Category: Humour

Shipped

12/2/2021

Angie Hockman: Gallery Books $US16.00

CRUISING in comfort around one of the world’s most exotic and enticing archipelagos is hardly a tough way to audition for an intra-office promotion, but Henley Evans hasn’t been looking forward to this trip. In fact, she’s been dreading it.
After years of going well above and beyond her pay grade in order to demonstrate her loyalty to her employer and her department head, Henley resents being forced into one-on-one competition with the shiny new boy-wonder on the company block.
In the barely 12 months he’s worked alongside Henley, Graeme Crawford Collins has become her professional nemesis. The rivalry started the day Graeme brazenly accepted credit for material Henley had created and their conversation is now so strained as to consist of single-word emails fired back and forth with the velocity of an ice-hockey puck and copied selectively to third parties in a war of strategic one-upmanship.
It’s an unproductive situation, given that Henley and Graeme are communications colleagues on the marketing team of Seaquest Adventures, an expedition cruise line running small-group experiences in places as varied as Costa Rica, Alaska, Panama and Hawaii.
With a coveted seat at the executive table available, Henley and Graeme are vying to become Seaquest’s first director of digital marketing.
Their immediate manager has announced that the role will go to the candidate who produces the most compelling promotional plan based on the line’s Galapagos Islands offering. While sampling the itinerary, Henley and Graeme must out-manoeuvre each other without revealing their animosity publicly.
With her flirtatious younger sister, Walsh, under foot, can Henley salvage a winning presentation from a voyage that’s threatening to drive her career onto the rocks?
Humorous and heart-warming, Shipped is set against the real-life islands, inhabitants and issues of 21st-century Galapagos – a destination showcased to perfection in Hockman’s cleverly crafted debut novel.

One To Watch

18/9/2020

Kate Stayman-London: Hachette Australia $29.99

LOVE comes in all shapes and sizes – or does it? Certainly not in the highly unrealistic world of ‘reality’ TV, where contenders on the top-rating Main Squeeze bear absolutely no resemblance to LA-based fashionista Bea Schumacher and her social media followers.
As 25 single women or men vie on screen for the attention of a potential husband or wife, Bea is frustrated to see that season after season the line-up is all but identical: tall, swimsuit-sculpted, white.
When a series of tequila-fuelled comments catches the eye of the Main Squeeze production team, the studio decides to turn the program on its head by introducing its first ever plus-sized romantic heroine. Can Bea be convinced to step into the role?
It’s horrible timing for the self-employed blogger, who has been in emotional freefall since her one-time best friend and love interest decided to ghost her.
Now, faced with having to choose a possible life partner in front of a national prime-time viewing audience, she is all but paralysed by self-doubt and indecision. Could any one of these so-called suitors truly be attracted to Bea or are they more likely merely going through the motions with a view to boosting their own public profiles?
Is chef Luc, professor Asher, farmer Wyatt or soccer coach Sam really Bea’s ideal match? All four men are physically perfect – and the reflection Bea sees in her mirror is not that of someone whose natural place is standing beside one of these god-like figures. After all, she reasons, there never has been a fat fairytale princess.
Will Bea’s lack of trust in the process derail this opportunity to find love?
Far from being a froth-and-bubbles glimpse into the world of The Bachelorette et al, One To Watch is a thought-provoking conversation starter that questions societal attitudes to weight, femininity and appetite.

The Department of Sensitive Crimes

8/3/2019

Alexander McCall Smith: Penguin Random House US$16.00

SURELY any incident demanding police intervention is sensitive, Detective Ulf Varg’s fellow law-enforcement officers reason. This much is self-evident. Why, then, should a select few cases be singled out to receive special attention from an independent team within the force?
This is the question that shadows Varg as he battles to focus his mind in equal measures clearly on the job and firmly off his attractive married colleague Anna. The two are at the core of ‘sensitive’ investigations in Malmö, Sweden’s southernmost city and home to more than just the occasional curious offence.
Ulf Varg – a man whose given and family names mean ‘wolf’ ‘wolf’ in Swedish and Danish respectively – heads a department tasked with investigating the unexpected, the unorthodox and the just plain kooky – and none is more left-field than the latest baffler: the stabbing of a market stallholder in the back of one knee. Stabbing, yes – but midway down the leg? What sort of criminal would stoop – literally – to do such a nonsensical thing?
Solving this mystery will require Varg and his colleagues to set aside conventional thinking.
For Varg this is hardly a challenge; he is, after all, the owner of Sweden’s first and only lip-reading dog.
However, throw in commercial sabotage on the back of infidelity and the disappearance of an imaginary boyfriend and the workload for Varg and his new offsider Blomquist suddenly starts to look all-consuming.
From the king of lighthearted quirk comes this debut title in a new series of feel-good fun and frivolity, defined by author McCall Smith himself as being the antithesis of deep, dark, brooding Nordic noir: a new genre labelled ‘Nordic blanc’.
The Department of Sensitive Crimes contains a preview of the planned follow-up, The Talented Mr Varg. Two novellas published exclusively as Kindle editions – The Strange Case of the Moderate Extremists and Varg in Love – are prequels.

The Colours of all the Cattle

25/1/2019

Alexander McCall Smith: Hachette Australia $29.99

FEW authors tell a modern-day fairytale with more astute moral insight, keenly biting wit and generous laugh-out-loud humour than Alexander McCall Smith.
Deftly weaving together life lessons in ethical behaviour with an exotic location and a cast of endearing characters, McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series continues to reward readers with its family-friendly exploration of moral dilemmas in a 21st-century African setting.
In the 19th Ladies’ Detective Agency novel, Mma Precious Ramotswe is challenged anew, not only in a professional sense but also on a personal level.
While busy delving into the hit-and-run crippling of one of Botswana’s most respected citizens and a long-time friend of her now-late father, Mma Ramotswe must weigh up her commitment to her husband and children in the face of an unexpected opportunity to publicly oppose the planned construction a “disrespectful” hotel bordering the local cemetery.
Should she stand for political office in order to have a meaningful say in the decision-making process? If so, how will she fare in a public popularity vote against the arch-nemesis of her business partner, Mma Grace Makutsi: the contemptible but glamorous Violet Sephoto? After all, what can Mma Ramotswe say about herself other than the simple truth: “I can’t promise anything – but I shall do my best”?
At the same time Mma Ramotswe’s offsider, part-time trainee detective Charlie, is wrestling with internal questions of his own. His girlfriend Queenie-Queenie is yet to introduce Charlie to her family, and a boyhood acquaintance appears to know more than he’s admitting about the accident that injured Doctor Marang.
Impoverished and sharing a tiny bedroom with two of his younger cousins, Charlie might finally have a chance to prove his true value as an investigator – and in so doing mark himself out as a worthy suitor for Habarone’s most beautiful shop assistant.

The House of Unexpected Sisters

9/3/2018

Alexander McCall Smith: Little, Brown $29.99

HAVING an uncommon surname is just one of many things distinguishing the “traditionally built” Mma Precious Ramotswe as a noteworthy Botswanan woman.
Another is running the country’s only all-female investigation outfit, an operation based on the outskirts of the capital, Gaborone: the nationally famous No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.
It is to this agency that Precious’s fellow Batswana turn when a husband is suspected of cheating, a debt is not paid, a loved one vanishes – or, in the latest instance, a sister of a colleague of an associate is dismissed from her role as a sales assistant for allegedly insulting a customer.
The now-unemployed Charity is adamant there was no rudeness, leading Precious and her second-in-command, Mma Grace Makutsi, to suspect the employer might have concocted an excuse for the firing. Is he going to give the position to a mistress, perhaps?
As the two begin their covert sleuthing a longstanding nemesis reappears: Violet Sephoto, Grace’s former classmate at the Botswana Secretarial College. Is this shameless woman with her too-short skirts, her deplorable student record and her focus on attracting male attention somehow behind Charity’s dismissal?
Before that question can be answered a third conundrum arises: an unfamiliar Ramotswe, a nurse, is mentioned in a newspaper report.
Precious has never heard of this apparent relative. Is she a legitimate family member or an imposter passing herself off as a Ramotswe for unscrupulous reasons?
With Grace on the case of the seemingly unjustified layoff, Precious focuses on her own mystery and how it might relate to her beloved father, the now-late cattle baron Obed Ramotswe.
As his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, author Alexander McCall Smith is visiting Australia. He will speak about his latest releases and favourite characters in Melbourne and Warrnambool next week.

Talking As Fast As I Can

5/5/2017

Lauren Graham: Viking $32.99

SHE'S played Craig T. Nelson’s daughter, Alexis Bledel’s mother, David Sutcliffe’s wife, Ray Romano’s fiancée and her real-life boyfriend’s sister in a Hollywood career that has rarely allowed more than a moment’s downtime.
Fans of her two incredibly successful and long-running television dramas, Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, have been aware for years of Lauren Graham’s ability to regurgitate rapid-fire dialogue at a pace that would leave the average actor completely tongue-tied.
What they might not have realised is that Graham – an accomplished writer and producer – has spent a disproportionately generous share of her precious off-screen hours jotting down equally hilarious and irreverent prose of her own.
In her latest book, a collection of vignettes revisiting some of her favourite showbusiness memories, the woman known by millions of viewers as Lorelai Gilmore and/or Sarah Braverman delivers a sassily witty commentary on her experiences both in front of and behind the studio camera.
Graham recalls her excruciatingly awkward first meeting with Peter Krause, the man who would much later become her off-screen partner as well as her brother on Parenthood.
She shares details of her unconventional upbringing in Japan and the Caribbean, her deep and genuine friendships with castmates and her disregard for the celebrity lifestyle, mocking the so-called ‘benefits’ of fame. She confesses her distaste of the outdoors and her constant struggle to meet writing deadlines.
Graham weaves into her commentary a walk through the popular culture of the 1990s and early 2000s (Filofax organisers, videotapes, BlackBerry PDAs) and pokes fun at her nationally televised failing as a fashion judge.
And as a highlight for Gilmore Girls aficionados, she includes diary excerpts from the period in which – a decade after Lorelai was officially retired – she returns to the set of fictitious Stars Hollow to reprise the character for the series’ exclusive Netflix reboot.

Britt-Marie Was Here

2/12/2016

Fredrik Backman: Sceptre $29.99

BRITT-MARIE is not the type of woman to put a coffee cup down without using a coaster, not does she eat pizza straight from its box.
Britt-Marie is proper, attentive, precise, correct – “normal”, in other words.
To less particular people, however, Britt-Marie could be described as obsessive-compulsive: a career homemaker who has used the same cleaning product for decades and who must disinfect a hotel-room mattress with bicarbonate of soda before being able to fall asleep.
Suddenly, at the age of 63, Britt-Marie finds herself looking for a job – not because she needs the income, mind you, but because she fears lying dead for weeks before being found because nobody is expecting her.
Britt-Marie has worked her entire adult life; she has helped her husband, Kent, with his business as an entrepreneur. Her role has been important: keeping their home “presentable”. Now, though, the marriage is over courtesy of a long-running affair that Britt-Marie discovered when Kent’s much younger mistress telephoned her after he suffered a heart attack.
At first her chances of finding employment seem bleak but then she is offered a poorly paying position as the caretaker of the recreation centre in Borg, a withering hamlet in which almost everything else has already closed down.
Borg’s singular passion is soccer; residents of all ages are fixated on the game. It’s the only thing standing between the township’s children and a future of delinquency and hopelessness.
Britt-Marie detests soccer, yet little by little she is drawn into the youngsters’ social circle and eventually finds herself nominated as their team’s official coach.
Will this be a bright new beginning for Britt-Marie – a chance to reinvent herself away from critical, emotionally controlling Kent?
Quirky and tender, entertaining and humorous, this novel delivers a thought-provoking yet light-hearted insight into an alternative way of viewing life.

Bathing and the Single Girl

9/9/2016

Christine Elise McCarthy: Multum in Parvo Publishing US$9.99

THINK Sex and the City for the average lonely, directionless suburban woman: abundant sass, bawdy humour and a generous dose of outrageous sexual misadventure but without the extravagances of Manolos, Cosmopolitans and a Manhattan bachelorette pad all apparently paid for by a couple of hours’ work per week.
Ruby Fitzgerald is an actor. Correct that: was once an actor, and might one day be again, if only she can land an audition leading to an actual on-screen speaking role. However, it’s been more than a decade since Ruby last had a proper paying job and her finances are stretched almost as thinly as the wrinkle-free skin on a Hollywood celebrity’s face. Overweight and 40, she knows her odds are close to nil.
Ruby’s quest for love, cash and self-esteem, set against a backdrop of image-conscious LA and supported by a line-up of charismatic oddballs, is close to the author’s heart.
If “Christine Elise” sounds familiar it is almost certainly for the new novelist’s part in the biggest Aaron Spelling TV hit of the ’90s, Beverly Hills, 90210, the series in which she played pill-popping high school wild child Emily Valentine. Less well known is that she cut her writing teeth behind the scenes of the same show, creating characters, storylines and complete episodes.
90210 also introduced Elise (actually her middle name – McCarthy is her surname by birth) to the cast member with whom she would share a five-year real-world relationship: Jason Priestly, at the time one of television’s fastest-rising young stars.
Post-90210 she went on to appear in ER and an array of films, including the one on which this first book is based.
Although fictional, Bathing & the Single Girl draws loosely on the author’s parallel life in the studio fast-lane and on three of her personal passions: photography, dogs and vegan “food porn”.

Skewiff: The Meaning of Australia

29/1/2016

Dicky Beach and Alice Springs: PB Publishing $15.95

WHO knew Coppernook was a “small weatherboard cottage attached to a country police station”, Pimpinbudgie was another word for “celebrity agent” and Damboring was a descriptor for “any TV program fronted by a former presenter of Top Gear”? Well, not really – but with Australia Day looming it’s fun to speculate on the potential alter-meanings of some of this country’s weird and wonderful placenames.
Presented as a traditional dictionary with entries organised alphabetically and cross-referenced, Skewiff takes an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek look at the monikers of 200-plus Australian cities, towns and hamlets.
For anyone who has ever doubled over with laughter while scanning a New Zealand roadmap or been crippled by schoolyard giggles during a flick-through of a guide to Wales, this pocket-sized publication is a homegrown geo-comedic treat.
Authors Dicky Beach and Alice Springs – perhaps not their true identities, one suspects – have scoured all eight states and territories for localities to which to assign hilarious back-stories.
Quambatook is defined as the “past tense of the verb ‘quambatake’, meaning to surreptitiously scan the office fridge and grab something more appetising than one’s own leftover fried rice from three nights back”. Watanobbi is said to be anyone “who posts stupid pictures on Facebook as if we’re all interested” and Leeka is a “male person standing awkwardly by an alley wall at 3am”. Moyhu is “blame attributed by a self-obsessed partner to justify the dissolution of a relationship – viz: ‘It’s moyhu than me.’” And sports supporters are not forgotten, Dismal Swamp being a “gathering place for Richmond Football Club fans in early September”.
The genius of this small book is due in no small part to the fact a remarkable number of communities have been saddled with Anglicised gross-misinterpretations of Aboriginal words, highlighting the often-humorous lack of understanding that accompanied exploration two centuries ago.

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— VB 2020

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