I have a Master’s degree in Philosophy and for a (very) brief time was a stand-up comic (now I'm more of a sprawled-on-the-couch comic). Despite these attributes, I have received four Ontario Arts Council grants. This Will Not Look Good on My Resume was shortlisted for the Rubery Book Award, and excerpts from my several other books have appeared in The Cynic Online Magazine and 222 More Comedy Monologues, and on Erma Bombeck’s humor website.
It's hilarious. The characters, the situations, and most of all the writing. Taylor's choice of words is perfect. Her comedic timing is even better. Best of all, there are now 13 books in the series.
About ten pages into a library copy (the author was recommended to me by a fan of my own work), I knew I had to buy my own copy. Not only did I want to savour the book, reading only one chapter a day (which took a lot of willpower), but I wanted to underline every single excellent bit. And there are so many … I'm opening the book at random … "How did you find the East Gate?" "I was looking for the South Gate." See?
Time Travel meets History in this explosive bestselling adventure series.
`So tell me, Dr Maxwell, if the whole of History lay before you ... where would you go? What would you like to witness?'
When Madeleine Maxwell is recruited by the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research, she discovers the historians there don't just study the past - they revisit it.
But one wrong move and History will fight back - to the death. And she soon discovers it's not just History she's fighting...
Follow the tea-soaked disaster magnets of St Mary's as they rattle around History. Because wherever the…
I found out after I'd read and thoroughly enjoyed this novel that it's classified as YA. Pity. It made this adult laugh and laugh often. Alice is a refreshing change to … normal. Fortunately, there are two more books in the series.
I was so disappointed that the novel did not win the Leacock (technically, the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour). It definitely should have. But then … written by a woman … blah blah when will men get over themselves?)
The hilarious diary of Alice and her attempts to survive the embarrassments that are her parents, the small-minded nature of her hometown, and her own struggle to fit in. Highly observant, satirical and wise.
Fifteen years old and nursing a "serious case of outcastitis," Alice MacLeod is having a hard time finding anything much to like in small town Smithers, British Columbia. Her mum's a folk-festival hippie chick with a hair-trigger temper, her dad's a mild and reasonable sort of loser who hides out in the basement trying to write soft-core romance novels, and her last school counsellor threw a…
When an unauthorized oil rig appears offshore of Ecuador, a military team is sent to investigate. The deep-water platform has no markings, no drilling rig, and no workers. But it’s surrounded by a curious bank of fog, and when their helicopter closes in, they’re swallowed without a trace.
I'm not much into family, so it says a lot that I'm putting this one on my list. At least the Spellmans are dysfunctional. In a funny way. And that's an impressive achievement. There are six books in this series, and I've read them all. No question, time well spent.
From the award-winning author of The Passenger comes the first novel in the hilarious Spellman Files mystery series featuring Isabel “Izzy” Spellman (part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry) and her highly functioning yet supremely dysfunctional family of private investigators.
Meet Isabel “Izzy” Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors—but the upshot is she’s good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family’s firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people’s privacy…
I can understand why this novel won the Leacock. Fallis is brilliant. Brilliantly funny. And when writing about Canadian politics, no less.
Having read this one, I went ahead and purchased every novel he's written since. I like some better than others, but I do like them all. As with Taylor's books, I read only one chapter a day. And underline the excellent bits. Again, at random … "… his face, well, was almost purple. The folks at Crayola might call it 'Violent Violet'."
WINNER OF CBC CANADA READS WINNER OF THE STEPHEN LEACOCK MEDAL FOR HUMOUR
Here’s the set up: A burnt-out politcal aide quits just before an election—but is forced to run a hopeless campaign on the way out. He makes a deal with a crusty old Scot, Angus McLintock—an engineering professor who will do anything, anything, to avoid teaching English to engineers—to let his name stand in the election. No need to campaign, certain to lose, and so on.
Then a great scandal blows away his opponent, and to their horror, Angus is elected. He decides to see what good an…
A big-city journalist joins the staff of a small-town paper in cottage country and finds a community full of secrets … and murder.
Cat Conway has recently returned to Port Ellis to work as a reporter at the Quill & Packet. She’s fled the tattered remains of her high-profile career…
Oddly enough, like Fallis, Buckley tackles politics with humour, but my god, he tackles Trump. Hard to make such a disaster funny. As with Taylor, I love his comedic timing. And his footnotes. (The one for "j'accuse!" is "French for 'this is really a bit much.'" And for "nolo contendere", "Legal Latin for … 'Whatever'.")
Again, I've read pretty much everything Buckley has written, and I think this, his most recent, is his best. And that's frickin' impressive. Because he's written 18.
In "the Trump satire we've been waiting for" (The Washington Post), award-winning and bestselling author of Thank You for Smoking delivers a hilarious and whipsmart fake memoir by Herb Nutterman-Donald Trump's seventh chief of staff-who has written the ultimate tell-all about Trump and Russia.
Herb Nutterman never intended to become Donald Trump's White House chief of staff. Herb served the Trump Organization for twenty-seven years, holding jobs in everything from a food and beverage manager at the Trump Magnifica to being the first general manager of the Trump Bloody Run Golf Course. And when his old boss asks "his favorite…
Everyone gets fired at least once in their life. And if not, well, they're just not trying very hard. And we all think of brilliant and immature 'shoulda saids' and 'shoulda dones' for weeks after. (Okay, years.) A quirky bit of fun that slaps you upside the head.
When Syd Brixton was eleven years old, her identical twin vanished from a park and was never found.
Now twenty years later, Syd’s favorite customer, Morley, is killed in a horrific accident outside the pub where Syd works. Moments before Morley dies, he gives Syd an extraordinary gift: the power…
When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…
