Lucia is one of the great comic characters in English literature. Outrageously pretentious, hypocritical and snobbish, Queen Lucia, 'as by right divine' rules over the toy kingdom of 'Riseholme' based on the Cotswold village of Broadway. Her long-suffering husband Pepino is 'her prince-consort', the outrageously camp Georgie is her 'gentleman-in-waiting', the village green is her 'parliament', and her subjects, such as Daisy Quantock, are hapless would-be 'Bolsheviks'. In Lucia in London, the prudish, manically ambitious Lucia launches herself into the louche world of London society. Her earnest determination to learn all about 'modern movements' makes her the perfect comic vehicle for Benson's free-wheeling satire of salon societ, and of the dominant fads and movements of the 1920s, including vegetarianism, yoga, palmistry, Freudianism, séances, Post-Impressionist art and Christian Science. Meanwhile in Tilling, clearly modelled on Benson's home town of Rye, Miss Mapp consumed by 'chronic rage and curiosity' sits at her window, armed with her light-opera glasses keeping baleful watch on her neighbours. 'Anger and the gravest suspicions about everybody had kept her young and on the boil': and Benson transmutes her boiling into a series of small humiliations in his witty, malicious comedy. In his insightful Introduction Keith Carabine appreciates Benson's humour whether droll, farcical, excruciatingly malicious, his 'camp' treatment of sex and his moral vision. Titles in volume one are Queen Lucia, Miss Mapp and Lucia in London. 632 page paperback. New from Wordsworth.

A delightful black and white musical comedy from 1942 with running time approximately 68 minutes on new DVD. Set against the background of World War Two and featuring the music of The Andrews Sisters, the film follows the fortunes of a reluctant army recruit who struggles to adjust to military life until he falls for the charms of a retired officer's daughter. Lots of musical tap-a-long toons, this vintage musical with Harry James and His Orchestra contains The Sisters' original rendition of 'Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree'. 'Even the Jeeps are jivin'' says one character. Running time one hour 15, the dancing sequences are an unforgettable treat.

Celebrating our brave new world where everything you do is researched on social media or websites like TripAdvisor, and where even your companion on a night out has been filtered through hours spent on dating apps, this collection of over 130 cartoons reflects the fact that nowadays "everyone's a critic". In a prestigious concert hall a man confides to his companion, "I heard this entire symphony yesterday while on hold", while a bagpiper arriving at the gates of hell is told by Satan "you'll be in charge of the music down here", to the sound of earsplitting wails from the inmates. Restaurants get their fair share of hilarious attention in this collection, starting with the front cover cartoon showing a dog dining in a restaurant and anxiously asking the waiter, "Is the homework fresh?" At another establishment a diner asks the waiter, "Would you say the tuna salad kicks ass?" Meanwhile, in the kitchen, a harassed restaurateur instructs the chef: "There's a restaurant critic out there. Thaw out a meal from that place they all like." Couples are a perennial source of amusement, for instance leaving the cinema: "But what I didn't sleep through, I liked"; or the ultimate put-down when arriving at a party: "Just don't be yourself". In other laughs, a woman in a supermarket wails: "I've only got seven ?likes' for what I've put in my trolley", and a Torturer addresses a man on the rack: "And finally, may I ask how satisfied you were with the way I handled your interrogation today?" There are hours of enjoyment in these wry reflections. 144pp, over 130 cartoons, biographies.

The Sunday Times Bestseller is sub-titled 'A Survivor's Guide to the Menopause' and is an hilarious and refreshingly honest compendium from C for Carb-loading and G for Getting Your Shit Together, to I for Invisibility and V for Vaginas. Jenny's whistlestop tour of 'The Change' in all its glory will make you realise that it really isn't just you. She will share the surprising lessons she has learned along the way as well as her hard-won tips on the joy of cardigans, dealing with the empty nest (get a lodger) and keeping the lid on the pressure cooker of your temper (count to 20, ten is never enough). 'The trouble with overheating in bed and ripping off your nightie is that your partner thinks it's a sexy come-on...' This is a book written from experience and from the heart which will make you laugh and feel better because a problem shared after all is a problem halved, and as women age, nowadays the fairer sex are no longer content to boil silently and uncomplainingly in the corner. ?As long as there has been life on earth, then, there have been menopausal women, stomping about, feeling furious, giving the old man grief for bringing home some scraggy bit of flea-bitten mammoth and complaining about 'the bloody fire being too hot'?. The Grumpy Old Woman speaks, and very funny she is too. 295pp, paperback.

'Unpublished Letters to The Daily Telegraph', readers of the Letters Page will be fondly aware of the eclectic combination of learned wisdom, wistful nostalgia and robust good sense of humour that characterises its correspondence. Whether it's suggesting the sci-fi Vulcan salute as an alternative to the now-discouraged handshake, or a parable of political dysfunction drawn from shopping in Ikea, Bob Pringle from Shrewsbury writes about the subject of the nude and that Anthony Whishaw on his 90th birthday notes that he tends to work from imagination, not looking at flesh and blood as the artist works. 'Sadly, speaking as another born in the Thirties, I fell that's the case for a lot of us.' Mike Lloyd of Cheltenham writes 'SIR - if members of the eco-protest group Extinction Rebellion would like to make themselves useful, perhaps they could come and teach my young adult children how to recycle.' The impact of self-isolation, lockdown and coronavirus is particularly notable in the Family Trials and Tribulations section. Then there is A Year In Politics with Corbyn, Brexit, Megxit, VAR to Mar, Trump to Top Gear - no one escapes the hilariously whimsical and sometimes risqué musings. So long, and thanks for all the fish writes one reader about access to 'our fishing waters after Brexit.' 181pp to dip into time and again.

Sub-titled 'History, Folklore and Victorian Pedantry' from the pages of 'Notes & Queries', a weekly magazine founded in London in 1849. It was a 'medium of inter-communication for literary men, artists, antiquaries, genealogists etc.' and its motto was 'when found, make a note of', a saying of Captain Cuttle, the hook-handed old salt of Dickens's Dombey & Son. Subscribers sent in notes on curious facts, others arcane queries to be answered, and the book anthologises the most interesting exchanges from the First Series 1849-55. Ordered by subject with judicious footnotes, there are delightfully pedantic remarks from daily life and amusements, the doings of fairies, revolting folk remedies, poetry good and bad, the oddities of natural history. Included is a selection of advertisements for the magazine such as products as Grosjean's Celebrated Trowsers and Rimmel's Toilet Vinegar (good for several purposes) and the Reverend Edmund Saul Dixon's treatise on 'Ornamental and Domestic Poultry'. There are church matters, law and order, wills and epitaphs, tales of the supernatural, popular zoology, superstitions, local customs. Under Language and Literature books and booksellers, words and their use and personal names; under Scientific Investigations technology and innovation of the time, medicine and physiology and physics problems. 'Every book that is worth reading, except, perhaps, a work of fiction, requires an Index; and the more books there are in the world the more requisite it becomes.' 'The discovery of drowned bodies by loading a loaf with mercury, and putting it afloat on a stream, or by carting it into the river, as the Indians do...' A German bookseller advertises his second-hand catalogue of 'Erotica Facetiae Satyrae, Curiosa, Sexuale Vavria' in various languages and Kerr and Strang Perfumers and Wig Makers advertise Perukes with 'Partings and crowns so natural as to defy detection'. 'Hairdressing a pitiful and unmanly employment' and the habit of profane swearing by the English are all up for discussion. No subject was too odd or obscure! 270 delightful pages, illus.

12 Medieval French plays rendered into modern English by the translator of 'The Farce of the Fart', scurrilous, sexy, stupid, satirical, scatological, side splitting.' Enders is unafraid to reference modern comedy in her translations as she assesses these comedies from half a millennium ago. Did you hear about the newlywed who rushes off for legal advice before the honeymoon is over? Or the husbands who arrange for an enormous tub in which to cure their sugary wives with a pinch of salt? How about a participatory processional toward marriage so sacrilegious that it puts Chaucer's pilgrimage to shame? And who could have imagined a medieval series of plays devoted to spouse-swapping? Jody Enders has heard and seen all this and more and shares it in her volume of performance-friendly translations of Medieval French farces. Carefully culled from more than 200 extant plays and crafted with a wit and contemporary sensibility to make them playable today, these dozen bawdy plays take on the hilariously depressing and depressingly hilarious state of holy wedlock. In 15th and 16th century comedy, love and marriage had everything to do with arranged marriages of child brides to doddering old men, frustration, fear, anxiety, jealousy, disappointment and despair matched only by the eagerness with which everybody sings, dances and cavorts in pursuit of deception, trickery and adultery. Easily recognisable stock characters come vividly to life, struggling to negotiate the limits of power, class and gender, each embodying the distinctive blend of wit, social critique and breathless boisterousness that is farce. There are notes on stage directions, grammar and style, music and choreography and brief plot summaries and the 12 plays include The Newlywed Game, The Shithouse, Holy Deadlock, Bitches and Pussycats, Wife Swap and Extreme Husband Makeover among them. There are four to six actors in The Shithouse - Wily Willy, the valet who manages to make out like a bandit assisting in the assignation between his mistress Kitty and her Lover, the dandyish Sir Allcock. Allcock arrives with a picnic but when the Husband arrives home at an inopportune moment, the poor Lover has nowhere to hide but the Latrine. He is forced to shove his head and more into the privy hole, literally shitfaced after an interrupted feast. 536pp.

Social media star, agony aunt, yoga teacher, curious cat Zelda knows how to live life curiously. 'I am always listening to the radio in the kitchen - not by choice, mind you. Over time, I have notice that cats are not fairly represented in songs?. 14 really daft examples follow like: 'If you liked it then you should have put a string on it' by Meowncé. Zelda confides in her diary: 'I met a handsome cat tonight... he was a lot cleaner than ShabbyTabby and he had a nice meow. I had suggested going somewhere casual for a couple of water bowls, but he insisted on The Wheely Bin. He clearly wanted to impress me...' and popsicles and garden hopping and restaurant dining and following the red dot but losing her behind the magazine rack, squirrels and houseflies and fantastic zany illustrations with cartoon additions and captions like 'Just lost my job as a PE teacher. My pupils got too big' with a huge-eyed picture of lucky black cat Zelda with her white bib from her website plentyoffish.com. Find out how she communicates with furniture and how she handles humans, sniffing the lampshade, getting into the sock drawer just before it closes and an entire lifestyle of purrvilege. All great fun, 192 pages, softback, utterly enchanting colour illus. and photo montage illus.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, Calico Pie and The Pobble Who Has No Toes, together with Edward Lear's crazy limericks, have entertained adults and children alike for over 100 years. This edition, illustrated by the author, contains all the verse and stories of The Book of Nonsense, More Nonsense, Nonsense Songs, Nonsense Stories and Nonsense Alphabets and Nonsense Cookery. It has a biographical Preface by Lear himself, and concludes with some delightful 'heraldic' sketches of his cat, Foss. 272pp. Paperback.

A smiling white whippet wearing a Tudor ruff and lace collar graces the front cover of these artistically refined portraits of dogs which look like Old Masters. In humorous, almost philosophical texts, Tein Lucasson gives each of his animal protagonists an unmistakeable character, from the Labrador to the Pug, the Spaniel to the Dalmatian dressed as Wellington, the little Italian Greyhound with her big doe eyes dressed as Greta Garbo with a shy, all-knowing look, in full Tudor costume with human hands, slim and always happy, "Maisie has been widowed four times and lives on bottled grape juice to keep herself slim and happy (in a spaced-out way)". With text in English, German and Italian on the facing pages opposite the full page colour portraits of these anthropomorphised mix of dogs of many breeds, poodles and terriers and pugs and mongrel in a sailor suit, our favourite must be Olive, standing upright as a pensive young bride she is another white whippet. Truly a dog lover, this artist is rarely seen in Great Britain and you will either find this icky or adore his 88 quirky, humorous portraits by the talented graphic designer and digital photographer. A quality teNeues publication, 192 pages, 22.23 x 28.7cm. All in colour.
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