Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade, Guy Browning

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

I laughed 'til I wet myself



Not a business book maybe, but I had to put this in - it's hilarious! First published in the UK in 2004, I picked up a US version earlier this year and could not put it down. Luckily for us all it is still in print.



Guy Browning writes a column called 'How to ...' in the weekend Guardian magazine; this book contains 278 pages of his stuff beginning with how to exercise and ending with how to control the duvet dispensing a thousand belly laughs in between.



It is a difficult book to describe and quotes out of context are never really funny, but ...



"There is a phrase which says that when you're tired of London you're tired of life. This explains why people on the Underground generally look suicidal. ... They also say 'early to bed, early to rise, makes you healthy, wealthy and wise' - hence the national glut of rich philosopher-milkmen."



and ... (the italicised bit is my interjection)



"Very occasionally, the great British public get (surely, 'gets', or am I being pedantic?) so annoyed about something they decide to demonstrate. This generally involves descending on London en masse, discovering how few public toilets there are, and then returning home with lots of shopping."



If those extracts do not intrigue, let me just say I seldom laugh out loud and this book had me doing so pretty regularly. I urge you to buy it and if it doesn't reduce you to tears of laughter, send it to me and I'll give you your money back. Can't say fairer than that, can I?