Product Description

A brilliant one-off in which everyday matters are skewered with deadpan style and deadly accuracy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #109863 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 208 pages

Bookseller
`a hilarious autobiographical travel memoir...reminiscent of David Sedaris and Bill Bryson...a perfect commute read'

Review
Touching and very, very funny.

Review
Hilarious. Acute observations about family life and what it is to be a male making the journey from boy to man.

Customer Reviews

A genuinely funny book
I loved this book. After reading far too many books that reviewers have described as hilarious but have failed raise a smile, never mind a chortle, I found Maps of my Life to be genuinely very funny.

Humour is a subjective thing but I enjoyed every page of this book. The stories about the authors childhood misadventures, usually caused by his older brother, the Fatted Calf, are excellent reading. Chapters about his brothers make-over of their front garden and the school skiing trip are particularly entertaining.

Those expecting a book about maps, as the title would indicate, will be disappointed as the maps in question are there to illustrate where the events of the following chapter take place. These maps though are also amusing as they are wittily annotated and add to the overall entertainment value of the book.

a slight caveat to previous reviews
I got this book for the maps,for the concept. I like what the author has done here and only wish I had come up with the idea first, but in the end, rather like John O'Farrell, the endless attempts to be funny become a tad tiresome.

Having said that he can be laugh out loud funny, and this is an antidote to all those books that "celebrate" a miserable childhood, but for me the overall sheen of smugness just takes away a bit, hence the loss of a star.

Exotic, educational and fun
Many people are familiar with Guy Browning's laconic and inventive columns in The Guardian. Here is a 'Long March' of autobiography written in a similar style, covering his Adrian Mole years. He's got a brilliant memory for all his childhood holidays, and he paints his family and friends as warm and eccentric characters.

It's an ingenious format for a book and the chapters are short and to the point. It's very funny, very English and does its bit to champion the joys of cartography. Highly recommended.