I love Armando Iannucci. There's not a single thing this man has been involved in that I've not enjoyed on some level. He's a genius, yet he doesn't seem aware of it, which makes him quite an endearing character.
His 1st book, "Facts and Fancies", is one of my "go to" books when I've exhausted all unread books, and want something I know will deliver. To say I was excited about this book would be an understatement.
And it IS a good book. Whereas F&F was a chapter-chapter-chapter affair, this is very much a brain dump - some "bits" are 3 or 4 lines, some several pages long. Some of it is genius, some just misses the mark (for me). F&F latched onto absurd premises, took it and ran it until the original idea seemed plausible (such as the mathematical formula for nursery rhymes), whereas this book doesn't let each idea flourish in the same way. Which is a shame, but then perhaps they wouldn't work the same way had Iannucci expanded the concepts and taken a flight of fancy with them. Also, in fairness to Iannucci - he's already written that book, and this is a different book, meaning that just doing the same thing again probably wasn't the spark of what he wanted to achieve.
But it IS a good book. The above paragraph sounds so negative, but it really is a good book. If you appreciate Iannucci's more surreal works (his show for example), you'll definitely enjoy this, and annoy the heck out of whoever is sat nearby with chuckles of delight.