Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Facebook Diet: 50 Funny Signs of Facebook Addiction and Ways to Unplug With a Digital DetoxDean Koontz|authortitle=Gemini AdamsThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=HumourParanormal|summary=Everywhere you look and question this book, it Benny is having a success – more or lessterrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Does it do what it purports to – show evidence of a Facebook addiction Oh, and provide someone has delivered a dietary way out? Yesreally weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, more and it's possible that whoever or lesswhatever was inside is the thing that has trashed his house! The thing is, Benny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. Does it engage with its combination of cartoon images and captions? He is a nice person. Yes, more or lessA really nice person. Does So fortunately for Benny it have some cult Internet pedigree turns out that the delivery to make it his house is a new friend, a hit gift book for the techie? Yesbad weather friend called Spike, more or less – it might not have who has been borne sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a webpage somewhere online, but the Kindle version was launched several months before the paperbackgood person. Is it then Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a worthwhile addition to your comedy book shelves? Yes – more or lesswaitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>095546563X</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1529153050|title=Sad MonstersBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Frank LesserTim Benson

|summary=If you thought you had it bad… Here Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is the chupacabra writing coming to the newspapers for better press – notices seem more and more like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. Sharp eyes will have noted that donwe't universally mention his goat-sucking habits before his chess-playing, dancing or debating record. Here is a banshee struggling with high school life, knowing re not yet through the year: the end of everyone that comes across her pathcartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Here is King Kong, being defended in court by a lawyer with a revelation Who can imagine what there will be to the jury about his bipolarity and how wrong it was to get his hopes up with a Broadway show come in a strange city. Did you honestly think Godzilla enjoyed the way his life ended up2023 edition?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0285642324</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Cameron1785633074|title=The BrinkmeyersStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5

|summary=Hymie BrinkmeyerMembers of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, New Yorker transplanted in headed by the Prime minister - the UK is 50 years old ''on a good dayprimus inter pares''. He lives with his wife Maggie and teenage children Kevin and Karrie. Hymie thinks Kevin is great, while given that, if he gets picked up for drug possession once more, Hymie will have to admit (that Kevin may have a problem. Karrie, a burgeoning poet, is also wonderful in her dad's eyes for those of you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is about to give birth to her second child outside a relationship. Itthat the ''prime''s her body so she has movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - who are the driving force behind the rightgovernment... hasn't she? Everything is fine and life is greatWe are in the privileged position of having access to the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. Ok, Kevin's plotting to kill his mother and Hymie's leather-clad secretary seems to have a crush on her boss and Hymie seems You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to have a lump somewhere delicately crucial but everything's just finewatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957319134</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Dedicated to...: The Forgotten Friendships, Hidden Stories and Lost Loves found in Second-hand Books0571365884|authortitle=W B Gooderham|rating=4.5|genre=Entertainment|summary=I have found many strange and unusual things in second-hand bookshops. I have done one or two strange and unusual things in them as well, but that's My Mess is a different story. Twice now I have managed to find a second-hand book, completely signed and dedicated by the author, yet discarded by the recipient, and have been able to present the author with the edition at hand and get it re-dedicated. (If I'm not mistaken, the discarders were a neighbouring babysitter, and a teacher Bit of the author's children.) I'll admit that's rarefied, however, and on the whole the scribble you find Life: Adventures in second-hand books is from the person who bought it, and gave it as a gift, not the person who wrote it. But even so, the dedication of the donor can be immensely fascinating and open to all kinds of interpretation, as these examples show perfectly clear.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0593072847</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Wallace and Gromit - The Complete Newspaper Strips - Volume 1Anxiety|author=Nick ParkGeorgia Pritchett

|genre=HumourAutobiography|summary=One man and his dog never had such Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a famous theme tunechild. ''One Man and His Dog'' had a piddly little melody, but She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the triumphal, old-fashioned and charming parp sort of the theme tune life where if she had nothing to Wallace worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and Gromit has resounded out for decades nowfar between. While Aardman moved away from the near-silent classic animations the series first gave us, the plasticine creations mutated into incredibly popular characters, which included On a visit to a daily strip in the nation's biggest-selling tabloid. Here is the first lump of themtherapist, 312 daily doses of tomfooleryas an adult, collected for everyone to enjoy. Even if you thought the franchise had travelled its course a long time ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760326</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Demon Dentist|author=David Walliams|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=He ought when she was completely unable to have realised speak about what was wrong with her it was suggested that she was evil from the start. After all, how many dentists do you know who love — yes, really love — rotten teeth? Brown, yellow, cracked, full should write it down and ''My Mess is a Bit of cavities, diseased, covered a Life: Adventures in plaque . . . you get Anxiety'' is the picture. And for Alfie, a boy who loathes dentists from the bottom of his heart and whose teeth result - or so we are so rotten they ought given to be a tourist attraction, danger definitely loomsbelieve. You can practically hear the background music when the two meet at a school assembly: dum-dum-DUUUUMMMMMM!!!!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007453566</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern MannersJohn Boyne|authortitle=Sandi ToksvigThe Echo Chamber

|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

|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

|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

You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador... They have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.}}{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ|title=The Complete and Utter History of the World According to Samuel Stewart Aged 9Karma Trap|author=Sarah BurtonLisette Boyd

|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's not had sex for eight months and she'Nobody knows where history ends'', according to s stuck in the cover illustration karma trap: an awful lot of this little book, but if anybody knows what it involves it bad luck is nine year old Samuel Stewartbeing visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. He captivatingly summarises it all on these pages, bringing us in ninety minutes Her life's chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the times cavemen didn't write history shower by putting something down as they didn't realise at the bottom of the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it had started yetand left her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. She only has to take her mother's dog out for a walk for her to end up to with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the time of his birthoffice.}} {{Frontpage|author=David C Mason|title=Pandora's Gardener|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary= John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classified. That of course is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a time that passed most of us bycriminal / spy / terrorist plot, but heralded where only he can save the arrival of a very individual, entertaining and amusing voiceday.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780721838</amazonuk>0956180523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Robinson OBEJester_Forever|title=Freedom from Bosses ForeverAfter: a dark comedy|author=David Jester

|genre=HumourHorror|summary=When we first meet Canadian businesswoman Leonora Soculitherz (don't struggle - it's pronounced 'so cool it hurts') she's on her way from Manchester Airport to Scarborough, Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the home offer of her agenthis lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, Tony Robinson OBE. You get the measure of the woman straight away as she lets her irritation show about the problems you find in the First Class carriage on the train. a grim reaper and his friends, Chip (She is ''so'' right - I was once grateful to spend the journey perched on a luggage rack.stoner tooth fairy) Her mission is and Naff (a piece of investigative journalism that's going to introduce her to some very superior people as she searches for information about why people stoner in small businesses don't get the help records department) as they needgrapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CE5BKKI</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul Merrill1683691172|title=Muddle Your Way Through Being a Grandparent: How to Fool People into Thinking YouWilliam Shakespeare're a Competent Granny or Grandpas Much Ado About Mean Girls|author=Ian Doescher|rating=32.5

|summary=It seems to be accepted wisdom that being A long time ago, in a grandparent is a great deal easier than being galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a parentperfectly suitable one. The trials So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and tribulations have largely been ignored by wrinklies grateful for contact behave with their children and grandchildren - and by Shakespearean stage directions – that 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 a series of scientifically-questionable quizzesproducers tried again, flow charts (thatwith [[William Shakespeare's often of money, Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to the way - and you Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can guess which way it's flowing)t even really remember seeing was transcribed into the original Elizabethan lingo. A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, checklists and advice from celebritiesyet oh so ancient, some of whom you might even have heard ofdressing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909609404</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=Jonathan Coe168369094X|title=Expo 58William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a clever way they seemed perfectly suited. Itwas then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's 1958 and Thomas Foley works buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the British Government Central Office title of Information but feels an outsider. He's ex-grammar school rather than establishment which became public school and his mother is Belgian (that's foreign you know) so there are definite impediments to his promotionknowledge the day before I write. Thomas is therefore thrilled when chosen In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to oversee one of Britain's exhibits at see if the bigsame shtick works with other texts, exciting international Expo and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in Belgiumiambs. So bring on And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the experience… and a little brush Future, with espionage… and some beautiful women. (Sylvia is a little less thrilledits tales of time travel, bullying, being his wife and all.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670923710<parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Roll1473669065|title=Save Our ShopQueenie Malone's Paradise Hotel|author=Ruth Hogan|rating=3.5

|summary=William Bridge was a talented artist - just a little too talentedTilda returns to Brighton, as it turned out because to tidy away the sub-editor could see remains of her mother''exactly'' who s life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the cartoon character was meant to be and that was why he ceased to be Paradise hotel, a journalist rather suddenly. He wasn't ''exactly'' spoiled haven for choice when it came to his next employment eccentrics and that was how he found himself helping his Uncle Albert in the village shopmisfits. A place where people can be themselves, but there were pluses and minuses about the job. The biggest plus was let go of thoughts that he met and fell in love with Sally, who was also helping Uncle Alberttorment them elsewhere. The first of the minuses was Little wonder that there was more than Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a little opposition to the match child, from Sally's stepmother, the redoubtable Lady Courtneythis place of wonder. And then there was With the armed robberyhelp of Queenie Malone, caring, the arrival of Albert's brother Neil who for urgent and perfectly valid reasons needed gregarious, Tilda begins to be known as Aunt Isabel, pick apart the American security expert tricky and his daughter whose expertise was in an entirely different area uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and some dodgy dealings about the future of the shop. No real problems there, thendistant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291387382</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1683690346|title=Straight White MaleThe Con Artist|author=John NivenFred Van Lente

|summary=In Kill Your FriendsComic-Cons are a place of wonder and sanctuary for many people, John Niven delivered a scathing and hugely entertaining satire on the music industry. In Straight White Male when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, he's turned looking for both that and sanctuary with other fans and creators, plus the chance of maybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. However, when his attention rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the con in order to Hollywood clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and academia with similarly impressive resultsintrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, in doing so, may just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434022861</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1473669588|title=Unfaithfully YoursFalling Short|author=Nigel WilliamsLex Coulton

|genre=General FictionHumour|summary=When Nigel Williams first really burst on to the best-seller listLex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, a couple of decades agofailures, it was with a book set in Wimbledon that really quite tickled a younger me – and my motherrelationships. But then he produced two more in the same seriesThe main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, and we soon decided he was is 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 sixth form English teacher who has certainly branched recently fallen out – his setting this time is Putney. Wimbledon Common is now Putney Heathwith her best friend Jackson, a work colleague and so on. But here he provides an epistolatory novel – and if there's one kind is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of novel to make me prick up my ears it is one built from lettersher mother. It This relationship is complicated by the blatant two-and-fro timing of the narrative, and the succinctness fact that characters are formed with, that strike me as obvious benefits of such a book – and Unfaithfully Yours has those and many moreFrances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472106741</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan Evison1683690133|title=The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving|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 isnMy Lady't the only one who has to learn to live a little differently.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851751</amazonuk>}} {{newreviews Choosing|author=Krister Jones|title=The Satanic DiariesKitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

|summary=We travel with Satan through You are a morose time in his lengthy existence. His wife has divorced him and his Chief lass of Security (Himmler) seems to be going even maddertwenty-eight. To top it offPlucky, his therapist is insisting that his anger issues need to be dealt with penniless and in Regency-era London the race is forcing him on to keep find a diarysuitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Following Along your journey, you'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a disastrous holiday fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, and an even worse attempt fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. When it comes to get back into datingsuitors though, he takes you'll have to make the diary with him as he goes on ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the lam in disguise mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and lives for a while paycheck ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to paycheck as a security guard for a cash and carrybe an easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909224340</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Graeme SimsionStibbe_Xmas|title=The Rosie ProjectAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=4.5

|summary=Australian Professor Christmas – the time of Genetics Don Tillman is passably good lookingtraditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a time it was leaving it sat on the downstairs loo to defrost overnight, successful and tallif that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. If he were an animal heNowadays it'd be highly sought after for breeding purposes. Unfortunately hes all having to make sure it's human suitably free-range and although popular (well… he has two friends anyway) he organic – but not too organic that you can't go and visit it, and get a second date… from anyone… at all. Being a scientist he sets out on a logical quest for a mate. The Wife Project begins and seems too friendly with it to want to be progressing… until Rosieeat it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718178122</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jami Attenberg|title=The Middlesteins|rating=5|genre=General Fiction|summary=Edie Middlestein almost has the American dream within her grasp. She trained as a lawyerChristmas, though, has is of course also a husband, time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a daughter lot of plump people who followed her professional footsteps can hire red suits and beards, it was always a son married to an ambitious wife who provided him godsend for postmen with two highall the thank-achieving children. There are just two flies you letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, and as for the ointment preventing the dream's arrival: 1. Edie is so morbidly obese that she has to undergo surgery; makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and 2. this is sell them any other time of the moment her husband chooses to leave her. Apart from that…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689325</amazonuk>year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=William NicolsonDoescher_Will|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, Shakespeare's the last one having departed in a personal best time of six weeks. Actually I don't think that was too bad - I'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 to his relationships with Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part 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>}} {{newreviewSeventh|author=Sir Compton Mackenzie|title=Whisky GaloreIan Doescher

|summary=The inhabitants A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of Great Todday machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and neighbouring Little Todday enjoy embrocation provided by a tot or two of whiskyheroines most sturdy. Unfortunately this is war time. To date the sacrifices in the Hebrides You may or may not have included their young men and a token black-out (noticed the harbour lights remain on so there seems little point) but more follows. The water cinematic version of life itself is becoming scarcer and theyhis original stage play for ''re approaching Lent. The timing is unfortunate as they donForce Doth Awaken''t exactly give it up for Lent, but drink extra as Shrove Tuesday approaches in here at last we get the spirit of the season. Soactual script, as supplies dwindle complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to extinction-before droids anew, imagine their surprise when a ship containing practically a million bottles of returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it en route to America founders off in the coastfamily til it hurts. The community launch a covert army-like operation to liberate the alcohol fightingAnd if you need further encouragement, planning to outwit not don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the Germans but the islandsseries is so popular we' Home Guard, HM Customs and Excise and an inept British Intelligence officer. Easy then? Well, an easier task than that which local headmaster George Campbell has. He wants re on to get married but his mum won't let him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270925</amazonuk>part seven – surely making this over twice as good…

{{newreview|author=Kevin Smith|title=Jammy Dodger|rating=5|genre=Humour|summary=It's 1980s Belfast and Artie McCann has it sorted. Having left uni with a literature degree, a love of poetry and no real urge for hard work, he and his mate Oliver discover the joy of Art Council grants. All they need to do is establish a literary magazine and bring out an issue (very) occasionally. This frees them up for reliving the best bits of their former student lifestyle and discussing the comparable merits of biscuit varieties. However things start to go awry; not all the magazine's would-be contributors are happy (or unarmed) and life begins to appear more unsettled. There is a way out but it will take some hard work, an actor and a remedy for that smell of rotting milk.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908737085</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mike Henley|title=One Dog and His Man|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 a book of doodles. On boobs. Fifty doodles Move on a variety of boobs, some belonging to the author, some to her friends. Quite good friends, I imagine.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846059267</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Stephen Clarke|title=The Merde Factor|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Meet, if you haven't already, Paul West. Before now we've had four chances to meet him and see his struggles with all things French – their cuisine, their language, their social life and their bureaucracy – in order to run an English-styled tea-room in the trendier side of Paris. Four books then, and we might have expected him to have settled down into some form of success – were it not for 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 him.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780890338</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Drummond Moir (compiler)|title=Just My Typo: From 'sinning with the choir' to 'the large hardon collider'|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=Warning: this book can seriously damage your reputation. Laughing in pubic will be the least of your worries. You will reach the stage where teas run down your face and you snort in politically incorrect fashion at the disfigured man who has always had a car on his face, or the one who could not find the cash to buy a house and had to burrow. You'll snigger at the charmless who become harmless but it will be up to you as to whether or not you agree that love is just a passing fanny. Personally I felt very sorry for the man who studied and became an unclear physicist. |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>}}[[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]