Need a laugh ? Try these humorous reads...
Whether you are looking to laugh out loud or have a quiet chuckle to yourself, here are some books that will at least make you smile!
All together now/Gill Hornby
Four strangers in the midst of difficult life transitions find friendship, purpose, and perfect pitch in in this heartfelt comic novel. In the small English village of St. Ambrose, the members of the Bridgeford Community Choir have little in common. But when their singing coach dies unexpectedly before a big contest, the motley group must join forces and voices in pursuit of an impossible-seeming goal. Featuring an eclectic cast of characters including a mother suffering from empty nest syndrome, a middle-aged man who has just lost his job and his family, and a 19-year-old waitress who dreams of reality TV stardom. All together now is a poignant and charming novel about small town life, community, falling in love, and the big rewards of making a small change.
The good, the bad and the smug / Tom Holt
New Evil. Same as the Old Evil but with better PR. Mordak isn't bad as far as goblin kings go, but when someone or something starts pumping gold into the human kingdoms, it puts his rule into serious jeopardy. Suddenly he's locked in an arms race with a species whose arms he once considered merely part of a healthy breakfast. He goes looking for the truth behind these sudden riches, accompanied by an elf with a background in journalism (she'll get the hang of 'truth' eventually), but the two will discover that the difference between human and goblin, and between good and evil itself, is far more complicated than it appears.
Confessions of a once fashionable mum / Georgia Madden
Wish you were here / Catherine Alliott
When Flora, James and their two teenage daughters are offered the holiday of a lifetime in a chateaux in the South of France in return for one simple good deed, they jump at the chance to escape the confines of Clapham, the weight of the mortgage and anxieties over their future for a blissful break. But Flora didn't anticipate a mysterious guest and a whole heap of family baggage to come too. With James developing a schoolboy crush on a famous opera singer and Flora distracted by ghosts from her past, their dream holiday suddenly takes some very unexpected turns.
Losing it/Helen Lederer
Millie was at one time quite well known for various TV and radio appearances. However, she now has no money, a best friend with a better sex life than her, a daughter in Papua New Guinea and too much weight in places she really doesn't want it. When she's asked to be the front woman for a new diet pill, she naively believes that all her troubles will be solved. She will have money, the weight will be gone, and maybe she'll get more sex. If only life was really that easy. It doesn't take her long to realize it's going to take more than a diet pill to solve her never-ending woes...
According to yes/ Dawn French
The Foreign Land of the Very Wealthy - otherwise known as Manhattan's Upper East Side - has its own rigid code of behaviour. It's a code strictly adhered to by the Wilder-Bingham family. Emotional displays - unacceptable. Unruly behaviour - definitely not welcome. Fun - no thanks. This is Glenn Wilder-Bingham's kingdom. A beautifully-displayed impeccably-edited fortress of restraint. So when Rosie Kitto, an eccentric thirty-eight-year-old primary school teacher from England, bounces into their lives with a secret sorrow and a heart as big as the city, nobody realises that she hasn't read the rule book. For the Wilder-Bingham family, whose lives begin to unravel thread by thread, the consequences are explosive. Because after a lifetime of saying no, what happens when everyone starts saying yes?
Adult onset / Ann-Marie MacDonald
Mary Rose McKinnon has two children with her partner Hilary and a fractured relationship with her mother Dolly; she also has issues with anger management and lives in fear of hurting the children, these feelings seem somehow rooted in a part of her childhood she has trouble remembering. Is Dolly - the kind of big personality who makes all Mary Rose's friends, and even waiters in coffee shops, exclaim I love your Mum! really harbouring a dark secret about what caused Mary Rose's childhood injuries, and is Mary Rose doomed to follow the same path with her own children? ADULT ONSET is a heartbreaking, hilarious, hugely satisfying novel about family ties and the joy and agony of parenthood. Ann-Marie MacDonald gets under the reader's skin and gives voice to the feelings we have all experienced but may never have examined.
Why not me? /Mindy Kaling
Hollywood starlet Mindy Kaling shares her ongoing, laugh-out-loud journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life.
Quicksand /Steve Tolz
Aldo has been so relentlessly unlucky -- in business, in love, in life -- that the universe seems to have taken against him personally. Even Liam, his best friend, describes him as 'a well-known parasite and failure'. Aldo has always faced the future with optimism and despair in equal measure, but this last twist of fate may finally have brought him undone. There's hope, but not for Aldo. Liam hasn't been doing much better himself: a failed writer with a rocky marriage and a dangerous job he never wanted. But something good may come out of Aldo's lowest point. Liam may finally have found his inspiration. Together, maybe they can turn bad luck into an art form. What begins as a document of Aldo's disasters develops into a profound story of love lost, found and betrayed; of freedom and incarceration; of suffering and transcendence; of fate, faith and friendship; of taking risks -- in art, work, love and life -- and finding inspiration in all the wrong places. Quicksand is a fearlessly funny, outrageously inventive dark comedy that looks contemporary life unblinkingly in the eye. It confirms Steve Toltz as one of our most original and insightful novelists.
Coming soon...
Sofia Khan is not obliged / Ayisha Malik
'Brilliant idea! Excellent! Muslim dating? Well, I had no idea you were allowed to date.' Then he leaned towards me and looked at me sympathetically. 'Are your parents quite disappointed?' Unlucky in love once again after her sort-of-boyfriend/possible-marriage-partner-to-be proves a little too close to his parents, Sofia Khan is ready to renounce men for good. Or at least she was, until her boss persuades her to write a tell-all expose about the Muslim dating scene. As her woes become her work, Sofia must lean on the support of her brilliant friends, baffled colleagues and baffling parents as she seeks stories for her book. But in amongst the marriage-crazy relatives, racist tube passengers and polygamy-inclined friends, could there be a lingering possibility that she might just be falling in love ...?
All together now/Gill Hornby
Four strangers in the midst of difficult life transitions find friendship, purpose, and perfect pitch in in this heartfelt comic novel. In the small English village of St. Ambrose, the members of the Bridgeford Community Choir have little in common. But when their singing coach dies unexpectedly before a big contest, the motley group must join forces and voices in pursuit of an impossible-seeming goal. Featuring an eclectic cast of characters including a mother suffering from empty nest syndrome, a middle-aged man who has just lost his job and his family, and a 19-year-old waitress who dreams of reality TV stardom. All together now is a poignant and charming novel about small town life, community, falling in love, and the big rewards of making a small change.
The good, the bad and the smug / Tom Holt
New Evil. Same as the Old Evil but with better PR. Mordak isn't bad as far as goblin kings go, but when someone or something starts pumping gold into the human kingdoms, it puts his rule into serious jeopardy. Suddenly he's locked in an arms race with a species whose arms he once considered merely part of a healthy breakfast. He goes looking for the truth behind these sudden riches, accompanied by an elf with a background in journalism (she'll get the hang of 'truth' eventually), but the two will discover that the difference between human and goblin, and between good and evil itself, is far more complicated than it appears.
Confessions of a once fashionable mum / Georgia Madden
Fashion PR exec Ally Bloom got her happy ending. Okay, her marriage might be showing the odd crack, her battleaxe mother-in-law might have come to stay, and she might not be the yummy mummy she'd imagined, but it's nothing a decent night's sleep and a firm commitment to a no-carb diet won't fix. But when Ally returns to work and finds she'll be reporting to a 22-year-old airhead, she decides to turn her back on life as a professional fashionista and embrace her inner earth mama instead. So it's out with the Louboutins and champagne and in with the sensible flats and coffee mornings with the Mummy Mafia.
Wish you were here / Catherine Alliott
When Flora, James and their two teenage daughters are offered the holiday of a lifetime in a chateaux in the South of France in return for one simple good deed, they jump at the chance to escape the confines of Clapham, the weight of the mortgage and anxieties over their future for a blissful break. But Flora didn't anticipate a mysterious guest and a whole heap of family baggage to come too. With James developing a schoolboy crush on a famous opera singer and Flora distracted by ghosts from her past, their dream holiday suddenly takes some very unexpected turns.
Losing it/Helen Lederer
Millie was at one time quite well known for various TV and radio appearances. However, she now has no money, a best friend with a better sex life than her, a daughter in Papua New Guinea and too much weight in places she really doesn't want it. When she's asked to be the front woman for a new diet pill, she naively believes that all her troubles will be solved. She will have money, the weight will be gone, and maybe she'll get more sex. If only life was really that easy. It doesn't take her long to realize it's going to take more than a diet pill to solve her never-ending woes...
According to yes/ Dawn French
The Foreign Land of the Very Wealthy - otherwise known as Manhattan's Upper East Side - has its own rigid code of behaviour. It's a code strictly adhered to by the Wilder-Bingham family. Emotional displays - unacceptable. Unruly behaviour - definitely not welcome. Fun - no thanks. This is Glenn Wilder-Bingham's kingdom. A beautifully-displayed impeccably-edited fortress of restraint. So when Rosie Kitto, an eccentric thirty-eight-year-old primary school teacher from England, bounces into their lives with a secret sorrow and a heart as big as the city, nobody realises that she hasn't read the rule book. For the Wilder-Bingham family, whose lives begin to unravel thread by thread, the consequences are explosive. Because after a lifetime of saying no, what happens when everyone starts saying yes?
Adult onset / Ann-Marie MacDonald
Mary Rose McKinnon has two children with her partner Hilary and a fractured relationship with her mother Dolly; she also has issues with anger management and lives in fear of hurting the children, these feelings seem somehow rooted in a part of her childhood she has trouble remembering. Is Dolly - the kind of big personality who makes all Mary Rose's friends, and even waiters in coffee shops, exclaim I love your Mum! really harbouring a dark secret about what caused Mary Rose's childhood injuries, and is Mary Rose doomed to follow the same path with her own children? ADULT ONSET is a heartbreaking, hilarious, hugely satisfying novel about family ties and the joy and agony of parenthood. Ann-Marie MacDonald gets under the reader's skin and gives voice to the feelings we have all experienced but may never have examined.
Why not me? /Mindy Kaling
Hollywood starlet Mindy Kaling shares her ongoing, laugh-out-loud journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life.
Quicksand /Steve Tolz
Aldo has been so relentlessly unlucky -- in business, in love, in life -- that the universe seems to have taken against him personally. Even Liam, his best friend, describes him as 'a well-known parasite and failure'. Aldo has always faced the future with optimism and despair in equal measure, but this last twist of fate may finally have brought him undone. There's hope, but not for Aldo. Liam hasn't been doing much better himself: a failed writer with a rocky marriage and a dangerous job he never wanted. But something good may come out of Aldo's lowest point. Liam may finally have found his inspiration. Together, maybe they can turn bad luck into an art form. What begins as a document of Aldo's disasters develops into a profound story of love lost, found and betrayed; of freedom and incarceration; of suffering and transcendence; of fate, faith and friendship; of taking risks -- in art, work, love and life -- and finding inspiration in all the wrong places. Quicksand is a fearlessly funny, outrageously inventive dark comedy that looks contemporary life unblinkingly in the eye. It confirms Steve Toltz as one of our most original and insightful novelists.
Coming soon...
Sofia Khan is not obliged / Ayisha Malik
'Brilliant idea! Excellent! Muslim dating? Well, I had no idea you were allowed to date.' Then he leaned towards me and looked at me sympathetically. 'Are your parents quite disappointed?' Unlucky in love once again after her sort-of-boyfriend/possible-marriage-partner-to-be proves a little too close to his parents, Sofia Khan is ready to renounce men for good. Or at least she was, until her boss persuades her to write a tell-all expose about the Muslim dating scene. As her woes become her work, Sofia must lean on the support of her brilliant friends, baffled colleagues and baffling parents as she seeks stories for her book. But in amongst the marriage-crazy relatives, racist tube passengers and polygamy-inclined friends, could there be a lingering possibility that she might just be falling in love ...?
