And Away...

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Who should buy this book? Fans of The Great British Bake Off, especially fans who have just started to notice how wobbly the show has got without her. The Bullet That Missed by Richard Osman Bob Mortimer is pretty much established as a national treasure…So it's great to hear his story of how he got there first-hand…In the end he has become loved for being himself. And maybe that's the best type of success of all.’

Bob was born in 1959 in Middlesbrough, the youngest of four boys. His father died in a car crash when he was seven and Bob says he became his mother’s little helper – although he also set fire to their house after playing with fireworks. As a teenager he dreamed of a career as a footballer, but he ended up studying law at university, and worked as a solicitor in south London. Previous works Two other Thursday Murder Club books, Richard Osman’s House of Games, A Pointless History of the World, The World Cup of Everything: Bringing the Fun Home. Plot A fiftysomething woman is devastated when her partner is diagnosed with dementia and his children turf her out of the home they shared. Her partner was insistent that the house should never be sold. But why? Graham Norton, now an established author in addition to his TV and radio career, finds out. Bob’s recent reinvention via the … Gone Fishing series means a whole new audience might indeed be surprised at how many different things he’s done and will particularly admire the non-showbiz route to stardom in our age of driven but ultimately vacuous and content-free superstars.’ Every woman who owns a cat will want this Dawn O’Porter book. Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty ImagesWriting style Love Untold has a plot, but its real joy is in how Jones digs her fingernails into decades of complicated family history. The risk here would be to boil down at least one of the generations to stereotype, but Jones fiercely resists this. These are four complicated, singular women on their own paths and the story comes entirely from watching them rub against each other. It is stridently confident when it comes to hitting you around the head with sentiment until you relent and start crying, too. Jones could write books like this for the rest of her life and they’d all be brilliant. Plot Gary, a down-at-heel London solicitor, goes for a drink with a friend. The next day, the friend goes missing. Meanwhile, Gary meets and falls for a mysterious woman. Could the two be connected? And why does Gary keep having conversations with a slightly belligerent squirrel? The debut novel by comedian Bob Mortimer has the answers.

Plot Sally Parker is the bored wife of an elaborately rich hedge fund manager. She has a full-time nanny, a chef and someone to groom her dogs. But when her husband suddenly goes bankrupt, all this is whipped away from her and she can start to find herself again. This debut novel comes from the comedian and former Bake Off co-host Mel Giedroyc, one half of Mel and Sue. Main character Sally, a woman who gleefully rediscovers her can-do attitude when all the unnecessary peripherals start to fall away.

Writing style Norton, it turns out, is a magnificent novelist. The story of Forever Home is a simple one, but it hinges on a big twist halfway through. A lesser writer would have hurried to get to the big moment sooner, or at least gleefully started to drop bigger and bigger breadcrumbs. But Norton is a model of restraint. He spends chapter after chapter making doubly sure you feel the way he wants you to feel about each character before dropping his bomb. Writing style This is a book about a woman who essentially devolves (or evolves, as it would like us all to think) into an animal, which makes it a slightly less high-minded version of Paula Cocozza’s novel How to Be Human. It rips along at a decent clip and, even though O’Porter now lives in Los Angeles, does a very good job of depicting the empty aspirational scuzz of the London creative scene. In fact, this is where it thrives. The chapters about Mia’s awful workplace are much more compelling than the ones where she stops washing and pretends to be a cat.

Main character Technically, the Thursday Murder Club are an ensemble – Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim – but the leader is arguably Elizabeth, an ex-spy and primary carer for her husband, who has dementia. It’s probably fairer to say that since his brush with mortality, Mortimer has come into his own. There is this book, which is a triumph… And Away is as good a celebrity autobiography as you could hope to read, and enthusiastically recommend.’ Cover quote “His grasp of human loneliness and longing is beautiful and comforting” – Marian Keyes (again).In 2015 Bob underwent triple heart bypass surgery. After this – in a rare diversion from working with Vic – he accepted an invitation from fellow comedian Paul Whitehouse to get out of the house and go fishing, which led to a successful TV series, Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing.