Category Archives: Humour
Peter Hogan – Resident Alien
They walk among us … possibly. When a book is turned into a film or, in this case, a comic into a television series, there are usually disagreements about which is better, ranging from polite opinions to open cultural warfare. … Continue reading
Simon Hart – Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip
Strap in, this is going to be quite a ride! 31 October 2023. “Amongst today’s HR joys is the report from Emma that a departmental SpAd (Special Adviser) went to an orgy over the weekend and ended up taking a … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, History, Humour, Politics
Tagged Hancock, Hart, Simon, Ungvernable
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Joanne Harris – Moonlight Market
If you can’t see it … is it real? “What does real mean? Is love real? Or magic, or hope, or joy, or the quest for enlightenment? Are any of those things less real just because they’re woven in words?… … Continue reading
Adrian Mackinder – Death and the Victorians
The origins of modern death Let’s face it – nobody did death like the Victorians. From Highgate Cemetery to the high drama of seances, from Jack the Ripper to Madame Blavatsky, from Waterloo Station to Brookwood Cemetery (there was an … Continue reading
Alwyn Turner – Little Englanders – Britain in the Edwardian Era
End of Empire History sometimes provides us with neat dividing lines. Queen Victoria helpfully died just weeks into the new century, making way for a new era, but the nightmarish Twentieth Century didn’t really get into its stride until the … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Humour, Politics
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Louise Willder – Blurb Your Enthusiasm – an A-Z of Literary Persuasion
Louise Willder – OneWorld – £14.99 Quick review of Louise’s checklist of adjectives not to be used in a blurb: breathtaking, spellbinding, dazzling, powerful, beautiful. So I can’t say it’s any of those. Readable? Well, as she points out, it’s … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Humour
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Howard Jacobson – Mother’s Boy: A Writer’s Beginnings
Howard Jacobson – Jonathan Cape – £18.99 It is striking that one of our finest novelists didn’t publish his first novel until he was nearly forty, and characteristically, he was ticking off literature’s late starters as he passed them by. … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Humour
Tagged Biography, Boy, Howard, Jacobson, jewish, Jewishness, Mothers
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Liz Williams – Miracles of Our Own Making: A History of Paganism
Liz Williams – Reaktion Books – £15.95 In her discussion of Stonehenge, Liz Williams writes: “There is a legend that Merlin simply flew the entire circle from Ireland, which I think we can rule out.” This is typical of her … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, History, Humour, Philosophy, Religion, Science
Tagged Aleister, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Club, coven, Crowley, druid, druids, Harry Potter, Hellfire, Liz, Madame Blavatsky, magic, occult, Pagan, Paganism, potions, religion, sourcery, spells, The Golden Dawn, warlock, wika, Williams, Witch, witchcraft, wizad
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Chris Kirkham – Decoherence: A Quantum Whodunnit
Chris Kirkham – Wallace Publishing – £8.99 You have to salute a debut novel that swaggers its ambition. Boasting the subtitle “A quantum whodunnit”, Decoherence duly boasts chapters called ‘Entanglement’, ‘Wave Function’, ‘Entropy’ and so on. Our hero, Sirius Peabody, … Continue reading
Helen Lewis – Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights
Helen Lewis – Jonathan Cape £13.59 Well-behaved women don’t make history, and we need to be a bit grown up about our approach to feminism. That is the starting point of the new book from Helen Lewis. Lewis is a … Continue reading
Ray Connolly – Sorry, Boys, You Failed The Audition
Ray Connolly – Malignon £7.95 “I’d like to say Thank You on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.” John Lennon on the roof of the Apple Building on January 30th 1969 at the … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Fiction, Humour, Music
Tagged Beatles, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ray Connolly, Ringo Star
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Randy Ross – God Bless Cambodia
A man can travel well and he can travel badly*. The hero of Randy Ross’s God Bless Cambodia is on the ‘badly’ end of the scale. At 48 Randy Burns is tired of ‘the miserable game’ (dating). He has been … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Humour
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Tom Kirkham – Pop Life
2016 was a bad year. Globally, it was the year of Brexit and was rounded off with a Trump! It was bad for pop music too: David Bowie had died in January. And then it seemed the heroes were rushing … Continue reading
Posted in Biography, Cultural History, Humour, Music
Tagged bipolar, David Bowie, depression, George Martin, gig, gigs, Lemmy, Leonard Cohen, Mental health, music
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Grady Hendrix – Paperbacks From Hell
You might think it eccentric to speak of a golden age of satanic possession, murderous infants, flesh-eating crustaceans and Nazi leprechauns, but for enthusiasts of paperback horror novels, the 70’s and 80’s were the glory days. This was a time of the … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Fiction, History, Humour
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Ben Aaronovich – The Furthest Station
You might think a man who had a couple of Dr Who serials under his belt (1980’s – the Sylvester McCoy era), might rest on his laurels, but like the rest of us Ben Aaronovitch has a living to make. … Continue reading
Robert Newman – Neuropolis: A Brain Science Survival Guide
Since his Entirely Accurate Encyclopaedia of Evolution, Robert Newman’s entirely iconoclastic re-examination of the evidence has excited readers and listeners with its unashamed linking of the science with wider issues, specifically socio-political ones. In his latest book, Neuropolis – a brain science … Continue reading
Posted in Cultural History, Humour, Science
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Tim Haigh – Z is for Zeugma
“Since his death in 1960, Timothy J Haigh has been widely recognised as the least gifted of the great mystery novelists of the golden age of travel writing…” So begins the introduction to Z is for Zeugma. Yes, Tim has … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Humour
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