Recommendations based on "Afterliff"

Better watch out ...It's that time of year again. Hogswatchnight. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, to hang mistletoe and holly, and other stuff ending in olly.‘Tis the season when the Hogfather himself dons his red suit and climbs in his sleigh pulled by -- of course! -- eight hogs and brings gifts to all the boys and girls of Discworld.But this year, there's a problem. A stranger has taken the place of the Hogfather. Well, not exactly a stranger. He's actually pretty well known. He carries a scythe along with his bag of toys, and he's going to SLEIGH everyone he sees tonight.Ho ho ho.Even the laugh is wrong. The switch has been arranged by the Auditors, mysterious superbeings who want our universe to be a collection of rocks swinging in curves through space. Life is messy. Why not get rid of it? And who better than -- you know who?Somebody has to rescue the real Hogfather before this morbid impostor tracks soot on the world's carpets. It's up to Ankh-Morpork's intellectual elite, the assembled wizards of Unseen University -- with the help of a monster-bashing nanny, the world's worst inventor, plus a bona-fide, honest-to-god god (the oh god of hangovers, to be precise) -- to come up with a plan to save the universe.And they'd better hurry. The bogus Hogfather is asking the wrong questions. Like: How come rich kids get all the nice toys? How come the poor kids are left with the cheap stuff?"That's life," he is told.Which cuts no ice with Death.

At fourteen, Adrian Mole's life continues to be nothing but a set of tragic circumstances: His tempestuous relationship with an alluring schoolmate tortures him, while his intellectualism continues to be ignored by the British press. Despite it all he remains as agonizingly funny as ever in this, the second of his diaries.

A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'An affectionate and revealing account … Funny, sad, real, rueful.' The Times 'Warm, rambling and self-aware' Guardian The long-awaited, rambling, tender, and very funny memoir from Adam Buxton Ramble /?ramb(?)l/ Verb 1. walk for pleasure in the countryside. 'Dr Buckles and Rosie the dog love rambling in the countryside.' 2. talk or write at length in a confused or inconsequential way. 'Adam rambles on about lots of consequential, compelling and personal matters in his tender, insightful, hilarious and totally unconfused memoir, Ramble Book.' Ramble Book is about parenthood, boarding school trauma, arguing with your partner, bad parties, confrontations on trains, friendship, wanting to fit in, growing up in the 80s, dead dads, teenage sexual anxiety, failed artistic endeavours, being a David Bowie fan; and how everything you read, watch and listen to as a child forms a part of the adult you become. It's also a book about the joys of going off topic and letting your mind wander. And it's about a short, hairy, frequently confused man called Adam Buxton.

“These final days of his San Francisco friends and lovers, gay and straight, are seriously moving. . . . Maupin deftly illustrates how far America and the pioneering Anna have come, and nearly forty years into the series, his writing remains wildly addictive but is deeper and richer.”—People By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Armistead Maupin's bestselling Tales of the City novels—books 7, 8 and 9 collected in this third omnibus volume—stand as an incomparable blend of great storytelling and incisive social commentary on American culture from the seventies through the first two decades of the new millennium. Maupin’s bestselling epic series spans the decade before the AIDS crisis through the era of marriage equality, and follows an unforgettable cast of characters whose diverse sexual identities helped set the social stage for the ongoing sexual revolution. Goodbye Barbary Lane—comprised of Michael Tolliver Lives, Mary Ann in Autumn, and The Days of Anna Madrigal—joins two companion omnibus volumes, 28 Barbary Lane and Back to Barbary Lane, and is a must-have for fans of Maupin and the beloved series.

A stunning 30th anniversary edition of the best-selling Mister God This Is Anna, together with the sequels, Anna's Book, Anna and the Black Knight, with a new preface by Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

In the absence of his managing sister, the ninth Earl of Emsworth calls in the Hon. Galahad Threepwood to help him pair off the assorted godsons, impostors and pretty girls. Fortunately, many years membership of the Pelican Club have given Galahad the edge in quick thinking.

In this engagingly witty, wise, and heartfelt memoir, Martin Short tells the tale of how a showbiz- obsessed kid from Canada transformed himself into one of Hollywood's favorite funnymen, known to his famous peers as the "comedian's comedian." Short takes the reader on a rich, hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking ride through his life and times, from his early years in Toronto as a member of the fabled improvisational troupe Second City to the all-American comic big time of Saturday Night Live, and from memorable roles in such movies as ¡Three Amigos! and Father of the Bride to Broadway stardom in Fame Becomes Me and the Tony-winning Little Me. He reveals how he created his most indelible comedic characters, among them the manic man-child Ed Grimley, the slimy corporate lawyer Nathan Thurm, and the bizarrely insensitive interviewer Jiminy Glick. Throughout, Short freely shares the spotlight with friends, colleagues, and collaborators, among them Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Gilda Radner, Mel Brooks, Nora Ephron, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Paul Shaffer, and David Letterman. But there is another side to Short's life that he has long kept private. He lost his eldest brother and both parents by the time he turned twenty, and, more recently, he lost his wife of thirty years to cancer. In I Must Say, Short talks for the first time about the pain that these losses inflicted and the upbeat life philosophy that has kept him resilient and carried him through. In the grand tradition of comedy legends, Martin Short offers a show-business memoir densely populated with boldface names and rife with retellable tales: a hugely entertaining yet surprisingly moving self-portrait that will keep you laughing—and crying—from the first page to the last.

An omnibus edition containing the first four titles in the celebrated series Alms for Oblivion: Fielding Gray; Sound the Retreat; The Sabre Squadron; and The Rich Pay Late. There are ten novels overall telling separate stories but linked by the characters they have in common.

Who rose to enduring fame on Blood and Typewriters, told the pregnant Portia of the Chambers it would come out in the end, advised Guthrie Featherstone, Q.C., to adopt a more judicial attitude, returned in the tender gloaming of each evening-via Pommeroy's and a glass of Chateau Fleet Street- to She Who Must Be Obeyed? The answer is Horace Rumpole whose legal triumphs, plundering stories into the Oxford Book of English Verse and less-than-salubrious hat are celebrated here in this first omnibus edition.

Horace Rumpole turns down yet another invitation to exchange the joys and sorrows of life as an Old Bailey hack for the delights of the sunshine state, where Senior Citizens loll on beaches and the sarcastic tones of the Mad Bull (Judge Roger Bullingham) are heard no more. He settles instead for the beaded bubbles of Chateau Pommeroy�s ordinary claret, the domestic chill emanating from She Who Must Be Obeyed, and his role �extraordinaire� as Defender of the Faith: �Never plead guilty�.