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Archive for the ‘Funny (ha ha)’ Category

Jodi Taylor–A Symphony of Echoes [The Chronicles of St Mary’s, #2] (2013) [audiobook 2014]

Posted in Adventure, Audiobooks, Death, Dinosaurs, Fears, Feminism, Fire, Funny (ha ha), History, Huh?, Jodi Taylor, Morality, Murder, Mystery, Supernatural, Thieves, Threats, Time Travel, Violence, Zara Ramm on July 2, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: January 2023] A Symphony of Echoes

This is the second book in a something-teen long series.

I sometimes wonder if I enjoy a series more for the narrator of the audio books than the quality of the books themselves.

I didn’t think that at the time of reading this, because I was swept up in the comedy and adventure and (yes, I’m saying it, time travel).  However, while looking for a cover image, I read a scathing review of this book and felt that I did agree with many of the criticisms.  I guess I just didn’t care.  And I wonder if that’s because Zara Ramm gave great voice to the lead character Max and also did an amazing job with all of the different characters (male and female from all over the place).

Book 2 continues the time travelling saga of the historians of St. Mary’s.  Like the other stories there are several seemingly random adventures that the crew must go on.  The first, in this case, is with a soon-to-be-retiring historian named Kalinda Black.  She wishes to go to Jack the Ripper times and suss out what actually happened.

Things go horribly wrong when Jack the Ripper (in some form or another) hops a ride with them back to St. Mary’s.  It’s confusion and chaos trying to fight a near invisible enemy.  And that’s before anyone realizes that Captain Farrell is missing.

It is, of course, the dastardly duo of Izzie Barclay and Clive Ronan, set in a future St. Mary’s.  In a sign of things  to come, Max realizes that they cannot kill Ronan because of time paradoxes (I am not about to go into details of that) and that Izzie is much harder to kill than it seems when Max shoots her and dumps her in an elevator.

Because the future St. Mary’s has been decimated by Barclay and Ronan, Max stays on as interim head. (more…)

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Jodi Taylor–Just One Damned Thing After Another [The Chronicles of St Mary’s, #1] (2013) [audiobook 2014]

Posted in Adventure, Audiobooks, Death, Dinosaurs, Fears, Feminism, Fire, Funny (ha ha), History, Huh?, Jodi Taylor, Morality, Murder, Mystery, Supernatural, Thieves, Threats, Time Travel, Violence, Zara Ramm on July 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: July 2022] Just One Damned Thing After Another

This is the first book in a something-teen long series.

I sometimes wonder if I enjoy a series more for the narrator of the audio books than the quality of the books themselves.

I didn’t think that at the time of reading this, because i was swept up in the comedy and adventure and (yes, I’m saying it, time travel).  However, while looking for a cover image, I read a scathing review of this book and felt that I did agree with many of the criticisms.  I guess I just didn’t care.  And I wonder if that’s because Zara Ramm gave great voice to the lead character Max and also did an amazing job with all of the different characters (male and female from all over the place).

As we meet Madeline Maxwell (Max), she is in a bad way.  She has few prospects and fewer coins in her pocket.  She’s pretty desperate until she gets a surprise visit from a former teacher who tells her about a job with poor pay and worse conditions.

This leads to a job as a historian at St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research.  The cool thing about St. Mary’s is that historians travel to the past to “confirm” details of things that happened.  Essentially University researchers get to experience historical events first hand, including all of the dangers involved.  The Institute is a part of University of Thirsk. (more…)

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Bella Mackie–How to Kill Your Family (2021)

Posted in Bella Mackie, Funny (ha ha), Murder, Prison on June 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: June, 2022] How to Kill Your Family

This looked like the perfect book to read over Fathers Day weekend.

But it’s not an instruction manual for the average person.  No indeed, the reason Grace Bernard is planning to kill her family is twofold

Her mother died when she was young.  She learned while she was growing up that her biological father Simon wanted nothing to do with her (or her mother).  He promised them the world, because he pretty much owned the world.  He was part of a very wealthy family who bought and sold companies on a whim.  He was also very publicly (un)happily married with a child and this affair with Grace’s mother could not go public.

As the book opens, Grace is in Limehouse prison.  Ironically, even though she has already killed people, she is in prison for a murder that she did not actually commit–and had no intention of committing.

Grace is surprisingly, hilariously, above everyone else.    Her cellmate Kelly is pretty trashy.  She runs scams online.  She frequently gets caught, but she’s right back out there to do it again.  She drives Grace crazy.  And Grace looks down on Kelly and everyone like her–there’s some really funny lines of abject dismissal in the book:

She’s attractive, is Kelly. Big pouty lips, which I suspect are the result of cheap filler but look all right from a distance, and lots of red hair.  Sadly, her limited intelligence means she was easy to find when a man finally plucked up the courage to stop sending her money and contacted the police.  She’d had the money sent to her boyfriend’s account, the stupid cow, and has wound up doing an eighteen month stretch as a result.  Not an elegant crime, I warrant you, but I have no sympathy for her victims either. If you are delusional enough to believe that anyone wants to see a grainy iPhone picture of your flaccid little friend, you deserve to get bled for it.

(more…)

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K. Eason–Night Watch on the Hinterlands [The Weep #1] (2021)

Posted in Adventure, Advice, Aliens, Duology, Feminism, Funny (ha ha), Gender, K. Eason, Magic, Multiverse, Political Humor, Sci-fi, Science, Violence on June 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: April 2023] Night Watch on the Hinterlands

I absolutely loved K. Eason’s The Thorne Chronicles (How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse).  I had no idea that she had a new duology out until this book came to my desk at work.

I had audiobooked the first duology and loved the world that Nicole Poole read to me.

But now I was jumping in to the print version.  Shockingly for me I haven’t been reading many books this year.  I have gotten so into the audiobook world that I’ve been listening far more than I’ve been reading.  And in some respects it was hard to get into this book because there’s a lot of made up stuff here and you really have to get into the world and the vocabulary and it was a bumpy start for me.

This book is set in the same world as the Rory Thorne books.  Yes, that is true.  But it is set far in the future so there is no overlap with characters or anything like that.  So that was a bit of a bummer.

There’s a lot of “hard” science fiction in this story, which is probably more of the reason why it was hard to get into it.  I accepted the new world, but you have to learn so much to get up to speed with everything that it can feel like a slog even if you are flying through the pages.

There are two main characters in this book.

Lieutenant Iari is a tenju templar (which you have to learn about and which I don’t think I fully did, but tenju are rather large humanoid race with tusks).  She was orphaned during the Expansion War and joined the templars because she believed in their mission.  The war is over now and her primary purpose is to stop The Brood.  Brood are deadly, seemingly invisible monsters that have come through a rip in the Void (which you have to learn about).  The rip is called The Weep, and I feel like I never quite got the hang of how or why the Weep happened.  The one thing that was clear was that the vakari inadvertently created The Weep during the war. (more…)

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Floor de Goede–Dancing on the Volcano (2012) translation (2022)

Posted in Floor de Goede, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Humiliation, LGBTQ, Oni Press, Photography, Romance, Travel, Volcanoes on June 22, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: June 2023] Dancing on the Volcano

I feel like I haven’t really enjoyed that many books from Oni Press lately.  Although this one was pretty great–welcome back!

In 2004. Floor de Groete started a site doyouknowflo.nl where he published a daily comic.  he wrote about himself and his boyfriend Bas.  He loved doing it but he wanted to talk about more than just his daily life. So in 2012 he wrote this full graphic novel.  And now it is getting translated into English by Laura Watkinson.

The first chapter shows Floor (I love that he makes himself so very tiny) with a very large man, Sander.  They are working together to write an article about a volcano.  Floor is supposed to take pictures, but he is also greatly missing Bas.  It’s the first time they’ve been apart.  Sander, loves this trip and doesn’t care about Floor’s feelings at all.  Floor is easily aggravated and not afraid to let Sander know it.  Flo keeps thinking about how there’s only a few days left of the trip but he keeps missing out on all of the amazing things that Sander is enjoying (which makes him even more angry). (more…)

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Colleen AF Venable, Stephanie Yue–Katie and the Catsitter: Secrets and Sidekicks (2023)

Posted in Cats, Children's Books, Colleen AF Venable, Cute, Funny (ha ha), Stephanie Yue, Summer, Superheroes, Unfinished series on May 30, 2023| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus

[READ: May 20, 2023] Katie and the Catsitter: Secrets and Sidekicks

I have enjoyed everything I’ve read by Colleen AF Venable.  I really enjoyed the first book in the series and was excited for the second.  But apparently I missed it completely, because when I was reading this, I didn’t really know who all the characters were-or what their past together was.

Despite that, I was still able to fully enjoy this story and am looking forward to reading Book 2 to fill in the gaps.

Once again the artwork is by Stephanie Yue who also drew her Guinea P.I. books and it is a perfect match.

In this story Katie has been fully deputized by The Mousestress although her mother (who works nights) had no idea what she gets up to.

(Beth was the girl that Katie was best friends with until camp tore them apart in Book 1.  It’s nice they’re back together) would love to train with Katie and Mousestress.  But Mousetress wants her to be older (or have her mother’s permission) before she does any training.  Even though she is the same age as Katie–but Katie’s mother says it’s okay (except she doesn’t actually know).  Ironically, Beth’s mother is super hero Stainless Steel (the revelation to Beth’s father is pretty darn funny).

They have a mutual friend Jess (who I didn’t recognize).  She is dating the son of the CEP of Buttersoft Bionics, a company whom the Mousestress believes is up to seriously no good.

Apparently The Eastern Screech (aka Owl Guy) has escaped from jail and that is taking up much TV news time.  A photo on the screen shows that Mr. B (their beloved bodega owner downstairs) has a brother Benito and he looks exactly like Owl Guy (at least according to Katie–no one else can see it). (more…)

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Adam Sharp–Euphemisms That Get on My You-Know-Whats : And Other Meticulously Assembled Lists of Extremely Valuable Nonsense (2021)

Posted in Adam Sharp, Albanian, Burmese, Catalan, Dip-in Books, Funny (ha ha), Icelandic, Language, Malay, Mandarin, Scots, Tamil, Unfunny on May 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: March 4, 2023] Euphemisms That Get on My You-Know-Whats

I enjoy a good book of lists.  I have learned not to buy them, though–although they are usually good for a read-through.  And this is one of those read-through books (in fact, Adam Sharp has a Twitter account where you can read these lists–if you still have a Twitter account).  Actually I don’t know if he has a “new Twitter” account as I won’t check.

This book was released in Britain in 2020 as The Correct Order of Biscuits, which I think gets the point of the book across a little better than its new title.

The book starts off dubiously with a List of the worst lyrics ever conceived.

7. You look fresh like a salad, so smooth (BTS)
3. Life, oh life, oh life, oh life (Des’ree)
2. Like a tramp in the night, I was begging for you (Samantha Fox)
1. Santa’s on his sleigh but now he’s two metres away (Robbie W)

[I copied this from his Twitter page so I wouldn’t have to type it.  The Twitter page had only five entries and was in a slightly different order, hence the jump from 7 to 3].

So why is this a dubious start.  Because there are so many utterly crap lyrics that these barely scratch the surface.  There’s just too many to choose from and I feel he has limited himself to pop songs.

It picks up with a list of how dogs go woof woof in different languages

8. Voff voff (Icelandic)
7. Lol lol (Tamil)
6. Bup bup (Catalan)
5. Ham ham (Albanian)
4. Woke Woke (Burmese)
3. Gong Gong (Malay)
2. Wang wang (Mandarin)
1. Bawf (Scots)

This is the kind of thing we want.  Possibly verifiable and utterly useless. (more…)

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David Cross / Sean Patton (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, May 5, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Arrested Development, Comedy Album, David Cross, Funny (ha ha), Mr Show, Philadelphia, PA, Sean Patton, Union Transfer on May 5, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: May 5, 2023] David Cross / Sean Patton

My wife and I saw David Cross back in 2016.  He was hilarious.

He’s consistently one of my favorite comedians.  I have enjoyed David Cross since the old days of Mr. Show, and the as Tobias on Arrested Development and even in Alvin and the, well, actually I’m just happy for him that he got a lot of money for it.

It was really puzzling that this show was at Union Transfer (as opposed to a seated venue).  I assume that they put in seats-who wants to stand up for a stand up?

This show was scheduled for the same night as Yves Tumor who I had very much wanted to see.  So David didn’t get my ticket purchase.  But the show sold out so he doesn’t care.

Sean Patton opened.  He’s a comedian I’d never heard of.  He had a special on Peacock, with a theme about people being broken.  People are like glow sticks–you gotta break them before they can shine.  He sounds dark but optimistic.

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David Stafford–Skelton’s Guide to Suitcase Murders (2021)

Posted in Alexei Sayle, David Stafford, Entomology, Funny (ha ha), Guinea Pigs, Murder, Mysteries, Mystery, Racism on March 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: December 20, 2022] Skelton’s Guide to Suitcase Murders

I admit that I thought this book was called Skeleton’s Guide… which I thought as very funny.

But it turns out that Skelton is a barrister (and this is the second book in the Skelton series).  David Stafford is a British writer who has written largely for TV and theatre until he started writing novels.  He has written plays with Alexei Sayle (for fans of The Young Ones).

This mystery is set in 1929.  That setting allows Stafford to avoid any kind of contemporary details that might help speed the case along.  But it’s written in such a way that you’re not frustrated by it–you can simply get into the nearly 100 year old technology (and lack thereof).

In November 1929, a woman’s corpse is discovered in a suitcase.  She is identified and her husband, Doctor Ibrahim Aziz becomes the prime suspect.  They find some evidence and there is a rumor that she was cheating on him.  So clearly he is guilty.  Especially since he’s not from England–he’s Egyptian.

Arthur Skelton is a barrister.  He’s not 100% successful, but he gives his all in hopeless cases.  So he is called in to represent Aziz.

Skelton is concerned for diplomatic matters if Aziz is executed here.  He is related to a wealthy and well-connected family back in Egypt.

The story, despite dealing with a gruesome murder, has some funny moments.  Skelton’s clerk Edgar is trying to lose weight and is quite miserable. (more…)

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Dave Housley–The Other Ones (2022)

Posted in Corporate skewering, Dave Housley, Funny (ha ha), Futility, Gambling, Guns, Lottery, Suicide on March 6, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[READ: December 2022] The Other Ones

The premise of this book sounded really interesting and potentially very funny. A story about the people who did NOT participate when the office pool won the lottery.

It sounds funny but as you think of it, you realize just how sad of a story it’s going to be.

The other ones are Yoder, Lawson, Chastain, Craver, Roberson, Russell and Gibbons.  On the first page, these names are listed like a cast of characters–each in a different font that I suppose characterizes each person.

Each subsequent chapter is about that person (in third person).

The book opens with Yoder jumping off of the roof of their building.  He can’t believe al of those horrible people–the people he has zero respect for–could have won millions of dollars. But when his next chapter comes up, we discover  that Yoder is a ghost and he is kind of the overarching narrator of the story because he comments on all of the winners (in his highly disgusted manner): Mowery (Toby Keith shirt, MAGA hat), Cowens (who goes on a Kiss Kruise), Pappas (expensive virtual reality system), Czuba, Fitzgerald and Garner (Garner is the worst because not only doesn’t he splurge, he intends to keep going to work).

Yoder wakes first in that asshole Cowen’s house.  The next day he wakes up in Pappas’ house and tries to plunge a knife into his own heart–it does nothing.  Then it’s that asshole Mowery.  When he wakes up in Mancus’ house he hears the guy playing a terrible song “chew tobacco chew tobacco chew tobacco Spit!” (I had no idea it was a real song).

Next is Lawson.  Lawson has no idea that they won when he pulls into the parking lot.  he decides to go to a writing workshop–to pursue a life he’s actually interested in.

Chastain (her last name) isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.  She owes almost $30,000 in student loans.  (more…)

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