A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy and is known as @agatharoza on Wattpad.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children. Angelica is also the author of Hunt A Killer, a PERFECT SCORE novel, under the pen name A.M. Ellis, which she wrote as an IP for Scholastic in the US.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready--a global organizational transformation and coaching practice--that helps companies large and small adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Clients include Johnson &amp; Johnson, Microsoft, Lloyds Bank, Citibank, Boeing, Mailchimp, Airbnb, Dropbox, and charity: water. 
 
He is also the founder of Murmur--a SaaS startup that helps teams scale culture through the magic of working agreements. The Murmur platform will allow every team on the planet to define and share their ways of working. 
 
Dignan is the author of Brave New Work (2019) and Game Frame (2011), co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, and a friend to misfit toys.

Aaron Dignan

Aaron Edwards is a senior lecturer in defence and international affairs at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, specialising in terrorism and counter-insurgency. He is the author and editor of several books, including Defending the Realm: The Politics of Britain’s Small Wars Since 1945, and has lectured all over the world on aspects of national and international security. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Aaron Edwards

Aaron Robertson is a writer, an editor, and a translator of Italian literature. His translation of Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon was short-listed for the 2020 PEN Translation Prize and the National Translation Award, and in 2021 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, n+1, The Point, and Literary Hub, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Aaron Robertson

Aaron Shapiro

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Chuck Sambuchino

There’s a new threat in town – and it’s only twelve inches tall. How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack is the only comprehensive survival guide that will help you prevent, prepare for, and ward off an imminent home invasion by the common garden gnome. Once thought of as harmless garden decorations, evidence is mounting that these smiling lawn statues are poised and ready to wreck havoc. The danger is real. And it’s here. 
 
Class 1 gnome-slayer and gnome defence expert Chuck Sambuchino has developed a proven system – Assess, Protect, Defend, Apply – for safeguarding property, possessions, and loved ones. Strategies include step-by-step instructions for gnome-proofing the average dwelling, recognising and interpreting the signs of a gathering horde and – in the event that a secured perimeter is breached – confronting and combating the attackers at close range.

How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack

Kevin Oxlade

Rosemary Gasson

Andrew Gasson

Attention cat lovers, your prayers have finally been answered! 
 
The Good Cat Food Guide is the definitive guide to what you should be feeding you feline friend. From tins to sachets, dried biscuits to meaty chunks, smelly fish to tasty chicken, the book will give you the low-down on every delicacy known to the feline tongue. Employing a crack team of tasters, the guide dishes out 'Paws and Claws' ratings to let you know what's hot and what's not. 
 
Written in a witty, tongue-in-cheek style - without ever sacrificing accuracy or objectivity - and accompanied throughout by full-colour cartoons of the tasters at work and play, The Good Cat Food Guide is essential reading for anyone who cares about their pet.

The Good Cat Food Guide

Huw Davies

This brand new collection of strange news stories covers a year of hilarious-but-true gems from around the world. In this new volume of stories from the inexplicable to the downright ridiculous, the snippets are again grouped by theme (Sex, Animals, Sports, Politics etc.) and cover such tales as: a man who faked being deaf and dumb for seven years because his wife was a nag; zookeepers who were sacked for eating the animals; a clairvoyant telling the future by feeling his clients' bottoms; a Turkish woman who kept a herd of cows in her apartment; a footballer transferred for his weight in prawns; and a Canadian man arrested for not eating an iced bun. This is real life - but not as you'd expect. Prepare to be baffled.

Another Weird Year II

Bizarre news stories from around the world

Tony Husband

Most joke books at least attempt to make you laugh. A chuckle, a giggle, even an outright guffaw. Something you can repeat to your friends and be guaranteed to raise a smile. That's what a joke book is for. Right? 
 
Well, not this one. 
 
This is a collection of the world's most cringe-worthy jokes told by Tony Husband, proud contender for the title of world's worst joke-teller. Jokes so awful they will make you wince, groan and bang your head in disbelief. And should you tell them to your friends, they won't be your friends much longer. Dip in, and prepare not to be amused.

World's Worst Jokes

Aleksandr Orlov

‘Hello peoples of UK! I have create very special treat: all six classic Meerkovo Tales in one luxuriance, thrillsy collection - lucky you! Please be seat for bumper listening experience!' 
 
Will the Mysterious Knightkat defeat the evil Doctor Robogoose? 
Will Bogdan win the Meerkovian Grand Prix, despite mongoose cheating? 
Maiya has her big ballet debut with the famous Aleksandrovich Orlovski, but will her nerves get the better of her? 
Can Captain Sergei fulfil his ambition to play golf on the moon? 
Will all Vassily’s dreams come true as he makes Meerkovo rock? 
And can everyone’s favourite toymaker Yakov save Christmas when Santa Claws has an accident? 
 
From the publishers of A Simples Life comes this complete set of six new meerkat tales, including: Aleksandr and the Mysterious Knightkat, Bogdan and the Big Race, Maiya in the Beautiful Ballet, Sergei's Space Adventure, Vassily the King of Rock and Yakov Saves Christmas. 
 
Comparethemeerkat.com and comparethemarket.com are trading names of BISL.

Aleksandr Orlov presents: Meerkat Tales

Can dogs really smile? It's a bone of contention, but yes, they can! 
 
Dogs Who Smile is jam-packed with ludicrously funny photos of the happiest hounds around. From beaming Border Collies and delighted Daschunds, to laughing Labradors and cheerful Chihuahuas, some pooches love their dog's life so much they've got to smile about it. 
 
Guaranteed to make you howl with laughter, this is a must for any dog lover.

Dogs Who Smile

The Happiest Hounds Around

Graffiti. It can be a diverse form of expression and thoughtprovoking art; whether painted on the side of a train or on a canvas hanging in a gallery. Or, as you will see immortalised in the glorious pages of Crap Graffiti, it can be crude drunken daubing, nonsensical statements or hilarious outpourings of uncontained rage. 
 
Crap Graffiti documents these bizarre and puerile creations, celebrates the inept and enthusiastically applauds creative dyslexia. This is definitely not art, but really awful, lame graffiti: the incompetent attempts of beginners or the ‘profound’ musings of lunatics scrawled on the back of toilet cubicle doors. 
 
Welcome to the Cream of the Crap.

Crap Graffiti

Chris Riddell

Lao Tzu's ancient text, the Tao Teh Ching, has much to offer the new infant. With their instinctive grasp of its principles, babies everywhere will find the wisdom contained in this new interpretation both a revelation and a confirmation of their own world vision. Targeted specifically at their needs, the charmingly illustrated aphorisms will enable them to enhance their understanding of the subject and share these great lessons with their family and carers.  Essential reading for all those who wish to make an early start in their search for wisdom and enlightenment.

Tao For Babies

In time-honoured fashion, Another Weird Year 4 brings you the stories that no lover of bizarre, inexplicable and downright hilarious news items can afford to miss, all handily grouped by theme (Love and Marriage, Law and Order, Animals etc). Read about: the blind man banned from saying 'phlegm'; the woman who bored a burglar to sleep with her family snaps; the woman who seduces men in her sleep; the man who thought he was a cat and got stuck up a tree; another man who got out of his car and took a shower... in a car wash... with his car left outside; the shepherd that had to drive his drunk sheep home; and not forgetting the pigs given a sauna and massage before being taken for slaughter - proof again from Another Weird Year that there is humanity in even the weirdest human behaviour. All the stories are true - you couldn't make them up!

Another Weird Year 4

Ann Summers

With the kind of raunchy approach you would expect from Ann Summers, this unabashed cartoon version of the world's most famous sex manual reveals the amusing truth about what really goes on in the bedroom 
 
The Kama Sutra says that sex can sometimes give us a glimpse of heaven. The Calmer Sutra demonstrates that the Elephant Posture and the Yawning can just as easily result in an embarrassing situation.

Calmer Sutra

Tom Hodgkinson

Dan Kieran

The Book of Idle Pleasures is a restorative gift book for the stressed out, tired and hassled. An antidote to our non-stop culture, it is a welcome compendium of timeless delights. 
 
The book lists and reflects on 75 simple pastimes and proves that the best things in life really are free: lighting fires, skimming stones, catching falling leaves, whittling, staring out of the window, dreaming, doodling or taking a nap. The Book of Idle Pleasures is a celebration of pleasure for its own sake in a world of consumer overload.

The Book of Idle Pleasures

The authors have probed the deepest passages of history, lapped at the lake of human knowledge and plumbed the depths of our shared experience to bring you the truth about oral sex. Why not suck it and see...?  Here are two little nuggets of oral wisdom:'I tripped', said Walter Taylor of Elsmere, Cincinnatti, defending himself against a charge of performing unlawful oral sex on a naked, sleeping woman.  (Thanks to The National Enquirer for that one.)OR'If that's not sex, then the number of times I've had sex has dramatically decreased.  From a mountain to a valley, baby!' said an anonymous teenage girl answering a US schools survey following Bill Clinton's definition of sexual relations. And after all that, if you're lucky, we'll give you advice on how to give and receive give oral sex too...

The Little Book Of Oral Sex For Her

The authors have probed the deepest passages of history, lapped at the lake of human knowledge and plumbed the depths of our shared experience to bring you the truth about oral sex. Why not suck it and see...? Here are two little nuggets of oral wisdom: ‘I tripped', said Walter Taylor of Elsmere, Cincinnatti, defending himself against a charge of performing unlawful oral sex on a naked, sleeping woman. (Thanks to The National Enquirer for that one.)OR Why is climbing Everest like receiving oral sex from Anne Widdecombe? You should never look down. We'll give you terrible gaffs like that, and if you're lucky, advice on how to give and receive give oral sex too...

The Little Book Of Oral Sex For Him

During the current recession it seems our traditional stiff upper lip can only last so long before those other world-beating British skills come to the fore - quiet grumbling and resigned cynicism. Sod Calm and Get Angry is for anyone who has finally had enough of bankers and politicians and bosses telling them to keep sodding calm and to carry bloody on. Sod Calm and Get Angry is both a rallying call and an essential tome of comforting wisdom and quotes for the depressed, enraged, disgruntled, disenfranchised and those of a naturally curmudgeonly disposition. 
 
On Politics 
The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites' - Larry Hardiman 
 
On Work 
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important - Bertrand Russell 
 
On Money 
The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any - Katherine Whitehorn 
 
On Hypocrisy 
Hypocrite: the man who murdered both his parents... pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan - Abraham Lincoln 
 
On War 
You can't say civilisation don't advance... for in every war they kill you a new way - Will Rogers 
 
On Life 
That's the secret to life... replace one worry with another - Charles M Schulz

Sod Calm and Get Angry

resigned advice for hard times

Bears are seriously underestimated creatures when it comes to spirituality and religious feeling. For the first time, this book recognises their huge potential and offers ursine students of Buddhism everywhere the opportunity to focus their skills and follow the path to enlightenment. From the meditation to the essential concepts of Zen, all the fundamentals are set out here in a series of concise interpretations of Buddhist teaching. Wonderfully illustrated by well-known illustrator Chris Riddell, this is the perfect gift with a difference.

Buddhism For Bears

Everyone knows 'tis the season to be jolly; when you can roast chestnuts on an open fire, treetops glisten and sleigh bells ring alongside the sound of small children's laughter. However, if you don't think Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year then reach for Keep Calm at Christmas and let its soothing advice reassure you that Christmas comes but once a year. 
 
Keep Calm at Christmas follows Keep Calm for Ladies and Keep Calm for Chaps and offers many merry pearls of wisdom to help you get through the festive season; on everything from relatives to office parties, and gluttony to new year resolutions. An insighftul pocket gift for Christmas. 
 
'What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day' Phyllis Diller 
 
'About all you can do is dream of a white Christmas, for it seems like it always leaves most of us in the red' Anon 
 
'Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice' Anon 
 
'Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit' Kin Hubbard 
 
'New Year's Day... now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual' Mark Twain

Keep Calm at Christmas

Danny Wallace

The Lives Less Ordinary series brings you the most exciting, adventurous and entertaining true-life writing that is out there, for men who are time-poor but want the best. Lives Less Ordinary drops you into extreme first-hand accounts of human experience, whether that's the adrenaline-pumping heights of professional sport, the brutality of the modern battlefield, the casual violence of the criminal world, the mind-blowing frontiers of science, or the excesses of rock 'n' roll, high finance and Hollywood. Lives Less Ordinary also brings you some of the finest comic voices around, on every subject from toilet etiquette to Paul Gascoigne. 
 
Danny Wallace is a modern man. And that can be a very tricky thing to be these days. By rather cleverly doing the opposite of what should actually be done, let Danny show you how to catch your own fish for dinner, be a social maverick, and rise up against everyone who lets you down. And find out what 'I had a Nando's' really means. 
 
This digital bite has been extracted from Danny Wallace's brilliant book Awkward Situations for Men.

How to Be a Modern Man

Lives Less Ordinary

Sue Nelson & Richard Hollingham

The Lives Less Ordinary series brings you the most exciting, adventurous and entertaining true-life writing that is out there, for men who are time-poor but want the best. Lives Less Ordinary drops you into extreme first-hand accounts of human experience, whether that's the adrenaline-pumping heights of professional sport, the brutality of the modern battlefield, the casual violence of the criminal world, the mind-blowing frontiers of science, or the excesses of rock 'n' roll, high finance and Hollywood. Lives Less Ordinary also brings you some of the finest comic voices around, on every subject from toilet etiquette to Paul Gascoigne. 
 
Everyone wants to live forever, right? Well award-winning science journalists Richard Hollingham and Sue Nelson explain how the latest cutting-edge science might mean your fantasy is closer to being true than you might believe. From advances in medicine, cryogenics and ways of preserving your consciousness, they explain all the mind-blowing options with a mix of insight and dry humour. 
 
This digital bite has been extracted from Sue Nelson and Richard Hollingham's fascinating book How to Clone the Perfect Blonde.

How to Live Forever

Lucinda Clare

Sparklingly original and hugely entertaining, An English Psychic in Hollywood is the magical tale of Lucinda Clare's personal experiences as an actress and psychic among the stars of Hollywood. A cross between Jackie Collins and Bridget Jones, there is glitz and glamour mixed with dating dilemas and wardrobe malfunctions. 
 
Originally coming to LA to land her dream acting job, Lucinda soon discovers that it is her psychic abilities that make her stand out amongst the wannabe actresses. As soon as she says the magic words, 'I'm psychic!' everyone wants to talk to her, from publicists to agents, A-list film stars to borderline psychotics. 
 
Accompanied by new best friend crazy Astrid, she gradually settles in. She talks Hindu with her hairdresser, does readings for everyone from screenwriters to sex slaves and finds herself falling for the archetypal tall, dark, handsome stranger. 
 
But is he the soulmate that is meant to be in her future? Only time, some crazy pool parties and successfully predicting everyone else's happy endings will tell...

An English Psychic in Hollywood

Aleksandr Orlov has become one of the most loved figures in British culture and his catchphrase - Simples! - can be heard from the playground to the office. Written in his inimitable voice (as dictated to his sidekick Sergei), his autobiography will offer the same humour as his TV ads, giving us the full story of his ancestor's Journey of Courageousness from the Kalahari to Russia, the low-down on his life as entrepreneur and founder of comparethemeerkat.com and his love of grubs and cravats. 
 
'My name is Aleksandr Orlov. I live and make work in Moscow. I have a success business. I have a mansion decorate with many fine things. I have a naturally majestic posture. But I would have none of these things if it were not for my family. This book is dedicated to them. I also wish to inspire next generation of young businesskats. I am hope that this book will show what can come of courage, hard work and a good fur-care regime. I am also hope that with royalties I will be able to re-marble roof on Orlov family mansion'

A Simples Life

The Life and Times of Aleksandr Orlov

David Bennun

David Bennun had lived in Africa his whole life. At the age of 18 he came to Britain, the mother country. The country he had read about in Punch magazine or seen in films like Chariots of Fire. He was in for a shock. A very big shock indeed: 'I could not have been less prepared had I spent my life up to that point listening to 30-year-old broadcasts of the Light Programme.' 
 
In this timely follow-up to the critically acclaimed Tick Bite Fever, David Bennun shows us our own country through the eyes of an alien. With his brilliantly witty turn of phrase we follow his life as a student, his brushes with Bohemia, his troubles renting and buying property, his discovery of British food and his horrors at entering the world of work. From DIY to architecture, sport to alcohol, transport to music and entertainment, David Bennun brilliantly and with ruthless wit deconstructs all these subjects, many of them so dear to the British heart.

British As A Second Language

Tim Collins

Are You A Geek? is the ultimate humour book. It will appeal to the inner geek in all of us. 
 
Listing 1,000 things people do that qualify them as geeks, the truths shared about obsessive behavious will be recognised by all with a pang of guilt and strike a chord with a wide audience in these nerdy times. Grading geek behaviour with a one to five point scale depending on their severity, readers can add up their scores, find out how much of a geek they are, and fill out one of the five certificates at the back of the book. 
 
Are you a Geek? Read the book and find out...

Are You A Geek?

Mark Rowlands

Everything I Know I Learned From TV uses characters we all know and love and their TV worlds to explain the great questions of philosophy. The only qualifications you need to join in are ownership of a sofa, a remote control, a sense of humour and an enquiring mind. The philosophy discussed is very much 'life' philosophy, answering the questions we all want to know: How do you define what is a good life to lead? The Simpsons disagree over the right way to live with Nietzsche and Diogenes on hand to take sides. What is real happiness? Aristotle fights Descartes for the heart and mind of Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw. Can a good person do a bad thing? Kant and Socrates pay a call on Tony Soprano and his latter-day Mob to talk moral philosophy. Where does love end and friendship begin? Rachel and Ross ask Plato about the philosophy of emotions and wonder if they're just good friends. Is the pursuit of self-knowledge a good thing? Socrates helps Niles and Frasier Crane and their dad deal with the relative merit of the examined and the unexamined life. And much more.

Everything I Know I Learned From TV

Philosophy For the Unrepentant Couch Potato

Danny Wallace wanted to write about a place so special and so crucial to our existence that it had never before been tackled: the Centre of the Universe. But then he realised that getting there might be a problem, and when he did, there'd probably be nothing much to write about. Until he heard about a manhole cover, on a small street, in a small town, tucked away in a remote part of Idaho. 
 
The manhole cover had been declared the Centre of the Universe. The mayor had the science to back it up. The town rejoiced. 
 
And the name of the town? 
 
Wallace. 
 
It was a cosmic coincidence Danny couldn't resist...

Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe

Richard Herring

Richard hits the big 4-0 and spends his birthday in the British Musuem, harassing waiters, and lamenting his demise into old age.

How Not to Grow Up: Birthdays

Derek Lambert

Tired of his life as a globe-trotting journalist, and desperate to finish his latest novel, writer Derek Lambert decides to settle with his new wife and young son in a mouldering casita nestled among citrus groves inland of the Costa Blanca. 
 
As he sets about restoring his house and learning to live the ordinary life of a Spanish villager, Lambert introduces us to a Spain far removed from the tourist traps and thumping discos of the Costas, and soon discovers that adapting to this new life is not as easy as he imagined. He employs a roofer who's afraid of heights, a plumber confounded by a blocked pipe and bumbles through Spanish lessons with a mocking classmate who challenges him to a public arm-wresting contest. Then just when it seems that nothing more could go wrong, the Lamberts face Spain's first snowstorm in many years. 
 
Written in the jaunty, anecdotal style of Peter Mayle and Bill Bryson, this is a warm, affectionate and often hilarious portrait of life as a foreigner in rural Spain.

Spanish Lessons

How one family found their place in the sun

Rosemarie Jarski

Ey up, it's not only footie, pints and pies that are better up north - the humour also takes some beating. Whether it's comics like Peter Kay, Les Dawson and Victoria Wood, telly shows like Corrie and Open All Hours, or writers like Alan Bennett and Keith Waterhouse, the funniest and best-loved invariably hail from the land of perpetual drizzle (another thing they do better). 
 
This grand collection of northern wit is packed with these favourites and more. Likely lads and lippy lasses cast a wry eye on subjects close to the heart of every northerner, including - brass, grub, graft, courting, cricket, tittle-tattle and t'weather - adding up to a feast of northern hilarity.

The Wit and Wisdom of the North

Justin Lee Collins

He street jams in spandex and wrestles in lycra. He's been a magician, a ventriloquist and a clown. He's hugged some of the biggest stars in the world, and pretty much anyone else who's crossed his path. He mucks about, wears silly costumes and manhandles his friend Alan Carr on national TV on a weekly basis. And people have literally paid him to do all this. Good times! 
 
But life wasn't always so kind to young Justin. He discovered he couldn't kiss very well at school camp in Plymouth. "An attractive sixth-form girl let me snog her. I was about 12. She pulled away, and said 'Aaah, you can't do it.' Then she then picked me up and carried me back to my room." The years stacking shelves at Bristol's Marks and Spencer weren't exactly a high point. Being told to 'walk faster' by his boss and being given a final warning: "it dawned on me they thought that putting out knickers and crisps was beyond me!" Bad times. 
 
But mere retail couldn't keep him down! This hilarious coming-of-age story follows his journey from collecting Star Wars toys as a small boy to schmoozing Carrie Fisher in her Hollywood home, and becoming one of the most loved and instantly recognised faces on British TV. For each new twist his life has taken, he hasn't changed a bit. He's as bouncy, funny, shambolic, huggable and of course Bristolian as he's ever been. This is the story of how it all happened. By accident. 
 
But this book is not just a routine celebrity autobiography/memoir - that would be boring. Especially for Justin himself, whose attention span is that of a small child at the best of times. Instead, this is JLC utilising his remarkable photographic memory to ponder the unfeasibly peculiar and funny moments that have defined his life, and desperately trying to make sense of it all. Rock on!

Good Times!

'Having a baby is like watching two very inefficient removal men trying to get a very large sofa through a very small doorway, only in this case you can't say, "Oh, sod it, bring it through the French windows"' Victoria Wood 
 
'It's not easy being a mother. If it were, fathers would do it' Dorothy, The Golden Girls 
 
Motherhood is a tough job and a serious business. Which means there's all the more reason to step back and see the funny side of it, and Just Like Mum Says is packed with humorous insights and wry observations on all matters maternal. 
 
Tracing the course of mothering through pregnancy, the terrible twos, the teenage years and the empty nest, Just Like Mum Says includes wise and witty words from celebrated matriarchs from Marge Simpson to Sharon Osbourne, and Victoria Beckham to Victoria Wood. 
 
In short, Just Like Mum Says amuses, delights, enlightens and touches the heart - just like Mum. 
 
'When my husband comes home, if the kids are still alive, I figure I've done my job' Roseanne

Just Like Mum Says

A Book of Mum's Wit

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

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