Customer Reviews
A laugh a minute.. - By: Sophie Masson, 28 Oct 2007 
This is a gorgeous, hilarious book, & right on the money, as anyone involved in the literary scene will tell you! The pomposities, pretensions & pettiness of the industry are perfectly punctured, but there's also a great sympathy with characters & dilemmas. Highly recommended!
hilarious - and all too true - By: Sarah Duncan, 12 Mar 2007 If you are a writer or have any ambitions to be published, then you have to read this book. Posy Simmonds' cartoons are always funny, but in Literary Life she turns her sharp eyes on the publishing industry. I've read & re-read this book many times & each time it makes me laugh because it's alll true. Everything in an author's life is here - disastrous book signings, the perils of success, day time television & other displacement activities. I wish she'd bring out another collection.
Literally brilliant - By: G. Whyman, 24 Feb 2004 Posy punctures the pomposity, pretensions & preciousness of the literary world in this brilliant collection of cartoons from the Guardian newspaper. It may be a slim collection but it's worth every penny. Posy depicts a whole galllery of characters in this business; being a children's author/illustrator herself she must have a lot insider information about the subject. The artwork, as ever with Posy, is first-rate & the humour is spot-on & imaginative. One of the best strips in it is the 'Ask Doctor Derek' series where problems encoutered by readers & authors are dealt with by the handsome literary doctor. Very funny. My advice is simple. If you like cartoons & appreciate intelligent & thoughtful wit, buy this book.
Publishing funnies - By: Robin Benson, 14 Feb 2004 A handsome selection of Posy Simmonds cartoons that originallly appeared in the weekly book review supplement of the Guardian. They alll relate to literature & especiallly publishing, either as strips or whole page cartoons. My favorites are the strips for Ask Doctor Derek, where a handsome young MD solves medical (literary) problems like a bout of plagiarism, the incredibly contagious writers cliché or dreadful critics mauling syndrome. Simmonds drawing style is typicallly British, slightly soft & with a caricature edge as opposed to the slick graphic style of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury for instance.
Posy has a wicked sense of humor, especiallly when she is exposing the phonies of the English publishing establishment. A bull's-eye every time & great fun, too.
