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[[Category:New Reviews|Humour]] __NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Burnt Tongues: An Anthology of Transgressive Short StoriesJen Beagin|authortitle=Chuck Palahniuk, Dennis Widmyer and Richard ThomasBig Swiss|rating=4.5|genre=Short StoriesHumour |summary=Saying certain things out loud I found the premise of this book totally original and addictive. Greta possesses the power to know the population of Hudson, New York's darkest secrets, their intimate lives, their fetishes and fears. How? Her job is to transcribe their sex therapy sessions. Sure, there's a confidentiality agreement, as the sex coach who calls himself Om keeps reminding her, but that just don’t sound rightmakes it more exciting. Some things are so disturbing or politically incorrect that you are best off leaving them inside your headLike we've all probably wished for at some point in life, Greta can exist passively, placidly, or better yet not thinking of them at allas a fly on the wall. When these words are spoken they could lead That is, until Greta decides to unglue her fly-feet from the sensation safety of Burnt Tongue; an aftereffect of knowing what you said was wrongthe wall and buzz far too close to the sun. Are you prepared The sun in this analogy is the sex coach's newest patient, who Greta dubs 'Big Swiss', and who, like the sun, is bright, blonde and beautiful - and irresistible to enter Greta. Suddenly, the confidentiality agreement, the world ethics of Transgressive Fiction that aims her professional position, her loyalties to disturbOm, alienate, disgust and question?fly out of the window. She's in too deep.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>178329552X</amazonuk>0571378579

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sammy LookerDean Koontz|title=Something Nasty in the SlushpileThe Bad Weather Friend|rating=4.5|genre=HumourParanormal|summary=I couldn't resist the title - Benny is having a neat play on [[Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons|Cold Comfort Farm]] terrifically bad day. He loses his job, he loses his fiancee, and I'm sure that you'll understand that I was expecting some examples of the horrors to be found amongst the mountain of unsolicited manuscripts which every publisher accumulateshis house gets trashed. I'll confess I was expecting to giggleOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, even disturbing coffin-sized object to groan - unkindhis home, I know - and Iit'd mentally shelved s possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the book with the triviathing that has trashed his house! The thing is, or (hopefully) Benny is the humourvery last person to deserve all this bad luck. There He is a nice person. A really nice person. So fortunately for Benny it turns out that element the delivery to the bookhis house is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, but there's also something far more usefulwho has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from nefarious forces for being a good person. If youSpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny're thinking about publishing s enemies, if he, Benny, and Harper (a book this should be required reading waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny''before'' you even go near a publishers wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472111028</amazonuk>1662500491

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=The Queen1529153050|title=Still ReigningBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson

|summary=Anyone who frequents Twitter will know that it's a mixed blessing. It's a mine of wonderful information and supportive camaraderie. It's also - unfortunately - home to a lot of people who take great pleasure in causing pain to others. But in amongst all this are a few gems and one of them is [https://twitter.com/Queen_UK @Queen_UK], a delightful satire on members of the royal family, celebrities, Seeking some light relief from the current political classes turmoil which is coming to seem more and the state of Her Majesty's nation. Ormore like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''oneBritain's nationBest Political Cartoons of 2022'' as Ma'am would say. Sharp eyes will have noted that we''Still Reigning'' is her second book, after ''Gin O'Clock'' and it's re not yet through the sort of parody which leaves you wondering if year: the writer might not cartoons run from 4 September 2021 to 31 August 2022. Who can imagine what there will be someone ''very'' close to come in the original.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0715649132</amazonuk>2023 edition?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=1785633074|title=Last Days of the Bus ClubStaggering Hubris|author=Chris StewartJosh Berry|rating=4.5

|summary=I could well have been a near-neighbour Members of Chris Stewart. NotParliament 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 course, near his current primary occupancy, an ecological farmstead just beyond you who are Eton and Oxbridge educated) but the turning off from reality is that the back end of nowhere in ''prime'' movers are the most rural of corners of southern Spain, but back when he lived in special advisers - the southSPADS -east of England, being Genesis' first ever drummer, and building bridges in who are the driving force behind the North Downsgovernment. The fact I learnt We are in the latter from this book shows up several privileged position of having access to the features memoirs of this warm-hearted 'travelogue' – Rafe Hubris, the fact that Stewart is never shy about portraying family details and history – given a good map and a prevailing wind one could find where he lives and descend on man who was behind the farm, if one wished; and that while this might be on skilful control of the travel shelves, Covid crisis which was completely contained by the narrative is so fragmented it actually moves a lot more than any end of 2020. You might not know the name now but he will certainly be the characters doman to watch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908745436</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571365884|title=Summer HalfMy Mess is a Bit of Life: Adventures in Anxiety|author=Angela ThirkellGeorgia Pritchett

|genre=HumourAutobiography|summary=If one didn’t know of Angela Thirkell’s distinguished background Georgia Pritchett has always been anxious, even as a granddaughter child. She would worry about whether the monsters under the bed were comfortable: it was the sort of Sir Edward Burne-Jones life where if she had nothing to worry about she would become anxious but such occasions were few and daughter of far between. On a classicist, it would be tempting visit to describe her as a kind of country cousin of [[:Category:P G Wodehouse|P.G. Wodehouse’s]]. An unaffected and intelligent onetherapist, whose humour is less sophisticated but bubbles over with just as much glee. The middle-class world an adult, when she has created, where young men come from families that are comfortably wealthy rather than outrageously so, offers a counterpoint was completely unable to the Mitford or Wodehouse worlds speak about what was wrong with their aristocratic characters who travel the world and mingle with more louche, bohemian ones.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184408969X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Bojeffries Saga|author=Alan Moore and Steve Parkhouse|rating=5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=A very truncated history of comics will start with the idea her it was suggested that they she should be funny strips – one jape then youwrite it down and ''re out; then that they should have more – perhaps My Mess is a superhero; then that you can have so much more than just Bit of a superhero – witness the works of [[Life:Category:Alan Moore|Alan Moore]]. But you mustnAdventures in Anxiety''t be too surprised to see is the whole thing come around in a full cycle. Because Alan Moore has, with this volume, concluded his own funny strip japery, and whatever history result - or greater opinions about the canon of comix might say, it's just about his best ever bookso we are given to believe.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0861662318</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Reverend Adam SmallboneJohn Boyne|title=The Rev Diaries|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=Adam Smallbone wasn’t always a vicar. He used to work for the Bristol Housing Department, enabling his father-in-law to tell everyone he worked 'in property'. From there, his initial calling was to a rural church in Suffolk which did nothing to prepare him for this, his current London inner city parish. Indeed, he's not prepared for Adoha (the Nigerian parishioner with 19 grandchildren and 'the bottom of God') or Colin, the homeless alcoholic who has adopted Adam and his wife Alex (Mrs Vicarage to Colin). But then Alex also has a lot to get used to; after all, she didn't actually marry a vicar.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718178394</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Look Who's Back|author=Timur VermesEcho Chamber

|summary=''Hitler Youth Ronaldo! Which way to Meet George Cleverley. He is self-defined as "one of the street?'' With these words a very misguided Nazi Fuhrer asks for his first directions in few television personalities over the Berlin age of 2011fifty without a criminal record". Mistakenly believing the lad to be He starts this book a party junior member with bit worried when his own name on mistress tells him she's carrying his football shirtchild, he also thinks for a while it but then his author wife is still 1945getting her kicks with the Ukrainian partner "Strictly Come Dancing" paired her with. HeThey 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 soon informed homeless with out-of -date food, and a fit young lad doing the truthgay hustle thing. Add in a few other characters – therapists, but still makes some unfortunate conclusions lawyers, random transgender types – that the street kiosks selling Turkish language newspapers are a sign of a Soviet-beating alliance between the all have two countries, that people eat granola bars because the war still leads very different connections to a bread shortagehis life, and you have something that people making suggests an ironic speech bubble with their fingers in almost farcical approach to the air is all that is left of modern world. What suggests the Hitler salute. But yesfarcical approach even more, after a long hiatus neither he nor our author is particularly concerned with explaininghowever, ''that man'' is back – and if he has his way he's going to be just as popular the fact this time round…is bloody funny.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857052926</amazonuk>0857526219

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Adam RuckStephen Clarke|title=The Bluffer's Guide to Golf (Bluffer's Guides)|rating=4.5|genre=Sport|summary=The fly leaf suggests that this Bluffer's Guide is the way to instantly acquire all the knowledge which you need to pass as an expert in the ''arcane and labyrinthine'' world of golf. There's quite a bit there that I'd agree on - the rules (and to an unfortunate extent the ''attitudes'') are arcane and they seem to take a lifetime to master, but there's a surprising amount of information tucked away inside this little book. What I might quibble with is whether or not you would ''pass as an expert'' (which suggests that you're something of a con man): there's enough detail here to give you a solid grounding without needing to bluff.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909365327</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Collected Works of A J Fikry|author=Gabrielle ZevinSpy Who Inspired Me

|summary=A J Fikry This is not having a good timespoof spy story, that isn't about James Bond. He's lost his wife to Or Ian Fleming. But it features a car crashman called Ian Lemming, who dresses well and he's not making that much moneylikes the ladies' and who works for the secret service, but in the planning side of things more than the active service. The book store he runs, stuck out on a limb Lemming finds himself put on a quiet island community, is too remote to turn mission with a profit year-roundfemale spy called Margaux, and he has just dismissed the latest publisher's rep to turn pair end up at his doorstranded in Normandy, 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 with Margaux on a desperate mission to get a lot worse, as the one thing he owns worth unearth traitors in the most – a rare bookresistance network, more valuable than his house, his business, anything – is about and Lemming desperately trying to vanish. Which bizarrely will cause several major changes to his one-person household…keep up with her!|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408704617</amazonuk>2952163855

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=William HansonAfonso Cruz and Rahul Bery (translator)|title=The BlufferKokoschka's Guide to Etiquette (Bluffer's Guides)Doll|rating=2.5|genre=LifestyleLiterary Fiction|summary=If you ask people what they fear most in 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 social situation most will tell you that of it's not knowing how to behave. They'll be fine about 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 basics20, but it's those little niceties - how to introduce yourself000s, what to ask for letters used as an aperitifnarrative form, how to address someoneand so on. It intrigued with the subterranean voice a man hears in wartorn Dresden that what little I knew of it mentioned, for instance which can suddenly reveal you as a parvenutoo. William Hanson gives us a quick trip through But you've seen the essentials in a book which is very readable star rating that comes with this review, and - in places - hilariously funnycan tell that if love was on these pages, it was not actually caused by them. So what happened?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1909937002</amazonuk>1529402697

{{newreview|title=Horrid HenryYou don't get many better opening sentences than that, do you? We first met His Excellency and The Ambassador's Biggest Wife in [[Sorting the Priorities: Ambassadress and Best Ever Joke Book - 3-in-1Beagle Survive Diplomacy by Sandra Aragona|author=Francesca Simon Sorting the Priorities]] and Tony Ross|rating=4.5|genre=Humour|summary=It is easy 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 see why Horrid Henry remains such an enduring retires and well-liked children’s character. for Sandra Aragona to become The adventures Wife of this cheeky, irreverent schoolboy and a cast of extreme characters including Miss Battle Axe, Former Ambassador... They have left The Demon Dinner Lady, Rabid Rebecca Career and arch-nemesis Moody Margaret are incredibly funny settled in Rome. Well 'settled' rather overstates the situation and a perfect way to encourage reluctant young readers to cultivate a love of reading. It is no surprise thentheir dog, Beagle, that the series has spawned a set no intention of three spin-off joke booksslowing down any time soon, which have now been combined to create a single volume: ''Horrid Henry’s Biggest despite being sixteen and Best Ever Joke Book''deaf.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>144401174X</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B08GFSK2WZ|title=Let Me Off at the Top!: My Classy Life and Other MusingsThe Karma Trap|author=Ron BurgundyLisette Boyd

|genre=HumourWomen's Fiction|summary=''This book George Jackson is a testament thirty-three years old, absolutely gorgeous to my giant ballslook at - and single. She'' But its not had sex for eight months and she's also a stuck in the karma trap: an awful lot more. The story we've never been able to discern from either of the ''Anchorman'' films bad luck is one of surprising hardship, unsurprising hardness, being visited on her and great hairshe has a real talent for attracting drama. ItHer life's a rags-to-riches tale, as Ron Burgundy comes chaotic: she dealt with the leak from a Hicksville town in the middle of shower by putting something down at the outskirts bottom of somewhere the arse end of nowhere (a town perpetually on fire due stairs to absorb the accidents water - then the shower fell through the roof whilst she was in the mines underneath) it and struggles against all left her, stark naked, staring at the odds – 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 many of a photo being taken by someone who shares it around the evens in the shape of womenoffice.}} {{Frontpage|author=David C Mason|title=Pandora's legs – Gardener|rating=3|genre=Crime|summary= John Cranston is a gardener, although what he did before he became a gardener, he claims, is classified. That is just as well because he is about to get be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only he is today, thrusting himself and his news at us nightlycan save the day.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780892241</amazonuk>0956180523

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=Jester_Forever|title=Outraged of Tunbridge WellsForever After: Original Complaints from Middle Englanda dark comedy|author=Nigel CawthorneDavid Jester

|summary=It was ever thus… cyclists go too fastA long time ago, in a galaxy far away, all the Star Wars films were crunched up against Shakespeare, without using and the marriage seemed a hooter or lights; there are hoodlums everywhere perfectly suitable one looks. So much so – so easily did the plots and characters converse in Shakespearean dialogue, and no public conveniences; people pretend to have qualifications and degrees they haven't rightfully earned; buses are too busy behave with shopping women who should be indoors alreadyShakespearean stage directions – that the producers tried again, cooking for their working menfolk… Itwith [[William Shakespeare's a very clever idea Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Back to show exactly what is behind the Future]] no less. And that worked. But simultaneously they put a real test out. A film I can'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' tag, and as a book to be shelved alongside those with t even really remember seeing was transcribed into the wackier letters sent to original Elizabethan lingo. A cult following I had never followed whatsoever was given the ''Daily Telegraph''brand new, yet oh so ancient, these selections from dressing. Here was the Royal town's press itself make a great eye-opener true challenge – would I manage to enjoy this, based on little foreknowledge? Oh damn those shiny gold stars for letting the complaints and complainants of Kent.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908096918</amazonuk>game away…

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Charlie Hill168369094X|title=BooksWilliam Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future!|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=Neurology professor Lauren Furrows witnesses A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the sudden untimelydeath story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two tourists entirely different genres and styles in such a bar while on holidayclever way they seemed perfectly suited. Birmingham bookshop ownerRichard Anger happens to be It was then duly repeated for all the other films in the same bar so together our single holidaymakers decide to team up as an investigatory force to be reckoned with.(Wellmain Star Wars cycle, Lauren teams up for that. Richardand clearly someone's reasons are more physical thanintellectual to begin withbuffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write.) The murders seem to emanate from author GarySayles, a legend in his own mind and, apparentlyIn the hiatus, fatal to read. Elsewherehippy exhibitionists (in an over-18 way) Zeke and Pippahowever, are planning theart installation effort has been made to end all art installations and, are determined to makeGary see if the centrepiecesame shtick works with other texts, whether he realises it or not.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781251630</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Facebook Diet: 50 Funny Signs of Facebook Addiction and Ways to Unplug With a Digital Detox|author=Gemini Adams|rating=3.5|genre=Humour|summary=Everywhere you look and question this book, it is a success – more or lessriff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. 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 And could we have some cult Internet pedigree to make it a hit gift book for the techie? Yes, anything 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>}} {{newreview|title=Sad Monsters|author=Frank Lesser|rating=4|genre=Humour|summary=If you thought you had it bad… Here is the chupacabra writing suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the newspapers for better press – notices that don't universally mention his goat-sucking habits before his chess-playingFuture, dancing or debating record. Here is a banshee struggling with high school lifeits tales of time travel, knowing the end of everyone that comes across her path. Here is King Kongbullying, 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 upparent/child strife like no other?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0285642324</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michael Cameron1473669065|title=The BrinkmeyersQueenie Malone's Paradise Hotel|author=Ruth Hogan

|summary=Hymie BrinkmeyerTilda returns to Brighton, New Yorker transplanted in to tidy away the UK is 50 years old ''on a good day'remains of her mother's life after her death. He lives with his wife Maggie and teenage children Kevin and Karrie. Hymie thinks Kevin is greatWhilst there, while given thatshe returns to the Paradise hotel, if he gets picked up a haven for drug possession once moreeccentrics and misfits. A place where people can be themselves, Hymie will have to admit and let go of thoughts that Kevin may have a problemtorment them elsewhere. Karrie, a burgeoning poet, is also wonderful in Little wonder that Tilda cannot forgive her dad's eyes and is about to give birth to mother for banishing her second as a child outside a relationship, from this place of wonder. It's her body so she has With the right... hasn't she? Everything is fine help of Queenie Malone, caring, and life is great. Okgregarious, Kevin's plotting Tilda begins to kill his mother pick apart the tricky and Hymie's leather-clad secretary seems to have a crush on uncertain relationship she had with her boss sometimes cruel and Hymie seems to have a lump somewhere delicately crucial but everything's just finedistant mother.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0957319134</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=Dedicated to...: The Forgotten Friendships, Hidden Stories and Lost Loves found in Second-hand Books|author=W B GooderhamFrontpage|ratingisbn=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>}} {{newreview1683690346|title=Wallace and Gromit - The Complete Newspaper Strips - Volume 1Con Artist|author=Nick ParkFred Van Lente

|summary=One man and his dog never had such Comic-Cons are a famous theme tune. ''One Man place of wonder and His Dog'' had a piddly little melodysanctuary for many people, but the triumphaland when Comic book artist Mike Mason arrives at San Diego Comic-Con, old-fashioned he's looking for both that and charming parp of the theme tune to Wallace sanctuary with other fans and Gromit has resounded out for decades now. While Aardman moved away from the near-silent classic animations the series first gave uscreators, plus the plasticine creations mutated into incredibly popular characterschance of maybe, which included a daily strip in the nation's biggest-selling tabloidjust maybe reuniting with his ex. Here However, when his rival is found dead, Mike is forced to navigate every dark corner of the first lump of themcon in order to clear his name – from cosplay flash mobs and intrusive fans to zombie obstacle courses – Mike must prove his innocence and, 312 daily doses of tomfooleryin doing so, collected for everyone to enjoymay just unravel a dark secret behind a legendary industry creator. Even if you thought the franchise had travelled its course a long time ago…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782760326</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|title=Demon Dentist|author=David Walliams|rating=4.5|genre=Confident Readers|summary=He ought to have realised she was evil from the start. After all, how many dentists do you know who love — yes, really love — rotten teeth? Brown, yellow, cracked, full of cavities, diseased, covered in plaque . . . you get the picture. And for Alfie, a boy who loathes dentists from the bottom of his heart and whose teeth are so rotten they ought to be a tourist attraction, danger definitely looms. You can practically hear the background music when the two meet at a school assembly: dum-dum-DUUUUMMMMMM!!!!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007453566</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern Manners|author=Sandi Toksvig|rating=5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Dear Sandi  You are my all time favourite celebrity lesbadyke, and one of the reasons I’m so very excited to be heading to Denmark this coming weekend (are all people there like you? Please say yes). For this alone, I had to get my mitts on your latest offering. I wasn’t that fussed about obtaining a book on manners previously, having always thought mine were quite ok, but I knew your take on the matter would be suitably hilarious and well worth a read. I was not wrong.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781250324</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Deaf at Spiral Park|author=Kieran Devaney|rating=2.5Frontpage|genreisbn=Humour|summary=''Deaf at Spiral Park'' is a bizarre take on the philosophy of what it is to be human, attempted through the portrayal of a bear who shaves of his fur to appear as a human. The story combines philosophy with comedy using a range of stock characters including a clown and a farmer to show the world of the bear and to consider how his humanity may be more than that of the humans themselves.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907773169</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=Very British Problems: Making Life Awkward for Ourselves, One Rainy Day at a Time|author=Rob Temple|rating=3|genre=Humour|summary=Are you compelled to apologise multiple times a day – even when you are not at fault, or even to inanimate objects? Would you subject yourself to great inconvenience rather than confront someone who is sitting in your reserved seat on a train? Have you been known to commit desperate acts in the search for your next cup of tea? If so, you may be suffering from Very British Problems.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0751552593</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Reluctant Cannibals|author=Ian Flitcroft|rating=4|genre=General Fiction|summary=Over a truffled turkey at their college Christmas dinner in 1964, a group of Oxford dons decide to join their love of fine food and drink with their mutual appreciation for nineteenth-century French philosopher of food Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (author of the 1825 classic ''La Physiologie du Goût'', or ''The Physiology of Taste'') by forming a secret dining society. Together these fellows of St Jerome's College form the Shadow Faculty of Gastronomic Science, a group that will continue meeting to share new and daring culinary experiences until Oxford agrees to set up a proper gastronomic school of its own.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909593591</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Peter Stjernstrom and Rod Bradbury (translator)|title=The Best Book in the World|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Titus Jensen may not have written many great novels for a while (if ever) but his festival readings of others' works are renowned. Why, his rendition of ''The Diseases of the Swedish Monarchs from Gustavas Vasa to Gustav V'' has been compared favourably to his offerings from ''Handbook for Volvo 245''. However, one drunken night he and romantic poet Eddie X agree that their fame on the festival circuit would be insignificant by comparison if they could write the best book in the world; a combination of all genres, appealing to all tastes and making all the best seller categories. They start work on it the next day but, rather than collaborate, each wants the lone glory. The race (or should that be battle?) to the publishing date is on!|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1843914808</amazonuk>}} {{newreview1473669588|title=The Complete and Utter History of the World According to Samuel Stewart Aged 9Falling Short|author=Sarah BurtonLex Coulton

|summary=Lex Coulton''Nobody knows where history ends''s debut novel is a story about mistakes, according to the cover illustration of this little bookfailures, but if anybody knows what it involves it is nine year old Samuel Stewartand relationships. He captivatingly summarises it all on these pagesThe main protagonist, Frances Pilgrim, bringing us in ninety minutes from the times cavemen didn't write history down as they didn't realise it had started yetis a sixth form English teacher who has recently fallen out with her best friend Jackson, up to a work colleague and is grappling with the time increasingly eccentric behaviour of his birthher mother. That of course This relationship is a time that passed most of us complicated by, but heralded the arrival of a very individual, entertaining and amusing voicefact that Frances's father disappeared at sea when she was five years old.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780721838</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tony Robinson OBE1683690133|title=Freedom from Bosses ForeverMy Lady's Choosing|author=Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris

|summary=When we first meet Canadian businesswoman Leonora Soculitherz (don't struggle You are a lass of twenty-eight. Plucky, penniless and in Regency- it's pronounced 'so cool it hurts') she's era London the race is on her way from Manchester Airport to Scarboroughfind a suitable suitor - or else doom yourself to life as an eternal spinster. Along your journey, the home of her agentyou'll be accompanied by Lady Evangeline Youngblood - a fiesty noble eager to save you from a life alone, Tony Robinson OBEand fired by a rogueish sense for adventure. You get the measure of the woman straight away as she lets her irritation show about the problems When it comes to suitors though, you find in 'll have to make the First Class carriage on ultimate decision between witty, pretty and wealthy Sir Benedict Granville, wholesome, rugged and caring Captain Angus MacTaggart, or the trainmad, bad and terrifyingly sexy Lord Garraway Craven. (She is ''so'' right - I was once grateful to spend With orphans, werewolves, long lost lovers and ancient Egyptian artefacts along the journey perched on a luggage rack.) Her mission is a piece of investigative journalism thatway, it's clear this isn't going to introduce her to some very superior people as she searches for information about why people in small businesses don't get the help they needbe an easy decision...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00CE5BKKI</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Paul MerrillStibbe_Xmas|title=Muddle Your Way Through Being a Grandparent: How to Fool People into Thinking You're a Competent Granny or GrandpaAn Almost Perfect Christmas|author=Nina Stibbe|rating=34.5

|summary=It seems Christmas – the time of traditional trauma. You only have to be accepted wisdom think about the turkey for that being – once upon a grandparent is a great deal easier than being a parenttime 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. The trials Nowadays it's all having to make sure it's suitably free-range and tribulations have largely been ignored by wrinklies grateful for contact with their children organic – but not too organic that you can go and grandchildren - visit it, and by the children who are grateful (or otherwise) for free childcare - or so Paul Merrill would have us believeget too friendly with it to want to eat it. Published for Grandparents' Day his book takes us through Christmas, though, is of course also a series time of scientifically-questionable quizzes, flow charts (thatgreat boons. It's often cash in hand for a lot of moneyplump people who can hire red suits and beards, by it was always a godsend for postmen with all the way thank- and you can guess which way it's flowing)letters to aunties you saw twice a decade that your parents made you write out in long-hand as a child, checklists and advice from celebritiesas for the makers of Meltis Newberry Fruits – well, some of whom you might did they even have heard try and sell them any other time of.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1909609404</amazonuk>the year?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jonathan CoeDoescher_Will|title=Expo 58William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh|author=Ian Doescher

|summary=It's 1958 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 Thomas Foley works for heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the British Government Central Office cinematic version of Information but feels an outsider. Hehis original stage play for ''s ex-grammar school rather than establishment public school and his mother is Belgian (thatThe Force Doth Awaken's foreign you know) so there are definite impediments to his promotion. Thomas is therefore thrilled when chosen to oversee one of Britain's exhibits , but here at last we get the bigactual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, exciting international Expo returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in Belgium. So bring on the experience… and a little brush with espionage… and some beautiful womenfamily til it hurts. (Sylvia is a little less thrilledAnd if you need further encouragement, being don't forget his wife and all.)|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670923710</amazonuk>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…