Difference between revisions of "Newest Humour Reviews"

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{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Horrid Henry's Biggest and Best Ever Joke Book - 3-in-1
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|author=Dean Koontz
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
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|title=The Bad Weather Friend
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Paranormal
|summary=It is easy to see why Horrid Henry remains such an enduring and well-liked children’s character. The adventures of this cheeky, irreverent schoolboy and a cast of extreme characters including Miss Battle Axe, The Demon Dinner Lady, Rabid Rebecca and arch-nemesis Moody Margaret are incredibly funny and a perfect way to encourage reluctant young readers to cultivate a love of reading. It is no surprise then, that the series has spawned a set of three spin-off joke books, which have now been combined to create a single volume: ''Horrid Henry’s Biggest and Best Ever Joke Book''.
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|summary=Benny is having a terrifically bad day.  He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever 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. He is a nice person.  A really nice personSo fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person.  Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144401174X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1662500491
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other Musings
 
|author=Ron Burgundy
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=''This book is a testament to my giant balls.'' But it's also a lot more.  The story we've never been able to discern from either of the ''Anchorman'' films is one of surprising hardship, unsurprising hardness, and great hair.  It's a rags-to-riches tale, as Ron Burgundy comes from a Hicksville town in the middle of the outskirts of somewhere the arse end of nowhere (a town perpetually on fire due to the accidents in the mines underneath) and struggles against all the odds – and many of the evens in the shape of women's legs – to get where he is today, thrusting himself and his news at us nightly.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780892241</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529153050
|title=Outraged of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle England
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|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022
|author=Nigel Cawthorne
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|author=Tim Benson
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=It was ever thus…  cyclists go too fast, without using a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one looks, and no public conveniences; people pretend to have qualifications and degrees they haven't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should be indoors already, cooking for their working menfolk…  It's a very clever idea to show exactly what is behind the 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' tag, and as a book to be shelved alongside those with the wackier letters sent to the ''Daily Telegraph'', these selections from the Royal town's press itself make a great eye-opener to the complaints and complainants of Kent.
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|summary=Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to 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 we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022.  Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1785633074
|author=Charlie Hill
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|title=Staggering Hubris
|title=Books
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|author=Josh Berry
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Neurology professor Lauren Furrows witnesses the sudden untimely
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|summary=Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of you who 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 Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.
death of two tourists in a bar while on holiday.  Birmingham bookshop owner
 
Richard Anger happens to be in the same bar so together our single holiday
 
makers decide to team up as an investigatory force to be reckoned with.
 
(Well, Lauren teams up for that.  Richard's reasons are more physical than
 
intellectual to begin with.)  The murders seem to emanate from author Gary
 
Sayles, a legend in his own mind and, apparently, fatal to read.  Elsewhere
 
hippy exhibitionists (in an over-18 way) Zeke and Pippa, are planning the
 
art installation to end all art installations and, are determined to make
 
Gary the centrepiece, whether he realises it or not.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251630</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Facebook Diet: 50 Funny Signs of Facebook Addiction and Ways to Unplug With a Digital Detox
 
|author=Gemini Adams
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Everywhere you look and question this book, it is a success – more or less.  Does it do what it purports to – show evidence of a Facebook addiction and provide a dietary way out? Yes, more or less.  Does it engage with its combination of cartoon images and captions?  Yes, more or lessDoes it have some cult Internet pedigree to make it a hit gift book for the techie?  Yes, more or less – it might not have been borne from a webpage somewhere online, but the Kindle version was launched several months before the paperback.  Is it then a worthwhile addition to your comedy book shelves?  Yes – more or less.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095546563X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0571365884
|title=Sad Monsters
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|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety
|author=Frank Lesser
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|author=Georgia Pritchett
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary=
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|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 far 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: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or so we are given to believe.
If you thought you had it bad… Here is the chupacabra writing to the newspapers for better press – notices that don'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 the end of everyone that comes across her path. Here is King Kong, being defended in court by a lawyer with a revelation to the jury about his bipolarity and how wrong it was to get his hopes up with a Broadway show in a strange city. Did you honestly think Godzilla enjoyed the way his life ended up?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0285642324</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Boyne
|author=Michael Cameron
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|title=The Echo Chamber
|title=The Brinkmeyers
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Humour
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|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Hymie Brinkmeyer, New Yorker transplanted in the UK is 50 years old ''on a good day''. 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 and is about to give birth to her second child outside a relationship.  It's her body so she has the right... hasn't she?  Everything is fine and life is great.  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 to have a lump somewhere delicately crucial but everything's just fine.
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|summary=Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit 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. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957319134</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0857526219
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Stephen Clarke
|title=Dedicated to...: The Forgotten Friendships, Hidden Stories and Lost Loves found in Second-hand Books
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|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me
|author=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 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 of the author's children.)  I'll admit that's rarefied, however, and on the whole the scribble you find 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 1
 
|author=Nick Park
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=One man and his dog never had such a famous theme tune.  ''One Man and His Dog'' 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 nowWhile Aardman moved away from the near-silent classic animations the series first gave us, the plasticine creations mutated into incredibly popular characters, which included a daily strip in the nation's biggest-selling tabloid.  Here is the first lump of them, 312 daily doses of tomfoolery, collected for everyone to enjoy.  Even if you thought the franchise had travelled its course a long time ago…
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|summary=This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James BondOr Ian Fleming.  But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active serviceLemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760326</amazonuk>
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|isbn=2952163855
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Demon Dentist
 
|author=David Walliams
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=He ought to have realised 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 of cavities, diseased, covered in plaque . . . you get the picture. And for Alfie, a boy who loathes dentists from the bottom of his heart and whose teeth are so rotten they ought to be a tourist attraction, danger definitely looms. You can practically hear the background music when the two meet at a school assembly: dum-dum-DUUUUMMMMMM!!!!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007453566</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
|title=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern Manners
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|title=Kokoschka's Doll
|author=Sandi Toksvig
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Politics and Society
 
|summary=Dear Sandi
 
 
 
You are my all time favourite celebrity lesbadyke, and 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). For this alone, I had to get my mitts on your latest offering. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining a book on manners previously, having always thought mine were quite ok, but I knew your take on the matter would be suitably hilarious and well worth a read. I was not wrong.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250324</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Deaf at Spiral Park
 
|author=Kieran Devaney
 
 
|rating=2.5
 
|rating=2.5
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|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.
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|summary=Well, this looked very much like a 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 it.  I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too.  But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773169</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529402697
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Very British Problems: Making Life Awkward for Ourselves, One Rainy Day at a Time
 
|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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08KKQ85FN
|title=The Reluctant Cannibals
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|title=But Never For Lunch
|author=Ian Flitcroft
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|author=Sandra Aragona
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Over a truffled turkey at their college Christmas dinner in 1964, a group of Oxford dons decide to join their love of fine food and drink with their mutual appreciation for nineteenth-century French philosopher of food Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (author of the 1825 classic ''La Physiologie du Goût'', or ''The Physiology of Taste'') by forming a secret dining society. Together these fellows of St Jerome's College form the Shadow Faculty of Gastronomic Science, a group that will continue meeting to share new and daring culinary experiences until Oxford agrees to set up a proper gastronomic school of its own.
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|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.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909593591</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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 RomeWell 'settled' rather overstates the situation and their dog, Beagle, has no intention of slowing down any time soon, despite being sixteen and deaf.
|author=Peter Stjernstrom and Rod Bradbury (translator)
 
|title=The Best Book in the World
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Titus Jensen may not have written many great novels for a while (if ever) but his festival readings of others' works are renowned.  Why, his rendition of ''The Diseases of the Swedish Monarchs from Gustavas Vasa to Gustav V'' has been compared favourably to his offerings from ''Handbook for Volvo 245''However, one drunken night he and romantic poet Eddie X agree that their fame on the festival circuit would be insignificant by comparison if they could write the best book in the world; a combination of all genres, appealing to all tastes and making all the best seller categoriesThey start work on it the next day but, rather than collaborate, each wants the lone glory. The race (or should that be battle?) to the publishing date is on!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843914808</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ
|title=The Complete and Utter History of the World According to Samuel Stewart Aged 9
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|title=The Karma Trap
|author=Sarah Burton
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|author=Lisette Boyd
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=''Nobody knows where history ends'', according to the cover illustration of this little book, but if anybody knows what it involves it is nine year old Samuel StewartHe captivatingly summarises it all on these pages, bringing us in ninety minutes from the times cavemen didn't write history down as they didn't realise it had started yet, up to the time of his birth.  That of course is a time that passed most of us by, but heralded the arrival of a very individual, entertaining and amusing voice.
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|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's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting dramaHer 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 shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and 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 with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721838</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|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 is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the day.  
 +
|isbn=0956180523
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Jester_Forever
|author=Tony Robinson OBE
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|title=Forever After: a dark comedy
|title=Freedom from Bosses Forever
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|author=David Jester
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Horror
|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, the home of her agent, 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.  (She is ''so'' right - I was once grateful to spend the journey perched on a luggage rack.) Her mission is a piece of investigative journalism that's going to introduce her to some very superior people as she searches for information about why people in small businesses don't get the help they need.
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|summary=Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, a grim reaper and his friends, Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in the records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CE5BKKI</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1683691172
|author=Paul Merrill
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|title=William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls
|title=Muddle Your Way Through Being a Grandparent: How to Fool People into Thinking You're a Competent Granny or Grandpa
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|author=Ian Doescher
|rating=3
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|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=It seems to be accepted wisdom that being a grandparent is a great deal easier than being a parent. 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 a series of scientifically-questionable quizzes, flow charts (that's often of money, by the way - and you can guess which way it's flowing), checklists and advice from celebrities, some of whom you might even have heard of.
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|summary=A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So 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's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to the Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can'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, yet oh so ancient, dressing. 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909609404</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=168369094X
|author=Jonathan Coe
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|title=William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!
|title=Expo 58
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|author=Ian Doescher
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|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 promotionThomas is therefore thrilled when chosen to oversee one of Britain's exhibits at the big, exciting international Expo in BelgiumSo bring on the experience… and a little brush with espionage… and some beautiful women.  (Sylvia is a little less thrilled, being his wife and all.)
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|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.  It was then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I writeIn the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambsAnd could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/child strife like no other?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670923710</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1473669065
|author=Michael Roll
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|title=Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel
|title=Save Our Shop
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|author=Ruth Hogan
|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|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.
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|summary=Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, from this place of wonder. With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1291387382</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1683690346
|title=Straight White Male
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|title=The Con Artist
|author=John Niven
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|author=Fred Van Lente
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=In Kill Your Friends, John Niven delivered a scathing and hugely entertaining satire on the music industry. In Straight White Male he's turned his attention to Hollywood and academia with similarly impressive results.
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|summary=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 maybe, 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 intrusive 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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1473669588
|title=Unfaithfully Yours
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|title=Falling Short
|author=Nigel Williams
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|author=Lex Coulton
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Humour
|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 there's one kind of novel to make me prick up my ears it is one built from lettersIt 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.
+
|summary=Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleague and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her motherThis relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472106741</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1683690133
|author=Jonathan Evison
+
|title=My Lady's Choosing
|title=The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving
+
|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
|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 differently.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781851751</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Krister Jones
 
|title=The Satanic Diaries
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=
+
|summary=You are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll 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 comes to suitors though, you'll have to make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision...
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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas
|author=Graeme Simsion
+
|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas
|title=The Rosie Project
+
|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=5
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Australian Professor of Genetics Don Tillman is passably good looking, successful and tall. If he were an animal he'd be highly sought after for breeding purposes.  Unfortunately he's human and although popular (well… he has two friends anyway) he can't 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 to be progressing… until Rosie.
+
|summary=Christmas – the time of traditional 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, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-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 makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year?
|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 lawyer, has a husband, a daughter who followed her professional footsteps and a son married to an ambitious wife who provided him with two high-achieving children.  There are just two flies in the ointment preventing the dream's arrival: 1. Edie is so morbidly obese that she has to undergo surgery; and 2. this is the moment her husband chooses to leave her.  Apart from that…
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846689325</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Doescher_Will
|author=William Nicolson
+
|title=William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh
|title=The Romantic Economist: A Story of Love and Market Forces
+
|author=Ian Doescher
|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 - 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 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>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sir Compton Mackenzie
 
|title=Whisky Galore
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=The inhabitants of Great Todday and neighbouring Little Todday enjoy embrocation provided by a tot or two of whiskyUnfortunately this is war time.  To date the sacrifices in the Hebrides have included their young men 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 they're approaching Lent.  The timing is unfortunate as they don't exactly give it up for Lent, but drink extra as Shrove Tuesday approaches in the spirit of the season.  So, as supplies dwindle to extinction, imagine their surprise when a ship containing practically a million bottles of it en route to America founders off the coastThe community launch a covert army-like operation to liberate the alcohol fighting, planning to outwit not the Germans but the islands' 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 to get married but his mum won't let him.
+
|summary=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 machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdyYou may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurtsAnd if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270925</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]
|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>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 13:11, 2 January 2024

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Review of

The Bad Weather Friend by Dean Koontz

4.5star.jpg Paranormal

Benny is having a terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and his house gets trashed. Oh, and someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever 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. He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the delivery to his house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are. Full Review

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Review of

Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022 by Tim Benson

4star.jpg Humour

Seeking some light relief from the current political turmoil which is coming to 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 we're not yet through the year: the cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition? Full Review

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Review of

Staggering Hubris by Josh Berry

4.5star.jpg Humour

Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the primus inter pares (that's for those of you who 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 Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch. Full Review

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Review of

My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety by Georgia Pritchett

4star.jpg Autobiography

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 far 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: Adventures in Anxiety is the result - or so we are given to believe. Full Review

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Review of

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne

5star.jpg General Fiction

Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a bit worried when his mistress tells him she's carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. They have three children, who are a sad-sack with absolutely no social skills whatsoever, a girl who hangs around with a virtue-signalling, keyboard warrior "wokester" who wants to save the world's homeless with out-of-date food, and a fit 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. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the fact this is bloody funny. Full Review

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Review of

The Spy Who Inspired Me by Stephen Clarke

4star.jpg General Fiction

This is a spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and 'likes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. Lemming finds himself put on a mission with a female spy called Margaux, and the pair end up stranded in Normandy, with Margaux on a desperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and Lemming desperately trying to keep up with her! Full Review

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Review of

Kokoschka's Doll by Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)

2.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

Well, this looked very much like a 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 it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too. But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened? Full Review

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Review of

But Never For Lunch by Sandra Aragona

4star.jpg Short Stories

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.

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 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. Full Review

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Review of

The Karma Trap by Lisette Boyd

4star.jpg Women's Fiction

George Jackson is thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to look at - and single. She's not had sex for eight months and she's stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot of bad luck is being visited on her and she has a real talent for attracting drama. 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 shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and 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 with dog poo spattered across her face - and a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the office. Full Review

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Review of

Pandora's Gardener by David C Mason

3star.jpg Crime

John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classified. That is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the day. Full Review

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Review of

Forever After: a dark comedy by David Jester

4star.jpg Horror

Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, a grim reaper and his friends, Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in the records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat. Full Review

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Review of

William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls by Ian Doescher

2.5star.jpg Humour

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and the marriage seemed a perfectly suitable one. So 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 Back to the Future no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can'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, yet oh so ancient, dressing. 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… Full Review

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Review of

William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher

4.5star.jpg Humour

A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, 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. It was then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/child strife like no other? Full Review

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Review of

Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel by Ruth Hogan

5star.jpg Humour

Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother's life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the Paradise hotel, a haven for eccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a child, from this place of wonder. With the help of Queenie Malone, caring, and gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart the tricky and uncertain relationship she had with her sometimes cruel and distant mother. Full Review

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Review of

The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente

4star.jpg Humour

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 maybe, 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 intrusive 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. Full Review

1473669588.jpg

Review of

Falling Short by Lex Coulton

4star.jpg Humour

Lex Coulton's debut novel is a story about mistakes, failures, and relationships. The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, a work colleague and is grappling with the increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. This relationship is complicated by the fact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old. Full Review

1683690133.jpg

Review of

My Lady's Choosing by Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

4star.jpg Humour

You are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, you'll 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 comes to suitors though, you'll have to make the ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the way, it's clear this isn't going to be an easy decision... Full Review

Stibbe Xmas.jpg

Review of

An Almost Perfect Christmas by Nina Stibbe

4.5star.jpg Humour

Christmas – the time of traditional 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, and if that failed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly with it to want to eat it. Christmas, though, is of course also a time of great boons. It's cash in hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits and beards, it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-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 makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, did they even try and sell them any other time of the year? Full Review

Doescher Will.jpg

Review of

William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher

4.5star.jpg Humour

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 machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for The Force Doth Awaken, but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good… Full Review

Move on to Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews