The brilliantly funny and inimitable Alan Carr tells his life story in his own words, from growing up in a football-mad family in Northampton to his rise to become one of Britain's best-loved comedians.

    He's a contradiction: a hard drinking rock star with the soul of a poet; a wordsmith and a raconteur, a romantic and a realist, a bon vivant op-shop-dressed dandy. He's the wild man of Australian rock n' roll, a man who loves footy, who was brought up in the wild emptiness of Kalgoorlie, but he's now an urban hipster - a legend of Australian rock music, more at home in St Kilda than the bush.In this offbeat and immensely charming literary memoir, Tim Rogers talks about what it is to be a man, about accepting who you are, about masculinity, love, drinking, footy, his father, being a dad, anxiety, and above all, his continuing, magical, ever-present muse - music.It is by turns revealing, warm, self-deprecating, intimate, shocking, confessional, sharp, funny and immensely engaging.

    Remembered for his celebrity lifestyle and playboy antics as much as for his on-court tantrums and disqualifications, this is his colourful life story.

    While she may have left her home in Alabama, married a New Yorker, forgotten how to drive, and abandoned the puffy headbands of her youth, Helen Ellis is clinging to her Southern accent like mayonnaise to white bread, and offering readers a hilarious, completely singular view on womanhood for both sides of the Mason-Dixon.Making a marriage magically tidy --Topeka three-way --How to stay happily married --Free to be...you and me (and childfree) --Room of one's own (that's full of gay men) --Other woman's Burberry coat --Peggy Sue got marijuana --What every girl should learn from ABC's The bachelor --Ghost experience --Party foul --Today was a good day --Straighten up and fly right. --Halloween people --Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1979 --How to be the best guest --When to write a thank-you note --An Emily Post for the apocalypse --How I watch pornography like a lady --Dumb boobs --Young ladies, listen to me --Seven things I'm doing instead of a neck lift --Serious women --That kind of woman

    This is the hilarious and touching real-life diary she kept during that fateful year - with characters like her evil friend Bethany, Bethany's besotted boyfriend, and the boys from the grammar school up the road (who have code names like Haddock and Battered Sausage).My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary evokes a vanished time when Charles and Di are still together, the Berlin wall is up, Kylie is expected to disappear from the charts at any moment and it's £1 for a Snakebite and Black in the Vaults pub. My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary will appeal to anyone who's lived through the 1980s. But it will also strike a chord with anyone who's ever been a confused, lonely teenager who clashes with their mother, takes themselves VERY seriously and has no idea how hilarious they are.

    To take stock of WHERE HE IS and WHERE HE'S AT in order to figure out how BEST to get the MOST out of what he BELIEVES are the BEST YEARS yet to come.His typically positive and upbeat journey involves ONE HUNDRED DAYS of contemplation, research, focus, frustration and DECISION MAKING while SECRETLY:*Training for The London MARATHON*Bringing back his cult Nineties TV show TFI FRIDAY*And the small matter of suddenly being asked to take over TOP GEAR.HEALTH, LOVE, MARRIAGE, SEX, DEATH and even RELIGION all come under his witty microscope as he poses the conundrum - MIDLIFE: CRISIS vs OPPORTUNITY ?There can only be one winner.

    En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman. And so on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Feldman and others to the heights of Monty Python.Punctuated from time to time with John Cleese’s thoughts on topics as diverse as the nature of comedy, the relative merits of cricket and waterskiing, and the importance of knowing the dates of all the kings and queens of England, this is a masterly performance by a former schoolmaster.

    He loves being a little bit famous for his videos, but at the end of the day he's a lone wolf - one who's more interested in Caramilk on the couch than cocktails in the club. He's a strong believer in Netflix and chilling at home, alone; he's always the first to smokebomb social events, and he is in a committed relationship with his indoor plants.Christian tells his behind-the-scenes story with his signature, completely unapologetic honesty, from growing up with triplet brothers to building a career in comedy; from his fear of moths to some of his more daring Grindr sexcapades. He invites you into his personal creative universe, where wearing a wig to make random videos and screaming swearwordsat resin pendants somehow turn out to be great decisions.Leave Me Alone is a story of breaking the mould and embracing exactly who you are, even if that means telling people to leave you the f**k alone.

    He was an architect of British comedy, paving the way for Monty Python, and then became a major Hollywood star, forever remembered as Igor in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. A writer, director, performer and true pioneer of his art, he died aged only 48. His name was Marty Feldman, and here, at last, is the first ever biography. Acclaimed author Robert Ross has interviewed Marty’s friends and family, including his sister Pamela, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, and also draws from extensive, previously unpublished and often hilarious interviews with Marty himself, taped in preparation for the autobiography he never wrote. No one before or since has had a career quite like Marty’s. Beginning in the dying days of variety theatre, he went from the behind the scenes scriptwriting triumphs of Round the Horne and The Frost Report to onscreen stardom in At Last the 1948 Show and his own hit series Marty. That led to transatlantic success, his work with Mel Brooks, and a five-picture deal to write and direct his own movies.From his youth as a tramp on the streets of London, to the height of his fame in America – where he encountered everyone from Orson Welles to Kermit the Frog, before his Hollywood dream became a nightmare – this is the fascinating story of a key figure in the history of comedy, fully told for the first time.

    Hit with this devastating barrage, Tig took her grief onstage. Days after receiving her cancer diagnosis, she broke new comedic ground, opening an unvarnished set with the words, “Good evening. Hello. I have cancer. How are you? Hi, how are you? Is everybody having a good time? I have cancer.” Word of the set went viral instantly. This set was ultimately released as Tig’s sophomore album, Live, which sold 100,000 units in just six weeks and was nominated for a Grammy. Now, the wildly popular star takes stock of that no good, very bad year—a difficult yet astonishing period in which tragedy turned into absurdity and despair into joy. An inspired combination of the deadpan silliness of her comedy and the open-hearted vulnerability that has emerged in the wake of that dire time, Untitled is a moving and often hilarious look at this very brave, very funny woman’s journey through the darkness and her thrilling return.

    We have your favourite table ready and waiting and a selection of tasty and unusual dishes for your delectation and delight (but do bear in mind that the kitchen closes shortly as the Chef needs to go to his second job, rodding out blocked sewers). We have a few choice 'nostalgedy' stories for Starters, some meatier ones for your Mains, a selection of 'curmudgeonly rants' or keen observations (you take your choice) for Dessert, and something unspeakable to go with your Coffee and Mints.Philip Whiteland tickles your fancy (it's not a crime yet) once again with this compilation of stories, often with a food-based theme, from today and yesterday. Pull up a chair and tuck in!

    

    It's about a bus trip really, because it's my view from the Number 12 bus (mostly top deck, the seat at the front on the right), a double-decker that plies its way from Dulwich, in South East London, where I was living, to where I sometimes work - at the BBC, in the heart of the capital. It's not a sensible way to write a memoir at all, probably, but it's the way things pop into your head as you travel, so it's my way'.From London facts including where to find the blue plaque for Una Marson, 'The first black woman programme maker at the BBC', to discovering the best Spanish coffee under Southwark's railway arches; from a brief history of lady gangsters at Elephant and Castle to memories of climbing Mount Sinai and, at the request of a fellow traveller, reading aloud the Ten Commandments; from the story behind Pissarro's painting of Dulwich Station to performing in Footlights with Emma Thompson; from painful memoires of being sent to Coventry while at a British boarding school to thinking about how Wombells Travelling Circus of 1864 haunts Peckham Rye;from anecdotes about meeting Prince Charles, Monica Lewinsky and Grayson Perry to Bake-Off antics; from stories of a real and lasting friendship with John McCarthy to the importance of family and the daunting navigation of the Zambezi River in her father's canoe, this Sandi Toksvig-style memoir is, as one would expect and hope, packed full of surprises. A funny and moving trip through memories, musings and the many delights on the Number 12 route, Between the Stops is also an inspiration to us all to get off our phones, look up and to talk to each other because as Sandi says: 'some of the greatest trips lie on our own doorstep'.

    Offering many insights into the wacky world of Brooks and his many collaborators, as well as an intimate look into his successful marriage to the brilliant and beautiful actress Anne Bancroft, It's Good to Be the King might just be the most delightful, engaging, and entertaining biography you'll ever read.

    The commissioner, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Today, Jim Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimer's Days at Yankee Stadium. But his landmark book is still being read by people who don't ordinarily follow baseball.