‘My Shit Life So Far’ by Frankie Boyle (HarperCollins)

Ever since being brought up by The Beatles, Frankie Boyle has been a tremendous liar. Join him on his adventures with his chum Clangy The Brass Boy, and laugh as he doesn’t accidentally kill a student nurse when a party gets out of hand. Outspoken, outrageous, and brilliantly inappropriate, Frankie Boyle, the dark heart of Mock the Week, says the unsayable as only he can. From the TV programmes he would like to see made (“Celebrities On Acid On Ice: just like Celebrity Dancing On Ice, but with an opening sequence where Graham Norton hoses the celebrities down with liquid LSD”), to his native Scotland, and the Mayor of London (“voting for Boris Johnson wasn’t that different to voting for a Labrador wearing a Wonder Woman costume”), nothing and no one is safe from Frankie’s fearless, sharp-tongued assault. It is difficult to tell whether he hated writing this book or loved it – it is either an £80,000 suicide note or a plea to be taken seriously. Or not. Either way, it is the most ‘out there’ celeb book of the year. Worth buying just for the picture caption about Hugh Dennis, which I can’t reproduce here.

‘My Favourite People and Me, 1978-1988’ by Alan Davies (Michael Joseph)

I was hoping to find myself in this volume, as I spent a very happy four years studying Drama and Theatre Studies alongside Alan Davies at Kent University (1984-1988), but luckily my miscreant past was not deemed worthy of any mention in this brilliant volume. It is a slightly uncomfortable scrapbook of a format, with a series of chapters about different influences, but through the sometimes moving narrative, he paints a really compelling picture of his politicisation, and his real passion for football, family, and music. It is, as Alan says, “an attempt to remember who and what I liked as a boy/youth/idiot and to work out why. There are also some pictures”.

‘He Took My Kidney Then Broke My Heart/’ by Dave Spikey (O’Mara Books)

Everyone knows that their local newspaper has its own unique idea of what is newsworthy - and how these fascinating, and sometimes bizarre, happenings should be shared with the community. In ‘He Took My Kidney, Then Broke My Heart’, Dave Spikey lampoons a collection of the most outrageous, amusing, and downright farcical local news stories from the past few years. All the articles are 100% genuine, ranging from Fun with Ferrets at the YMCA (Halifax Courier) to the intriguingly titled Llama Drama Ding Dong (Lancashire Evening Post). Each news story is framed and analysed by Dave’s comic running commentary. From the man who stole a Grim Reaper costume from Morecambe Town Hall, to the Leicester student who opted for suicide bomber fancy dress (and then strolled through his city centre), no story is safe from Dave’s laugh-out-loud mockery, as he pokes fun at the articles and their protagonists with his trademark wit and humour. Brilliant, and a perfect addition to the smallest room in the house.

‘Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story’ by Ant and Dec (Michael Joseph)

If I told you, as the press release does, that “this is the book everyone has been waiting for”, and that it is written by two “national heroes”, you might get rather excited and start wondering whether this was the hitherto undiscovered correspondence between Churchill and FDR, or Boswell and Johnson. But no – it is the autobiography of Ant and Dec. Yup, that’s right, those national heroes Ant and Dec. On every level, this book should be terrible – the appalling Us And Our Celebrity Friends photos, the grimace-in-silence anecdotes about Z-listers, and the never-ending jokey matiness which wears thin before you have even finished chapter one. But after three chapters, I just relaxed and let it all brainwash over me. They are great light entertainers, they have an effortless charm, and I suspect they will be working long beyond the sell-by-date of most of their contemporaries. They are, in fact, the greatest people ever to walk on this planet, and I think they should be canonised and made joint President Of the World. With Vernon Kay as their deputy.