Gods, Pets and How to be Human

The Dog Allusion

A funny and insightful book about what our attitudes to dogs and deities can tell us about ourselves, by rapier wit and celebrated cartoonist, Martin Rowson.

An erudite, entertaining, informative and sometimes spectacularly rude rant

Learned, intelligent, outrageous, fruitful and funny

He is a sensitive writer, capable of great subtlety

Martin Rowson is an award-winning political cartoonist whose work appears regularly in the Guardian, The Times, the Independent on Sunday, the Daily Mirror, the Scotsman, the Spectator, Tribune, Index on Censorship and The New Humanist. His previous publications include comic book adaptations of The Waste Land and Tristram Shandy, a novel, Snatches, published by Jonathan Cape in 2006 and a memoir, Stuff. He lives with his wife in south-east London.

'As with dogs, so with gods - by and large, you should blame the owners.' 
 
A particular trait, common to all human civilisations, is the worship of non-human entities with followings of devotees who claim that their reverence can transport them to transcendental heights of complete and unfettered love. 
 
Do we mean God? No - we mean Dog. Dogs and other pets we've been keeping and loving since we began walking on two feet. But why do we love God - and pets - so much when their capriciousness sometimes suggests that they don't love us back? 
 
In this wise, witty and highly topical book, celebrated cartoonist and novelist Martin Rowson argues that rationally, the whole enterprise of religion is a monumental and faintly ridiculous waste of time and money. But then again, so is pet-keeping.

Brief Lives from Washington to Trump

Gimson's Presidents

An illuminating account of the lives of each President of the United States, illustrated by Martin Rowson.

This is history at its liveliest and most enjoyable. Most presidential biographies are abominably long-winded and reverential. With miniaturist wit and precision, Gimson manages to compress all the salient facts about each president into five or six pages, while offering beautifully crafted insights into their characters and temperaments ... There is something fascinating or funny on every page

Witty and succinct with splendid caricatures

Andrew Gimson’s hugely enjoyable collection of biographies of the 44 US Presidents (not 45, I have learned) is rendered all the more fun, as his books ever are, by Martin Rowson’s cartoons.

Brief Lives from Walpole to Johnson

Gimson's Prime Ministers

An illuminating account of the lives of Britain’s Prime Ministers, illustrated by Martin Rowson.

Gimson's Prime Ministers is a crisp and stylish account of every one of them

Hugely enjoyable... has the added bonus of glorious illustrations

Andrew Gimson's Prime Ministers is the best general book on British politics I've ever come across. Learned, witty and wise, and splendidly illustrated by Martin Rowson, with great snippets for dinner parties. Take Henry Pelham, prime minister from 1743 to 54: "He lived without abusing his power and died poor."

The secret of prime ministers is that they are weak. This is a conclusion of Andrew Gimson’s wonderful portraits in his new book

If you associate Lord Salisbury more with a pub than with politics, here is Andrew Gimson to the rescue... This spirited blend of politics and anecdote is wonderfully complemented by Martin Rowson's Georgian-style caricatures. Tony Blair's tombstone teeth embedded in Iraq are unforgettable

Pacy and entertaining. It is a perfect refresher of British political history, deserving of a place in the discerning reader’s downstairs loo alongside Gimson’s excellent earlier volume on Kings and Queens, which was, like this one, beautifully illustrated by the cartoonist Martin Rowson.

A gem of a book...a constant delight

It could hardly be done better. His pen portraits of our 54 prime ministers are lucid, pithy and perceptive... a galloping good read

The most engaging and insightful account of PMs to have been published

Andrew Gimson is the author of Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson, published by Simon &amp; Schuster in 2006 and described as ‘brilliant’, ‘scintillating’ and ‘an effervescent delight’. He writes for a wide range of newspapers and magazines, and is a contributing editor to ConservativeHome.com. He lives in London.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
A concise, sharp-witted and illuminating account of the lives of Britain’s prime ministers from Walpole to May, illustrated by Martin Rowson. 
 
For the reader who has heard of such giants as Gladstone and Disraeli, and has drunk in a pub called the Palmerston, but has only the haziest idea of who these people were, Gimson’s Prime Ministers offers a short account of them all which can be read for pleasure, and not just for edification. With Gimson’s wonderful prose once again complemented by Martin Rowson’s inimitable illustrations, this lively and entertaining aide-memoire and work of satirical genius brings our parliamentary history to life as never before. 
 
PRAISE FOR GIMSON'S PRIME MINISTERS: 
 
'The most engaging and insightful account of PMs to have been published' Arthur Seldon, Standpoint 
'Learned witty and wise, and splendidly illustrated' Tibor Fischer 
'Hugely enjoyable' Tom Holland 
 
Gimson's Kings and Queens is also available.

Martin Rowson

Martin Roswson's Stuff may actually be a work of genius... what really astonishes is the strange, robust gravity of the style, combined with an effortless talent for scenic arrangement that manages to fit innumerable disparate incidents into a wholly original shape... a genuinely mature work of commemoration and love, one always attentive to the nuance and texture of things

Absorbing and vivid.... the best and most touching element of Stuff is that, unlike so many memoirs concerning parents, it emphatically delivers... It is a lively and entertaining book, yet its earnest concern, in the end, is to examine what truly remains of the dead we have loved, and to face up to all the sorting

Martin Rowson is one of the most viscerally distinctive and critically acclaimed cartoonists working in Britain today....Stuff is a rich and profoundly sensitive book

He is a sensitive writer, capable of great subtlety and nuanced emotional gear-changes

A wonderful evocation of what it was like to grow up in the Sixties and Seventies. The writing is never less than pin-sharp...deeply moving

Stuff is a candid, sanguine, often very amusing, illustration of a serious point of view

Frequently touching without being mawkish, Stuff is a surprisingly life-affirming read and, despite the emotive subjects being covered, often a very funny one, too

Stuff is a moving, funny and stylish account of how to hang on to the bits you really need

Hypnotically readable, this wonderful book is like exploring an attic packed with fascinating odds and ends... Highly evocative, oddly moving, and includes some marvellous trivia

A Memoir of Death and Life

A few months after two of his parents had died, Martin Rowson had a dream about the house he grew up in which was crammed with tons and tons of stuff, both physical and emotional. In this book Rowson delves into all that 'stuff'; weaving together dreams, family anecdotes and gossip, jokes, advice, history, smells, sounds and sights of the past. The result is a funny, thought-provoking and ultimately moving meditation on families, life, love, disease and the existentialist horrors of clearing out the attic.

Martin Rowson

Praise for Stuff

Martin Roswson's Stuff may actually be a work of genius... what really astonishes is the strange, robust gravity of the style, combined with an effortless talent for scenic arrangement that manages to fit inn ...

Absorbing and vivid.... the best and most touching element of Stuff is that, unlike so many memoirs concerning parents, it emphatically delivers... It is a lively and entertaining book, yet its earnest concer ...

Martin Rowson is one of the most viscerally distinctive and critically acclaimed cartoonists working in Britain today....Stuff is a rich and profoundly sensitive book

Martin Roswson's Stuff may actually be a work of genius... what really astonishes is the strange, robust gravity of the style, combined with an effortless talent for scenic arrangement that manages to fit inn ...

Absorbing and vivid.... the best and most touching element of Stuff is that, unlike so many memoirs concerning parents, it emphatically delivers... It is a lively and entertaining book, yet its earnest concer ...

Martin Rowson is one of the most viscerally distinctive and critically acclaimed cartoonists working in Britain today....Stuff is a rich and profoundly sensitive book

Martin Roswson's Stuff may actually be a work of genius... what really astonishes is the strange, robust gravity of the style, combined with an effortless talent for scenic arrangement that manages to fit inn ...

Absorbing and vivid.... the best and most touching element of Stuff is that, unlike so many memoirs concerning parents, it emphatically delivers... It is a lively and entertaining book, yet its earnest concer ...

Martin Rowson is one of the most viscerally distinctive and critically acclaimed cartoonists working in Britain today....Stuff is a rich and profoundly sensitive book

Books by Martin Rowson

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