Just Reads

Les Dawson was many things - slum kid, soldier, boxer, insurance agent, vacuum-cleaner salesman and one of Britain's best-loved comedians. In this autobiography he tells of ten hard years in the northern clubs, of his friends, his TV career and his illness. Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and a...

The Kray twins were Britain's most notorious gangsters. Ruling London's underworld for more than a decade, as gang lords they were among the most powerful and feared men in the city. Photographed by David Bailey and even interviewed for television, they became celebrities in their own right and are infamous to this day. Ronnie and Reg's reign of terror ended on 8 March 1969 when they were sentence...

When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside his head are unleashed for real. Forced to fight his escaping imagination - now leaking out of his own brain - Nick must defend the town of Stalkford from his own fictional horrors, including avascular-necrosis-obsessed serial killer Nelson Strain and...

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells is a clever, short novella that describes the exploits of the “Invisible Man.” The man, whose real name is Griffin, turns up at an inn at the beginning of the book. A deep mystery surrounds his identity and intentions. But, it soon becomes clear that through his experimentations, he’s managed to turn himself invisible and is planning a “Reign of Terror” across the c...

Mr Pooter is a man of modest ambitions, content with his ordinary life. Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent young office clerks and wayward friends, not to mention his devil-may-care son Lupin with his unsuitable choice of bride. Try as he might, he cannot avoid life's embarrassing mishaps. In the bumbling, absurd, yet ultimately endearing figure of Pooter, th...

With All the Trouble in the World, P. J. O'Rourke once again landed on best-seller lists around the country, confirming his reputation as the pre-eminent political humorist of our time. Attacking fashionable worries - all those terrible problems that are constantly on our minds and in the news, but about which most of us have no real clue - P. J. crisscrosses the globe in search of solutions to to...

Monty Python's Flying Circus was first broadcast in October 1969. This newly originated volume contains the complete unexpurgated scripts of the original television series (except for the animation bits) from Episode One to Episode Twenty-three inclusive. Everyone's favourite classic sketches - all eminently quotable - are here including the Architect's Sketch, Arthur 'Two Sheds' Jackson, Whicker...

An indispensable compendium of popular misconceptions, misunderstandings and common mistakes culled from the hit BBC show, QI. From the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance comes a noticeably stouter edition, with 26% extra facts and figures perfect for trivia, pub quiz and general knowledge enthusiasts. The QI team sets out again to show you that a lot of what you think you know i...

In light of recent events, I thought it might be apposite to republish this, which is probably the best book on the motivations, psychology and back story of the new President of the United States. Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in New York with Donald and his four siblings. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships and a tra...

These tell-all tales are from Radio 1FM's listener's slot - the "Breakfast Show". Pillars of society - doctors, teachers, vicars, vets and generally those who ought to know better - reveal that they're as bad as everyone else. Simon Mayo is the author of "Confessions" and "Further Confessions". Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support ....

Woody Allen's first of three short narrative collections. A humor classic by one of the funniest writers today, SIDE EFFECTS is a treat for all those who know his work and those just discovering how gifted he is. Included here are such classics as REMEMBERING NEEDLEMAN, THE KUGELMASS EPISODE, a new sory called CONFESSIONS OF A BUGLAR, and more. Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www....

'A mix of urbane wit and surreal extrapolations - Douglas Adams meets Flann O'Brien' IndependentWho else but Steve Martin could combine irrefutable evidence that Mars is populated by kittens with a treatise on sledgehammers In this brilliantly witty collection of pieces Steve Martin takes a subversive glimpse at the world and a sideways swipe at the conventional. From memory tips for the over-fift...

Broadmoor: My Journey into Hell documents the story of long-term prisoner Charlie Bronson and his five-year stay at Britain's most notorious mental hospital, Broadmoor. His journey has, until now, never been told. In the winter of 1979, aged just twenty-seven, the inmate who would come to be known as 'Charlie Bronson' was considered uncontrollable by the prison system. Certified insane, he was tra...

Ronnie Barker has long been known as one of Britain’s greatest comedy performers. But he was also responsible for writing much of the material he performed, often hiding the fact from the public by using a number of pen names. Showcasing the complete work of a true comic icon, All I Ever Wrote is a laugh-out-loud collection of sketches, monologues, songs, poems and scripts from every strand of Ron...

Victoria Wood's wit and humour endeared her to millions of TV viewers for over four decades. Writer, producer and actress of television shows such as As Seen on TV and Dinnerladies, Victoria was often voted the funniest woman in Britain. Her rise to stardom, from her early years in Lancashire to the successes of the sell-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall, is sympathetically and honestly portrayed...

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A tow...

Michael Young is a brilliant young history student whose life is changed when he meets Leo Zuckerman, an ageing physicist with a theory that can change worlds. Together they realise that they have the power to alter history and eradicate a great evil. But tinkering with timelines is more dangerous than they can imagine and nothing - past, present or future - will ever be the same again. Book Becom...

1930, New York. In the unbearable heat of summer, Irish immigrant Will Carthy works as a riveter on the tallest skyscraper in the world, spending his days above the clouds and his nights fighting loneliness. When his half-sister, Isobel, sails out to join him, Will hurries to meet her at Ellis Island, only to find that she seems to have vanished before passing through immigration control. And so b...

The autobiography of Paul Britton, one of the foremost offender profilers in the world. What he searches for at the scene of a crime are not fingerprints, fibres or blood stains, he looks for the "mind trace" left behind by those responsible, the psychological characteristics that can help the police to identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator. Over the past dozen years, Britton has a...

He was a radical stand up who dared to question the values of small town America and the evils of American foreign policy. Ruthlessly honest, a voice of reason in what he saw as an insane world, Hicks refused to compromise in spite of the censorship he faced for most of his career. His entire act was once banned from The Late Show with David Letterman because he made fun of pro-lifers and the Pope...

Widely hailed as one of the finest humorist of the twentieth century, James Thurber looks back at his own life growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with the same humor and sharp wit that defined his famous sketches and writings. In My Life and Hard times, first published in 1933, he recounts the delightful chaos and frustrations of family, boyhood, youth, odd dogs, recalcitrant machinery, and the foibles...

BAFTA-winning actor, voice of everything from Monkey to the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit, creator of a myriad of unforgettable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, MIRIAM MARGOLYES, OBE, is the nation's favourite (and naughtiest) treasure. Now, at the age of 80, she has finally decided to tell her extraordinary life story - and it's well worth the wait. Find out how being conceived in...

A short story called the Hollow Man by Thomas Burke Good stuff. This selection of 42 stories written between 1829 and 1968 is the first to present the full range and vitality of the English tradition of literary ghost fiction by demonstrating its historical development as well as its major themes and characteristics. The fictional ghost story is demonstrated by English authors, from J. S. Le Fanu...

Stupidity is all around us, from the colleagues who won't stop hitting 'reply all' to the former school friends posting conspiracy theories on Facebook. But in order to battle idiocy, we must first understand it. In this book, some of the world's leading psychologists and thinkers - including a Nobel Prize winner - will show you: why smart people sometimes believe in utter nonsense; how our lazy b...

The creators of The Onion present a collection of hilariously subversive news stories from their popular humor website, including such topical and timely events as "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia," "Jesus Christ Returns to NBA," and "Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes." Original. 150,000 first printing. Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/sup...