Shakespeare My Butt (3rd ed)

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Category:	Biography
Author:	John Donoghue
Publisher:	Matador
Price:	£9.99
ISBN:	9781906510596
Pages:	224
Reviewed in issue:	11

This book is a quirky mix of memoir, general knowledge and comedy one-liners. None of them would stand up on their own – the memoir isn’t sufficiently memorable, the general knowledge soon gets tedious and the comedy is not laugh out loud original. Thrown together they make a surprisingly good mix, and the writer juggles his three balls with surprising skill, making for an enjoyable read.

Comedy is notoriously difficult to get published – minimum requirements seem to be an award of some sort from the Edinburgh Festival and regular appearances on a TV panel show. Any writer with a desire to make people laugh is likely to be drawn to self-publishing despite the obvious difficulties of marketing the book. Shakespeare My Butt is an honourable attempt at a difficult genre (or even three difficult genres), but in the end it fails because it lacks narrative thread. Even if there isn’t a plot as such, a book still needs a story, and since this one covers a year in the writer’s life I think he could have found a clearer storyline and a stronger ending. I’d expect his next book to be better than this one, always assuming he hasn’t used up his entire store of interesting facts and jokes.

Production values are fine, the book is nicely produced and proof read to a very high standard. At 249 pages the book is worth the £9.99 cover price.

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