Mischief & Mayhem Bargain Book Box

Mischief & Mayhem Bargain Book Box

Some books you read in public and have to explain yourself.

This is a box of those. Rupert Everett turning every screenplay Hollywood rejected into a short story, which is the most elegant revenge anyone has taken on that town. An office worker who can suddenly see every unsent email about her, including the ones from her manager. A man paid to walk into strangers’ dreams and delete their anxieties, because that’s the only job left. A critic who annihilates a show at the Fringe and then has to drink in the same bars as everyone he destroyed.

Richard Osman at his best. Patricia Lockwood writing about her own brain going wrong, which has no business being this funny. Gill Sims surviving another Christmas. And a parody of Prince Harry’s memoir that does not let up for an entire book.

You will laugh on a tram and someone will look at you. Worth it.

1. Going to the Dogs — Pierre Lemaitre | ISBN: 9781914495250 | RRP: $55.00
   From the Prix Goncourt-winning author of The Great Swindle comes another darkly comic and ruthlessly plotted novel. Lemaitre writes human awfulness with tremendous style and absolutely no sentimentality.
2. Will There Ever Be Another You — Patricia Lockwood | ISBN: 9781526689214 | RRP: $32.99
   From the author of No One Is Talking About This — a novel about illness, altered perception, and the strange country of a mind not working properly. Lockwood writes sentences nobody else could, and this is funny and frightening at once.
3. Reasonable People — Caroline Hulse | ISBN: 9781409197300 | RRP: $24.99
   A sharply funny and deeply relatable novel about two feuding families forced into each other’s company. Caroline Hulse has a gift for finding the comedy and the heartbreak in ordinary family dysfunction.
4. The Secret Diary of Queen Camilla — Hilary Rose | ISBN: 9781408721209 | RRP: $49.99
   The Times columnist imagines the inner life of the Queen Consort — the gin, the horses, the appalling relatives. Affectionate, very funny, and quietly sharp about the whole institution.
5. The American No — Rupert Everett | ISBN: 9781408714195 | RRP: $49.99
   Described by Tatler as an eccentric and exquisite collection. Stories built from the films Everett wrote that never got made — Hollywood rejections turned into fiction, with his trademark acidity intact.
6. Spare Us!: A Harrody — Bruno Vincent | ISBN: 9780349146065 | RRP: $24.99
   A full-length parody of the royal memoir that broke the internet. Silly, merciless, and considerably more entertaining than the original in places.
7. The Last Devil To Die (The Thursday Murder Club 4) — Richard Osman | ISBN: 9780241512456 | RRP: $34.99
   The fourth Thursday Murder Club novel — and the one where Osman shows how much emotional weight these books have quietly been carrying. Funny, warm, and genuinely moving.
8. Half His Age — Jennette McCurdy | ISBN: 9780008800994 | RRP: $32.99
   From the author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a novel with the same unflinching honesty and dark comic timing. McCurdy writes damaged people with real precision and no self-pity.
9. Dandelion Is Dead — Rosie Storey | ISBN: 9780008738617 | RRP: $34.99
   A wickedly funny novel with a corpse at its centre and a cast of people behaving badly around it. Sharp, irreverent, and thoroughly entertaining.
10. Workhorse — Caroline Palmer | ISBN: 9780008732219 | RRP: $34.99
    A biting workplace novel about ambition, exhaustion, and the slow realisation that your job does not love you back. Funny in the way that makes you check your own inbox nervously.
11. Bring the House Down — Charlotte Runcie | ISBN: 9780008688028 | RRP: $34.99
    A theatre critic destroys a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, then has to spend the rest of the festival among the people he demolished. A superb novel about criticism, power, and consequences.
12. A Clock Stopped Dead (The Retired Teacher Mysteries, Book 3) — J M Hall | ISBN: 9780008606930 | RRP: $32.99
    Three retired teachers, a great deal of tea, and another murder the police are getting wrong. Genuinely funny and surprisingly sharp about ageing, friendship, and being underestimated.
13. I Hope This Finds You Well — Natalie Sue | ISBN: 9780008604462 | RRP: $34.99
    An office misfit accidentally gains the ability to see everyone’s unsent emails and private messages — including everything they think about her. A very funny and unexpectedly tender debut.
14. Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas — Gill Sims | ISBN: 9780008592059 | RRP: $24.99
    The bestselling Why Mummy series takes on the festive season — the nativity, the in-laws, the sheer logistical horror of it all. Ruthlessly accurate and extremely funny.
15. Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind — Molly McGhee | ISBN: 9780008589141 | RRP: $29.99
    A young man takes a job entering other people’s dreams to remove their anxieties, in exchange for debt relief. Surreal, melancholy, and one of the sharpest novels about economic precarity in years.
16. One Minute Away — Mark Watson | ISBN: 9780008347017 | RRP: $34.99
    From the comedian and novelist comes another warm, clever, structurally inventive book about near-misses and the small moments that redirect a life. Watson writes human decency better than almost anyone.
17. Own Your Throne: How to Make Your Time in the Loo Work For You — Bradford Ware | ISBN: 9781797222653 | RRP: $24.99
    Exactly what it sounds like, and committed to the bit throughout. A gift book with no higher purpose than making someone laugh on Christmas morning.
18. There Are Too Many Milks — Tara Lawall | ISBN: 9781797219875 | RRP: $29.99
    A very funny illustrated catalogue of modern life’s small absurdities — the choices, the options, the sheer volume of decisions nobody asked for. Perfect for anyone who has stood paralysed in a supermarket aisle.