Showing results by publisher "HarperCollins" in Comedy & Humour

Self-deprecating and with an acerbic wit, TikTok star Clara Batten aka @rabatts is every middle-class mother trying to get through the day without another sh*t on the staircase or panic drive to McDonald’s. In Gin and Phonics, she talks candidly about the ups, downs and hilarious reality of trying to parent two small people and fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming an actress without losing her bl**dy mind.

Like all good Chinese children, Andrea Tang is doing her best to fulfil all her mother’s plans for her life: she’s on track to become partner at a top law firm in Singapore, she has a beautiful apartment in the right postcode and a perfect boyfriend who is practically made of husband material. Except that those plans are unravelling fast: there’s an unfairly attractive new lawyer out to steal her promotion, she has credit-card debt up to her eyeballs, her perfect boyfriend is now her perfect ex-boyfriend....

Tara Gallagher is knackered. She used to dream of being Beyoncé, but suddenly she’s 36—with three kids, a loving husband, a very boring job—and instead of headlining Glastonbury, she’s in her pyjamas on a Friday night, watching Gogglebox. It’s time for a mammy makeover. She’s going to show her teenage daughter she’s still cool. She’s going to show her husband she’s still an absolute ride. She’s going to show her colleagues she’s still a boss bish.

Allergic to group activities of any kind, all her life Serenata has run, swum and cycled on her lonesome. But now that she's hit 60, all that physical activity has destroyed her knees. As she contemplates surgery with dread, her previously sedentary husband, Remington, recently and ignominiously redundant, chooses this precise moment to discover exercise. Which should be good for his health, right? Yet as he joins the cult of fitness that seems increasingly to consume the whole of the Western world, her once-modest husband burgeons into an unbearable narcissist. 

I’m assuming you’ve picked up this book because you’re either curious about having kids, you’re currently up the duff, or you’re stumbling through the early days of parenthood with a mattress-sized sanitary towel between your legs wondering what the hell has just happened. That, or you’re killing time in WHSmith, waiting for your flight to Ibiza. You lucky bastard.

Molly the maid is all alone in the world. A nobody. She’s used to being invisible in her job at the Regency Grand Hotel, plumping pillows and wiping away the grime, dust and secrets of the guests passing through. She’s just a maid—why should anyone take notice? But Molly is thrown into the spotlight when she discovers an infamous guest, Mr Black, very dead in his bed. This isn’t a mess that can be easily cleaned up.

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 an audiobook 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.     

Like every mum, Tara wants a perfect Christmas for her family—but no one else is lifting a finger and she’s losing her elf-ing mind. From the kids behaving badly (vaping! Potty training! The Nativity!), to a distracted husband acting very out of character, the last straw is Tara’s glamorous, feckless, boundary-less mother moving herself back in for the holidays. Can Tara pull off the holly jolly Christmas of her dreams? Will she deck the halls and not her family? Or is this a Christmas catastrophe waiting to happen?

Molly Gray wears her Head Maid badge proudly for every shift at the Regency Grand Hotel, plumping pillows, sweeping up the guests’ secrets, silently restoring rooms to a state of perfection. But when a renowned guest – a famous mystery writer – drops very dead in the grand tea room, Molly has an unusual clean-up on her hands. As rumours and suspicion swirl in the hotel corridors, it’s clear there’s grime lurking beneath the gilt. And Molly knows that she alone holds the key to the mystery.

Prickly. Stubborn. Terribly lonely. But everyone deserves a second chance. Missy Carmichael’s life has become small. Grieving for a family she has lost or lost touch with, she’s haunted by the echoes of her footsteps in her empty home; the sound of the radio in the dark; the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. Spiky and defensive, Missy knows that her loneliness is all her own fault. She deserves no more than this; not after what she’s done. But a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new.

Corazon, Angel and Donita have all come to Singapore to work for a living. The thing that unites them? Their labour must remain unseen. But when a friend is accused of murdering her employer, everything changes. The accused could be any of them; they all know the stories of women who were scapegoated or even executed for crimes they didn’t commit. Each woman has secrets to keep, yet they must gather every ounce of bravery, fearlessness and complete audacity to clear the name of one of their own.

Why are we here? Do ghosts exist? Will we ever travel back in time? Are we being visited by extraterrestrials? Will we ever talk to animals? Are we being told the truth? Are mysterious creatures roaming the Earth? And why, when you’re in the shower, does the shower-curtain always billow in towards you? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions. But don’t worry, no matter what questions you have, you can bet on the fact that there is someone (or something) out there, investigating it on your behalf – and this book collects their latest findings.

Jo Sorsby knows she is hiding from her past when she agrees to look after her uncle’s stationery shop. Spending her days glimpsing the lives of her customers as they experiment with what’s on offer is a welcome distraction from the life she has left behind. Yet far from home, Jo feels adrift... But when she meets Ruth, a vicar running from a secret, and Malcolm, a septuagenarian struggling to write his first book, she realises that she isn’t alone.

Rob Beckett never seems to fit in. At work, in the middle-class world of television and comedy, he’s the laddie, cockney geezer, but to his mates down the pub in south-east London, he’s the theatrical one, a media luvvie. Even at home, his wife and kids are posher than him. In this hilarious exploration of class, Rob compares his life growing up as a working-class kid to the life he lives now, trying to understand where he truly belongs.

Olive is many things. Independent. Adrift. Anxious. Loyal. Kind. Knows her own mind. It’s okay that she’s still figuring it all out, navigating her world without a compass. But life comes with expectations, there are choices to be made, boxes to tick and - sometimes - stereotypes to fulfil. And when her best friends’ lives start to branch away towards marriage and motherhood, leaving the path they’ve always followed together, Olive starts to question her choices - because life according to Olive looks a little bit different.

We’ve all known a cat lady - and we’ve probably all judged her too. But behind the label - the one that only sticks to women - what if there’s a story worth nine lives? Told with Dawn’s trademark warmth, wit and irreverence, Cat Lady is a story about defying labels and forging friendships. It’s for the cat lady in all of us - because a woman always lands on her feet....

Join Colin Black on his journey from accidental medical student to HSE and NHS trainee and, finally, consultant paediatric anaesthetist at the largest children’s hospital in Ireland, where any given day could end in laughter or tears—and that’s just the staff. Razor-sharp and forthright, Gas Man is a disarming and frequently hilarious account of life in one of the most fascinating and thrilling professions at medicine’s frontline, where every day is a heady cocktail of severe pressure, poignancy and profound social awkwardness.

This year Christmas will be PERFECT. This is the year when all dreams come true, carol singers will carol the Wassail would Wass, or possibly Sail, children will frolic, extended family will get on and behave normally and not fall out and just eat the effing mince pies without questioning their organic/ gluten free/ vegan/ fairtrade status. Everyone will be delighted by their thoughtfully chosen presents and not surreptitiously rifle through the wrapping paper looking for the gift receipt, and the dogs will give the impression that Ellen is in charge of them and not the other way around.

Released in 2004, iconic teen comedy Mean Girls remains as relevant now as ever. But what made an adaptation of a parenting guide by SNL writer Tina Fey so successful? And why, two decades later, can we all just not stop quoting it? Drawing on revealing interviews with the director, cast and crew, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong takes us behind the scenes of the film’s genesis, production and release. 

Eve, Justin, Susie and Ed have been friends since they were 18. Now in their 30s, the four are still as close as ever, Thursday pub quiz night is still sacred and Eve is still secretly in love with Ed. Maybe Eve should have moved on by now, but she can’t stop thinking about what could have been. And she knows Ed sometimes thinks about it, too. Then one night, in an instant, all their lives change forever. And, as Eve learns she didn’t know her friends as well as she thought, she also discovers she isn’t the only person keeping secrets.