Humour Books > C Humour Books > Andrew Collins

Advantages: Accurate evocation of 80's student life
Disadvantages: He makes it all seem too easy for his story to be a compelling read

This book is named after a song by The Smiths. I hope Andrew Collins chose it with a sense of irony. If he were honest, the Smiths title that'd sum up his published life to date is 'You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby'. That's because Collins is one of the fortunate few to whom everything seems to come easily. His first book 'Where Did It All Go Right' was subtitled 'Growing Up Normal in the 70s'. It detailed his comfortable middle-class childhood. ...
...student years in the following decade. But nothing's really changed; despite his subtitle ('My Difficult 80s'), Andrew Collins is still getting everything on a plate - including the 'veg laz' in the subsidised hall of residence canteen. We follow his progression from teenage sexual fumbling in his Mini Metro whilst on an art foundation course in his home town of Northampton, through to the end of his three years at Chelsea School of Art. You can't ... Read review

Advantages: Fresh take on the whole nostalgia thing
Disadvantages: Tails off by halfway through

Where did it all go right? - Andrew Collins 'Where did it all go right?' is quirky little book from NME journalist and sometime television presenter Andrew Collins. Part biography, it is a collection of diary entries from 1973, when he was aged eight, to 1983 when he left his home town of Northampton for the bright lights of a London art college. It's one of those books that take your fancy when browsing the book shop shelves looking for something ...
...and the town of Northampton where he grew, in this he tells us about his family and his hometown and covers such things as his parents and siblings and his memories of growing up in Northampton. Apologies if I appear to be repeating myself but having just finished the book I have been unduly affected by Collins writing style. In the first twenty odd pages he goes over the same ground again and again, hammering home the point that he comes from a ... Read review

Advantages: It's not terribly expensive
Disadvantages: It's not terribly funny

For years, a friend of mine kept going on about a book that was a parody of "The Lord of the Rings". At the time it was out of print, but he would quote one of the lines from it at every opportunity and bemoan the fact that he never had a copy of his own. Fortunately, the surge of interest in the original books when the films were being made resulted in a republication of the parody and so he was finally able to own his own copy of "Bored of the ...
...about it, so was I. Following rather loosely the plot of "The Lord of the Rings", Frito Bugger is charged with a quest to travel across the world and destroy a ring. He is accompanied on his quest by his friend Spam, the magician Goodgulf and a couple of rather annoying boggies, Moxie and Pepsi. Legolam the elf, Gimlet the dwarf, Stomper the Ranger and Bromosel complete the party. We get to follow their journey from the boggies' home in the Sty, ... Read review

Advantages: Compact - some sensible advice to pick the bones out of
Disadvantages: Avoiding alien abduction?

When the original Worst Case Scenario Survival handbook was published, it covered emergencies many of which were only the kind experienced by Ray Mears and that ilk. The issue of a Travel version or sub-section makes all kind of sense, since most of the scrapes that the Man On The Clapham Omnibus will get into are more likely to occur whilst travelling to, or actually being in , foreign climes. I think someone gave me this book as a stocking ...
...such it's lain around in the bed-side table just waiting to come to the top of the pile as a bit of 'loo-time' reading. Any book thus designated must know that if found wanting, its pages may get used for something else. In fact, since this is the Travel edition of the "W-C S S H*", it even suggests doing this in the section on lavatorial emergencies. *(If you think I'm going to type out 'Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook' every time, think ... Read review

Advantages: Brilliant read!
Disadvantages: None!

...really does include everything that IS shit and takes the mickey out of it until you're blue in the face laughing. I absolutely love this book and the second edition - Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit, Vol II. for which I waited in anticipation until the day of its release. I received this book for Christmas, from my mum who thought it was right up my street. It was and within days I'd read it cover to cover, laughing so hard that it became annoying ...
...reading material. The humour is sophisticated, with obvious signs that these guys are pros...this isn't just a book written by two blokes who've just come back from the pub. This is satire, wit, a little sarcasm and a lot of intelligence, even the arrangement and formation of sentences and language used becomes funny. It's just funny through and through. It's not that easy to make me laugh out loud with books, especially the kind of books released ... Read review