Difference between revisions of "Newest Humour Reviews"

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[[Category:Humour|*]]
 
[[Category:Humour|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]]__NOTOC__
==Humour==
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{{Frontpage
__NOTOC__
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|author=Dean Koontz
{{newreview
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|title=The Bad Weather Friend
|author=Sue Townsend
 
|title=The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=General Fiction
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|genre=Paranormal
|summary=Adrian Mole was just three months away from his fourteenth birthday when he began writing his diary on New Year's Day. He's just on the edge of true adolescence - pimples are appearing as is a little bit of interest in the opposite sex. He's thinking about what he might like to do ''eventually'', but his first major challenge is the breakdown of his parents' marriage.  He writes with a wonderful mixture of ''knowingness'' and innocence and usually manages to get things just ever-so-slightly wrong.
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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 person.  Spike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141046422</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1662500491
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bruce Robinson
 
|title=The Rum Diary - A Screenplay
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=Kemp has lied his way onto a failing newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rica, as the only candidate for the job, and in a semi-comatose state induced by too many miniatures from the hotel minibar, stumbles into a conspiracy of epic proportions, via classic bar room brawls and nightclub mayhem. On the way he (almost) writes horoscopes and bowling championship stories, meets the fantastically erotic girlfriend of the evil businessman, and teams up with a proto-Nazi out of his mind on a cocktail of hootch and LSD, and a photographer side kick. There is no question that this is Hunter S Thompson territory, especially when all the above is combined with a witty, slow-talking hero who in spite of his alcoholic haze sees clearly through the exploitation of a third world country by its massive first world near neighbour.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099555697</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1529153050
|author=Francesca Simon
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|title=Britain's Best Political Cartoons 2022
|title=Horrid Henry's A - Z of Everything Horrid
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|author=Tim Benson
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Francesca Simon's Horrid Henry is a very popular little boy, although you might have a different opinion if you actually had to put up with his antics yourself. A slightly modernised embodiment of 'slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails' concept of boyhood, Henry is naughtiness personified, combining irreverence for authority with a huge dose of gross-out crude humour that really appeals to the target readership of early primary school children.  Add a somewhat nostalgic, timeless feel, trademark alliterations, subtle (and not so subtle) digs at family dynamics, sibling rivalry and particularly at modern middle-class manners and sensibilities and you have a winning character and a base for a very successful edutainment franchise.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444002260</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jeremy Clarke
 
|title=Low Life
 
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=
+
|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 2022Who can imagine what there will be to come in the 2023 edition?
I'm not a Spectator reader – indeed other than seeing on the shelves I'm ashamed to say that before starting to write this article I knew absolutely nothing about the magazine, its style, ethos or readership.  Having (obviously) done the obligatory websearch I know understand that being its editor is considered a reasonable a route to success in the Conservative Party or other public office on a right-wing ticketA sister publication to The Daily Telegraph, it is quoted as being Atlanticist, usually supportive of Israel, and Eurosceptic in outlook.
 
 
 
This makes me utterly unsuitable as a candidate to review Clarke's book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907595511</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1785633074
|author=Guy Kennaway
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|title=Staggering Hubris
|title=Bird Brain
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|author=Josh Berry
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary='It began for Basil ''Banger'' Peyton-Crumbe the day he died in a pheasant shooting incident'.
+
|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 2020You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the man to watch.
 
 
If you were in any doubt as to the nature of the novel given the cover jacket and the author's disclaimer to the effect that any similarity between the human characters and any real person is entirely coincidental, but he feels safe from any threats of libel action on behalf of the dead animals whose characters he has mercilessly manipulated for narrative effect, then its opening sentence should put you straight.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093991</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Neil Forsyth
 
|title=Why Me?  The Very Important Emails of Bob Servant
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=Catchy title and catchy front cover graphics.  What's not to like?  It takes a lot to make me laugh generally, but as I had an initial flick through this book, things looked promising.  And I was also thinking that it's a pleasant change to see another location (other than perhaps the predictable Glasgow and Edinburgh) get an airing.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780270097</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Harry Thompson
 
|title=Tintin: Herge and His Creation
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Biography
 
|summary=I love Tintin.  I love his quiff and his innocence, his plus-fours and his foreign adventures, I love Snowy the dog and most of all I love Captain Haddock and the flamboyance of his blistering barnacles languageSo I was thrilled to see a biography of the character and Hergé, his creator, and I picked it up with enthusiasm.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848546726</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Joseph Heller
 
|title=Catch 22
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=At the heart of the very black comedy that is ''Catch 22'' is Captain Yossarian, a World War II American bombardier, who wants to survive the warFlying repeated combat missions is undermining his sanity, and surely a mad man should be grounded?  But if he asks to be grounded, he demonstrates an absolutely sane concern for his own safety.  If he is sane, he can't be grounded.  This, his doctor tells him, is catch 22.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529114</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=0571365884
|author=William Giraldi
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|title=My Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety
|title=Busy Monsters
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|author=Georgia Pritchett
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
+
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=
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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 adultwhen 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.
Charles Homar loves his GillianHe's proved it to us, if not to her, by going after her possessive, jealous state trooper of an ex with the intent to kill - if only ended up rescuing a cat instead.  But lo and behold, she's declared she's off to discover the real love of her life - the giant squidFailing to stop this, Charlie spends too long with a Nessie obsessive, then goes on a hunt of his own - for Bigfoot, all the while, chapter by chapter, sending his narrative of the same to a magazine as essays for one of those autobiographical, frivolous columns.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0393079627</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kevin Wilson
 
|title=The Family Fang
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=
 
Annie Fang and her brother Buster are back living at home with their parents - where they never thought they'd ever be again. But it has come to this - her film actress career is on the rocks with the kind of self-destruction so much enjoyed by tabloid writers, and he - well, he's here because of a jumbo spud gun.  Neither want life back at home, as throughout their childhood they were used by their parents - without much planning, without any consideration of feelings, or consent - in a whole career of performance art pieces, designed to enact a point of life or just cause havoc.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1447202384</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=John Boyne
|author=Zadie Smith
+
|title=The Echo Chamber
|title=White Teeth
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Some books sneak up on you.  Others are thrown at you from every corner of the media to the extent that you almost make a conscious decision NOT to read them, or at least, not yet.  Let the furore die down.  If they're still around in a few years, your subconscious whispers, maybe we'll go see what all the fuss was about.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241954576</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Lodge
 
|title=The Campus Trilogy
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Somewhere along the line the word "vintage" stopped meaning simply the wine crop of any given year, and started to mean the wine of a particularly good year, and then to mean anything of a past year that was (is) of outstanding quality.  Such is the mutability of language.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099529130</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ludwig Bechstein, Axel Sceffler and Julia Donaldson
 
|title=The Gloomster
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=We've all been there. Finding fault with everything around us, and perhaps picking on one particular irritant that gets us so rattled, tetchy and narked all we can do is invoke "Hell and damnation!" down on all creation - including, of course, ourselves.  After all, our lot is so bad it won't make anything much worse.
+
|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>0571274242</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0857526219
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Stella Gibbons
 
|title=Conference at Cold Comfort Farm
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=There are no Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm.
 
 
 
To those of you who've not read Stella Gibbons' magnificient [[Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons|original novel]], this is hardly likely to be a major shock - to the Gibbons fans amongst us, though, this is chilling news indeed. And when Robert
 
Poste's child Flora returns to the farm - now a modernised monstrosity full of members of the International Thinkers' Group – sixteen years after her original visit, the news get graver and graver, as the cows Feckless, Graceless, Pointless, and Aimless have passed away of shame due to the disgrace of the bull Big Business. With the menfolk trying to make their fortunes abroad, and the women struggling, it's left to Flora to try to save the day once again.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099528681</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Stella Gibbons
 
|title=Cold Comfort Farm
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Orphaned at 19, Flora Poste – a London sophisticate – is led to retreat to deepest Sussex to live off her relatives the Starkadders at the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, a mournful bunch who take her in as they couldn't refuse anything of 'Robert Poste's child', but seem less than happy with having to do so. As she meets the preacher Amos, his over-sexed younger son Seth, his flighty sister Elphine, and the hugely memorable – if barely seen – Aunt Ada Doom, the first person in literature to see 'something nasty in the woodshed' – she resolves to take the family in hand and solve their problems.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141441593</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Philip Jose Farmer
 
|title=The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Peerless Peer
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Crime (Historical)
 
|summary=It's World War One, and Britain has got wind of some brilliant scientific research, that has created a new bacterial weapon capable of wiping out the world's supply of sauerkraut. But a dastardly German has stolen the formula.  Before he can give a variant based on boiled meat, cabbage and potatoes to the kaiser, his most recent nemesis - Sherlock Holmes, no less - must be brought out of beekeeping retirement.  Cue an adventure and a half, as he and Watson take to the skies for the first time in their hectic lives, end up in darkest Africa, and encounter a certain yodelling, long-haired nobleman, more than up to the name of King of the Jungle...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857681206</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Stephen Clarke
|author=Tom Sharpe
+
|title=The Spy Who Inspired Me
|title=The Wilt Inheritance
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Wilt is stuck in a job he doesn't want – teaching a subject he's not keen on to people for whom he has no affection – at one of the new Universities. We used to know them as technical colleges.  But he can't afford to lose it because of the expense of keeping the quads at an expensive school and of maintaining his snobbish wife, Eva.  It's Eva though who signs him up for a job in the summer holidays  – tutoring the step-son of a local aristocrat in the hope of getting him into Cambridge – and particularly Porterhouse College.  It's not long before Wilt discovers that the boy totes a gun and shoots at anything which moves – or even doesn't move – and that he's an idiot who would probably struggle to get a bus to Cambridge.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099493136</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Alain Mabanckou
 
|title=Memoirs of a Porcupine
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=The protagonist of this novel is an ordinary Congolese porcupine until Papa Kibandi performs an ancient ritual involving a hallucinogenic cocktail called ''mayamvumbi'', and transforms him into his son's harmful double. The insecure younger Kibandi becomes more and more embittered as his life goes on, and sends his porcupine to 'eat' anybody he feels the least bit threatened by, a process whereby that person's life essence is sucked out, killing them instantly. Over one hundred victims later and following his master's death at the hands of a vengeful baby, our narrator retires to the hollow of a baobab tree where he writes this confessional.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846687675</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tom Holt
 
|title=Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=Imagine a world where pigs can do quantum mechanics, and where female solicitors turn into chickens. Add a dry cleaner that moves (literally, from the roof tiles to the basement) from town to town every forty-eight hours, a couple of medieval knights who've fought every day for centuries, and a magical ring (or pencil sharpener, depending on the mood it's in). Stir in a bit of property developing, a thaumaturgical detective and an old man who lives in a cloud. Result? You haven't even begun to probe the depths of this crazy, absurd, complex and hilarious book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495077</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Steve Hely
 
|title=How I Became a Famous Novelist
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=With an uncompromising title like 'How I Became a Famous Novelist', this clearly isn't intended to be a subtle book. So I can hardly complain when a cynical look at the writing industry swings raw punches in every direction. It just isn't my sort of humour, but equally, if you rave about 'The Office' you will likely enjoy this book far more than I have done.
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|summary=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!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015724</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=Charles Lamb
+
|title=Kokoschka's Doll
|title=Great Food: A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig and Other Essays
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|rating=2.5
|rating=4
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|genre=Cookery
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|summary=Well, this looked very much like a book I could love from the get-go, which is why I picked my review copy up and flipped pages over several times before actually reading any of it. I found things to potentially delight me each time – a weird section in the middle on darker stock paper, a chapter whose number was in the 20,000s, letters used as narrative form, and so on.  It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, too.  But you've seen the star rating that comes with this review, and can tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?
|summary=''A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig'' is a collection of food-related essays from the early 19th century, with a humorous bent. They're but a few pages each - a light read to bring a smile to your face, then on to the next little foodie treat.
+
|isbn=1529402697
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0241951003</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08KKQ85FN
|author=ClientsFromHell.net
+
|title=But Never For Lunch
|title=Clients From Hell
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|author=Sandra Aragona
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
+
|genre=Short Stories
|summary=Everyone who's worked as a freelancer has a story of a client from hell - that person who asked for something that was impossible, wanted it done yesterday for a fraction of the usual price, or is just plain angry about the work produced. The website [http://www.clientsfromhell.net ClientsFromHell.net] has collated a number of such stories over the years, and has now published them as a book.
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|summary=''If a woman approaching the menopause can be likened to a Rottweiler in lipstick, an Ambassador nearing retirement resembles a pampered peacock about to be released into the company of carrion crows or, more to the point, about to discover the real world of bus timetables and paying his own gas bills.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0982473931</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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You don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you?  We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|Sorting the Priorities]] and we learned what it was like to be moved around countries like accompanying baggage by the Italian Government but the time has come for HE to retires and for Sandra Aragona to become The Wife of Former Ambassador..They have left The Career and settled in 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.
|author=Manu Joseph
 
|title=Serious Men
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=Ayyan Mani is a Dalit, an untouchable, stuck in a flat in Mumbai's slums but hoping, somehow, for a better future for his son.  Working at the Insitute of Theory and Research he uses all his cunning and wiles to stay ahead of the game amongst the Brahmin scientistsDoes he have the intelligence, and nerves, to convince everyone that his son, against all odds, is a genius?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848543085</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ
|author=John Saunders
+
|title=The Karma Trap
|title=The Vernham Chronicles
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|author=Lisette Boyd
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Humour
+
|genre=Women's Fiction
|summary=Set amidst the rolling British countryside around Vernbury Vale is the little village of VernhamAnyone who lives in a village will recognise it immediately, with its cobbled streets and Tudor buildingsThere was some damage during the war (which might, or might not have been down to a lighthouse folly constructed by a local landowner on his lake) but the gaps have been filled with some beautiful, er, mock Tudor buildingsAlmost unique and nearly beautiful as the village is, it's not the star of The Vernham Chronicles.  The stars are the people who live in Vernham.
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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 postmanShe 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>1907499598</amazonuk>
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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 classifiedThat is just as well because he is about to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he can save the day.  
 +
|isbn=0956180523
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=Jester_Forever
|author=Martin Millar
+
|title=Forever After: a dark comedy
|title=The Good Fairies of New York
+
|author=David Jester
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Fantasy
+
|genre=Horror
|summary=In this fairytale of New York, the Cornish fairy King's children are living in exile, hiding in Central Park from a nasty industrial revolution back home.  They have friends from Ireland with them, and all have the ability to startle the local squirrels. Elsewhere two innocent scallywag fairies fleeing Scotland have arrived, and adopted a human each.  Heather has joined up with Dinnie, the city's worst busker, a fat, alcoholic and lonely fan of TV ads for phone sex, while Morag befriends Kerry, a dying kleptomaniac beauty, just as alone for different reasons.
+
|summary=Michael Holland is a cocky and brash young man who dies and gets made the offer of his lifetime; immortality. We follow Michael, a grim reaper and his friends, Chip (a stoner tooth fairy) and Naff (a stoner in the records department) as they grapple with their long lives and finding a clean surface to sit on in their flat.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749954205</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1683691172
|author=Gervase Phinn
+
|title=William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls
|title=Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars
+
|author=Ian Doescher
|rating=4
+
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=I spent many of my teenage years reading James Herriot's books, and I found that this collection of anecdotes and poems by Gervase Phinn had a real flavour of Herriot about it. Perhaps it was just the setting, for Phinn was a school inspector in the Dales for many years, but I think he also has that knack of capturing a situation, and a character, and bringing out the humour without making the person appear ridiculous. Here he collates stories from his other books, some Christmassy and others not, and he relates them with several of his own poems interspersed between.
+
|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>0141036435</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
[[Category:History]]
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|isbn=168369094X
{{newreview
+
|title=William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!
|author=Simon Garfield
+
|author=Ian Doescher
|title=Just My Type: A Book About Fonts
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=A quality typeface is a bit like a good referee at a football match in that you only really notice them if something has gone wrong. A referee is there to facilitate the players on the pitch, not to be the star of the show (though watching Match of the Day these past few weeks you'd often beg to differ). So it is with typefaces. A good type helps the reader, enhances the flow and makes the viewing experience easy and simple. Well sort of.
+
|summary=A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a clever way they seemed perfectly suited. It was then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I 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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846683017</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1473669065
|author=Bob Servant and Neil Forsyth
+
|title=Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel
|title=Bob Servant: Hero of Dundee
+
|author=Ruth Hogan
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=After [[Delete This at Your Peril: One Man's Fearless Exchanges with the Internet Spammers by Bob Servant|bursting into public consciousness]] as the scourge of email spammers, Broughty Ferry's resident polymath Bob Servant has returned. This time, he expands upon the colourful life only hinted at in his previous oeuvre, Delete this at Your Peril. And what a life it has been. He steers us from his humble beginnings, his broken family and traumatic schooldays, through the rise and fall of his window cleaning empire, and his role in Dundee's brutal cheeseburger wars. Along the way, we witness his struggles with, respectively, women ('skirt'), his simpleton sidekick Frank, and the demon drink.
+
|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>1841589209</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1683690346
|author=P K Munroe
+
|title=The Con Artist
|title=You Can Stick It
+
|author=Fred Van Lente
|rating=3.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Literary merit?  Absolutely none!
+
|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.
 
 
Plot, characterisation and all that other stuff you usually talk about?  Nope – there's none of that, either.
 
 
 
Ah, so it's non-fiction?  Well, calling it ''fact'' would be stretching things a little too far...
 
 
 
So, come on then. What ''is'' it?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007362188</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1473669588
|author=Axel Scheffler
+
|title=Falling Short
|title=How to Keep a Pet Squirrel
+
|author=Lex Coulton
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=So, how do you keep a pet squirrel?  Well, the simple answer is that you don't.  They're wild animals and not at all suitable for keeping in captivity, but accepted thinking didn't always run that way. It was whilst he was dipping into ''The Children's Encyclopaedia'' of 1910 that Axel Scheffler came across a small but indispensible guide to obtaining and caring for your pet squirrel.  His inventive mind came up with these beautiful illustrations to accompany the text and if you're looking for an amusing gift for an animal-loving adult then this book could well be the answer.
+
|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>0571255981</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=PJ Vanston
 
|title=Crump
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=It's Kevin Crump's first day as a lecturer at Thames Metropolitan University - an ex-polytechnic. It's the happiest day of his life, and he can't wait to see all that it holds, and make a difference to all his students. And then it hits him: the relentless pettiness of authority figures, the students who can't string two sentences together, the lowering of standards in search of higher test scores, so more money from foreign students, and political correctness gone (as I believe the saying goes) mad.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848762852</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Lennon
 
|title=In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=During the height of Beatlemania, John Lennon used to doodle or write short poems or nonsense stories to pass the time (and there must have been a good deal of time to pass away on tour, if only waiting for screaming fans to leave them alone and go back home)Some of them were seen by Tom Maschler, literary editor at Jonathan Cape, who encouraged him to produce more.  The results were published in two very successful short books in 1964 and 1965.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099530422</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=1683690133
|author=John Lindsay
+
|title=My Lady's Choosing
|title=Emails From An Asshole
+
|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Some classified ads are crying out for trolling. John Lindsay replies to them, spins them a yarn, and strings them along for as long as possible. Sometimes the advert is fairly innocuous and he emails them anyway. These are emails from an asshole, after all.
+
|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>1402778279</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Stibbe_Xmas
|author=L C Tyler
+
|title=An Almost Perfect Christmas
|title=The Herring In The Library
+
|author=Nina Stibbe
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
 
|summary=Tall, elegant Ethelred is a gentleman, and a third-rate author. Elsie, his literary agent, is short and dumpy, and not afraid to speak her mind. It is Elsie, in fact, who constantly assures her client he only occasionally aspires to the giddy heights of being second-rate. This could be the business partnership from hell, but not only do these two seem to get along, they even manage to solve crimes together. In this, the third outing for L C Tyler's eccentric sleuths, we are provided with a locked room mystery, a cast of possible villains of the most stereotypical type, and a fresh, funny tale which will make you laugh so much you'll get a stitch.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230714684</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=A J Jacobs
 
|title=My Experimental Life
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=A J Jacobs has a reputation for setting himself onerous tasks. His first book was about reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica; his second detailed a year spent according to the Biblical precepts. In My Experimental Life, he recounts nine briefer episodes of living outside his comfort zone.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099547422</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Seth Grahame-Smith
 
|title=Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary='Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.'  That quote, on the Statue of Liberty, was probably not designed with the inclusion of vampires in mind.  But by some means or another North America is rife with the things – hiding in plain sight, as the older ones can bear sunlight, with the help of darkened glasses.  It might just come down to one eager young man to rid his new country of such things, on his way to something he’s a bit more known for.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849014086</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jane Austen, Seth Grahame-Smith and Tony Lee
 
|title=Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie story of any renown will not remain simply a zombie story.  Before you can say ''the risen undead'' it will become a series of books, inspiring others, and/or lead to the same story being published in many different guises.  Here, then, on its way to Hollywood, is Jane Austen’s story of Lizzie Bennet, the feisty young woman trying to ignore Mr Darcy while fighting off the ''manky unmentionables'' – at least she is until the hidden truths open up to her, just as the soft soils of Hertfordshire do to yield their once-human remains.  And this time it’s in graphic novel form.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848566948</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Carl McInerney
 
|title=The Funniest Football Joke Book Ever
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Who scored the most goals in the Greek Mythology League? The centaur forward. Badoom boom tshhhh. It's a football joke book, packed to the gills with all sorts of cheesiness and silliness. Funniest ever? Perhaps not, but it's not too bad.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849391114</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paul Magrs
 
|title=Hell's Belles
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=The idea behind this series of novels is quite enchanting and amusing. Frankenstein's daughter is living and sleuthing in Whitby, ably aided and abetted by her sidekick, the enigmatic Effie, and a growing menagerie of younger accomplices, namely Michael and Penny. Whilst the original idea showed huge promise, I felt that the author has rather overdone it in terms of output, in his desire to capitalise on his original success. Book two in the series was quite disappointing, relying on sensationalism rather than adequate plot and character development. Book three was an improvement-and I'm delighted to report that this, the fourth book in the series, shows him returning to form with the promise we saw in the first of the series.
+
|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>0755346467</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|isbn=Doescher_Will
|author=Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul
+
|title=William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh
|title=Winnie's Jokes
+
|author=Ian Doescher
|rating=2.5
 
|genre=Confident Readers
 
|summary=Who turns off the lights at Halloween? The lights witch. What does an Australian witch ride on? A broomerang. Yep, it's a joke book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0192729063</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Nick Wadley
 
|title=Man + Dog
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|genre=Humour
|summary=Throughout my life I've lived with dogs or deeply regretted the fact that I lacked a canine companionWatching a dog – or better still, the interaction between dogs – is infinitely better than anything on television and it's sheer joy to see how man and dog interacts and how, so often, they hold a mirror up to each other.
+
|summary=A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdyYou may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it 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>1564785521</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=The Harvard Lampoon
 
|title=Nightlight: A Parody of Twilight
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Most people will have heard of the worldwide phenomenon that is [[Twilight by Stephenie Meyer|Twilight]]. The books by Stephenie Meyer and the film have made a legend of the romance between vampire Edward Mullen (Robert Pattinson plays the movie role) and teenage schoolgirl Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849013330</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest LGBT Fiction Reviews]]
|author=Steven Lowe and Alan McArthur
 
|title=Is it Just Me or Has the Shit Hit the Fan?: Your Hilarious New Guide to Unremitting Global Misery
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=''The banks fell over like fat Labradors running over a wet kitchen floor.''  Surely that is the wackiest, most inappropriate simile for the credit crunch and all it has done for the world.  You won't get any such namby-pamby animal likenesses from these authors, instead with quite a potty mouth on them they will lambast the modern world, the entire banking system, all those who failed to see it coming, and those millions just seemingly waiting for us all to revert to high-interest, high-risk, high-lending capitalism, so they can get back on the expenses train, and back up the rich lists.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847443656</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Eoin Colfer
 
|title=And Another Thing ... Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Of all the big books announced for this year, this one must have raised more eyebrows than many.  Why try and write a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, when way before the end, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such a task?  And why approach an Irishman, Eoin Colfer, when the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described as Monty Python doing a sci-fi Terry Pratchett, and with their cups of tea and dressing gowns, could only be described as very English?  Well the answer is most evident - Colfer is a world-beater when it comes to knocking up a story.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=The Vampire Miles Proctor
 
|title=The New Vampire's Handbook
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=I shall start with a prediction.  I will not become a vampire, for this imminent Hallowe'en, any festive fancy dress parties, or indeed for life as the lifeless undead.  I will not need tips on filing my fangs, or how to divert attention from the fact I cannot eat human food at dinner parties.  Me and my reflection in mirrors will remain intact.  But for those of you reading this at night, somewhere, flameproof cape at hand, with your distaste of garlic, publicity and presumably the anaemic, this is the sterling how-to lifestyle guide.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086464</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David O'Doherty, Claudia O'Doherty and Mike Ahern
 
|title=100 Facts About Pandas
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Humour
 
|summary=Sometimes the title says it all - this is a book with 100 facts about pandas. Sometimes you need to note the author too - David O'Doherty won an Edinburgh Comedy Award, so this is a book of a 100 silly and untrue facts about pandas.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224086324</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 13:11, 2 January 2024

1662500491.jpg

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

0571365884.jpg

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

0857526219.jpg

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

1529402697.jpg

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

B08GFSK2WZ.jpg

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

1683691172.jpg

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

168369094X.jpg

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

1473669065.jpg

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

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

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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

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