Collected 1982 / Physical book / 1,024 pages / UK
*****
I haven't quite finished / barely started this one yet, but at £2.29 from a charity shop, this comprehensive illustrated hardback is still one of the best value purchases I've ever made, even if I subsequently managed to worm my way out of needing to use it academically. Now that it's back on my shelf, I should give it a good seeing to.
1992 / Physical book / 24 pages / UK
**
It's only a slim souvenir, but no unverified anecdote is too meagre for this credulous chronicle, whether they're well thought through, like the famous wading Romans, or they're confusing rust with blood. It's funny now, but the ghost tour was a highlight of our school trips. My brother bought this when it was his go, it beat another keyring.
1997 / Ebook / 128 pages / UK
****
A finely observed and very funny spoof of exactly the sort of sensationalist supernatural schlock I was reading sincerely in 1997, though I would have enjoyed this one more. The chuckles do peter out as it goes along and the same joke carries on for a whole book, but I'm impressed that they bothered.
Dan Kieran, Sam Jordison and contributors, The Idler Book of Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places to Live in the UK
***
These user-generated travelogues go for the edgy suicide joke a few times too often, but it's mainly lighthearted cynicism that's made all the funnier when local MPs and tourist boards take it deadly seriously and provide offended defences. The unpopularity contest will inevitably miss out some of your own regional 'favourites,' but a later version put Stoke in the top 10, so I can't complain.
Michael Bond and R. W. Alley, Paddington Bear Collection
Collected 2017 / Physical books / 320 pages / UK
***
My mum bought her granddaughter some books to go with the bear. She likes the pictures, anyway. I was never big on the bear, but formative grooming through bedroom decor was probably more influential than Jonathan Creek on my later duffle coat fixation.
