Humour

Please visit our Book Bulletin 2019 crowdfunding project at CrowdPatch to buy recommendations for our Winter 2019 catalogue and to volunteer your skills, experience and contacts. All funds raised will support not-for-profit Jolabokaflod CIC’s forthcoming programme of events.

Bridget Jones’s Baby
(Bridget Jones: book 4)
Helen Fielding
(UK: Vintage, @vintagebooks, 2017; USA: Vintage, @VintageAnchor, 2017)

Before motherhood, before marriage, Bridget – with biological clock ticking very, very loudly – finds herself unexpectedly pregnant at the eleventh hour: a joyful pregnancy which is dominated, however, by a crucial but terribly awkward question – who is the father? Mark Darcy: honourable, decent, notable human rights lawyer? Or Daniel Cleaver: charming, witty, notable fuckwit?

Recommended by:
Leena Normington, Digital Content Producer | Social Media Producer, Vintage Books; YouTube: Creator for Change Fellow 2017, and Vlogger: Leena Norms (also known as ‘Just Kiss My Frog’)

Leena is an experienced producer of podcasts and online video, media presenter, social media consultant, copywriter and workshop leader. She is one of five winners of the Trailblazer Award in 2019, which celebrates young talent under the age of 30 in publishing. Leena creates content that suits the Vintage PRH imprint’s social platforms. On any given day she’ll be editing a podcast, creating a YouTube video, plotting a thread of tweets or building a fun reading list for the Vintage website. Leena also manages the imprint’s social channels so that it has a constant stream of content being uploaded on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, iTunes, YouTube and more. She makes sure everything is scheduled and looking good; and that Vintage responds to readers’ questions and suggestions.

Towards the End of Morning
Michael Frayn
(UK: Faber & Faber, @FaberBooks, 2015; USA: Valancourt Books, @Valancourt_B, 2015)

Set in the waning years of London’s Fleet Street, this is the story of John Dyson and his colleagues in the crossword and nature-notes section of an obscure London newspaper. The ambitious young Dyson dreams wistfully of trading his dead-end job for the fame and fortune to be found in a career in television. But when he finally gets his big break – an invitation to appear on a TV program – it turns out instead to be the beginning of a series of hilarious disasters …

Regarded by many as the best novel ever written about journalists, Michael Frayn’s brilliantly funny Towards the End of the Morning (1967) is justly celebrated as a classic.

Recommended by:
Paul Atherton, Managing Director, Simple (TV) Productions Ltd (film/television)
Paul says: ‘Capturing the last moments of fleet street by my favourite playwright.’

Paul is a British television producer and director, who was the first person to screen a film on the Coca-Cola billboard at Piccadilly Circus. His latest projects include: working with the Museum of Homelessness on an installation project to tackle stereotypes about homeless people (September 2018); and delivering a Video Diary Workshop at the Museum of London as part of CityRead London, a campaign to encourage reading and library use in the capital by highlighting one book for Londoners to read in one month (May 2019).

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Gail Honeyman
(UK: HarperCollins, @HarperCollinsUK, 2018; USA: Penguin Books, @penguinusa, 2018)

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend … Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.

One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world that everyone else seems to take for granted – whilst searching for the courage to face the dark corners she’s avoided all her life … Change can be good. Change can be bad. But surely any change is better than ‘fine’?

Recommended by:
Hannah O’Brien, Marketing Director, Harper Fiction and Avon: Interview: Curtis Brown Creative

Hannah runs the marketing team at HarperFiction, which publishes some of the best commercial writers around – ranging from bestselling crime author Stuart MacBride, to leaders in women’s fiction Cecelia Ahern, Lindsey Kelk and Barbara Taylor Bradford (UK | USA), to bestselling historical fiction of Bernard Cornwell, exciting work from Lauren Beukes and Rosie Thomas, and thriller successes Sam Bourne and Simon Toyne. She also runs the marketing team for the Avon imprint, conceived as a means to sell commercial fiction through the supermarket channels to non-traditional book buyers across the trade. Avon also builds big-brand authors and has become renowned for its digital publishing as well as its prowess in paperback.

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
(Hundred-Year-Old Man: book 1)
Jonas Jonasson
(UK: Abacus Books, @AbacusBooks, 2015; USA: Hachette Books, @HachetteBooks, 2012)

Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, Allan Karlsson is waiting for a party he doesn’t want to begin. His 100th birthday party to be precise. The Mayor will be there. The press will be there. But, as it turns out, Allan will not …

Escaping (in his slippers) through his bedroom window, into the flowerbed, Allan makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, Allan’s earlier life is revealed. A life in which – remarkably – he played a key role behind the scenes in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.

Recommended by:
Judith Robinson, Self-Employed (Further Education Tutor) and Director, Seeds

Judy is a senior level consultant whose life passion is to encourage learning in individuals, groups and communities; whose rich and varied experience in many countries has provided opportunities to develop skills internationally. She is a writer, learning cheerleader, teacher-trainer in English and BSL, musician, and adventurer in appreciative inquiry. She also serves as a Director of Seeds, an Christian arts and media charity.

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
Jonas Jonasson
(UK: 4th Estate Books, @4thEstateBooks, 2014; USA: Ecco, @eccobooks, 2015)

Nombeko Mayeki was never meant to be a hero. Born in a Soweto shack, she seemed destined for a short, hard life. But now she is on the run from the world‘s most ruthless secret service, with three Chinese sisters, twins who are officially one person and an elderly potato farmer. Oh, and the fate of the King of Sweden – and the world – rests on her shoulders.

Recommended by:
Judith Robinson, Self-Employed (Further Education Tutor) and Director, Seeds

Sofia Khan is Not Obliged
(Sofia Khan: book 1)
Ayisha Malik
(UK: Twenty7 Books, @BonnierZaffre, 2016)

Sofia Khan is single once more, after her sort-of-boyfriend proves just a little too close to his parents. And she’d be happy that way too, if her boss hadn’t asked her to write a book about the weird and wonderful world of Muslim dating. Of course, even though she definitely isn’t looking for love, to write the book she does need to do a little research …

Puckoon
Spike Milligan
(UK: Penguin Books, @PenguinUKBooks, 1973)

In 1924 the Boundary Commission is tasked with creating the new official division between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Through incompetence, dereliction of duty and sheer perversity, the border ends up running through the middle of the small town of Puckoon.

Houses are divided from outhouses, husbands separated from wives, bars are cut off from their patrons, churches sundered from graveyards. And in the middle of it all is poor Dan Milligan, our feckless protagonist, who is taunted and manipulated by everyone (including the sadistic author) to try and make some sense of this mess …

Recommended by:
David Stark, Founder, Editor and Publisher, SongLink and Cuesheet

David is a music-business professional with over 35 years experience in publishing, comprising creative networking between artists, writers, producers, managers, labels, and film/tv composers. He is also accomplished at journalism, editing publications, photography, occasional songwriting and studio production, playing drums, organising showcases, judging song contests worldwide, acting as researcher for industry awards and events. David also works as a 60s/70s music consultant for radio, television and the press. His areas of speciality are: song placement via SongLink International; and film, television and other media music placement via Cuesheet.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 [3/4]
(Adrian Mole: book 1)
Sue Townsend
(UK: Puffin, @PuffinBooks, 2002; USA: HarperTeen, @harperteen, 2003)

Friday January 2nd. I felt rotten today. It’s my mother’s fault for singing ‘My Way’ at two o’clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children’s home … Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life.

Recommended by:
Anita Maguire, Project Manager and Executive Assistant: Cosmoparticle Hub, Physics and Astronomy, UCL (University College London): at the inaugural Jolabokaflod Gala Party

Anita is the Project Manager at UCL supporting the Cosmoparticle Physics (CPP) Initiative at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, including the CASPEN exchange programme, and is also Executive Assistant to Hiranya Peiris, Professor of Astrophysics.

SaveSave

	Christopher Norris on Secret Santa 2022
	Bronwyn on Secret Santa 2022
	Richard on Let’s get the Icelanders…

Please visit our Book Bulletin 2019 crowdfunding project at CrowdPatch to buy recommendations for our Winter 2019 catalogue and to volunteer your skills, experience and contacts. All funds raised will support not-for-profit Jolabokaflod CIC’s forthcoming programme of events.

Share this:

Like this: