42: The Wildly Improbable Ideas of Douglas Adams
05/09/2023 … After Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy author Douglas Adams died in 2001 at the unfairly young age of 49, his family donated 67 boxes of his archives –…
Latest Books
Reviews of books about comedy, including biographies of comedians old and new, and (occasionally) books by comedians. To have a book considered for review, send a copy to Chortle, 112 Norman Road, London, E11 4RL.
Tue 05 September 2023
Wed 02 August 2023
Different Times by David Stubbs
Review of his History Of British Comedy
02/08/2023 … It’s an ambitious scope for one book to cover the entire history of British comedy, even ‘just’ the last century or so.
Mon 31 July 2023
Scatterbrain by Shaparak Khorsandi
Comedian's account of living with undiagnosed ADHD
31/07/2023 … The very subtitle of Scatterbrain – ‘how I finally got off the ADHD rollercoaster and became the owner of a very tidy sock drawer’ –…
Fri 28 July 2023
The Funny Thing About Death by Jo Caulfield
Review of the comedian's memoir about her late sister
28/07/2023 … Understandably, there's a sizeable part of the publishing industry devoted to well-meaning cancer memoirs.
Mon 26 June 2023
Comedy Goes to Court by Carl Unegbu
Review of a book about how comedians can face legal fallout
26/06/2023 … What a good idea for a book… but how terribly executed.
Fri 23 June 2023
Jena Friedman: Not Funny
Book review of her 'Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Etcetera'
23/06/2023 … Like most women in comedy, American stand-up Jena Friedman tires of the ‘inane, distracting and sexist’ journalists’ question: What’s it…
Thu 18 May 2023
Harold by Steven Wright
18/05/2023 … Such is the distinctiveness of Steven Wright's stand-up – the bone-dry, deadpan delivery and the philosophical enquiry of his jokes – that…
Mon 27 February 2023
Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
Review of the comedian's memoir about her undiagnosed autism
27/02/2023 … It will come as little surprise to those who know Fern Brady’s comedy that her memoir is brutally, sometimes uncomfortably, honest.