Showing results by publisher "John Murray" in Comedy & Humour

Romans! Madrigals! The Dark Ages! Revolutions! Trumpets! The Oranges of The First World War! All of this (except trumpets) and more, is covered in this definitive, easy-clean history of all world history so far, written by the 21st Century's leading historian, philosopher and thinkerer Philomena Cunk.

From being escorted off the Today programme (for saying what we were all thinking) to declaring her love to Vanessa Redgrave; from Tales of the Unexpected to Graham Norton's sofa, she is our most loved and most outspoken national treasure. Oh Miriam! takes you inside both her head and her heart. Buckle up for the most irrepressible, hilarious and moving listen of 2023.

I am a half-arser. A shave-one-legger. A rinse-the-plates-and-tell-myself-any-residual-dirt-will-improve-my-immune-system-er. And yet, I still want to live better, improve my relationships, build a career, enjoy hobbies, have ethics, and live a full, passionate, varied life. And it's possible. This book will teach you to harness the power of half-arsedness to improve the things you actually care about improving, without expending more than you have to give. It's not going to turn you into a superhuman, but it will help you feel more human.

A Short History of the Apocalypse imagines a grotesque and bizarre future where society has collapsed and it is everyone for themselves. Well, maybe not so bizarre then . . . Covering subjects from gangs and government to bunkers and cannibalism, A Short History of the Apocalypse is a journey into our impending and doomed future.

It seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of 11 men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe - except that's not a simple idea at all. And when you throw in incompetent airline officials, cunning Bajan drug dealers, overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiotic Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus, and whole armies of pitch-invading penguins, you quickly arrive at a lot more than you bargained for.

Whether it's the distress of a bad haircut (AGE-OTORI) or longing for the food someone else is eating (GROAKING), the pleasure found in other people's happiness (CONFELICITY) or the shock of jumping into icy water (CURGLAFF), there are real words to pinpoint exactly how you feel and Susie Dent, Queen of Countdown's Dictionary Corner and lexicographer extraordinaire, is going to help you find them. Here are 1001 terms everyone needs, whether it's the best kind of hug (CWTCH), the relief found in swearing (LALOCHEZIA), or the ability to endure till the end (PERTOLERANCE).

Learn how to decode the private languages that are swapped around us every day - amongst cabbies and paramedics, soap stars and comedians, cricketers and barristers - in Susie Dent's unique and witty guide to Britain's modern tribes. Did you know that a soldier's biggest social blunder is called 'jack brew' - making yourself a cuppa without making one for anyone else? That twitchers have an expression for a bird that can't be identified - LBJ (the letters stand for little brown job)?

People Who Like Dogs Like People Who Like Dogs is a book about connection and friendship, love and loss, the vagaries of midlife and the deep solace that comes from an enduring relationship. It's about finding yourself when for too long you've been lost, and how even when, for whatever reason, horizons draw in, there's still plenty of adventure left. You just have to look harder for it.

At 104 years of age, Mrs Elsie Drake of Granville Gardens, London, is the sixth oldest woman in Britain. But fed up with sitting in her armchair all day, Elsie is ready for new adventures. And so, armed with a computer she can barely operate, she fires off dozens of letters to everyone from the Prime Minister to Greggs Bakeries, to see if they can help. Whether offering her services as the new Arsenal football mascot dressed as a giant hare, or simply sending Sainsbury's a load of meat, no one can escape the clutches of Elsie Drake.

Johnny was my first. I was seventeen and I was only brave enough to talk to him after I'd had three vodkas. He was only brave enough to kiss me when no-one else was around. Dave was different. We didn't go out or see friends. We were each other's world. Dave was all I needed. We were toxic before it became fashionable. Kyle was my best friend. And that was the problem. Or at least that's what he said was the problem.

From 1st January to 31st December the listener will discover a curious coinage or a fascinating etymological fact linked to that particular day - from the dramatic true story behind stealing someone's thunder to the original Jack the Lad. Word Perfect gathers all her very best discoveries from the true origin of freelancer which comes from knights who were free to use their lance for whoever paid most, rather than being tied to a single lord. (Also secretaries kept your secrets so were secretries).

An unambitious 22 year-old, Darren lives in a Brooklyn brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Manhattan office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya and eating his mother's home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the 36th floor.

An ambitious noble and his three serving men travel through the Irish countryside in the stifling summer of 1348, using the advantage of the plague which has collapsed society to buy up large swathes of property and land. They come upon Nobber, a tiny town, whose only living habitants seem to be an egotistical bureaucrat, his volatile wife, a naked blacksmith and a beautiful Gaelic hostage. Meanwhile, a band of marauding Gaels are roaming around, using the confusion of the sickness to pillage and reclaim lands that once belonged to them.

Smart casual? Close of play? Endless water-cooler discussions about the weather? Non-autistic adults can behave in baffling ways - and never more so in the maze of unwritten social rules, jargon and ritual that is your average day at the office. Luckily, Maura and Debby (office code cracker extraordinaires) have gone undercover in 'typical' offices for decades to pull together the ultimate survival guide for the autistic employee.

Politicians are weird - we can all agree on that. But do you know how much weirder they used to be? If not, Honourable Misfits is the audiobook for you. Spanning from the past 700 years, this is a celebration of the oddest and most eccentric MPs the House of Commons has ever seen. From mad inventors and fearless adventurers to Machiavellian villains and mavericks with more money than sense, it offers 64 pen portraits of the unique, the mysterious and the downright deranged.

It was strange because it wasn't so long ago that he was convinced the only way out of the depression that had crippled him since he was a child was death. But now, he is on a high-speed train, travelling from Rome to Modena, a failed novelist on the tail of a famous physicist whose memoir he is ghostwriting. The more of another man's life he writes, the more his debt to his publisher is paid off. But nothing would be possible had he not experienced the life-altering, life-saving treatment for the darkness which had been hovering since the chemical spill in West Virginia.

When Christopher was six, the poems of Milne were always on hand to reassure him that other children were just as puzzled and naughty and silly as he was, and that grown-ups could be even sillier. When he turned 60, he decided it was high time there was an equally reassuring volume for those of his generation who were not only more confused than ever but were losing their teeth, their hair and, all too often, their car keys.