Twitter Titters

Compiled by Linda Jones and Louise Bolotin in aid of Comic Relief. Available from Lulu.com for £9.00 plus P+P Buy it here.



A book so funny you laugh out loud is a rare beast, at least for a dour Glaswegian like me, but TwitterTitters had me snorting into my Value Price beer, for these are hard times right?

Right. And that’s why buying a book stuffed full of witty, original and down right hilarious new writing is the perfect double whammy. You feel good because you’re actively raising money for Comic Relief and having a damn good giggle at the same time.

TwitterTitters is not part of Twitter, it’s a project put together by independent fundraisers and doesn’t purport to represent Comic Relief. I can tell you though, that the fab comic strip design and the sheer quality of the contributors’ writing, places it up there with greats such as The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball. These comedy shows raised heaps of dosh for Amnesty International over the years and I remember spending long hours in smoky Soho cutting rooms helping to edit them as, in another life, I worked as an assistant film editor on the Comic Strip series along with numerous rock videos.

Making people laugh proved to be a winner in the charity funding raising stakes and after this came Comic Relief. The rest is history.

Choosing submissions for this book must have been hard. Jayne Howarth writes that she and the other judges were blown away by the number of entries and standard of writing. There were no prizes for winners. Indeed, I was pleased to hear they even had to pay for their own copies.

I have tried to pick out my favourite stories but you know what? It’s impossible; they all take your breath away with their sharp, cutting edge humour and well, their funniness.

Go buy. They’re worth it.

Reviewed by Fiona Mackenzie

Losing You

By Nicci French

I found it difficult to put down Nicci French’s Losing You. The book spans a twenty-four hour period, giving the reader the impression that it was written in one sitting and the pace is reflective in the story. I could almost hear the clock ticking,

In Losing You, the setting is an imaginary strip of land off the bleak coast of East England that becomes an island at high tide. It is just before Christmas, where mud and water surround the insular mistrusting small community, all adding to the eerie atmosphere. This is where the main character, Nina Landry, has recently settled and the reader finds her facing the nightmare that most parents dread – her daughter, Charlie, has gone missing.

Nina is desperately alone in her frantic search as those around her – friends, family and even the police, consider Charlie’s disappearance to be fuelled by adolescent angst (she is almost sixteen) rather than anything more sinister.

As the reader, I found myself bumping along with Nina, upending drawers and searching in cupboards for leads and strips of dry (and wet) land for clues, whilst re-tracing Charlie’s footsteps. As if the story line and setting is not intense enough, the book is also written in the first person- that of Nina. The voice, feelings and movements of Nina race across the page and whirl endlessly within the readers’ mind. I found myself consumed with suspicion of all the characters within this close-knit community as I entered Nina’s terror-filled mind.

For people unfamiliar with Nicci French, the name is a pseudonym of Nicci Gerrad and her husband, Sean French. Whilst they have and indeed continue to write independently, they also pair up to write crime fiction. This in itself is an intriguing concept and technique for fiction writing. As their fiction is concerned with the victim rather than the criminal, they provide us with psychological journeys, full of credible characters that the reader will connect with. It is virtually impossible, as a parent, not to relate to Nina Landry in Losing You, as the duo that is Nicci French has found yet another subject that people rarely dare to ponder over but all secretly fear.

Reviewed by Angie Bartoli

Greetings From Bury Park

by Sarfraz Manzoor

Sarfraz Manzoor was born in Pakistan in 1971. He came to England with his mother, brother and sisters when he was two years old, to join his father who had been here for 11 years. They lived in Bury Park in Luton, and this is his autobiography.

I found this book fascinating, very readable, and difficult to put down. Manzoor and I are only a few years apart in age. For most of our lives we have lived only a couple of hundred miles apart. We share some cultural frames of reference – Steve Wright in the afternoon; the Olympics; international travel. Yet our experiences of life have been so very, very different. As I read, I felt privileged by the insights he gave me into a community that I have experienced as both friendly and impenetrable.

This book is a tribute to Manzoor's father, who died in 1995. It's also a well-structured reflection on race, culture, religion, nationality, patriotism, politics, music, family, friendship and love. But it's not heavy or tragic. The author uses his own life as a lens through which to focus on these themes, and approaches them with a gentle, careful honesty that reminded me of my own English father's style.

Manzoor doesn't have children of his own – or he didn't at the time of writing. It is often said of writers that their books are their children. I think in writing this book, he is communicating with his readers about how he sees his culture and his identity in just the way a loving father might communicate with his child. He does this very differently from the way his father did it with him – in writing rather than in person is only part of that difference – and yet the fact that he does it at all is surely part of his father's legacy.

Of course I am also very different from Manzoor. For a start, I'm white and female. In that context, his main achievement with this book is even more impressive. He has done something that no politician, sportsperson, artist, entertainer or writer has been able to do for a long time now: he left me feeling better about being British.

I can think of two groups of people who wouldn't like this book. One is people who don't like autobiographical non-fiction, and the other is people who are narrow-minded. If you're not in either group, then I would heartily recommend Greetings from Bury Park.

Reviewed by Queenie

Writing Therapy

By Tim Atkinson

This was a book that went everywhere with me during the time I spent reading it. It is one of the most unique books I have ever read. Once I'd finished reading it I felt a certain smugness, as if I alone had discovered a rare jewel.

The narrator is a young woman who leads the reader on a raw excursion into a joust with madness. Writing is used as a most valuable tool in amongst a battery of less useful therapies. Be warned, this book is not an easy read, it is not junk food for the brain and it demands the attentions of a 'thinking' reader.

The plot is somewhat disturbing and shocking in parts of the book and it twists upon itself in places as Frances uses her own words that she is writing to help her view herself and her behaviours from different perspectives, to help her come to terms with her experiences.

It is said that Jung discovered that drawing mandalas had power to bring order to the psyche and to prevent overwhelming disorientation. Mandalas are thought to transmit positive energies to the people who view them.

This book radiates spiritual energy and could even be regarded as a path to enlightenment by those struggling with writers block. I would postulate that Tim Atkinson's novel 'Writing Therapy' is the mandala of books.

'Writing Therapy' is also ideal for those preparing to write their first full length manuscript. It is an effective 'how to' book cleverly disguised as an innocent novel.
Tim’s blog url is: http://writingtherapyblog.blogspot.com/

Reviewed by DJ Kirkby

The Lollipop Shoes

by Joanne Harris

It's confession time: I've never read a Joanne Harris book. Oh, I've picked them up. I've tried to read them, but... Oh I don' t know. They just never caught me, you know? So when a friend – whose book judgement I can rarely falter – thrust this one at me, saying 'You must read this,' I was sceptical, to say the least. Then she broke even worse news – it was a sequel – of sorts – to Chocolat, - which has sat with only five pages read, glaring at me from the bookshelves for some four years now. So now, we again have Vianne Rocher, and Anouk, and even Roux – but no delicious Johnny Depp to make it all easier for me.

Reader, it was with a heavy heart that I turned to the first pages (truth to tell, I delayed the moment by reading the reviews on the first few pages. I flicked to the back to see how long it was, I re-read the back cover. I sighed, and turned to the start.)

Oooh! That Zozie is a right one! But, oh boy, can she tell a story. And so can Vianne, and so can Anouk, and oh, what a glorious story they tell.

It's four years since Chocolat ended (and don't tell me how it ends, for I can't remember the movie, and I'm now only 100 pages into the book!) and Vianne and Anouk are on the move again, but this time someone else finds them. - Zozie, who paints herself as a saviour in her lollipop shoes, but it's all for her own ends, and who will win? Well, we know who we want to win, we desperately want Vianne to remember who and what she is... But Ms Harris makes us wait, and makes us work, wonderfully.

Several bars of Divine chocolate were devoured during the reading of this book. But they were devoured with love and appreciation. Hmm... much the same as the reading of this book.

reviewed by Alison Watson

Book news - Costa Book of the Year

The Costa Book of the Year prize has been won by Sebastian Barry for his novel The Secret Scripture. It defeated, amongst others, the memoir of 91 year old Diana Athill and The Outcast by Sadie Jones, a first novel which we reviewed here.

Back soon

Apologies for the recent hiatus in postings, which was due to unforeseen personal circumstances.

We will be relaunching in January, but in the meantime you might like to visit our Wordle, based on recent reviews here, to give you a flavour of what this blog is about.