Why do so many female comedians struggle to be taken funnily? Is your mother to blame? Do you like broad beans? And why is there an ‘X’ in First Person?
Are Men Just Funnier Than Women?
Category: Humour
Tark And Mara Kill All The Bunnies
Tark and Mara go to a ruinously expensive restaurant, and decry the hideous cutesiness of Easter. Lambs, chocolate and children are all in the firing line – but it’s the bunnies that get it.
Pairing Your Book To Your Overall Look: A Fashion Special
You just can’t beat the popularity of the fashion or beauty blog, so today, I’m joining their ranks with my Essential Guide To Wearing Your Fave Books This Season. What should you wear while reading Crime Fiction? And why do Literary Fiction and Louis Vuitton not mix?
Why You Should Never Live With An Unreliable Narrator
We all know what it’s like to have difficult flatmates. Insomniacs. Musicians. Drug Addicts. Botanists. When things get really sour, a fictional flatmate would be ideal. But what if you were to live with a modern grip-lit heroine from the likes of Girl On The Train, Gone Girl, or Before I Go To Sleep?
Tark And Mara Make Art Pay
The terrifyingly powerful Tark and Mara form a plan to find a true and quantifiable value for art, so that they can quadruple it, and then watch it increase. And if you have a spare million or three lying about, you can do it too.
Your Annual Review Of Things That Haven’t Happened Yet
Time for my now-annual tradition of reviewing the events of the book world before anything has actually happened, because I’ll be far too busy in December 2016 – smiting my enemies and sewing appliqué onto my elbow patches, etc – to do it after events have passed. This also saves you time: after reading this, you needn’t bother with the end of this year at all. Isn’t that wonderful?
‘Tis The Season To Hate Yourself: 10 Anti-Resolutions For Writers
In just 6 days, you became fat, ugly, lazy, stupid, weak, and a failure. How did all this happen in the seconds since Christmas? But just try the Anti-Resolution Diet for Writers, and watch the self-loathing fall away.
Probably The Most Disingenuous Blog Post In The World (With 45% Extra Lies)
It’s the time of year when all those involved in sales choose to ignore lovely loyal customers in favour of their shiny new ones. It’s a terrible state of affairs, which is why, in this blogging review of 2015, I have included several scandalous and downright disgusting lies, which only beloved old blog readers will be able to identify. These shocking, vile and unbelievable lies are only a clickbait, sorry, a click away!
What If We All Behaved In Real Life Like We Behaved Online?
Sometimes I feel like I’m very harsh on authors for merely doing the same things everyone else does. Granted, sometimes it’s deserved, for being too pushy, or rolling out marketing techniques that were last employed by the Stasi or the KGB. Earlier this year, I did a pillory piece on authors who are so pushy that they…
The 2015 Book Trends Review, Er, Reviewed
I did my review of 2015 last January, because I was confident that I would be far too busy in December with things I hadn’t made up yet. At the time, I was fairly certain I’d be flat out right now with glittering parties, dazzling the hoi-polloi with my witty repartee. Sadly, I had to ditch that in…
Tara Sparling writes 