Difference between revisions of "Newest Humour Reviews"

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[[Category:Humour|*]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]__NOTOC__
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|title=Diary of a Mad Diva
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|author=Dean Koontz
|author=Joan Rivers
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|title=The Bad Weather Friend
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Paranormal
|summary=The late Joan Rivers was, without a doubt, a character. Actress, comedian, writer, director, presenter, she was well known in the USA and beyond for her sharp tongue and no holds barred persona. This was the last of the dozen books she published, her final title before her death in September 2014.
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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 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 personSpike 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>0425269027</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1662500491
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - The Nearly Definitive Edition
 
|author=Douglas Adams
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=There are few series that have garnered such a cult following as 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. Whether the fans have come from the radio series, the (impossibly hard) computer game, or the (well intentioned but not particularly good) film, they are everywhereAsk a room of people what the meaning of life is, and you can be pretty sure a good few will pipe up with '42' as the answer.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0434023396</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529153050
|title=Quick Pint After Work
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|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022
|author=Luke Lewis
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|author=Tim Benson
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=BuzzFeed is one of the world’s best time sucks, and I’m regularly directed to the site by links from Facebook and Twitter, in between browsing the app on my phone. According to the author bio on this book, BuzzFeed is 'a social news and entertainment company', which is a fancy way of describing lots of fun lists that speak to the readership (20 words that have a completely different meaning in Manchester, 30 Things all ex-gymnasts know to be true, 40 Very British problems, yadda yadda yadda). These list work well on line when you want a quick distraction, and they’re easy to flip through, looking at the attached photos or video clips. The question then, is whether or not BuzzFeed the book will have the same appeal.
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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>0751557730</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1785633074
|author=Graeme Simsion
+
|title=Staggering Hubris
|title=The Rosie Effect
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|author=Josh Berry
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Following inadvertent success with the Wife Project, Professor Don Tillman and his new bride Rosie have moved from Australia to New York.  Although Don's position on the autistic scale is subjective, he still operates on a daily basis of structured procedures, lists and logic.  Rosie can generally handle that but there are choppy waters ahead.  With the patter of tiny feet imminent logic goes out the window as she struggles with her PhD while Don struggles to find his place in the baby production process.  At least he has his drinking buddies to support him – an aging rock drummer and a friend whose wife has thrown him out for infidelity.  What could possibly go wrong?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718179471</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Short Stories
 
|author=Chuck Palahniuk, Dennis Widmyer and Richard Thomas
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=Saying certain things out loud just don’t sound right.  Some things are so disturbing or politically incorrect that you are best off leaving them inside your head, or better yet not thinking of them at all.  When these words are spoken they could lead to the sensation of Burnt Tongue; an aftereffect of knowing what you said was wrong.  Are you prepared to enter the world of Transgressive Fiction that aims to disturb, alienate, disgust and question?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329552X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sammy Looker
 
|title=Something Nasty in the Slushpile
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=I couldn't resist the title - a neat play on [[Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons|Cold Comfort Farm]] and I'm sure that you'll understand that I was expecting some examples of the horrors to be found amongst the mountain of unsolicited manuscripts which every publisher accumulates.  I'll confess I was expecting to giggle, even to groan - unkind, I know - and I'd mentally shelved the book with the trivia, or (hopefully) the humour.  There is that element to the book, but there's also something far more useful. If you're thinking about publishing a book this should be required reading ''before'' you even go near a publisher.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472111028</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=The Queen
 
|title=Still Reigning
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Anyone who frequents Twitter will know that it's a mixed blessing.  It's a mine of wonderful information and supportive camaraderie.  It's also - unfortunately - home to a lot of people who take great pleasure in causing pain to others. But in amongst all this are a few gems and one of them is [https://twitter.com/Queen_UK @Queen_UK], a delightful satire on members of the royal family, celebrities,  the political classes and the state of Her Majesty's nation.  Or, ''one's nation'' as Ma'am would say''Still Reigning'' is her second book, after ''Gin O'Clock'' and it's the sort of parody which leaves you wondering if the writer might not be someone ''very'' close to the original.
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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 governmentWe 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649132</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0571365884
|title=Last Days of the Bus Club
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|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety
|author=Chris Stewart
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|author=Georgia Pritchett
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Autobiography
|summary=I could well have been a near-neighbour of Chris StewartNot, of course, near his current primary occupancy, an ecological farmstead just beyond the turning off from the back end of nowhere in the most rural of corners of southern Spain, but back when he lived in the south-east of England, being Genesis' first ever drummer, and building bridges in the North DownsThe fact I learnt the latter from this book shows up several of the features of this warm-hearted 'travelogue' – the fact that Stewart is never shy about portraying family details and history – given a good map and a prevailing wind one could find where he lives and descend on the farm, if one wished; and that while this might be on the travel shelves, the narrative is so fragmented it actually moves a lot more than any of the characters do.
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|summary=Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a childShe 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 betweenOn 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745436</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Boyne
|title=Summer Half
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|title=The Echo Chamber
|author=Angela Thirkell
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=If one didn’t know of Angela Thirkell’s distinguished background as a granddaughter of Sir Edward Burne-Jones and daughter of a classicist, it would be tempting to describe her as a kind of country cousin of [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P.G. Wodehouse’s]]. An unaffected and intelligent one, whose humour is less sophisticated but bubbles over with just as much glee. The middle-class world she has created, where young men come from families that are comfortably wealthy rather than outrageously so, offers a counterpoint to the Mitford or Wodehouse worlds with their aristocratic characters who travel the world and mingle with more louche, bohemian ones.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184408969X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Bojeffries Saga
 
|author=Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=A very truncated history of comics will start with the idea that they should be funny strips – one jape then you're out; then that they should have more – perhaps a superhero; then that you can have so much more than just a superhero – witness the works of [[:Category:Alan Moore|Alan Moore]].  But you mustn't be too surprised to see the whole thing come around in a full cycle.  Because Alan Moore has, with this volume, concluded his own funny strip japery, and whatever history or greater opinions about the canon of comix might say, it's just about his best ever book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662318</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Reverend Adam Smallbone
 
|title=The Rev Diaries
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Adam Smallbone wasn’t always a vicar.  He used to work for the Bristol Housing Department, enabling his father-in-law to tell everyone he worked 'in property'.  From there, his initial calling was to a rural church in Suffolk which did nothing to prepare him for this, his current London inner city parish.  Indeed, he's not prepared for Adoha (the Nigerian parishioner with 19 grandchildren and 'the bottom of God') or Colin, the homeless alcoholic who has adopted Adam and his wife Alex (Mrs Vicarage to Colin).  But then Alex also has a lot to get used to; after all, she didn't actually marry a vicar.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718178394</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Look Who's Back
 
|author=Timur Vermes
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=''Hitler Youth Ronaldo! Which way to the street?''  With these words a very misguided Nazi Fuhrer asks for his first directions in the Berlin of 2011. Mistakenly believing the lad to be a party junior member with his own name on his football shirt, he also thinks for a while it is still 1945. He's soon informed of the truth, but still makes some unfortunate conclusions – that the street kiosks selling Turkish language newspapers are a sign of a Soviet-beating alliance between the two countries, that people eat granola bars because the war still leads to a bread shortage, and that people making an ironic speech bubble with their fingers in the air is all that is left of the Hitler salute. But yes, after a long hiatus neither he nor our author is particularly concerned with explaining, ''that man'' is back and if he has his way he's going to be just as popular this time round…
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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>0857052926</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0857526219
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Adam Ruck
 
|title=The Bluffer's Guide to Golf (Bluffer's Guides)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Sport
 
|summary=The fly leaf suggests that this Bluffer's Guide is the way to instantly acquire all the knowledge which you need to pass as an expert in the ''arcane and labyrinthine'' world of golf. There's quite a bit there that I'd agree on - the rules (and to an unfortunate extent the ''attitudes'') are arcane and they seem to take a lifetime to master, but there's a surprising amount of information tucked away inside this little book.  What I might quibble with is whether or not you would ''pass as an expert'' (which suggests that you're something of a con man): there's enough detail here to give you a solid grounding without needing to bluff.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909365327</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Stephen Clarke
|title=
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|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me
The Collected Works of A J Fikry
 
|author=Gabrielle Zevin
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A J Fikry is not having a good timeHe's lost his wife to a car crash, and he's not making that much moneyThe book store he runs, stuck out on a limb on a quiet island community, is too remote to turn a profit year-round, and he has just dismissed the latest publisher's rep to turn up at his door, partly because her previous counterpart, an inconsequential part of A J's life when all is said and done, had died and he didn't know about it.  But his bad time is about to get a lot worse, as the one thing he owns worth the most – a rare book, more valuable than his house, his business, anything – is about to vanish.  Which bizarrely will cause several major changes to his one-person household…
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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>1408704617</amazonuk>
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|isbn=2952163855
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Afonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)
|author=William Hanson
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|title=Kokoschka's Doll
|title=The Bluffer's Guide to Etiquette (Bluffer's Guides)
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|rating=2.5
|rating=5
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|genre=Literary Fiction
|genre=Lifestyle
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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, tooBut 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?
|summary=If you ask people what they fear most in any social situation most will tell you that it's not knowing how to behaveThey'll be fine about the basics, but it's those little niceties - how to introduce yourself, what to ask for as an aperitif, how to address someone, for instance which can suddenly reveal you as a parvenuWilliam Hanson gives us a quick trip through the essentials in a book which is very readable and - in places - hilariously funny.
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|isbn=1529402697
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909937002</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B08KKQ85FN
 +
|title=But Never For Lunch
 +
|author=Sandra Aragona
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Short Stories
 +
|summary=''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.''
  
{{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 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.
|title=Horrid Henry's Biggest and Best Ever Joke Book - 3-in-1
 
|author=Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|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''.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144401174X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ
|title=Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other Musings
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|title=The Karma Trap
|author=Ron Burgundy
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|author=Lisette Boyd
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
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|genre=Women's Fiction
|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 hairIt'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.
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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>1780892241</amazonuk>
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}}
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{{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 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
|title=Outraged of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle England
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|title=Forever After: a dark comedy
|author=Nigel Cawthorne
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|author=David Jester
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Horror
 +
|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.
 +
}}
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{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=1683691172
 +
|title=William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls
 +
|author=Ian Doescher
 +
|rating=2.5
 
|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=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>1908096918</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=168369094X
|author=Charlie Hill
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|title=William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!
|title=Books
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|author=Ian Doescher
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Neurology professor Lauren Furrows witnesses the sudden untimely
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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 suitedIt 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?
death of two tourists in a bar while on holidayBirmingham 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 thatRichard'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 readElsewhere
 
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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1473669065
|title=The Facebook Diet: 50 Funny Signs of Facebook Addiction and Ways to Unplug With a Digital Detox
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|title=Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel
|author=Gemini Adams
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|author=Ruth Hogan
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|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 less.  Does 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.
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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>095546563X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1683690346
|title=Sad Monsters
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|title=The Con Artist
|author=Frank Lesser
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|author=Fred Van Lente
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=
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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.
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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|isbn=1473669588
|author=Michael Cameron
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|title=Falling Short
|title=The Brinkmeyers
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|author=Lex Coulton
|rating=5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|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 relationshipIt'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.
+
|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>0957319134</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1683690133
|title=Dedicated to...: The Forgotten Friendships, Hidden Stories and Lost Loves found in Second-hand Books
+
|title=My Lady's Choosing
|author=W B Gooderham
+
|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
|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=Humour
|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 now. 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 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…
+
|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...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760326</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas
|title=Demon Dentist
+
|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas
|author=David Walliams
+
|author=Nina Stibbe
 
|rating=4.5
 
|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>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern Manners
 
|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
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|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.
+
|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>1907773169</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Doescher_Will
|title=Very British Problems: Making Life Awkward for Ourselves, One Rainy Day at a Time
+
|title=William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh
|author=Rob Temple
+
|author=Ian Doescher
|rating=3
+
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|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.
+
|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 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751552593</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|title=The Reluctant Cannibals
 
|author=Ian Flitcroft
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909593591</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]
|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 categories.  They 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>
 
}}
 

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

Jester Forever.jpg

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

1683690346.jpg

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