautiful as the village is, it's not the star of The Vernham Chronicles. 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 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 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]]