Losing It has been shortlisted for the PG Woodhouse Comedy Literary Prize as well as The Edinburgh First Book Award 2015.Millie was at one time quite well known for various TV and radio appearances. However, she now has no money, a best friend with a better sex life than her, a daughter in Papua New Guinea and too much weight in places she really doesn't want it.When she's asked to be the front woman for a new diet pill, she naively...

Millie was at one time quite well known for various TV and radio appearances. However, she now has no money, a best friend with a better sex life than her, a daughter in Papua New Guinea and too much weight in places she really doesn't want it.When she's asked to be the front woman for a new diet pill, she naively believes that all her troubles will be solved. She will have money, the weight will be gone, and maybe she'll get more sex.If only life was really that easy. It d...

Updated with new chapters for 2025!‘Helen Lederer is the third funniest woman in the world’ – Dawn FrenchWhat was it like as one of a handful of women at the heart of the right-on alternative comedy scene in the 1980s? Piece of cake? Bit of a laugh? Well, yes, and no. It had its ups – but also its downs. Helen Lederer was a regular on the stand-up circuit and new-wave sketch shows in the decade that launched the careers of today’s comedy household names and national treasur...

Bella le Pard’s career as a TV presenter is ‘on hold’. To fill her days, she sits in a coffee shop and obsesses about a wedding dress in the neighbouring shop. Her luck changes when she gets the call from her old boss at ‘Flair for living TV’ to present a pilot for a new food and chat show. But her revived TV career is short-lived when one of the celebrity guests threatens to steal the show. Bella finds herself turning to blackmail to save her job. But will her threat to reveal her boss’s ...

A comedy of ambition, dreams, blackmail and daytime TV…Bella’s career as a TV presenter is ‘on hold’. To fill her days, she sits in a coffee shop and obsesses about a wedding dress in the neighbouring shop. Her luck changes when she gets the call from her old boss to present a pilot for a new food and chat show. But her revived TV career is short-lived when one of the celebrity guests threatens to steal the show…

This is a read-along edition with original music and audio synced to the text.Smiley Shark may be the biggest fish in the ocean but he's also the friendliest and the funniest - and by far the smiliest. So why won't the other fish let him join in their games? Soon Smiley doesn't feel much like smiling any more. Until a great big shark smile is all it takes to save the day! The simple story and fun vocabulary are just right for a parent to read aloud to a young child. The other books in the ...

When life with Jayni's violent-tempered father becomes too frightening to cope with, Jayni, her mum and her little brother Kenny are forced to escape in the middle of the night. Slipping out of the house unseen, travelling up to London by train and checking into a hotel – it's almost like playing an elaborate game. They even make up false identities to protect their secret, and Jayni becomes the glamorous-sounding Lola Rose. But when money runs out and reality bites, what will they do next...

Nick Hancock finds out what people, places and pop songs his celebrity guests would consign to oblivionRoom 101 is the anti-Desert Island Discs. Instead of picking the tracks, books and luxuries they love, guests are invited to banish their least favourite things to Orwell's eponymous chamber of horrors. Twenty-seven episodes of the show were broadcast on Radio 5 between 1992 and 1994, and it went on to run for 18 hit series on BBC TV before relau...

All 36 episodes of the maverick literary quizPoet Ian McMillan is our host in this gleeful game of literary tomfoolery, outrageous parody and biting wit. Joining him for some lighthearted competitive wordplay are a quartet of writers and comedians, all ready and eager to run riot through the halls of great literature.Their bookish challenges include 'New Beginnings and Endings', which sees them topping and tailing well-known literary works to produce some v...

Legacies of Departed African Women Writers: Matrix of Creativity and Power proffers varied perspectives of the invaluable contributions of ten deceased African writers from all across Africa who have cleared the path to a vibrant African feminist arena. The dynamics of change gleaned from both their textual and contextual concerns unarguably set the pace for contemporary African women writers who have striven to follow in the footsteps of their literary mothers as well as their or...

A seriously entertaining collection of feelgood stories guaranteed to put the smile back on your face written especially by ten bestselling novelists:Jenny ÉclairMark WatsonVeronica HenryEva VerdeRichard MadeleyKatie FfordeDorothy KoomsonVaseem KhanHelen LedererRachel HoreFrom a hilarious race against time to a moment of unexpected eavesdropping, from righting wrongs in rural India to finding joy in unlikely pla...

Medical ethics draws upon methods from a wide array of disciplines, including anthropology, economics, epidemiology, health services research, history, law, medicine, nursing, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology.In this influential book, outstanding scholars in medical ethics bring these many methods together in one place to be systematically described, critiqued, and challenged. Newly revised and updated chapters in this second edition include philosophy, religion and ...