Review
You might not think a book about cleaning could be funny but this made me laugh out loud. In the office. During a quiet lunch hour. Not bad for a guide to housework written by a one-time clueless male for clueless males. Full of useful tips - for men as well as women. At last reading about housework can be fun. --Financial Times, November 2008
Review
Obviously my husband will be getting a pristine copy of How to Get Things Really Flat. The author takes his task seriously but he's also a funny and fluent writer and this one might just hang around long enough to become an essential reference book as our two young boys grow up.
Book Description
I Think, Therefore I Drop My Clothes in a Heap...
Andrew Martin is surprisingly well qualified to write a guide to housework for men. Not only is he a man himself, but he does a lot about the house. On purely humanitarian grounds he recently took over some of the ironing from his wife; he then branched out into bath-cleaning, "specialist" dusting, and washing up after dinner (when he wasn't going out).
For the purposes of this book, Martin has interviewed many experts, and can thus provide answers to such burning questions as:
Do I Need to Bother about the Controls on the Iron?
Is Dust Dangerous?
and
What is All That Stuff at the Bottom of the Laundry Basket?
Andrew Martin is surprisingly well qualified to write a guide to housework for men. Not only is he a man himself, but he does a lot about the house. On purely humanitarian grounds he recently took over some of the ironing from his wife; he then branched out into bath-cleaning, "specialist" dusting, and washing up after dinner (when he wasn't going out).
For the purposes of this book, Martin has interviewed many experts, and can thus provide answers to such burning questions as:
Do I Need to Bother about the Controls on the Iron?
Is Dust Dangerous?
and
What is All That Stuff at the Bottom of the Laundry Basket?
The result is an elegantly informative read, which interweaves witty, practical housework advice and musings on the nature of domestic politics with recollections from the author's Yorkshire childhood and highly illuminating scenes from the daily sit-com of family life.
How to get things really flat will amuse and instruct any man, forced at gunpoint by his significant other to read it.
About the Author
Andrew Martin trained as a barrister before becoming a journalist and novelist. He has contributed to most national newspapers. His seven novels include five titles - beginning with The Necropolis Railway - featuring the young Edwardian detective, Jim Stringer. He has also written short stories and radio plays. He is married with two children, and lives in Highgate.
