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The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins (Vintage International Series)
by Irvine WelshFrom the number one bestselling author of TrainspottingMeet Lucy Brennan – an aggressive personal trainer who has just become a media hero after taking down a would-be gunman in Miami.The one witness to the daring rescue is Lena Sorensen – an overweight depressive who is becoming increasingly obsessed with Lucy…Irvine Welsh’s latest creation captures the two great obsessions of our time – how we look and where we live – and tells a story so subversive and dark it blacks out the Florida sun.
Man of the World
by Gareth MayIn his brilliant first book, 150 Things Every Man Should Know, Gareth May instructed the young man about town in vital life lessons such as how to undo a girl's bra with one hand, and how to down a pint without being sick.All well and good. But there comes a time in most young men's lives when, their education completed, they decide to spread their wings and travel to foreign climes.From international dining etiquette to the safe ascension of Kilimanjaro, and surviving a shark attack to cooling cans of beer in the Savanna sun, Gareth's simple and brilliantly executed new book is a must-have for the modern man setting off, passport in hand, for the first time.Covering every possible travel scenario - from must-visit nudist colonies, to tips on how to organise the ultimate stag weekend abroad; from where to experience the most exhilarating white water raft run in the world, to how to get married by an Elvis-lookalike in Vegas - never before has a book listed how to read global currency rates on one page, and how to drink snake blood in Cambodia on the next.With comprehensive cool city guides for the young dude and the most unexpected travel tips you're likely to read anywhere, armed with Man of the World in their backpack, blokes everywhere will be able not only to woo their woman in Paris but also tip the bellboy accordingly. This is the ultimate tailored for testosterone travel guide.
Back When We Were Grown-ups: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of French Braid (Windsor Selection Ser.)
by Anne TylerOne morning, Rebecca wakes up and realises she has turned into the wrong person. Is she really this joyous and outgoing organiser of parties, the put-upon heart of her dead husband's extended family? What happened to her quiet and serious nineteen-year-old self, and what would have happened if she'd married her college sweetheart? Can someone ever recover the person they've left behind?OVER A MILLION ANNE TYLER BOOKS SOLD‘She’s changed my perception on life’ Anna Chancellor ‘One of my favourite authors ’ Liane Moriarty‘She spins gold' Elizabeth Buchan ‘Anne Tyler has no peer’ Anita Shreve‘My favourite writer, and the best line-and-length novelist in the world’ Nick Hornby ‘A masterly author’ Sebastian Faulks ‘Tyler is not merely good, she is wickedly good’ John Updike‘I love Anne Tyler’ Anita Brookner ‘Her fiction has strength of vision, originality, freshness, unconquerable humour’ Eudora Welty
God Collar
by Marcus Brigstocke'There's probably no God ... but I wish there was. I've got some things I need to ask him.'Based on Marcus Brigstocke's award-winning Edinburgh and West End show, God Collar focuses on the 'God-shaped hole' that opens up in Marcus's life following the death of his best friend. Exploring his own issues surrounding faith - his lack of it, his need for it, some people's waste of it and what good purposes it might serve if he could get hold of it - he rails against the holy trinity of Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) while atheists, agnostics and believers of all faiths get it in the neck too. God Collar is a scathing look at modern faith that will leave you laughing out loud and examining your own beliefs in equal measure.'As luck would have it, my relationship with God is as dysfunctional and peppered with resentment and recrimination as ever, so this should make for good writing.'
Don't Wipe Your Bum with a Hedgehog
by Mitchell SymonsA collection of wise and wacky words of advice, from the bestselling and double Blue Peter Best Book with Facts-winning Mitchell Symons.From the marvellous mind of Mitchell Symons comes such gems of wisdom as:You can't trust a dog to watch your food.Why buy shampoo when real poo is free?Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, as you won't have a leg to stand on.And if getting even doesn't work, just get odd!
The Snapper (The\barrytown Trilogy Ser.)
by Roddy DoyleMeet the Rabbitte family, motley bunch of loveable ne'er-do-wells whose everyday purgatory is rich with hangovers, dogshit and dirty dishes. When the older sister announces her pregnancy, the family are forced to rally together and discover the strangeness of intimacy. But the question remains: which friend of the family is the father of Sharon's child?By the bestselling author of The Commitments, now a long-running West End stage show. 'Unstoppable fun. A big-hearted, big-night out' The Times
The Van (Reed Audio Ser.)
by Roddy DoyleJimmy Rabbitte is unemployed and rapidly running out of money. His best friend Bimbo has been made redundant at the company where he has worked for many years. The two old friends are out of luck and out of options. That is, until Bimbo finds a dilapidated 'chipper van' and the pair decide to go into business...By the bestselling author of The Commitments and The Snapper, The Van is a tender tale of male friendship, swimming in grease and stained with ketchup.
Good Little Wolf
by Nadia ShireenOnce upon a time there was a wolf called Rolf - a good little wolf who liked baking cakes and was always kind to his friends. But real wolves aren't supposed to be good - they're supposed to be BIG and BAD. Can a good little wolf still be a real wolf?And will Rolf discover there's something big and bad lurking inside him after all?
Top Gear: A Truckload Of Trivia To Drive You Round The Bend (Topgear Ser.)
by Ivan Berg Nik BergDid you know that Jasons and Tracies crash more cars than Jacquelines and Damons? Or that a boomerang can be used to repair a knackered clutch? Have you ever wanted to visit a naked car show, wondered what it's like to drive on the world's most dangerous road, or receive the world's most expensive speeding ticket?Want to read about flying cars, amphibious cars, or atomic cars? What about the Accord that can actually strike a chord, or the love car park? Dip inside to find all these plus stacks of other stuff, including cars in films, cars on TV, cars in songs - even cars as coffins.Top Gear: Motor Mania is a car book like no other. It's full of the strangest stories, fascinating facts and spectacular stats - a must for any car nut.
Grumpy Old Women: (but Still Feeling Eighteen Inside)
by Judith HolderWe all know what it means these days to be a grumpy old man, because part of that role is to be outspoken. Well, we've heard just about enough out of the men, thank you very much! Grumpy Old Women gives us the other perspective: the female take on the million irritations of today's world. So whats the difference? Surely what is irritating to the mature members of one sex is equally annoying to the other? Not necessarily, and this is precisely what Grumpy Old Women seeks to address. Body image, visitors, children, animals, shopping, careers, parties, holidays and, yes, grumpy old men themselves all are very much on the list of what today's mature woman finds a source of concern. From the series producer and stand-up comic Judith Holder, the book incorporates material from the television series Grumpy Old Women, which features a diverse, colourful and very grumpy group of celebrities, including Janet Street Porter, Jenny Eclair, Ann Widdecombe, Germaine Greer, Kathryn Flett and Jilly Cooper. Written with wit, style and sympathy, the book is a source of both amusement and comfort to women everywhere - grumpy, old or otherwise.
All At Sea: One man. One bathtub. One very bad idea.
by Tim FitzHighamAll At Sea is a celebration of the epic absurd, an attempt to explain just how out of hand things can become from a very simple starting point. The book follows the author's death-defying 200-mile journey in his antique Thomas Crapper bath - not just across the Channel, but around Kent - right up to the tremendous reception and huge media attention which awaited him under Tower Bridge. Tim met the Queen, and his bath now resides in the National Maritime Museum of Great Britain.
In The Bath: Conquering the Channel in a Piece of Plumbing
by Tim FitzHighamIn The Bath: Conquering the Channel in a Piece of Plumbing is a celebration of the epic absurd, an attempt to explain just how out of hand things can become from a very simple starting point. The book follows the author's death-defying 200-mile journey in his antique Thomas Crapper bath - not just across the Channel, but around Kent - right up to the tremendous reception and huge media attention which awaited him under Tower Bridge. Tim met the Queen, and his bath now resides in the National Maritime Museum of Great Britain.
Lyttelton's Britain: A User's Guide to the British Isles as heard on BBC Radio's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
by Iain PattinsonThe I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue team of Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, in the company of their esteemed chairman Humphrey Lyttelton, have been recording their BBC radio show around the UK for longer than any of them can remember ... that's about a week - or twenty minutes in the case of Barry Cryer. At each venue Humph would present a short history of the location, written by Iain Pattinson, to the mutual delight of the audience, the team and their delightful scorer Samantha (who somehow always found time for a rewarding poke around the area's backstreets).We are privileged to present, in gazetteer form, the very best of Humph's local histories form Radio 4's multi award-winning 'antidote to panel games'. As accurate as Wikipedia and as comprehensive as Reader's Digest, this unique guide tells you everything you never knew you wouldn't ever need to know about the background and inhabitants of Britain's most prominent towns and cities. The intelligent reader will waste no time in adding it to their collection.BristolIt was from Bristol in 1497 that John Cabot set off to find a new route to the Spice Islands by sailing north-west. He instead discovered a strange, hostile world which he named 'Newfoundland', until the natives explained that they actually called it 'Swansea'.NottinghamIt's well documented in official records that the city's original name was 'Snottingham' or 'home of Snotts', but when the Normans came, they couldn't pronounce the initial letter 'S', so decreed the town be called 'Nottingham'or the 'home of Notts'. It's easy to understand why this change was resisted so fiercely by the people of Scunthorpe.BrightonA settlement is first recorded in Brighton as long as ago as 3000 BC, when Celtic Druids practised their ancient worship of oaks, mistletoe and virgins, and indeed, oaks and mistletoe are still plentiful in Brighton.
The Dangerous Book for Middle-Aged Men: A Manual for Managing Mid-Life Crisis
by David QuantickSo your husband/boyfriend/partner (delete as necessary) has just tipped over 35/40/45/50 (delete as necessary) and you can see that he's not quite as keen on Emmerdale as he once was. He's started to dress with his jeans hoiked too high like his hero Jeremy Clarkson and he's bought a home gym - the one recommended by George Clooney. Then there are those Harley Davison brochures delivered in brown envelopes. You've noticed he's started pulling in his beer gut when he's talks to his teenage secretary. And why have his grey sideburns turned that browny black? That's a sure sign of hair dye. And then you stumble into the bathroom in the morning and he's got his hands in a jar of your face cream. LADIES BEWARE!That dangerous age has arrived. It's the male menopause. The mid-life crisis. The time when suddenly you find your partner has put a whole Scalextrix track in your attic without you noticing. He's bought an electric guitar and insists on playing 'Smoke On The Water 'to the cat at all hours. It that time when no matter what you say they suddenly don't mind making a fools of themselves. They come home almost every week with a new enthusiasm. Dangerous Men don't just cook - they COOK. With truffles, that cost £210 for one the size of a wrinkled scrotum, and have to be from the right region of France. And they must be served with a side order of blowfish, because you saw that in a James Bond DVD that came free with the Mail on Sunday.
The True History of the Blackadder: The Unadulterated Tale of the Creation of a Comedy Legend
by J. F. RobertsBritish history as we know it is a cluttered patchwork of questionable stories which have been re-written, re-evaluated and ridiculed, and yet there is still an unquestioned narrative thread which runs through the nation's historical record, accepted as fact. But final editorial control has always belonged to the winners. And nobody likes winners... The True History of the Black Adder is the very first in-depth examination of the creation of a British institution like no other – arguably the greatest sitcom of all time – not to mention the first historical investigation into the lives of the Blackadder family, one of the nation's most villified dynasties.Using existing archive footage and rare literature, plus new revelations from personal interviews with the makers including John Lloyd, Tony Robinson, Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Brian Blessed; Rowan Atkinson and many more, J. F. Roberts relates the full scope of the tale of how the 70s alumni of three great universities – Oxford, Cambridge and not Hull, but Manchester – discovered a unique chemistry that would see them build a timeless comic masterpiece.At last Blackadder enthusiasts can now uncover THE cunning plan, in all its hideous hilarity.
Beyond a Joke: Inside the Dark World of Stand-up Comedy
by Bruce DessauBeyond a Joke is a celebration of comedy - one of the modern world's most dominant and compelling art forms - but it is also the story of comedy's dark side, homing in on the scandals that have surrounded some of light entertainment's biggest stars, and telling it as it is, featuring insight from one who was there at the time. While Beyond a Joke explores the extremes of this world it also addresses another question. Are comedians naturally dysfunctional, or does the stress and pressure of the job make them dysfunctional? Ruby Wax once told the author that she had builders in her house who were just as emotionally unstable as most stand-up comedians she had worked with. But they don't want to go on stage and plead with an audience to love them. Bruce Dessau is the only person who could write this book. From Russell Brand slashing his chest onstage to Jo Brand trashing a friend's car on the motorway, he has heard it all. Bruce Dessau knows where the bodies are buried.
The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
by Jem RobertsAs a wise ape once observed, space is big – vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly so. However, if you look too closely at space, it becomes nothing but lumps of rock and sundry gases. Sometimes it's necessary to take a step back, and let a few billion years go by, before any of the true wonder and scope of the cosmos becomes apparent. Similarly, the late 20th century author, humorist and thinker Douglas Adams was big – vastly, hugely and thoroughly mind-bogglingly so, both in physical terms, and as a writer who has touched millions of readers, firing up millions of cerebellums all over planet Earth, for over 35 years – and for nearly half of that time, he hasn't even been alive. It would be ridiculous to pretend that Douglas Adams's life and work has gone unexamined since his dismayingly early death at 49 but throughout the decade since the last book to tackle the subject, the universes Adams created have continued to develop, to beguile and expand minds, and will undoubtedly do so for generations to come. An all-new approach to the most celebrated creation of Douglas Adams is therefore most welcome, and The Frood tells the story of Adams's explosive but agonizingly constructed fictional universe, from his initial inspirations to the posthumous sequel(s) and adaptations, bringing together a thousand tales of life as part of the British Comedy movements of the late 70s and 80s along the way. With the benefit of hindsight and much time passed, friends and colleagues have been interviewed for a fresh take on the man and his works.
Tommy Cooper All In One Joke Book: Book Joke, Joke Book
by Tommy CooperMy wife is a magician, yesterday she turned our car into a tree.A big white horse walks into a pub. The barman says, 'we have a drink named after you.' The horse says, 'what? Eric?'I said, 'waiter, what's that in my soup?' he said, 'I'd better call the boss, I can't tell one insect from another.'I'm reading a book called 'Sex Before 20'. Personally I don't like audiences.I said, 'it's serious, doctor, I've broken my arm in 20 places'. He said, 'well stop going to those places.'I call my car flattery. It gets me nowhere.
The Moor's Last Sigh: Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award 1995 (Vintage International Series)
by Salman RushdieMoraes ‘Moor’ Zogoiby is the last in line of a crooked and fantastical dynasty of spice merchants and crime lords from Cochin. He is also a compulsive storyteller and an exile. As we travel with him on a route that takes him from India to Spain, he spins his labyrinthine family tale of mad passions and volcanic family hatreds, of titanic matriarchs and their mesmerised offspring, of premature deaths and curses that strike beyond the grave.But does the India of his parents – populated by extravagant artists, piratical gatekeepers and mysterious lost paintings – still exist? And will he ever discover what became of his fiery and tempestuous mother? Moraes’ epic quest to uncover the truth of the past is a love story to a vanishing world, and also its last hurrah.
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I've Learned
by Alan AldaHe's one of America's most recognisable and acclaimed actors-a star on Broadway, an Oscar nominee for The Aviator, and the only person to ever win Emmys for acting, writing, and directing during his eleven years on M*A*S*H. Now Alan Alda has written a memoir as elegant, funny, and affecting as his greatest performances. 'My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six,' begins Alan Alda's irresistible story. The son of a popular actor and a loving, but mentally ill mother, he spent his early childhood backstage in the erotic and comic world of burlesque and went on after early struggles to achieve extraordinary success in his profession.Yet Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is not a memoir of show business ups and downs. It is a moving and funny story of a boy growing into a man who then realizes he has only begun to grow. It is the story of turning points in his life, events that would make him what he is - if only he could survive them.From the moment as a boy when his dead dog is returned from the taxidermist's shop with a hideous expression on his face, and he learns that death can't be undone, to the decades-long effort to find compassion for the mother he lived with but never knew, to his acceptance of his father in him, personally and professionally, he learns the hard way that change, uncertainty and transformation are what life is made of, and the good life is made of welcoming them.Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, filled with curiosity about Nature, good humour and honesty, is the crowning achievement of an actor, author, and director, but surprisingly, it is the story of a life more filled with turbulence and laughter than any he's ever played on the stage or screen.
Brideshead Abbreviated: The Digested Read of the Twentieth Century
by John CraceJohn Crace's 'Digested Read' column in the Guardian has rightly acquired a cult following. Each week fans avidly devour his latest razor-sharp literary assassination, while authors turn tremblingly to the appropriate page of the review section, fearful that it may be their turn to be mercilessly sent up.Now he turns his critical eye on the classics of the last century, offering bite-sized pastiches of everything from Mrs Dalloway to Trainspotting via Lolita and The Great Gatsby. Those who have never quite got around to reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will be delighted to find its essence distilled into a handful of paragraphs. Those who have never really enjoyed Lord of the Flies will be pleased to find it hilariously parodied in an easily swallowable 982 words. And those who find all such works a little highbrow will be relieved to discover, between the covers of this book, John Crace's take on the likes of Ian Fleming, P. G. Wodehouse and the Highway Code.Witty and sharp, this is essential reading both for those who genuinely love literature and for those who merely want to appear ridiculously well read.
My Name is Daphne Fairfax: A Memoir
by Arthur Smith'My name is Arthur Smith, unless there's anybody here from the Streatham tax office. In which case, I'm Daphne Fairfax.' This has been Arthur's opening line at hundreds of stand-up comedy performances. In fact, he is neither Daphne nor Arthur. Friends and family know him as Brian.One of the 'alternative comedians' who shook up light entertainment in the eighties and nineties, Arthur (and Brian) is also a broadcaster, an opening bat for Grumpy Old Men, a West End playwright (his plays include An Evening with Gary Lineker) and a guest on innumerable radio and TV panel shows.In My Name is Daphne Fairfax he reflects on the nature of comedy and his days as a scruffy kid on the bombsites of Bermondsey, a wild-haired undergraduate, a roadsweeper, an English teacher, a failed rock star, a boozed-up sexual adventurer and an intensive care patient who has been told never to drink again.Hilarious, scandalous and rude, his memoir incorporates a tender tribute to his parents and a vigorous account of the peculiar business of being alive.
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere: (Blandings Castle) (Blandings Castle #2)
by P.G. WodehouseDive into this collection of laugh-out-loud funny short stories from the perennial comic P. G. Wodehouse.Meet Clarence, the absent-minded ninth Earl of Emsworth, whose beloved pig the Empress of Blandings is in the running for her first prize in the Fat Pigs Class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. Revel in the delicious feud between Head Gardener McAllister and the terrifying Lady Constance, which can only be solved by a delightfully rebellious little girl from London. And skipping an ocean and a continent, indulge in unputdownable stories of excess from the monstrous Golden Age of Hollywood, specially selected by Wodehouse himself.'P. G. Wodehouse is the funniest person that has ever written words' Greg James'An incomparable and timeless genius' Kate Mosse
Pigs Have Wings: (Blandings Castle) (Blandings Castle #4)
by P. G. WodehouseBlandings is now a major BBC One television series starring Jennifer Saunders and Timothy Spall. Can the Empress of Blandings win the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Show for the third year running? Galahad Threepwood, Beach the butler and others have put their shirt on this, and for Lord Emsworth it will be paradise on earth. But a substantial obstacle lurks in the way: Queen of Matchingham, the new sow of Sir Gregory Parsloe Bart. Galahad knows this pretender to the crown must be pignapped. But can the Empress in turn avoid a similar fate?In this classic Blandings novel, pigs rise above their bulk to vanish and reappear in the most unlikely places, while young lovers are crossed and recrossed in every room in Blandings Castle.
Right Ho, Jeeves: (Jeeves & Wooster) (Jeeves & Wooster #6)
by P. G. WodehouseA classic Jeeves and Wooster novel from P.G. Wodehouse, the great comic writer of the 20th century Bertie assumes his alter-ego of Cupid and arranges the engagement of Gussie Fink-Nottle to Tuppy Glossop. Thankfully, Jeeves is ever present to correct the blundering plans hatched by his master.'A cavalcade of perfect joy.' - Caitlin MoranSunlit perfection... Bask in its warmth and splendour. - Stephen Fry'The best English comic novelist of the century.' - Sebastian Faulks'The greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness' - Julian Fellowes