Things Snowball: Amazon.co.uk: Rich Hall: 9780349115108: Books

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Review

'Supremely talented, quick-witted, topical and charismatic' THE TIMES ** 'Unmissable' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY ** 'Next to [Hall], all other comics seem one-dimensional' OBSERVER ** 'His rapid fire wit is so spontaneous he should leave his brain to science' GUARDIAN ** 'Comedy at its best, beautifully observed and fully realised' INDEPENDENT (review sheet with further quotes available)

Christopher Brookmyre

'Only marginally less threatening than it is funny. Ideal reading material for killing those long hours while being held hostage by enraged Montana militia-men'

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First Sentence
BACK WHEN I was a kid my grandfolks, who lived in Eastern Tennessee, owned and operated a small nuclear plant - nothing fancy, mind you, just a little 'mom and pop'-type operation, featuring one of those old-fashioned uranium-rod reactors you hardly see anymore and a little cooling-tower, which Granpa painted a cheery blue and yellow. Read the first page

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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

18 Reviews

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Check out those meat hats., 19 Feb 2003

By

D J. Griffiths (Wales) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Things Snowball (Paperback)

This collection of bizarre, surreal, satirical, but more importantly very funny short stories and anecdotes is the funniest thing I've read for a long while. Rich Hall's wry humour touches on subjects such as Neil Diamonds love for hard hats, his grandparents nuclear power plant, london estate agents, and a brilliant satirical spoof of Andy McNab featuring references to Dubya and his fight against the Axis of Easy Listening.

There are approximately forty of these quips on offer in 'Things Snowball', most being under five pages long, which as much as anything makes it an easily digestible read. Very much worth checking out.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well written, pretty funny, 5 Sep 2003

By

Nigel Collier (Newcastle upon Tyne) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Things Snowball (Paperback)

"Good word using" was how Jonathan Ross summed up Rich Hall's book when he had him on his radio show, generously allowing him to use that quote on future prints. And the book does have 'good word using'.

It's a collection of completely disparate short stories written in various styles. Hall is an extremely accomplished and stylish writer, with superb, economical use of language and imagery. He reminded me at one minute like Harry Hill: latching onto a surreal concept and taking it to it's most illogical conclusion, and at another like a trailer trash US version of John Shuttleworth finding joy in the most mundane daily irrelevance.

There's nothing really linking the stories together - they all come out of left-field - but through them he pokes observational fun at the Brits (especially Aberdeen) but reserves his most cutting humour for his fellow countrymen...like Michael Moore but funny and disarming. The stories are witty, whimsical and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.

It's a book you will dip into and have a meaningless 10 minutes of fun from time to time.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nightmare Journey into the American Dream. Like, 21 Dec 2003

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D. Parkman "ironchimp" (UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Things Snowball (Paperback)

A very, very funny book. Most of it you can really relate to (estate agents, suburban boredom and nuclear powerstation operation) other things you can only dream of (drinking in Utah).
I've seen a little of his humour before on TV, but felt I'd give it a bash after reading most of it in the book store. It was definitely worth it. The bite size stories are off centre with a slant that will make you think whilst you imbibe.

Oh, and his review of Aberdeen is spot on. Like.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Reminiscent of Woody Allen
Having enjoyed Rich Halls stand up (a man for whom the word "lugubrious" was invented), I risked this on Kindle. One of my good decisions. Read more