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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove --> {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lynne TrussDean Koontz|title=Cat out of HellThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=34.5|genre=HorrorParanormal|summary=Meet Alec CharlesworthBenny is having a terrifically bad day. He's retired loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and decamped to an isolated coastal cottage with just his dog house gets trashed. Oh, and loving memories of someone has delivered a really weird, disturbing coffin-sized object to his colleague wifehome, now and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the thing that she has died before her timetrashed 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. But the fusty librarian cannot rest too long before engaging in exploring some unusual computer files So fortunately for Benny it turns out that were pinged across by someone at the college he worked atdelivery to his house is a new friend, just before he left. Bizarrely they show photographic and audio evidence of a talking cat bad weather friend called RogerSpike, replete with Vincent Price voice – although they are also damaged by who has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being included alongside some bad screenplay attempts about said cata good person. Worryingly, we soon see what at the most only a few Spike is going to take care of the characters canBenny, that this cat is being accompanied by unusual and unexpected death – much like Alecwill certainly take care of Benny's wife. Itenemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's only when Roger testifies to having been pushed through the ends of endurance and wild adventure) can figure out the other side that we begin to doubt where the true evil in this story lies…who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099585340</amazonuk>1662500491
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jimmy Hansen and Mychailo Kazybird1529153050|title=Wallace & Gromit : The Complete Newspaper Strips Collection Vol 2Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
|summary=For me there are two important areas of Seeking some light relief from the cover of this book where three letters are arranged in meaningful ways. The first current political turmoil which is with the S-U-N in their obligatory red coming to seem more and white fontmore like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''. No minor paper could hold Wallace and Gromit, their adventures Sharp eyes will have to be in what is (unfortunately) the most widely read tabloid in the country. And elsewhere is C-B-E, suggesting noted that even we're not yet through the storytellers at Aardman Animations who are not household names are feted and revered as artistic experts, raising many laughs and much money for year: the country courtesy of their creative outputcartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Together these short collections of letters show just how much WaG are major creations, and if Who can imagine what there will be to come in the proof was needed this much longer collection of their daily comic strips provides it in spades.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760822</amazonuk>2023 edition?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=Dear Committee MembersStaggering Hubris|author=Julie SchumacherJosh Berry
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=Jason Fitger (Jay) is a Professor of creative writing and literature at a small university in the American mid-west. He is also a frustrated novelist with a colourful personal history, much of which bleeds into his professional life, with interesting results.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007586345</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|title=Mapp and Lucia Omnibus
|author=E F Benson
|rating=3.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Miss Elizabeth Mapp rules Members of Parliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, headed by the Prime minister - the town ''primus inter pares'' (that's for those of Tilling you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the reality is that the ''prime'' movers are the special advisers - the SPADS - she is who are the centre of driving force behind the social life, and spends her days enjoying bridge, polite conversation and civilised paintinggovernment. When Mrs Emmeline Lucas arrives We are in town (known the privileged position of having access to all as Lucia)the memoirs of Rafe Hubris, Miss Mapp finds her life truly shaken up, as the cultured, fashionable and progressive Lucia makes her home in man who was behind the skilful control of the town, and swiftly rises to Covid crisis which was completely contained by the top end of 2020. You might not know the ranks amongst name now but he will certainly be the social scene in Tillingman to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849908478</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571365884|title=Encyclopedia ParanoiacaMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Henry Beard and Christopher CerfGeorgia Pritchett
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceAutobiography|summary=We're screwedGeorgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a child. Wherever we look, whatever we think She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of doing, there is a reason why we shouldn't be doing it, life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and people to back that reason up with scientific datafar between. Take any aspect of your daily life – what you eatOn a visit to a therapist, how you work, how you rest evenas an adult, when she was completely unable to speak about what you touch – all have problems was wrong with her it was suggested that could provoke she should write it down and ''My Mess is a serious illness Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety'' is the result - or worse. And outside that daily sphere there so we are economic disasters, nuclear meltdowns, errant AI scientists and passing comets that could turn our world upside down at the blink of an eyegiven to believe. Perhaps then you better read this book first – for it may well turn out to be your last…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649213</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreview|title=Diary of a Mad DivaFrontpage|author=Joan Rivers|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0425269027</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewJohn Boyne|title=The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - The Nearly Definitive Edition|author=Douglas AdamsEcho Chamber
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=There are Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the few series that have garnered such television personalities over the age of fifty without a criminal record". He starts this book a cult following as bit worried when his mistress tells him she'The Hitchhikers Guide to s carrying his child, but then his author wife is getting her kicks with the Galaxy'Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. Whether the fans They have come from the radio seriesthree 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 (impossibly hard) computer gameworld's homeless with out-of-date food, or and a fit young lad doing the (well intentioned but not particularly good) film, they are everywheregay hustle thing. Ask Add in a room of people what the meaning of few other characters – therapists, lawyers, random transgender types – that all have two very different connections to his life is, and you can be pretty sure a good few will pipe up with '42' as have something that suggests an almost farcical approach to the modern world. What suggests the farcical approach even more, however, is the answerfact this is bloody funny.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434023396</amazonuk>0857526219
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Quick Pint After WorkStephen Clarke|authortitle=Luke LewisThe Spy Who Inspired Me
|rating=4
|genre=HumourGeneral Fiction|summary=BuzzFeed This is one of the world’s best time sucksa spoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. Or Ian Fleming. But it features a man called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and I’m regularly directed to 'likes the site by links from Facebook ladies' and Twitterwho works for the secret service, but in between browsing the app on my phoneplanning side of things more than the active service. According to the author bio Lemming finds himself put on this booka mission with a female spy called Margaux, 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 pair end up stranded in Manchester, 30 Things all ex-gymnasts know to be trueNormandy, 40 Very British problems, yadda yadda yadda). These list work well with Margaux on line when you want a quick distractiondesperate mission to unearth traitors in the resistance network, and they’re easy Lemming desperately trying 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.keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0751557730</amazonuk>2952163855
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Graeme SimsionAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The Rosie EffectKokoschka's Doll|rating=42.5|genre=HumourLiterary Fiction|summary=Following inadvertent success with Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the Wife Projectget-go, Professor Don Tillman which is why I picked my review copy up and his new bride Rosie have moved from Australia to New Yorkflipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. Although Don's position 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 autistic scale is subjective20,000s, he still operates on a daily basis of structured proceduresletters used as narrative form, lists and logicso on. Rosie can generally handle It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that but there are choppy waters aheadwhat little I knew of it mentioned, too. With But you've seen the patter of tiny feet imminent logic goes out the window as she struggles star rating that comes 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 this review, and a friend whose wife has thrown him out for infidelitycan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. What could possibly go wrongSo what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718179471</amazonuk>1529402697
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B08KKQ85FN|title=Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Short StoriesBut Never For Lunch|author=Chuck Palahniuk, Dennis Widmyer and Richard ThomasSandra Aragona
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Saying certain things out loud just don’t sound right. Some things are so disturbing ''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 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 more to the sensation of Burnt Tongue; an aftereffect of knowing what you said was wrong. Are you prepared point, about to enter discover the real world of Transgressive Fiction that aims to disturb, alienate, disgust bus timetables and question?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178329552X</amazonuk>}}paying his own gas bills.''
{{newreview|author=Sammy Looker|title=Something Nasty in the Slushpile|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=I couldnYou don't resist the title - a neat play on get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Cold Comfort Farm Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Stella GibbonsSandra Aragona|Cold Comfort FarmSorting the Priorities]] and I'm sure that you'll understand that I we learned what it was expecting some examples of the horrors like to be found amongst moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the mountain Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of unsolicited manuscripts which every publisher accumulatesFormer Ambassador... IThey have left The Career and settled in Rome. Well 'll confess I was expecting to giggle, even to groan - unkind, I know - and Isettled'd mentally shelved rather overstates the book with the triviasituation and their dog, Beagle, or (hopefully) the humour. There is that element to the bookhas no intention of slowing down any time soon, but there's also something far more usefuldespite being sixteen and deaf. If you're thinking about publishing a book this should be required reading ''before'' you even go near a publisher.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472111028</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ|authortitle=The QueenKarma Trap|titleauthor=Still ReigningLisette Boyd
|rating=4
|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=Anyone who frequents Twitter will know that itGeorge 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 mixed blessingreal talent for attracting drama. ItHer life's a mine chaotic: she dealt with the leak from the shower by putting something down at the bottom of wonderful information the stairs to absorb the water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in it and supportive camaraderieleft her, stark naked, staring at the pervy postman. ItShe only has to take her mother's also dog out for a walk for her to end up with dog poo spattered across her face - unfortunately - home to and a lot of people photo being taken by someone who take great pleasure in causing pain to othersshares it around the office. But in amongst all this are }} {{Frontpage|author=David C Mason|title=Pandora's Gardener|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary= John Cranston is a few gems and one of them is [https://twitter.com/Queen_UK @Queen_UK]gardener, although what he did before he became a delightful satire on members of the royal familygardener, celebritieshe claims, the political classes and the state of Her Majesty's nationis classified. Or, ''one's nation'' That is just as Ma'am would say. ''Still Reigning'' well because he is her second bookabout to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, 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 where only he can save the originalday.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715649132</amazonuk>0956180523
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Jester_Forever|title=Last Days of the Bus ClubForever After: a dark comedy|author=Chris StewartDavid Jester
|rating=4
|genre=HumourHorror|summary=I could well have been Michael Holland is a near-neighbour cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of Chris Stewarthis lifetime; immortality. NotWe follow Michael, of course, near a grim reaper and 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 drummerfriends, Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and building bridges Naff (a stoner in the North Downs. The 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 records department) as they grapple with their long lives and history – given finding a good map and a prevailing wind one could find where he lives and descend clean surface to sit 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 doin their flat.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745436</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1683691172|title=Summer HalfWilliam Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls|author=Angela ThirkellIan Doescher|rating=42.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=If one didn’t know of Angela Thirkell’s distinguished background as A long time ago, in a granddaughter of Sir Edward Burne-Jones galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, and daughter of the marriage seemed a classicist, it would be tempting to describe her as a kind of country cousin of [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P.G. Wodehouse’s]]perfectly suitable one. An unaffected and intelligent one, whose humour is less sophisticated but bubbles over with just as So 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 – so easily did the Mitford or Wodehouse worlds with their aristocratic plots and characters who travel the world and mingle with more loucheconverse in Shakespearean dialogue, 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 behave with the idea that they should be funny strips Shakespearean stage directions 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 producers tried again, with [[:Category:Alan MooreWilliam Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Alan MooreBack to the Future]]no less. And that worked. But you mustnsimultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can't be too surprised to see even really remember seeing was transcribed into the whole thing come around in a full cycleoriginal Elizabethan lingo. Because Alan Moore hasA cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the brand new, yet oh so ancient, with dressing. Here was the true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this volume, concluded his own funny strip japery, and whatever history or greater opinions about based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the canon of comix might say, it's just about his best ever book.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662318</amazonuk>game away…
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Reverend Adam Smallbone168369094X|title=The Rev DiariesWilliam Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!|author=Ian Doescher
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Adam Smallbone wasn’t always A long time ago, in a vicar. He used publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to work for rewrite the Bristol Housing Departmentstory of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, enabling his father-colliding two entirely different genres and styles in-law to tell everyone he worked 'in property'such a clever way they seemed perfectly suited. From there, his initial calling It was to a rural church then duly repeated for all the other films in Suffolk which did nothing to prepare him for thisthe main Star Wars cycle, his current London inner city parish. Indeed, heand clearly someone's not prepared buffing their quills ready for Adoha (Episode Nine, the Nigerian parishioner with 19 grandchildren and 'title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the bottom of God') or Colinhiatus, however, the homeless alcoholic who effort has adopted Adam been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and his wife Alex (Mrs Vicarage to Colin)riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. But then Alex also has a lot And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to get used to; after allthe Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, she didn't actually marry a vicar.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718178394<and parent/amazonuk>child strife like no other?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1473669065|title=Look WhoQueenie Malone's BackParadise Hotel|author=Timur VermesRuth Hogan
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionHumour|summary=Tilda returns to Brighton, to tidy away the remains of her mother''Hitler Youth Ronaldo! Which way s life after her death. Whilst there, she returns to the street?'' With these words Paradise hotel, a very misguided Nazi Fuhrer asks haven for his first directions in the Berlin of 2011eccentrics and misfits. Mistakenly believing the lad to A place where people can be a party junior member with his own name on his football shirtthemselves, he also thinks and let go of thoughts that torment them elsewhere. Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her mother for banishing her as a while it is still 1945child, from this place of wonder. He's soon informed of the truth, but still makes some unfortunate conclusions – that With the street kiosks selling Turkish language newspapers are a sign help of a Soviet-beating alliance between the two countriesQueenie Malone, that people eat granola bars because the war still leads to a bread shortagecaring, and that people making an ironic speech bubble with their fingers in gregarious, Tilda begins to pick apart 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 tricky and uncertain relationship she had with explaining, ''that man'' is back – her sometimes cruel and if he has his way he's going to be just as popular this time round…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857052926</amazonuk>distant mother.
}}
 {{newreview|author=Adam Ruck|title=The Bluffer's Guide to Golf (Bluffer's Guides)|rating=4.5|genre=SportFrontpage|summaryisbn=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>}} {{newreview1683690346|title=The Collected Works of A J FikryCon Artist|author=Gabrielle ZevinFred Van Lente
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=A J Fikry is not having a good time. He's lost his wife to a car crash, and he's not making that much money. The 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408704617</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|author=William Hanson
|title=The Bluffer's Guide to Etiquette (Bluffer's Guides)
|rating=5
|genre=Lifestyle
|summary=If you ask people what they fear most in any social situation most will tell you that it's not knowing how to behave. They'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 parvenu. William Hanson gives us a quick trip through the essentials in a book which is very readable and - in places - hilariously funny.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909937002</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
|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 wellComic-liked children’s character. The adventures Cons are a place of this cheekywonder and sanctuary for many people, irreverent schoolboy and a cast of extreme characters including Miss Battle Axewhen Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, The Demon Dinner Lady, Rabid Rebecca he's looking for both that and arch-nemesis Moody Margaret are incredibly funny sanctuary with other fans and a perfect way to encourage reluctant young readers to cultivate a love creators, plus the chance of readingmaybe, just maybe reuniting with his ex. It However, when his rival is no surprise thenfound dead, that Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the series has spawned 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 set of three spin-off joke books, which have now been combined to create dark secret behind a single volume: ''Horrid Henry’s Biggest and Best Ever Joke Book''legendary industry creator.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144401174X</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1473669588|title=Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other MusingsFalling Short|author=Ron BurgundyLex Coulton
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
|summary=Lex Coulton''This book s debut novel 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 hardshipabout mistakes, unsurprising hardnessfailures, and great hairrelationships. It's The main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, is a rags-to-riches talesixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, 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) work colleague and struggles against all is grappling with the odds – and many increasingly eccentric behaviour of her mother. This relationship is complicated by the evens in the shape of womenfact that Frances's legs – to get where he is today, thrusting himself and his news father disappeared at us nightlysea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780892241</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1683690133|title=Outraged of Tunbridge Wells: Original Complaints from Middle EnglandMy Lady's Choosing|author=Nigel CawthorneKitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
|summary=It was ever thus… cyclists go too fastYou are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, without using penniless and in Regency-era London the race is on to find a hooter suitable suitor - or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere one lookselse doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, and no public conveniences; people pretend to have qualifications and degrees they havenyou't rightfully earned; buses are too busy with shopping women who should ll be indoors alreadyaccompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, cooking and fired by a rogueish sense for their working menfolk… Itadventure. When it comes to suitors though, you's a very clever idea ll have to show exactly what is behind make the 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' tagultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and as a book to be shelved alongside those with caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the wackier letters sent to mad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the ''Daily Telegraph''way, these selections from the Royal townit's press itself make a great eye-opener clear this isn't going to the complaints and complainants of Kentbe an easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charlie HillStibbe_Xmas|title=BooksAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe
|rating=4.5
|genre=Humour
|summary=Neurology professor Lauren Furrows witnesses Christmas – the sudden untimelydeath time of two tourists in traditional trauma. You only have to think about the turkey for that – once upon a bar while time it was leaving it sat on holiday. Birmingham bookshop ownerRichard Anger happens to be in the same bar so together our single holidaymakers decide downstairs loo to team up as an investigatory force to be reckoned with.(Welldefrost overnight, Lauren teams up for and if thatfailed the hair-dryer shoved inside it treatment was your next best bet. RichardNowadays it's reasons are more physical thanintellectual all having to begin make sure it's suitably free-range and organic – but not too organic that you can go and visit it, and get too friendly withit to want to eat it.) The murders seem to emanate from author GarySaylesChristmas, though, is of course also a legend time of great boons. It's cash in his own mind hand for a lot of plump people who can hire red suits andbeards, apparently, fatal it was always a godsend for postmen with all the thank-you letters to read. Elsewherehippy exhibitionists (aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in an overlong-18 way) Zeke hand as a child, and Pippaas for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, are planning theart installation to end all art installations did they even try and, are determined to makeGary sell them any other time of the centrepiece, whether he realises it or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251630</amazonuk>year?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=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 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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>095546563X</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDoescher_Will|title=Sad Monsters|author=Frank Lesser|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=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>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Cameron|title=The Brinkmeyers|rating=5|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 relationship. ItWilliam Shakespeare'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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957319134</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Dedicated to...Force Doth Awaken: The Forgotten Friendships, Hidden Stories and Lost Loves found in Second-hand BooksStar Wars Part the Seventh|author=W B GooderhamIan Doescher
|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
|genre=Humour
|summary=One 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 his dog never had such a famous theme tuneheroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''One Man and His DogThe Force Doth Awaken'' had a piddly little melody, but here at last we get the triumphalactual script, oldcomplete with annoying-in-different-ways-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 usbefore droids anew, the plasticine creations mutated into incredibly popular charactersreturning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, which included a daily strip and people keeping it in the nation's biggest-selling tabloidfamily til it hurts. Here is the first lump of themAnd if you need further encouragement, 312 daily doses don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of tomfoolery, collected for everyone Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to enjoy. Even if you thought the franchise had travelled its course a long time ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760326</amazonuk>part seven – surely making this over twice as good…
}}
{{newreview|title=Demon Dentist|author=David Walliams|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=He ought Move on 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>}}[[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]