Abilio Estévez

Abir Mukherjee is the bestselling author of the award-winning Wyndham &amp; Banerjee series of crime novels set in 1920s India and the British Book Awards Crime Thriller of the Year 2025 Hunted. His books have been translated into sixteen languages and won various awards including the CWA Dagger for best Historical Novel, the Prix du Polar Européen, and the Wilbur Smith Award for Adventure Writing. 
 
 
He also co-hosts the popular Red Hot Chilli Writers podcast which takes a wry look at the world of books, writing, and the creative arts, tackling everything from bestsellers to pop culture. Abir grew up in Scotland and now lives in Surrey with his wife and two sons. 
 
 
Website: abirmukherjee.com Twitter, Threads &amp; Instagram: @radiomukhers Facebook: AuthorAbir

Abir Mukherjee

Abolqasem Ferdowsi

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham L. Newman is a professor at the School of Foreign Service and Government Department at Georgetown University. He is a 2022-2023 Berlin Prize winner and his work has been published in leading outlets like The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, Nature, Science, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, and Politico.

Abraham Newman

Abraham Verghese

Absolut Vodka

Ad Putter

Ada Moncrieff is the author of Murder Most Festive, Murder at the Theatre Royale and Murder at Maybridge Castle. She lives and works in London.

Ada Moncrieff

Adam Aleksic is a linguist and content creator posting educational videos as the “Etymology Nerd” to an audience of over two million. As a linguistics student at Harvard College, he founded and served as president of the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. He’s discussed online language on NPR, repeatedly contributed to The Washington Post, and his work has been mentioned in The New York Times, The Economist, and The Guardian. He’s lectured on language and social media at Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and other top universities, including a TEDx talk at the University of Pennsylvania. Adam is based in New York City, where he spends a lot of time scrolling TikTok for “research.”

Adam Aleksic

Adam Alter is an Associate Professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, and holds an affiliated appointment within the Psychology Department. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel and Behave and has written for The New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Wired, Popular Science and numerous other publications.

Adam Alter

Professor Adam Balen is lead clinician at one of the UK's largest and most successful IVF units at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. In recognition of his research on fertility and related conditions, he holds a DSc (the highest academic degree in medicine) from the University of Leeds. Adam is internationally renowned, holding roles with the World Health Organisation (WHO), the International Federation of Gyneacology and Obstetrics (FIGO) and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gyneacologists (RCOG). He runs both NHS and private fertility clinics so he understands the issues that arise from both sides and he works closely with fertility patient support organisations across the UK. Adam regularly features in the media on all aspects of reproductive health and lectures widely throughout the world.

Adam Balen

Adam Baron

Adam Bornstein

Adam Brookes grew up in the UK and was a journalist with BBC News for many years. As a foreign correspondent he was based in Indonesia, China and the United States. Along the way he reported from many other countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea. He lives in Washington DC.

Adam Brookes

Adam Buxton

Adam Christopher is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith and Stranger Things: Darkness on the Edge of Town. He has also written official tie-in novels for the hit CBS television show Elementary and the award-winning Dishonored video game franchise. Co-creator of the twenty-first-century incarnation of Archie Comics superhero The Shield, Adam has also written for the universes of Doctor Who and World of Warcraft, and is a contributor to the internationally bestselling Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View anniversary anthology series and the all-ages Star Wars Adventures comic. Adam’s original novels include Made to Kill and The Burning Dark, among many others, and his debut novel Empire State was both a SciFi Now and Financial Times book of the year.

Adam Christopher

Adam Foulds's most recent books are In the Wolf’s Mouth, The Quickening Maze, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Encore Award and the European Union Prize for Literature, and The Broken Word, which won the Costa Poetry Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. He has recently been awarded the E.M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and named as one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’.

Adam Foulds

Dr Adam Fox is a highly qualified and respected allergy specialist and consultant paediatric allergist and clinical lead for Allergy at Guy's &amp; St Thomas' Hospitals. The Times recently named him as one of Britain's top 100 children’s doctors. 
 
www.allergyfreebabyandtoddler.com

Adam Fox

Adam Frost

Adam Galinsky is currently the Morris and Alice Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He received his PhD from Princeton University in Social Psychology and his B.A. from Harvard University.

Adam Galinsky

Adam Glasser

Adam Goodfellow

Adam Goodwin

Adam Grant is an organizational psychologist at Wharton, where he has been the top-rated professor for seven straight years. His books have sold millions of copies, his TED talks have been viewed more than 30 million times, and he hosts the hit podcast Re:Thinking. His pioneering research on motivation and meaning has enabled people to reach their aspirations and exceed others' expectations. His viral piece on languishing was the most-read New York Times article of 2021 and the most-saved article across platforms. He has been recognized as one of the world's ten most influential management thinkers and Fortune's 40 Under 40, and has received distinguished scientific achievement awards from the American Psychological Association and the National Science Foundation. Grant received his B.A. from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and he is a former Junior Olympic springboard diver. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and their three children.

Adam Grant

Adam and Charlotte met in Zanzibar while working with Voluntary Services Overseas. Upon their return to the UK, Charlotte completed an MA at Oxford Brookes and started her career in publishing. Adam in the meantime became writer-in-residence at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre before co-founding Storytelling Schools, an international organisation dedicated to training teachers in oracy, literacy and creativity. Adam and Charlotte's first book together was the best-selling and award-winning Spaghetti with the Yeti. Since then, Adam and Charlotte have continued to follow their passion for creating engaging books that inspire interaction and creativity in young readers.

Adam Guillain

ADAM HAMDY is a bestselling author and screenwriter. His most recent novel, The Other Side of Night, was an NPR best book of 2022 and a New York Times best thriller of the year, and has been described as ingenious and deeply moving. He is the author of the Scott Pearce series of modern spy thrillers, Black 13, Red Wolves and White Fire, and the Pendulum trilogy. Keep up to date with his latest books and news at www.adamhamdy.com.

Adam Hamdy

Adam Hart-Davis

Adam Haslett is the author of the story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here and the novels Imagine Me Gone and Union Atlantic. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and his books have been translated into over thirty languages. His journalism on culture and politics has appeared in The Financial Times, Esquire, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, The Nation, and The Atlantic, among others. He lives in New York City.

Adam Haslett

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Rosemarie Jarski

'They misunderestimated me' George W. Bush 
 
Einstein said only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity. So in deference to the dumbing down of our culture, comes Dim Wit - a collection of the most jaw-droppingly stupid things ever said. The cast includes every famous foot-in-mouther from George W Bush to Prince Philip, Paris Hilton to Jade Goody, not to mention hundreds of unsung idiots plucked from villages the world over. 
 
The result is a confederacy of dunces more pro-fun than profound - a clever witticism may coax an inward smile but it takes a really stupid remark to deliver a belly laugh. So pick up Dim Wit and prepare to embrace your inner moron - it may be the smartest thing you do... 
 
'My grandma overheard two women talking in a doctor's surgery. After a while, one said to the other, "Do you know, Mary, I don't feel too well. I think I'll go home."' - Robyn Jankel 
 
'I don't think anyone should write his autobiography until after he's dead.' - Samuel Goldwyn 
 
'Winston Churchill? Wasn't he the first black President of America? There's a statue of him near me - that's black.' - Danielle Lloyd

Dim Wit

The Funniest, Stupidest Things Ever Said

Geoff Tibballs

Would you Adam and Eve it? Over a hundred years after it was first heard on the streets of Ye Olde London Towne, Cockney rhyming slang is still going strong, and this book contains the most comprehensive and entertaining guide yet. 
 
Presented in an easy-to-read A to Z format, it explains the meaning of hundreds of terms, from old favourites such as apples and pears (stairs) and plates of meat (feet) to the more obscure band of hope (soap) and cuts and scratches (matches) through to modern classics such as Anthea Turner (earner) and Ashley Cole (own goal), as well as providing fascinating background info and curious Cockney facts throughout. Also included are a series of language tests so that readers can brush up on their newfound knowledge on their way to becoming a true Cockney Geezer. 
 
All in all, The Ultimate Cockney Geezer's Guide to Rhyming Slang is well worth your bread and honey to have a butcher's.

The Ultimate Cockney Geezer's Guide to Rhyming Slang

Woody Allen

'I am greatly relieved that the universe is finally explainable. I was beginning to think it was me.' Thus begins 'Strung Out', Woody Allen's hilarious application of the laws of the universe to daily life. Mere Anarchy, Woody Allen's first collection in over 25 years, features eighteen witty, wild and intelligent comic pieces - eight of which have never been in print before. 
 
Surreal, absurd, rich in verbal play, bitingly satirical and just plain daft in the mode we have grown to love from his finest films, this flight-of-fancy collection includes tales of a body double who, mistaken for the film's star, is kidnapped by outlaws; a pretentious novelist forced to work on the novelisation of a Three Stooges film; a nanny secretly writing an expose of her Manhattan employers; crooks selling bespoke prayers on eBay; and how to react when you're asked to finance a Broadway play about the invention and manufacture of the adjustable showerhead.

Mere Anarchy

Kyle MacDonald

Kyle MacDonald wanted his own house. The problem was he didn't have a job and he didn't have any money. Thinking back to his childhood he remembered the game he loved to play - Bigger and Better. It was a way of trading your old stuff to get bigger and better new stuff. Legend had it, some people managed to trade an old biro for a brand new car! This got Kyle thinking. If that kind of entrepreneurial spirit could turn tiny objects into big ones, then why not try trading up to a house? 
And then he saw it. One red paperclip, sitting on his desk, holding the pages of his CV together, ready to go out into the world and help him find the job that would eventually get him a house. 
But that didn't sound nearly as much fun as trading. So he wrote an internet advert hoping to trade one red paperclip and suddenly his inbox filled with responses: the trading had begun. 
Did he get the house? Well, you're about to find out! One thing's for sure, he did a lot of trades and met a lot of very interesting people. One small paperclip was the beginning of a great big adventure.

One Red Paperclip

The story of how one man changed his life one swap at a time

Chris Moyles

Superman was a hero. Clark Kent was a geek. 
 
Spiderman saved lives. Peter Parker sold photographs to his local paper. 
 
Chris Moyles entertains 8 million people each week on BBC Radio 1. Then he goes home and plays Xbox on his sofa, while wearing only his underpants. 
 
Welcome to the real world of Chris Moyles. 
 
The Difficult Second Book tries to get to the bottom of the double life of this award-winning broadcaster and hapless human being. You'll find out just what he thinks of his radio show guests - some of the most famous people in the country. You'll hear about his showbiz nights out and celebrity neighbourhood. You'll also learn why he is obsessive about washing up; why he lies to the pizza delivery man; and generally what it's like being a part-time famous person and a part-time nobody. 
 
Love him or not, Chris Moyles is part of the fabric of our nation and a proven best-selling author. A refreshingly honest, caustically dry and quick-witted commentator on daily life, The Difficult Second Book is a highly-entertaining read from start to finish.

The Difficult Second Book

Terence Blacker

Though born into privilege and inheriting a fortune, Willie Donaldson ended up dying alone in a seedy rented flat, his computer still logged on to a lesbian porn site. To some, he had been one of the great, under-rated comic writers of our time, and to others, a dangerous force of corruption and decadence. 
 
His achievements were significant - he published Sylvia Plath while still at Cambridge, as a producer in the Sixties he staged Beyond the Fringe, and he was later to write the celebrated Henry Root Letters - but not as impressive as his reckless talent for self-destruction. The impresario became a serial bankrupt. The man about town, who had lived with Sarah Miles and been engaged to Carly Simon, ended up as a ponce in a Chelsea brothel. Success as a writer quickly led him into a dark underworld of crack addiction, fraud and sexual obsession. Now friend and collaborator, Terence Blacker unravels the intimate truth of Willie Donaldson's strange story in all its glamour, hilarity and pain. 
 
'What a young fool I was. But how I adored him' Carly Simon 
 
'A slimy crook' Private Eye 
 
'For the skill and wit of his writing he deserves to be hailed as the English Nabokov' Auberon Waugh 
 
'I am someone who always answers the phone at 1.00 am, because I know it isn't going to be my bank manager or the Inland Revenue, but probably a crack dealer or a prostitute' Willie Donaldson

You Cannot Live As I Have Lived and Not End Up Like This

The thoroughly disgraceful life and times of Willie Donaldson

Do you think the world's going to hell in a handcart? Do you reckon the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train? 
 
If the answer is a heartfelt yes, you'll feel right at home amongst the malcontents and misanthropes here. Woody Allen, W.C. Fields, Dorothy Parker, Joan Rivers, Jo Brand, Mark Lamarr and Victor Meldrew are just some of the world-class curmudgeons to sound-off hilariously about all the things that make you seethe: traffic wardens, cold callers, caravans, James Blunt, estate agents, other drivers, being put on hold, men in flip-flops and modern art. With over 4,000 entries, this is the most comprehensive collection of grumpiness there has ever been. 
 
As for you Pollyannas who persist in looking for silver linings despite dire weather warnings, isn't it about time you woke up and smelt the rancid coffee? Cast off those rose-tinted spectacles, climb on board the handcart and fasten your seatbelts: it's going to be one hell of a grumpy ride.

Grumpy Old Wit

The greatest collection of grumpy wit ever assembled from Socrates to Meldrew

Jonathan Swan

Man Walks Into A Bar 2 is the second volume of the hugely popular and hilariously funny joke book series. A one-stop shop for anyone who likes to hear and tell jokes. The jokes are ordered thematically - wives, husbands, doctors, lawyers, the French, the Germans, jokes about nuns, jokes about monkeys, the lot. There are also regular panels which group jokes by type too - Essex girls, changing a lightbulb etc. Our material will turn you into the toast of your local pub or make you loathed in your own home - remember, it is all in the telling. From the sublimely erudite to stuff Frank Carson would turn down, this book can service you with every joke you'll ever need. 
 
Including such gems as the following: 
 
Why have elephants got big ears? 
Because Noddy won't pay the ransom. 
 
A magic tractor is driving down a country road and turns into a field. 
 
An amnesiac walks into a bar. 'Do I come here often?' 
 
I went to a book shop and asked the saleswoman where the Self Help section was. She said if she told me it would defeat the purpose. 
 
How do you know when you're a pirate? 
You just arrrrrggghh.

Man Walks Into A Bar 2

Tony Hawks

'If you had to pick two things you wanted - if you had to - what would you pick?' 
 
I hesitated. This was a bigger question than usually got asked at these post-match debriefs. 'I suppose the honest answer would be,' I said, still accessing the last pieces of required data from a jumbled mind, 'meeting my soul mate, and finding an idyllic house abroad somewhere.' 
 
Inspired by breathtaking views and romantic dreams of finding love in the mountains, Tony Hawks impulsively buys a house in the French Pyrenees. Here, he plans to finally fulfil his childhood fantasy of mastering the piano, untroubled by the problems of the world. 
 
In reality, the chaotic story of Tony's hopelessly ill-conceived house purchase reads like the definitive guide to how not to buy a house in France. It finds him flirting with the removal business in a disastrous attempt to transport his piano to France in a dodgy white van; foolishly electing to build a swimming pool himself; and expanding his relationship repertoire when he starts co-habiting, not with an exquisite French beauty, but with a middle-aged builder from West London. 
 
As Tony and his friends haplessly attempt to fit into village life, they learn more about themselves and each other than they ever imagined.

A Piano In The Pyrenees

The Ups and Downs of an Englishman in the French Mountains

It's 1988 and radios across the land blast out the Top Ten hit 'Stutter Rap' by Morris Minor and the Majors. The man behind the fake moustache is Tony Hawks. 
 
Fast forward to the 21st century and those heady days of pop stardom are a distant memory. That is, until it is suggested that Tony is just another One Hit Wonder. Really? We'll have to see about that ... 
 
For two years Tony struggles to have a hit somewhere, anywhere, in the world, changing acts and styles with a bewildering lack of integrity. From Nashville to Amsterdam, from Eastern Europe to Africa, he travels the globe in search of that elusive hit. 
 
But it's only after a chance encounter with Norman Wisdom that things get really strange. Is it really possible that together they could storm the Albanian charts? 
 
In One Hit Wonderland anything can happen ...

One Hit Wonderland

'All I knew about Moldova were the names of eleven men printed on the inside back pages of my newspaper. None of them sounded to me like they were any good at tennis ...' 
 
An eccentric wager finds Tony Hawks, a man who loves an unusual challenge, bound for the little-known Eastern European state of Moldova. His mission: to track down members of the country's football team and persuade them to play him at tennis. The bizarre quest ultimately has little to do with tennis or football, but instead turns into an extraordinary journey involving the Moldovan underworld, gypsies, chronic power shortages, near kidnap, and a surprisingly tender relationship with his host family. 
 
Follow the fortunes of Tony in this hilarious and often moving adventure as it takes him from Moldova, onwards to Northern Ireland, leading to an exciting denouement in Nazareth - and the naked truth of the bet's final outcome ...

Playing the Moldovans at Tennis

'I hereby bet Tony Hawks the sum of One Hundred Pounds that he cannot hitchhike round the circumference of Ireland, with a fridge, within one calendar month' 
 
A foolhardy attempt to win a drunken bet led to Tony Hawks having one of the most unforgettable experiences of his life. Joined by his trusty travelling-companion-cum-domestic-appliance, he found himself in the midst of a remarkable, inspirational and, at times, downright silly adventure. 
 
In their month of madness, Tony and his fridge surfed together; entered a batchelor festival; and one of them had sex without the other knowing. The fridge got christened, and they even met the poorest king on Earth. 
 
An absurd story of an extraordinary adventure, Round Ireland with a Fridge follows the fearless pair as they battle towards Dublin and a breathtaking finale that is moving, uplifting, and a fitting conclusion to the whole ridiculous affair.

Round Ireland With A Fridge

Craig Brown

An awful lot has happened since that bright, fateful May morning in 1997 when New Labour swept to power. Things, we were told, Could Only Get Better. Instead, things took a turn for the worse... 
 
To console Tony Blair as he embarks on his long, grinning journey into oblivion, Craig Brown has packed a special time-capsule of Britain during the Tony Years: from Cool Britannia to ASBOs and from Posh and Becks to Charles and Camilla, the nation's funniest satirist makes sense - and nonsense - of it all.

The Tony Years

Boyd Hilton

David Walliams

Matt Lucas

Written together with friend and journalist Boyd Hilton, Inside Little Britain follows a year in the lives of Matt Lucas and David Walliams - the good, the bad, the mundane and the monumental. A year that includes at its core a mammoth nine-month Spinal Tap-esque tour where Little Britain goes in search of Great Britain. This is a milestone book that offers an unrivalled close-up of a classic British comedy act, as it happens, at the height of its powers. 
 
But it is also a journey back into their pasts, reflecting on just how they got from there to here. It covers their childhoods, family life and early comedy performances as they found their feet; their complex friendship and working relationship; and the increasingly insane world they now inhabit. 
 
Mixing memoir and travelogue to paint an engrossing portrait of fame and comic genius, Inside Little Britain is an unmissable, candid window on life inside the celebrity bubble in all its glamour and awfulness.

Inside Little Britain

'He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it - you can see it all over their faces' - Ron Atkinson 
 
'Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the city centre' - Oscar Wilde 
 
Whether over the moon or sick as a parrot, sportsmen and women can invariably be relied upon to come out with a humorous quote...even if it's not always intentional. The Bowler's Holding, The Batsman's Willey provides the definitive collection of sporting wit, from participants and observers alike. 
 
The book covers the full gamut of the sports spectrum and provides over 4,000 side-splittingly funny quotes - some examples of incisive sporting wit, others inadvertent howlers never to be forgotten; ranging from the cutting remarks of Brian Clough and Muhammad Ali to the studied observations of John Arlott and the hilarious gaffes of Murray Walker. 
 
The Bowler's Holding, The Batsman's Willey is an absolute must for any sports fan.

The Bowler's Holding, the Batsman's Willey

The Greatest Collection of Humorous Sporting Quotations Ever!

Stephanie Klein

When Stephanie Klein hit her twenty-fourth birthday she thought she had everything she could possibly have wanted from life: a good job, a successful husband, a Manhattan apartment and a baby on the way. 
 
By the time she hit thirty it was all gone; her husband and her baby lost. She was left to start again with a whole new life and an entirely depleted cast of characters. Her only company was her 'Furkid' (the small brown dog she now shared a bed with). Her friend told her to get out dating again and to employ the sandwich principle - keep one man on either side, and enjoy the interesting one in-between. So she set off, with much trepidation and wardrobe anxiety, to discover single sex all over again... 
 
The weblog she kept of her new found freedom and sexual adventures became a sensation in the States. Her brilliantly funny, acerbic descriptions of love, life and dating bought her press and acclaim. Straight up and Dirty is Stephanie's funnier than comedy, truer than romance, sexier than fiction account of her journey.

Straight Up and Dirty

Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas is one of the UK's most effective and best-known political activists, as well as being a highly successful stand-up comedian. His show, The Mark Thomas Product, ran for six highly acclaimed series on Channel Four. Amazingly, this is his first book. 
 
As Used On the Famous Nelson Mandela is a deeply funny, deeply disturbing account of Mark's rampage through the arms trade. Under a fairly flimsy disguise and with the use of some worryingly poor accents, Mark set off on a journey of discovery in the company of arms dealers, torture victims, politicians, cops, crusties and geeks. The result is a shockingly entertaining read. 
 
Embedded within the sharpness of his humour is the truth of an industry fraught with loopholes, complacency and greed; that allows corrupt regimes to kill, maim and displace, but whose deals are often subsidised by the British taxpayer. 
 
Hard-hitting, laugh-out-loud funny and extremely unsettling, As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela is never anything less than compulsive.

As Used On the Famous Nelson Mandela

Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade

Phil Ball

When Phil Ball left university with a workmanlike English degree to his name and no discernible ambitions, he wasn't entirely sure what to do next. So like many before him he thought he'd giving teaching a go. Why not? 
 
This is the comic story of one man's painfully slow metamorphosis into a teacher at an everyday comprehensive and his encounters with other remarkable teachers and pupils along the way. The good, the bad, the violent, the victimised and the clinically insane: from his first teaching practice nemesis, Alan Plant, who knows his dark secret, to the pupil who believes he is a reincarnation of the poet Andrew Marvell. It is a tale of the highs and lows of attempting to teach: from the joy of really making a difference to young minds to being physically set upon by a teenage horde. 
 
And that's just what happens in the classroom. Beyond it is the real world of teachers behind staff-room doors: desperate lives, unseemly professional competition, a diet of cigarettes, alcohol and cold coffee, casual sex and general social dysfunction. Not a great example, but the truth...

The Hapless Teacher's Handbook

Mel Giedroyc

'Why is my hair starting to go as grey as Blake Carrington's? What is our local pub called? Are bootcut jeans still fashionable? These are just some of the questions I'll never answer now I've had my first baby.' 
 
With her TV career hitting the skids and her daughter's nappy doing the same every two hours, her husband suddenly unemployed and the bank writing to her only in red, Mel needs to come up with a scheme, and fast: Move to a house they can't afford, of course! Welcome to an endless cabaret of sleeplessness, removal men, sinister toddler groups, husband-stealing lodgers and competitive mums.

Going Ga Ga

Felix Dennis

When Jack Sued Jill is the latest collection of original verse by maverick multimillionaire publisher Felix Dennis. Taking the innocence of nursery rhymes and turning them into something altogether darker, Dennis turns his piercing eye on the follies and absurdities of modern life. 
 
From ASBOs to Osama Bin Laden, creationism to crack houses, Humpty Dumpty to Tony Blair, nothing and no one is spared. Even more shockingly, once you've read Dennis's updating of 'Little Miss Muffet', you'll never be able to think of her in the same way again. 
 
Scathing and hilarious, imaginative and unpredictable, When Jack Sued Jill is an essential collection of twisted nursery rhymes for the twenty-first century.

When Jack Sued Jill

'A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees,' as William Blake so aptly put it. What he probably meant, being a publisher and a printer himself, was that the wise man cuts down the tree and turns the resultant paper into a one-size-fits-all book packed with the sagest advice, quips and quotations from some of the wisest and funniest people whose counsel you could ever wish to hear. 
 
A Word from the Wise is a one-stop shop with over 6,000 quotes. It's a vast resource, but every one is a gem, from such knowledgeable souls as Hunter S Thompson, The Talmud, Dorothy Parker and Daffy Duck. 
 
With each quote handily placed within every possible category you could think of, and with more quotes in every genre than anywhere else, A Word From the Wise is a must for anyone who thinks they could do with knowing a little bit or a lot more. 
 
'A quotation at the right moment is like bread in a famine' The Talmud 
 
'Imagination is more important than knowledge' Albert Einstein 
 
'If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars' John Paul Getty 
 
'Violence is the repartee of the illiterate' George Bernard Shaw 
 
'Women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition' Timothy Leary 
 
'A narcissist is someone better-looking than you are' Gore Vidal

A Word From the Wise

All the witty wisdom you'll ever need in one lifetime from those who've already been there

Chas Griffin

In 1982 the Griffins left the security of suburbia to grow garlic in West Wales. From the struggle with rurality that ensued grew (organically) the very amusing, and informative, warts-and-all account Scenes From a Smallholding . 
 
Now in this sometimes touching, but always funny sequel, Chas reveals what happened four years after their arrival - when the dream had been well and truly dreamt and they were experiencing some rather rude awakenings. Did they ever achieve the blissful good life? Are they surrounded by organic veg? How have the family coped with their new rural life? 
 
Written with Chas Griffin's trademark charm and humour, enjoy another compelling romp through the countryside.

More Scenes From a Smallholding

Lucy Edge

A sharply funny travelogue from a fantastic travel writer. Lucy Edge tells the story of her personal quest for serenity and yogic flexibility through the ashrams and gurus of India. 
 
After over a decade spent working and drinking too much in the world of advertising, Lucy decided she had to leave town for an altogether more spiritual and, well, meaningful way of life - And whilst she was at it, she could acquire a newly lithe and supple body. 
 
Would she come home looking like Christy Turlington and pick up some Buddhist serenity on the way? Or did something much funnier, interesting and complicated happen? Did she fall in love - with a place and its people? 
 
A divine comedy of the Western obsession with life's deeper meaning, a yogic experiment and a love letter to India, this is a very funny book from a wonderful travel writer.

Yoga School Dropout

There's nothing much left to feel good about these days if you're British, but one of the few things where we all agree that we're still a world leader is our defining sense of humour. Thematically covering every subject imaginable, from God to dogs, this collection is the seminal gathering of our national wit and a picture of who we are as a nation - a monument to our monumental silliness. 
 
'An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.' George Mikes 
 
Jane Austen, Jo Brand, Craig Brown, Winston Churchill, Alan Clark, Jeremy Clarkson, Billy Connolly, Peter Cook, Tommy Cooper, Stephen Fry, A.A. Gill, Boris Johnson, Samuel Johnson, Maureen Lipman, Spike Milligan, Eric Morecambe, William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Frank Skinner, Sue Townsend, Peter Ustinov, Queen Victoria, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Victoria Wood and many more.

Great British Wit

'I'm 35 years old. A low-ranking TV personality. Rather immature and carefree, my only responsibility to date has been a guinea pig. All that's about to change. I'm pregnant, and now I've become a cheddar cheese junkie, inseparable from my dungarees. Help!' 
 
Who can Mel turn to? 
 
Pen, her best friend, who is still annoyingly carefree and single, and whose effect on Mel is like an injection of pure caffeine to the system? 
 
Jools, the hippy who recommends basil nosegay for labour pains and placenta pate canapes when entertaining? 
 
Amanda, the well-heeled, pregnant-friend-from-Hell who, only weeks after her textbook delivery, is planning to have her firstborn taught to ski? 
 
Kate, Mel's sister and mother of two, whose offspring are inclined towards dangerous Captain Hook impersonations and sudden mood swings? 
 
Mel's mother, who got Mel through babyhood by way of regular coffee mornings and who impresses on her the importance of portable 1950s baby gear that looks about as foldable as a Transit van? 
 
Dan, the dad-to-be, who suddenly stops going to the pub to concentrate on Mel's dietary requirements and has adopted the sinister habit of always keeping a tape measure attached to his belt?

From Here To Maternity

Rena Fruchter

Rena Fruchter was Dudley's concert piano partner, and the friend who looked after him in the final years of his life until his death at the age of 66. This is her intimate portrait of the extraordinarily brilliant, complex character that was Dudley Moore. 
 
During the last ten years of his life Dudley changed. He stepped off the podium and into real life. Physically life was difficult, professionally it was turbulent, but during his final years he blossomed, and in the midst of his illness from the debilitating effects of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, he found peace. 
 
Rena writes beautifully of Dudley's final years but also takes us back through his life story - conveying his inimitable talent, humour and vibrancy; evoking the atmosphere of a working-class upbringing in 1940s Britain, life in 1950s London and his relationship with Peter Cook, and the excesses of 1980s LA. With style and precision she unravels his personality, looks back at his childhood and career, weaving a moving and compelling story of a unique man.

Dudley Moore

An Intimate Portrait

In 1982 the Griffins left the security of suburbia to grow garlic in West Wales. This is a funny and sometimes touching, warts-and-all account of their first three years: of how they learned lambing and marketing and ploughing and hay-making: and of the dung-sodden joys of milking and the surreal terrors of bee-keeping. Be amused. Be very amused. 
 
Scenes from a Smallholding is by turns challenging, touching, and informative; but above all, it is very funny.

Scenes From A Smallholding

Michael Simkins

As a boy, Michael Simkins always wanted to be someone. While his friends were out getting laid and stoned, he was tucked up at home dreaming of his name in lights, of holding an audience rapt, of perhaps becoming a TV heart-throb, or having someone, anyone, ask for his autograph in the supermarket. This is the true story of an obsessive pursuit of acting fame. It is a life marked by occasional hard-fought successes and routine helpings of ritual humiliation: scout hut Gilbert and Sullivan, dodgy rock operas, sewage farm theatre workshop, Christmas panto hell, straight-to-video film flops, leading roles in Crimewatch reconstructions and dressing up as a chicken to advertise TV dinners. It is a hilarious tale of turgid theatre, tights, trusses and tonsil tennis with Timothy Spall.

What's My Motivation?

Andrew Collins

'Higher education comes at exactly the right time: in the twilight of your teens, you're just starting to coagulate as a human being, to pull away from parental influence and find your own feet. What better than three years in which to explore the inner you, establish a feasible worldview, and maybe get on Blockbusters.' 
 
After an idyllic provincial 1970s childhood, the 1980s took Andrew Collins to London, art school and the classic student experience. Crimping his hair, casting aside his socks and sporting fingerless gloves, he became Andy Kollins: purveyor of awful poetry; disciple of moany music, and wannabe political activist. What follows is a universal tale of trainee hedonism, girl trouble, wasted grants and begging letters to parents. 
 
A synth-soundtracked rite of passage that's often painfully funny, it traces one teenager's metamorphosis from sheltered suburban innocent to semi-mature metropolitan male through the pretensions and confusions of trying to stand alone for the first time in your own kung fu pumps in a big bad city.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

My Difficult 80s

Dave Gorman

If someone called you a 'googlewhack' what would you do? Would you end up playing table tennis with a nine year-old boy in Boston? Would you find yourself in Los Angeles wrangling snakes, or would you go to China to be licked by a performance artist? 
 
If your name is Dave Gorman, then all of these things could be true. 
 
Fuelled by a lust for life and a desperate desire to do anything except what he's supposed to be doing (writing that novel and growing up), Dave falls under the spell of an obscure internet word game - Googlewhacking. Addicted to the game, and gripped by obsession, Dave travels three times round the world, visiting four continents and the unlikeliest cast of real life eccentrics you'll ever meet in what becomes an epic challenge, a life-changing, globe-trotting Googlewhack adventure.

Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure

Atlantia

Avalon

BBC Children's Classics

BBC Classics

BBC Earth

BBC Radio’s The Lord of the Rings

BBC TV Soundtracks

BP Animation

Baby Touch

Ballroom Girls

Barnaby Grimes

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Bear Mountain Rescue Series

Beasts of Prey

The complete boxed collection of Beatrix Potter's beloved Peter Rabbit books

Beatrix Potter Originals

Beautiful Creatures

Bel Dame Apocrypha

Bella Wallis Victorian Mysteries

Belle

Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom

Bergman Brothers

Big Ideas for Little Philosophers

Bill Clinton & James Patterson stand-alone thrillers

Bill Smith / Lydia Chin

Bim Blake

Bindi Babes

Tim and Biscuit, two unlikely friends, always seem to get themselves into difficult situations. From their first meeting in Cliffhanger, where bookish Tim is forced to endure an activities camp, to Buried Alive, where a quiet camping holiday turns out to be full of surprises, there is never a dull moment with these two around.Jaqueline Wilson’s hilarious duo of books catalogues their escapades, triumphs and failures, with a good helping of snacks along the way!

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