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[[Category:Humour|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]] __NOTOC__{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Dedicated to...: The Forgotten Friendships, Hidden Stories and Lost Loves found in Second-hand BooksDean Koontz|authortitle=W B GooderhamThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=EntertainmentParanormal|summary=I have found many strange and unusual things in second-hand bookshopsBenny is having a terrifically bad day. I have done one or two strange He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and unusual things in them as well, but that's a different storyhis house gets trashed. Twice now I have managed to find Oh, and someone has delivered a secondreally weird, disturbing coffin-hand booksized object to his home, completely signed and dedicated by it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the authorthing that has trashed his house! The thing is, yet discarded by Benny is the recipient, and have been able very last person to present the author with the edition at hand and get it re-dedicateddeserve all this bad luck. (If I'm not mistaken, the discarders were He is a neighbouring babysitter, and a teacher of the author's childrennice person. A really nice person.) I'll admit So fortunately for Benny it turns out that's rarefiedthe delivery to his house is a new friend, howevera bad weather friend called Spike, and on the whole the scribble you find in second-hand books who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from the person who bought it, and gave it as nefarious forces for being a gift, not the good person who wrote it. But even soSpike is going to take care of Benny, the dedication of the donor can be immensely fascinating and open to all kinds will certainly take care of interpretationBenny's enemies, if he, Benny, as these examples show perfectly clearand Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0593072847</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Wallace and Gromit - The Complete Newspaper Strips - Volume 1Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Nick ParkTim Benson
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
|summary=One man Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to seem more and his dog never had such a famous theme tune. more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain'One Man and His Dogs Best Political Cartoons of 2022'' had a piddly little melody, but the triumphal, old-fashioned and charming parp of the theme tune to Wallace and Gromit has resounded out for decades now. While Aardman moved away from Sharp eyes will have noted that we're not yet through the near-silent classic animations year: the series first gave us, the plasticine creations mutated into incredibly popular characters, which included a daily strip in the nation's biggest-selling tabloidcartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Here is the first lump of them, 312 daily doses of tomfoolery, collected for everyone Who can imagine what there will be to enjoy. Even if you thought come in the franchise had travelled its course a long time ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760326</amazonuk>2023 edition?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=Demon DentistStaggering Hubris|author=David WalliamsJosh Berry
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersHumour|summary=He ought Members of Parliament like us to have realised she was evil from believe that the start. After allcountry is run by politicians, how many dentists do headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you know who love — yes, really love — rotten teeth? Brown, yellow, cracked, full are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the government. We are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of cavities, diseasedRafe Hubris, covered in plaque . . . you get the picture. And for Alfie, a boy man who loathes dentists from was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the bottom end of his heart and whose teeth are so rotten they ought to be a tourist attraction, danger definitely looms2020. You can practically hear might not know the background music when name now but he will certainly be the two meet at a school assembly: dum-dum-DUUUUMMMMMM!!!!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007453566</amazonuk>man to watch.
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571365884|title=Peas My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Georgia Pritchett|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and Queuesfar between. On a visit to a therapist, as an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of a Life: The Minefield of Modern MannersAdventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sandi ToksvigJohn Boyne|title=The Echo Chamber
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyGeneral Fiction|summary=Dear Sandi  You are my all time favourite celebrity lesbadyke, and Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the reasons I’m so very excited to be heading to Denmark this coming weekend (are all people there like you? Please say yes)few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". For He starts this alonebook a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, I had to get my mitts on your latest offeringbut then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining They have three children, who are a book on manners previouslysad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, having always thought mine were quite oka girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, but I knew your take on keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the matter would be suitably hilarious world's homeless with out-of-date food, and well worth a readfit young lad doing the gay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life, and you have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. I was not wrongWhat suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1781250324</amazonuk>0857526219
}}
 {{newreview|title=Deaf at Spiral Park|author=Kieran Devaney|rating=2.5|genre=Humour|summary=''Deaf at Spiral Park'' is a bizarre take on the philosophy of what it is to be human, attempted through the portrayal of a bear who shaves of his fur to appear as a human. The story combines philosophy with comedy using a range of stock characters including a clown and a farmer to show the world of the bear and to consider how his humanity may be more than that of the humans themselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773169</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Very British Problems: Making Life Awkward for Ourselves, One Rainy Day at a TimeFrontpage|author=Rob Temple|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=Are you compelled to apologise multiple times a day – even when you are not at fault, or even to inanimate objects? Would you subject yourself to great inconvenience rather than confront someone who is sitting in your reserved seat on a train? Have you been known to commit desperate acts in the search for your next cup of tea? If so, you may be suffering from Very British Problems.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751552593</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewStephen Clarke|title=The Reluctant Cannibals|author=Ian FlitcroftSpy Who Inspired Me
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Over This is a truffled turkey at their college Christmas dinner in 1964spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a group of Oxford dons decide to join their love of fine food man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and drink with their mutual appreciation who works for nineteenth-century French philosopher of food Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (author of the 1825 classic ''La Physiologie du Goût''secret service, or ''The Physiology but in the planning side of Taste'') by forming things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a secret dining society. Together these fellows of St Jerome's College form female spy called Margaux, and the Shadow Faculty of Gastronomic Sciencepair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a group that will continue meeting desperate mission to share new unearth traitors in the resistance network, and daring culinary experiences until Oxford agrees Lemming desperately trying to set keep up a proper gastronomic school of its own.with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909593591</amazonuk>2952163855
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter Stjernstrom Afonso Cruz and Rod Bradbury Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Best Book in the WorldKokoschka's Doll|rating=2.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=Titus Jensen may not have written many great novels for Well, this looked very much like a while (if ever) but his festival readings book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of others' works are renownedit. WhyI found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, his rendition of ''The Diseases of a chapter whose number was in the Swedish Monarchs from Gustavas Vasa to Gustav V'' has been compared favourably to his offerings from ''Handbook for Volvo 245''. However20,000s, letters used as narrative form, one drunken night he and romantic poet Eddie X agree that their fame so on . It intrigued with the festival circuit would be insignificant by comparison if they could write the best book subterranean voice a man hears in the world; a combination wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of all genresit mentioned, appealing to all tastes and making all the best seller categoriestoo. They start work on it But you've seen the next day butstar rating that comes with this review, rather than collaborateand can tell that if love was on these pages, each wants the lone gloryit was not actually caused by them. The race (or should that be battleSo what happened?) to the publishing date is on!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1843914808</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08KKQ85FN
|title=But Never For Lunch
|author=Sandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.''
{{newreviewYou don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|title=The Complete Sorting the Priorities]] and Utter History of we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the World According time has come for HE to Samuel Stewart Aged 9|author=Sarah Burton|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=''Nobody knows where history ends'', according retires and for Sandra Aragona to the cover illustration become The Wife of this little book, but if anybody knows what it involves it is nine year old Samuel StewartFormer Ambassador... He captivatingly summarises it all on these pages, bringing us They have left The Career and settled in ninety minutes from the times cavemen didnRome. Well 't write history down as they didnsettled't realise it had started yetrather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, up to the time has no intention of his birth. That of course is a slowing down any time that passed most of us by, but heralded the arrival of a very individualsoon, entertaining despite being sixteen and amusing voicedeaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721838</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Robinson OBEB08GFSK2WZ|title=Freedom from Bosses ForeverThe Karma Trap|author=Lisette Boyd
|rating=4
|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=When we first meet Canadian businesswoman Leonora Soculitherz (don't struggle George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - itand single. She's pronounced 'so cool it hurts') not had sex for eight months and she's on her way from Manchester Airport to Scarborough, stuck in the home karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her agent, Tony Robinson OBEand she has a real talent for attracting drama. You get Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the measure bottom of the woman straight away as stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she lets was in it and left her irritation show about the problems you find in , stark naked, staring at the First Class carriage on the trainpervy postman. (She is ''so'' right - I was once grateful only has to spend the journey perched on a luggage rack.) Her mission is a piece of investigative journalism thattake her mother's going dog out for a walk for her to introduce end up with dog poo spattered across her to some very superior people as she searches for information about why people in small businesses don't get face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the help they needoffice.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CE5BKKI</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Paul MerrillDavid C Mason|title=Muddle Your Way Through Being a Grandparent: How to Fool People into Thinking YouPandora're a Competent Granny or Grandpas Gardener
|rating=3
|genre=HumourCrime|summary=It seems to be accepted wisdom that being a grandparent John Cranston is a great deal easier than being gardener, although what he did before he became a parentgardener, he claims, is classified. The trials and tribulations have largely been ignored by wrinklies grateful for contact with their children and grandchildren - and by the children who are grateful (or otherwise) for free childcare - or so Paul Merrill would have us believe. Published for Grandparents' Day his book takes us through That is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a series of scientifically-questionable quizzescriminal / spy / terrorist plot, flow charts (that's often of money, by where only he can save the way - and you can guess which way it's flowing), checklists and advice from celebrities, some of whom you might even have heard ofday.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909609404</amazonuk>0956180523
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan CoeJester_Forever|title=Expo 58|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=It's 1958 and Thomas Foley works for the British Government Central Office of Information but feels an outsider. He's ex-grammar school rather than establishment public school and his mother is Belgian (that's foreign you know) so there are definite impediments to his promotion. Thomas is therefore thrilled when chosen to oversee one of Britain's exhibits at the big, exciting international Expo in Belgium. So bring on the experience… and Forever After: a little brush with espionage… and some beautiful women. (Sylvia is a little less thrilled, being his wife and all.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670923710</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Roll|title=Save Our Shop|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=William Bridge was a talented artist - just a little too talented, as it turned out because the sub-editor could see ''exactly'' who the cartoon character was meant to be and that was why he ceased to be a journalist rather suddenly. He wasn't ''exactly'' spoiled for choice when it came to his next employment and that was how he found himself helping his Uncle Albert in the village shop, but there were pluses and minuses about the job. The biggest plus was that he met and fell in love with Sally, who was also helping Uncle Albert. The first of the minuses was that there was more than a little opposition to the match from Sally's stepmother, the redoubtable Lady Courtney. And then there was the armed robbery, the arrival of Albert's brother Neil who for urgent and perfectly valid reasons needed to be known as Aunt Isabel, the American security expert and his daughter whose expertise was in an entirely different area and some dodgy dealings about the future of the shop. No real problems there, then.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291387382</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Straight White Maledark comedy|author=John NivenDavid Jester
|rating=4
|genre=HumourHorror|summary=In Kill Your Friends, John Niven delivered Michael Holland is a scathing cocky and hugely entertaining satire on brash young man who dies and gets made the music industryoffer of his lifetime; immortality. In Straight White Male he's turned We follow Michael, a grim reaper and his attention to Hollywood friends, Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and academia Naff (a stoner in the records department) as they grapple with similarly impressive resultstheir long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022861</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Unfaithfully Yours1683691172|authortitle=Nigel Williams|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=When Nigel Williams first really burst on to the best-seller list, a couple of decades ago, it was with a book set in Wimbledon that really quite tickled a younger me – and my mother. But then he produced two more in the same series, and we soon decided he was a bit of a one-trick pony, and could never be sure how much of the trilogy we'd read, or be too eager to read more. Flash forward, and Williams has certainly branched out – his setting this time is Putney. Wimbledon Common is now Putney Heath, and so on. But here he provides an epistolatory novel – and if thereWilliam Shakespeare's one kind of novel to make me prick up my ears it is one built from letters. It is the blatant two-and-fro timing of the narrative, and the succinctness that characters are formed with, that strike me as obvious benefits of such a book – and Unfaithfully Yours has those and many more.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472106741</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMuch Ado About Mean Girls|author=Jonathan Evison|title=The Revised Fundamentals of CaregivingIan Doescher|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary= Ben hasn't worked for a while and so, deciding on a career change, trains to become a caregiver. His first client is Trev, a 20 year old Duchene Muscular Dystrophy sufferer who hasn't the sunniest of dispositions. In fact Trev is angry, self-centred and goes through caregivers like a knife through milk. However, Ben, needing a job, holds on tight and tries to encourage Trev to live a little. Eventually Trev complies and dictates a way forward: a road trip. A road trip with a housebound, ill, angry person is not what Ben had in mind at all. Meanwhile it gradually becomes clear to us that Trev isn't the only one who has to learn to live a little differently2.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851751</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Krister Jones|title=The Satanic Diaries|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=We travel with Satan through a morose time in his lengthy existence. His wife has divorced him and his Chief of Security (Himmler) seems to be going even madder. To top it off, his therapist is insisting that his anger issues need to be dealt with and is forcing him to keep a diary. Following a disastrous holiday and an even worse attempt to get back into dating, he takes the diary with him as he goes on the lam in disguise and lives for a while paycheck to paycheck as a security guard for a cash and carry.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909224340</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Graeme Simsion|title=The Rosie Project|rating=5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Australian Professor of Genetics Don Tillman is passably good lookingA long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, successful and tallthe marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. If he were an animal heSo much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and behave with Shakespearean stage directions – that the producers tried again, with [[William Shakespeare'd be highly sought after for breeding purposess Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to the Future]] no less. Unfortunately he's human and although popular (well… he has two friends anyway) he can't get a second date… from anyone… at allAnd that worked. Being But simultaneously they put a scientist he sets real test out on a logical quest for a mate. The Wife Project begins and seems to be progressing… until RosieA film I can't even really remember seeing was transcribed into the original Elizabethan lingo.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718178122</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jami Attenberg|title=The Middlesteins|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Edie Middlestein almost has A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the American dream within her grasp. She trained as a lawyerbrand new, has a husbandyet oh so ancient, a daughter who followed her professional footsteps and a son married to an ambitious wife who provided him with two high-achieving childrendressing. There are just two flies in Here was the ointment preventing the dream's arrival: 1. Edie is so morbidly obese that she has true challenge – would I manage to undergo surgery; and 2. enjoy this is , based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the moment her husband chooses to leave her. Apart from that…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689325</amazonuk>game away…
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William Nicolson168369094X|title=The Romantic Economist: A Story of Love and Market Forces|rating=4|genre=Autobiography|summary=William Nicolson was a student - well a student of economics, to be accurate. He had an uncanny knack of losing girlfriends far too quickly, the last one having departed in a personal best time of six weeks. Actually I don't think that was too bad - IShakespeare've encountered a lot of men who only ever managed about thirty minutes - but it worried Will and he considered applying what he had learned as an economist s Get Thee Back to his relationships with the fair sex. Girls were something of a mystery to him but he was sure that if he used his ability to reduce a complex world to a set of rational principles then he should be on to a winner. Or two.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721021</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFuture!|author=Sir Compton Mackenzie|title=Whisky GaloreIan Doescher
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=The inhabitants A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Great Todday Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and neighbouring Little Todday enjoy embrocation provided by styles in such a tot or two of whiskyclever way they seemed perfectly suited. Unfortunately this is war time. To date It was then duly repeated for all the sacrifices other films in the Hebrides have included their young men main Star Wars cycle, and a token black-out (the harbour lights remain on so there seems little point) but more follows. The water of life itself is becoming scarcer and theyclearly someone're approaching Lent. The timing is unfortunate as they don't exactly give it up s buffing their quills ready for LentEpisode Nine, but drink extra as Shrove Tuesday approaches in the spirit title of which became public knowledge the seasonday before I write. SoIn the hiatus, however, as supplies dwindle the effort has been made to extinctionsee if the same shtick works with other texts, imagine their surprise when a ship containing practically a million bottles of it en route and to America founders off the coastriff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. The community launch a covert armyAnd could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-like operation seeming than Back to liberate the alcohol fightingFuture, planning to outwit not the Germans but the islands' Home Guardwith its tales of time travel, bullying, HM Customs and Excise and an inept British Intelligence officer. Easy thenparent/child strife like no other? Well, an easier task than that which local headmaster George Campbell has. He wants to get married but his mum won't let him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270925</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kevin Smith1473669065|title=Jammy DodgerQueenie Malone's Paradise Hotel|author=Ruth Hogan
|rating=5
|genre=Humour
|summary=ItTilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's 1980s Belfast and Artie McCann has it sortedlife after her death. Having left uni with a literature degreeWhilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a love of poetry haven for eccentrics and no real urge for hard workmisfits. A place where people can be themselves, he and his mate Oliver discover the joy let go of Art Council grantsthoughts that torment them elsewhere. All they need to do is establish Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a literary magazine and bring out an issue (very) occasionallychild, from this place of wonder. This frees them up for reliving With the best bits help of their former student lifestyle Queenie Malone, caring, and discussing the comparable merits of biscuit varieties. However things start gregarious, Tilda begins to go awry; not all pick apart the magazine's would-be contributors are happy (or unarmed) tricky and life begins to appear more unsettled. There is a way out but it will take some hard work, an actor uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and a remedy for that smell of rotting milkdistant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908737085</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Mike Henley1683690346|title=One Dog and His ManThe Con Artist|author=Fred Van Lente
|rating=4
|genre=Pets
|summary=Oberon is a Labrador with a pedigree as long as your arm and ''One Dog and His Man'' is his story about what it's like living with the man he generously refers to as ''The Boss'', about life in general and the ways of the world. Think of him as the canine equivalent of the parliamentary sketch writer, there to highlight the idiosyncrasies of human life and bring a gentle humour to situations which might otherwise be taken far too seriously. Before you wonder how this is possible - how a dog can write a book - let me remind you that dogs are very intelligent animals. After all, dogs and their humans might go to what are laughingly called 'dog training classes', but it's the humans who are trained, not the dogs.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1471660354</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=Rosy Sherry
|title=Boobadoodle
|rating=5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Boobadoodle is Comic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, and when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of doodlesmaybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. On boobs. Fifty doodles on a variety of boobsHowever, when his rival is found dead, some belonging Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the authorcon in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, some to her friends. Quite good friendsin doing so, I imaginemay just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846059267</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Stephen Clarke1473669588|title=The Merde FactorFalling Short|author=Lex Coulton
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
|summary=MeetLex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, if you haven't alreadyfailures, Paul Westand relationships. Before now we've had four chances to meet him and see his struggles The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with all things French – their cuisineher best friend Jackson, their language, their social life a work colleague and their bureaucracy – in order to run an English-styled tea-room in is grappling with the trendier side increasingly eccentric behaviour of Parisher mother. Four books then, and we might have expected him to have settled down into some form of success – were it not for This relationship is complicated by the fact this is a comedy series. But no, he seems to still be in France on borrowed time, on borrowed (or sub-let) land, and things are certainly not turning out tres belle for himthat Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780890338</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Drummond Moir (compiler)1683690133|title=Just My Typo: From 'sinning with the choir' to 'the large hardon colliderLady's Choosing|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
|summary=Warning: this book can seriously damage your reputation. Laughing in pubic will be the least You are a lass of your worriestwenty-eight. You will reach the stage where teas run down your face Plucky, penniless and you snort in politically incorrect fashion at Regency-era London the disfigured man who has always had a car race is on his face, or the one who could not to find the cash to buy a house and had suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to burrowlife as an eternal spinster. YouAlong your journey, you'll snigger at the charmless who become harmless but be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When it will be up comes to suitors though, you as 'll have to whether make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or not you agree that love is just a passing fannythe mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. Personally I felt very sorry for With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the man who studied and became way, it's clear this isn't going to be an unclear physicisteasy decision..|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444759973</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alan Tyers and BeachStibbe_Xmas|title=I Kick Therefore I am: The Little Book of Premier League WisdomAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5|genre=SportHumour|summary=Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You remember Ronnie Matthewsonly have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, donand if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it't you? Hes all having to make sure it's the footballer who celebrated his one suitably free-range and organic but not too organic that you can go and so farvisit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, only – international match by booing his way through the Faroe Islands' national anthemthough, then getting is of course also a red card for chatting up the lineswomantime of great boons. He still thinks he contributed well to a vital friendly, however. HeIt's the player whose career cash in piddling his way through continuously lesser hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and lesser clubs beards, it was always a godsend for far too long has only been matched in postmen with all the recent game by Steve Claridge. And still he's bucking the trend – he's the only author smart enough thank-you letters to realise aunties you saw twice a decade that fouryour parents made you write out in long-hundred page, ghost-written biogs are unnecessaryhand as a child, and as for he's crammed all his lifethe makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, career, philosophy did they even try and response to Twitter into an hour's read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408832763</amazonuk>sell them any other time of the year?
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Barry FantoniDoescher_Will|title=Harry Lipkin, Private Eye: The Oldest Detective in the World|rating=5|genre=Crime|summary=Harry Lipkin may not be the fittest private investigator in Florida once you take into account his indigestion and his arthritis, but at 87 heWilliam Shakespeare's definitely the oldest. Despite this he still manages to make a steady living, picking up the little jobs that don't interest the police and Norma Weinberger's problem comes into that category. Small but expensive knick-knacks seem to be going missing from around Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the house so could it be a light-fingered member of staff? The suspects (the gardener, the butler, the maid and the chauffer) each have their own story and motive, leaving Harry to get the four down to a short list of one. A task that's perhaps a little harder than it sounds.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846972272</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewSeventh|author=Alan Clark|title=Rory's BoysIan Doescher|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Rory BlaineA long time ago, grandson of Lady Sybil Blaine is gayin a galaxy far away, free, single and loving it, as he tells himself a dozen times a day. He may be middle aged but he's still got it. He's a partner in there was a successful advertising firm and soman called William Shakespeare, so over having been thrown out of home when he who was able to create a teenager; yesseries of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, over it – totally rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and completelyheroines most sturdy. When he hears You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his grandmother is dying, he decides itoriginal stage play for ''s time to remind her (and her considerable wealth) of his existence. The tardy Force Doth Awaken'', but intensive attention seems here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to pay off when he's left -before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the ancestral pilefamily til it hurts. But the stately home wasnAnd if you need further encouragement, don't left to him quite in forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the way that he thought. There are series is so many strings attached it resembles a marionette: if he wants popular we're on to keep it he must transform it into 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>part seven – surely making this over twice as good…
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{{newreview|author=Serge Bloch|title=You are What You Eat: And Other Mealtime Hazards|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=We last saw Serge Bloch's talents in Move on to [[Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey by Serge Bloch|Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's JourneyNewest LGBT Fiction Reviews]] when we saw lots of whimsical advice for the Boy and his dog, Roger. This 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 on his plate, because you might end up with a pea-pod mouth and a tomato tummy. Roger looks to have fared rather better - with a bone for a body. He at least seems to have a smile on his face!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1402797605</amazonuk>}}

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