Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Eddie Izzard

The stand-up comedian of his generation. Star of stage and screen. Tireless supporter of charity. Runner. Political campaigner. Fashion icon. Human. There is no one quite like Eddie Izzard. 
 
This is the story of how a boy who wanted to become a professional footballer and win the lead in Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat found comedy. Affecting, witty and nothing less than rousing, readers will, as Eddie himself says, 'look at my life and say, 'If that idiot transvestite can run a whole bunch of marathons, play the Hollywood Bowl, and travel across France with a French-speaking tour, then what's holding me back?''

Believe Me

A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens

Gervase Phinn

A Wayne in a Manger includes some wonderfully funny and touching nativity play anecdotes, including children forgetting their lines, ad-libbing, falling of the stage, picking their noses and showing their knickers. 
 
One hilarious anecdote tells of an innkeeper who generously says there's plenty of room for Mary and Joseph, while another child, jealous of Joseph's starring role, allows Mary to come in but not Joseph, who can 'push off' ... There's the baby Jesus who suddenly pipes up with 'My name is Tammy, are you my Mommy?' and funniest of all, Mary who tells Joseph, 'I'm having a baby - oh and it's not yours'.

A Wayne in a Manger

Gerald Durrell

Escaping the ills of the British climate, the Durrell family - acne-ridden Margo, gun-toting Leslie, bookworm Lawrence and budding naturalist Gerry, along with their long-suffering mother and Roger the dog - take off for the island of Corfu. 
 
But the Durrells find that, reluctantly, they must share their various villas with a menagerie of local fauna - among them scorpions, geckos, toads, bats and butterflies. 
 
Recounted with immense humour and charm My Family and Other Animals is a wonderful account of a rare, magical childhood.

My Family and Other Animals

Jack Whitehall

Michael Whitehall

Jack and Michael open up the rich and plentiful family lore archives on topics such as Jack's nanny's enormous feet, Michael's lifetime touchline ban from Jack's prep-school and the Whitehall collection of downright weird and eccentric relatives. With family photographs and sketches by Jack himself, the result is a hugely entertaining, hilarious journey of self-discovery as a father and a son explore their relationship. 
 
Watch out, fans of Reeves &amp; Mortimer, Walliams &amp; Lucas, Morecambe &amp; Wise, there's a new comedy duo in town.

Him & Me

Alan Davies

When Alan Davies was growing up he seemed to drive his family mad. 'What are we going to do with you?' they would ask - as if he might know the answer. 
 
Perhaps it was because he came of age in the 1980s. That decade of big hair, greed, camp music, mass unemployment, social unrest and truly shameful trousers was confusing for teenagers. There was a lot to believe in - so much to stand for, or stand against - and Alan decided to join anything with the word 'anti' in it. He was looking for heroes to guide him (relatively) unscathed into adulthood. 
 
From his chronic kleptomania to the moving search for his mother's grave years after she died; from his obsession with joining (going so far as to become a member of Chickens Lib) to his first forays into making people laugh (not always intentionally); Teenage Revolution is a touching and funny return to the formative years that make us all.

Teenage Revolution

Annie Hawes

Ever since Annie got together with Ciccio, his Calabrian family have spoken of their homeland as an earthly paradise, of wild nights dancing the tarantella, of almond milk sold fresh from roadside stalls, of honey cakes and amaro made from wild liquorice roots... Now, at last, Annie and Ciccio are travelling down to see the ancestral home and extended family for themselves, along with a bunch of vocal and lively de Gilios who don't want to miss out on the fun. 
 
Will everything Annie has learnt in her years among the Ligurians stand her in good stead among the Calabresi? Or is she in for another steep learning curve in the intricacies of Italian rural life?

Journey to the South

A Calabrian Homecoming

'Miss, who's that funny man at the back of the classroom? 
 
So begins school-inspector Gervase Phinn's second year among the frankly spoken pupils and teachers of North Yorkshire - the sight of Gervase with his notebook and pen provokes unexpected reactions from the children and adults alike. 
 
But Gervase if far from daunted - he is ready to brave the steely glare of the officious Mrs Savage, and even feels up to helping Dr Gore organize a gathering of the Feofees - just as soon as someone tells him what they are! He is still in pursuit of the lovely headteacher Christine Bentley, but will she feel the same? 
 
This is a delectable second helping of hilarious tales from the man who has been dubbed 'the James Herriot of schools'. It will have you laughing out loud.

Over Hill and Dale

Gerry Ryan

Gerry Ryan on life, the world, the universe - and a few things besides. Here are his experiences, stories and opinions drawn from nearly thirty years of talking to the nation. It's a sharp, punchy read all told in his no-nonsense, irreverent, straight to the bone style. It's the best, the worst, the funniest, the most outrageous. And threaded through it's the story of coming of age as a broadcaster at the same time as Ireland became a truly modern country. A smart, sassy and wildly entertaining read.

Would The Real Gerry Ryan Please Stand Up

Albert Jack

This is a book for everyone who has ever wondered why pubs should be called The Cross Keys, The Dew Drop Inn or The Hope and Anchor. You'll be glad to know that there are very good - strange and memorable - reasons behind them all. 
 
After much research about (and in) pubs, Albert Jack brings together the stories behind pub names to reveal how they offer fascinating and subversive insights on our history, customs, attitudes and jokes in just the same way that nursery rhymes do. The Royal Oak, for instance, commemorates the tree that hid Charles II from Cromwell's forces after his defeat at Worcester; The Bag of Nails is a corruption of the Bacchanals, the crazed followers of Bacchus, the god of wine and drunkenness; The Cat and the Fiddle a mangling of Catherine La Fidele and a guarded gesture of support for Henry VIII's first, Catholic, wife Catherine of Aragon; plus many, many more. 
 
Here too are even more facts about everything from ghosts to drinking songs to the rules of cribbage and shove ha'penny, showing that, ultimately, the story of pub history is really the story of our own popular history.

The Old Dog and Duck

The Secret Meanings of Pub Names

Jeremy Clarkson

These days, you might know him better as a tractor-driving Gentleman Farmer, but Jeremy Clarkson wasn't always a horny-handed son of the soil. 
 
Not at all . . . 
 
Back in the day Jeremy was far more likely to be found gunning around the world in a haze of burnt rubber and petrol fumes. But life as a globe-trotting petrol-head also meant he was forced endure more than his fair share of foolishness, frustration and downright bafflement. And, while Jeremy may not a patient man, you have to ask why anyone should have to consider issues as diverse and perplexing as: 
 
- The downsides of relaxing in a bath of crude oil 
- Why fishing is for people who hate their kids 
- Whether there are noise-cancelling headphones with the power to silence James May 
- Why saving the planet means soggy paper straws and no more children 
- What to do about the rambler who stole his marrow 
 
But as puzzling and exasperating as life on the road often seemed to be, you could always count on Jeremy to set the world to rights with a rare wit and unique understanding. And at full throttle. Just don't expect it to all go smoothly . . .

Can You Make This Thing Go Faster?

Known for his anecdotes about others, Gervase Phinn finally reveals his own story in this long-awaited autobiography. 
 
Gervase tells of a life full of happiness, conversation, music and books shared with his three siblings, mother and father. This book is a snapshot of growing up in Yorkshire in the 1950s - reminisce with Gervase, and share in his personal journey - of school days and holidays as well as his tentative steps into the adult world. 
 
Devour numerous uproarious stories including the incident involving a broken greenhouse, crashing his brother's newly restored bike as well as secrets about his first dates, adventures at summer camp, family trips to Blackpool and many other captivating tales. 
 
With a wicked ear for the comical, and a sharp eye for detail, this beautifully written book visits poignant moments, significant events and precious memories from a boy called Gervase.

Road to the Dales

The Story of a Yorkshire Lad

Patricia Lockwood

When the expense of a medical procedure forces the 30-year-old Patricia to move back in with her parents, husband in tow, she must learn to live again with her family's simmering madness, and to reckon with the dark side of a childhood spent in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Her father is a gun-toting, all-American, frequently semi-naked priest who underwent a religious conversion after watching The Exorcist 70 times on a Navy submarine; her mother, who emerges as the book's real heart, is a woman preternaturally concerned with the various disasters that could be about to befall her loved ones - and any nearby babies - at all times. Told with a keen comic sensibility that packs a laugh on almost every page, this is at the same time a lyrical and affecting true story of how, having ventured into the underworld, we can emerge with our levity and our sense of justice intact.

Priestdaddy

A Memoir

Clarkson’s farm is the gift that keeps on giving, and now our hero has decided to bring his misunderstood entrepreneurial flair to bear on a new venture: a pub. Let the doors open on The Farmer’s Dog. 
 
All British produce, Hawkstone beer on tap, a private bar for farmers and a vintage tractor hanging from the ceiling. The perfect country pub. But as the Cotwolds’ newest publican quickly discovers, there’s a lot more to landlording than pulling pints. 
 
Just as well, then, that he still has Lisa, Kaleb, Cheerful Charlie and Gerald to help him through...

Diddly Squat: The Farmer's Dog

Well, someone's got to do it: in a world which simply will not see reason, Jeremy sets off on another quest to beat a path of sense through all the silliness and idiocy. 
 
And there's no knowing what might catch Jeremy's eye along the way. It could be: 
-The merits of Stonehenge as a business model 
-Why all meetings are a waste of time 
-The theft of the Queen's cows 
-One Norwegian man's unique approach to showing his gratitude 
-Fitting a burglar alarm to a tortoise 
-Or how Lou Reed was completely wrong about what makes a perfect day 
 
Pithy and provocative, this is Clarkson at his best, taking issue with whatever nonsense gets in the way of his search for all that's worth celebrating. Why should we be forced to accept stuff that's a bit rubbish? Shouldn't things work? Why doesn't someone care? I mean, is it really too much to ask? 
 
It's a good thing we've still got Jeremy out there, still looking, without fear or favour, for the answers.

Is It Really Too Much To Ask?

The World According to Clarkson Volume 5

Reverend Adam Smallbone

When vicar Adam Smallbone swapped his rural parish for St Saviours in Hackney, he thought he was going somewhere where he would be able to make a difference. Somewhere his ministry would have a purpose. Or that was the idea. 
 
But an eccentric, needy band of parishioners, unhelpfully attractive head teacher of the local CofE school and a waspish Deacon with Adam in his crosshairs would test the patience of a saint. And Adam, despite his best intentions, is no saint. So he muddles along, trying to do the right thing. 
 
Thank God he's got his diary . . .

The Rev Diaries

What's your name? I asked the child. 
'Tequila,' she replied. I'm named after a drink.' 
'Tequila Sunrise,' I murmured. 
'No,' pouted the child. 'Tequila Braithwaite.' 
 
Now in his fourth year as an Inspector for English in the Yorkshire Dales, Gervase Phinn still relishes visiting the schools - whether an inner-city comprehensive fraught with difficulties or a small Dales Primary school where the main danger is one of closure. With endless good humour, he copes with the little surprises that occur round every corner. 
 
Some things never change: Mrs Savage roars, Connie rants, and Gervase's colleague in the office play verbal ping-pong. But all this can be put behind him each day when he returns home to his lovely wife, Christine, who is expecting their first baby. 
 
This charming montage of experiences will keep you amused and will win a place in your heart.

Up and Down in the Dales

Rob Brydon

Rob Brydon - star of Gavin and Stacey, Steve Coogan's partner in The Trip, and one of Britain's favourite comedians - tells the funny and frank story of his slow ascent to fame and fortune in Small Man in a Book. 
 
A multi-award-winning actor, writer, comedian and presenter known for his warmth, humour and inspired impressions, Rob Brydon has quickly become one of our very favourite entertainers. But there was a time when it looked like all we'd hear of Rob was his gifted voice. 
 
Growing up in South Wales, Rob had a passion for radio and soon the Welsh airwaves resounded to his hearty burr. However, these were followed by years of misadventure and struggle, before, in the TV series Marion and Geoff and Gavin and Stacey, Rob at last tickled the nation's funny bone. The rest, as they say, is history. Or in his case autobiography. 
 
Small Man in a Book is a funny, heartfelt, honest, sometimes sad, but mainly funny, memoir of how a young man from Wales very, very slowly became an overnight success.

Small Man in a Book

Michael McIntyre

Michael McIntyre is Britain's biggest comedy star. He has released two record-breaking DVDs, Live and Laughing and Hello Wembley; hosts his own BAFTA-nominated BBC1 series, Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow; and has picked up British Comedy Awards for Best Live Stand-Up and Best Male TV Comic. Last year he became the youngest ever host of the Royal Variety Performance, and now in 2011 he takes the hot seat as a judge in the hit ITV show Britain's Got Talent. 
 
How did he get there? 
 
Michael reveals all in his remarkably honest and hilarious autobiography, Life &amp; Laughing. His showbiz roots, his appalling attempts to attract the opposite sex, his fish-out-of-water move from public to state school and his astonishing journey from selling just one ticket at the Edinburgh Festival to selling half a million tickets on his last tour. Michael's story is riveting, poignant, romantic and above all very, very funny.

Life and Laughing

The bestselling first official autobiography from Britain’s biggest comedy star

Spike Milligan

'Back to those haunting days in Italy in 1944, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, with lava running in great red rivulets down the slope towards us, and Jock taking a drag on his cigarette and saying, "I think we've got grounds for a rent rebate."' 
 
The fifth volume of Spike Milligan's unsurpassed account of life as a Bombardier in World War Two sees our hero dispatched from the front line to psychiatric hospital and from there to a rehabilitation camp. Considered loony (and 'unfit to be killed in combat by either side'), he becomes embroiled in his own private battle with melancholy. But it is music, wit and a little help from his friends - including one Gunner Harry Secombe - that help carry him through to his first stage appearances ...

Where Have All the Bullets Gone?

Jilly Cooper

In 1969 when Jilly Cooper, then a young Sunday Times journalist, was asked to write a book on marriage, she had been married to Leo Cooper for a mere seven years. Although the institution of marriage has changed a great deal since this book was first written, much of Jilly's advice - frank, fearless, often hilarious, but always wise - still holds good. 
 
From the wedding and the honeymoon to life afterwards, including how to deal with the in-laws and how to tell if your other half is having an affair, she dispenses anecdotes, jokes, common sense and endless optimism and fun. 
 
Whether you are contemplating marriage, living together, or have been married as long as Jilly and Leo were, you will find plenty of good advice and humour in How to Stay Married.

How To Stay Married

Kathryn Maris

But back to the summer day the spike 
grazed my brother's scalp: I slept beside him 
in his racing car bed and my father woke me 
and slapped my face, thinking, I assume, of sex, 
whereas I was already thinking about death. 
 
Urban, suburban, observant, obsessive and wickedly witty, the poems in Kathryn Maris's third book range over such subjects as parenthood, marriage, adultery, the politics of children's sports contests, female incarceration and psychoanalysis. The House with Only an Attic and a Basement is that rare thing: a darkly funny collection of poems that courses with keen intelligence, yet carries its sophistication lightly so that it is a pleasure to stride along with every poem.

The House with Only an Attic and a Basement

Jeremy Paxman

Jeremy Paxman is to many the embodiment of Englishness yet even he is sometimes forced to ask: who or what exactly are the English? And in setting about addressing this most vexing of questions, Paxman discovers answers to a few others. Like: 
 
 &bull; Why do the English actually enjoy feeling persecuted? 
 
&bull; What is behind the English obsession with games? 
 
&bull; How did they acquire their odd attitudes to sex and to food? 
 
&bull; Where did they get their extraordinary capacity for hypocrisy? 
 
Covering history, attitudes to foreigners, sport, stereotypyes, language and much, much more, The English brims over with stories and anecdotes that provide a fascinating portrait of a nation and its people.

The English

Marian Keyes

Places like the Irish air-guitar championships, a shopping trip to Bloomingdales with a difference and Cannes with a chronic case of Villa-itis. Along the way you'll encounter knicker-politics, fake tans, sticky-out ears and passionate love affairs both with make-up and Toblerones. And of course, agony aunt, Mammy Walsh is on hand to solve all your problems. 
 
Hilarious and poignant, down-to-earth and moving, Marian's two collections of journalism - Under the Duvet and Further Under the Duvet - are now available in one volume for the first time. So put the kettle on and grab that Kit Kat Chunky - everything else will wait.

Under the Duvet

Deluxe Edition - British Book Awards Author of the Year 2022

'I had not informed my parents of my return, I wanted it to be a lovely surprise; it was, for me, they were away ...' 
 
The seventh and last volume of Spike Milligan's memoirs sees our hero returning from war and Italy ... but to what? Aside from shooting large, inaccurate guns at Germans, all he has done for five long years is blow a trumpet, tell rude jokes and write and perform sketches for the entertainment of bored and murderous soldiers - who on earth is going to pay a civilian to do more of that? From the giddy heights of Hackney Empire to a Zurich Freak Show and beyond, Spike makes his way through the backwaters of showbiz, first as band musician then as one-man wild-act and eventually in the company of a group of like-minded comedians called Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine and Peter Sellers. They decide to call themselves The Goons...

Peace Work

Everyone knows that Jeremy Clarkson finds the world a perplexing place - after all, he wrote a bestselling book about it. Yet despite the appearance of The World According To Clarkson, things don't seem to have improved much. However, Jeremy is not someone to give up easily and he's decided to have another go. 
 
In And Another Thing, our exasperated hero discovers that: 
 
 He inadvertently dropped a bomb on North Carolina 
 
 We're all going to explode at the age of 62 
 
Russians look bad in Speedos. But not as bad as we do. 
 
 No one should have to worry about being Bill Oddie's long lost sister 
 
He should probably be nicer about David Beckham 
 
Thigh-slappingly funny and - as ever - in your face, Jeremy Clarkson bursts the pointless little bubbles of the idiots while celebrating the special, the unique and the sheer bloody brilliant ...

And Another Thing

The World According to Clarkson Volume 2

Bill Duncan

A collection of essays and aphorisms about Scottish Calvinism. This is Scottish literary humour at its finest. 
'A work of contemporary shamanism, with all the bluff, poetry, deranged humour, sleight-of-hand and real magic that implies.' Don Paterson. 
This is the first (and maybe the last) self-help guide that promises to make you feel a lot worse after you read it. A hilarious satire on freeze-dried mysticism and off-the-shelf enlightenment, it is also a haunting and lyrical reflection on places, voices and memories -- a literary journey into the heart of North-East darkness. 
'A perfect evocation of Scotland's mysterious love affair with loss and sorrow. A powerful dram of Zen Calvinism.' Richard Holloway

The Wee Book of Calvin

Air-Kissing in the North-East

Jesse Armstrong

Sam Bain

What's the secret to JP's sexual prowess? How does Howard beat the buffet every time? What does Vod really think about drink, drugs and Salman Rushdie? And will Kingsley's diary spill his true feelings for Josie? (hopefully not as stomach-churning as Oregon's sext messages with Professor Shales ... ) 
 
This is a real guide to the first year of student life - the one the preachy official brochures and prospectuses don't tell you about. From UCAS applications to moving into a student house, from freshers' week to choosing courses and, more importantly, friends, the book records every detail - disgusting, exciting, tragic and triumphant - as the young ones stumble through university life. A scrap book of diary entries, emails, manifestos (including Howard's Rules for Everything) and guidelines it is crammed with saucy text messages, music playlists, facebook profiles, essays, poems, photos, drawings and paintings, as well as the housemates' musings on life, uni and everything. 
 
From Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, the acclaimed writers of Peep Show, this is the ultimate companion to Fresh Meat, the Best New British Comedy of 2011, starring Jack Whitehall, Robert Webb and Joe Thomas.

Fresh Meat

The Essential Guide for New Undergraduates/the Future Unemployed

Geoffrey Willans

Ronald Searle

With one mad yell the mob, armed with stumps and bits torn from desks, surge away down the pasage, trampling the masters under foot. A buket of water fall on GRIMES and the term end in a series of wizard rags and japes. Cars arrive, driven by parents with drawn, white faces. 
 
Nigel Molesworth is dragging St. Custard's into the 20th century in the company of 'felow pupils, their doting maters, pompous paters and any others who are interested', via the Elizabethans and the Wild West. Most importantly, he has some important lessons in how to treat Girls, what to do with a tee-vee, what a holiday will really involve, and how to survive the uranium age that is sure to hit any time now. CAVE!

Whizz for Atomms

A guide to survival in the 20th century for felow pupils, their doting maters, pompous paters and any other who are interested

'My namer is Maria Antonoinetta Fontana, but everyone call me Toni.''I'm Spike,' sometimes known as stop thief or hey you.'Yeser, I know.' 
 
The sixth volume of Spike Milligan's off-the-wall account of his part in World War Two sees our hero doing very little soldiering. Because it's 1946. Rather, he is now part of the Bill Hall Trio - a 'Combined Services Entertainment' inflicted on unsuspecting soldiers across Italy and Austria - and is largely preoccupied with the unbearably beautiful ballerina, Ms Toni Fontana ('Arghhhhhhhhh!). But he must enjoy it while he can before he is demobbed and sent home to Catford - so he does ...

Goodbye Soldier

Adrian Bliss

History belongs to the heroes. But to get the full story, sometimes you have to ask the side characters. 
 
The lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Henry VIII and Queen Victoria fill bookshelves and fascinate scholars all over the world. But little attention is given to the ferret who posed for the renaissance master, the servant who oversaw the Tudor’s toilet time, or the famous horse who thrilled the miserable old monarch. 
 
These supporting cast members have been waiting in the wings for too long, and Adrian Bliss thinks it’s high time they join their glory-hogging contemporaries in the spotlight. Fortunately, - thanks to some recently discovered ancient complaint letters, court transcripts and memoirs in bottles - now they can. 
 
Equal parts fascinating and hilarious, the Greatest Nobodies of History is a surreal love letter to life’s forgotten heroes featuring hitherto undocumented accounts from Ancient Greece to the frontlines of the Great Emu War. 
 
All that follows really happened, and some of it could even be true...

The Greatest Nobodies of History

Minor Characters from Major Moments

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