If You Can't Take a Joke

The Travels of a Naval Salesman is a memoir written by Gordon Gray, relating how he began his career in sales as an utter novice and how he rose through the ranks of his peers to become an expert in the field of the worldwide field of naval defence sales.


It's a fascinating read and is a tell all book that covers a vast range of subjects, topics and the highly intelligent musings of a man who has been there, done that and also sold it!

Join Gordon as he drinks some highly illegal and absolutely disgusting moonshine alcohol in Saudi Arabia. Gordon reveals that, on balance, he would rather have been drinking Cola!

Also puzzle with Gordon as to why certain sections of the media (you know who they are!) prefer to eschew the pedestrian descriptive phrase "international Defence Salesman) for the somewhat more pejorative term: "Arms Dealer?"

It couldn't be because they are -gasp!- clueless as to the reality of the situation, or perhaps even just a little bit biased?

It's clear from reading Gordon's book that this is his viewpoint and one that he puts forward with admirable alacrity and commonsense.

Travel with Gordon as he takes his first steps in his career in 1977 with Decca Radar/Racal Decca, where he worked as Sales Manager and Far East Sales Manager, culminating with a position as International Sales Executive for BAE Systems. From which he took early retirement at age 57, with a voluntary redundancy package.

Find out why, during his career after he left the Royal Navy he turned down and eyewateringly high salary increase to tempt him to take a new job, and how some time later he was proven to be absolutely correct to turn the job down and the several desperate entreaties for him to please reconsider his decision.

Learn about Gordon's first and long lusted for first sales trip. Which was all the way to Bradford in West Yorkshire. Which helped him to decide on a sideways move to another part of the Decca group which, eventually brought Gordon to the field of international sales and visits to Saudi Arabia, Korea, Hong Kong and beyond.

This is a highly entertaining and informative read, amply illustrated with a variety of photographs,  and your reviewer can recommend this book as a stocking filler this Christmas for people in sales and also for those who are fans of well-written biographical memoirs.

It is published in paperback by Matador at a very reasonable £9.99 and is available to purchase from the That's Books and Entertainment book and gift shop, the portal to which you will find to the righthand side of this review.

Times Change

Times Change is the debut novel of solicitor turned novelist John Ellison.

It is set ten years prior to the introduction of the Children Act of 1989.

That act brought about radical and far reaching changes to a legal framework that had not changed in many decades and which struggled to be relevant in the modern world.

Newly qualified solicitor Robert Fordham has made the move from rural Somerset to the London Borough of Haringey.

He starts working on some fairly tough and stressful child removal court cases and also on the perhaps equally stressful task of finding himself a woman to share his new life with.

The author has based the novel on his own experiences as a solicitor working for the London Borough of Haringey during the time in which this novel is set.

He explains: "In those days, child protection law was a mess. On the one hand, when strictly applied, the rules deciding what evidence be given in the juvenile court to support the making of a care order were absurdly restrictive.

"But on the other hand," he continued: " the rights of both parents and children to be represented were inadequate. Results all too often resembled lotteries. But whilst it is true that the legal framework today is much safer, social work time has become obsessed with computer record keeping and impossibly restricted."

The novel explores the social life of Robert Fordham and also the professional life which saw Labour council members refusing to implement budget cuts demanded by the newly elected Conservative government and what happens when he comes face-to-face with the magistrate's bench in Haringey, a bench lead by a strong-willed female magistrates.

The book is published by Matador at £8.99.

Happiness Diary

Happiness Diary is a splendid new book from psychologist and researcher Narissa Phipps.

Narissa has undertaken detailed research on the concept of happiness and the result is this highly useful and extremely readable book called Happiness Diary.

It is aimed at helping and uplifting late teens and adults and helping them to become more happy.

Readers are encouraged to use the book for just five minutes a day and it is aimed at helping the reader to be able to create healthy and log-lasting habits towards happiness.

There are daily contemplations that are designed to inspire the read, plus there are daily challenges that are intended to test the reader.

It is intended that people reading this book will soon be able to experience the fact that actions really are better than mere words.

Narissa believes: "One day at a time, you can make a difference." And she is confidant that this can start for people once they begin to read her book.

The book can help readers to become inspired to change their attitudes to their own surroundings and also to others in their lives, in order to bring about a way of life that is truly happier.

Narissa was able to draw upon her qualifications as a psychologist and her experiences employed in the field of children's mental health.

The book will make an ideal Christmas present for those who are faced with the vicissitudes of life and who might need the highly valuable help that this book can offer.

It is published in hardback by The Book Guild and costs £11.99.

It is available from the That's Books and Entertainment book and gift shop, the portal to which you will find to the right hand side of this book review.

I believe this book will make a most excellent stocking filler this Christmas.

Peginoor Land of the Lost

Peginoor Land of the Lost is a new novel for children by Nanna Lambert.

What happens to all the objects ad things that get irretrievably lost?

They all travel to a very special, mystical land called Peginoor.

Sometimes they travel to Peginoor because they feel a call to go there because they are required there.

Sometimes they decide to travel there of their own volition, because they feel that they are unloved and unwanted.

Brother and sister Jack And Marcie are holidaying with their grandparents and whilst exploring their grandfather’s allotment they discover a strange code hidden there.

This single event is just the beginning of a fantastical journey which eventually leads them to the secret land that is Peginoor!

It is a truly wondrous place filled with mystery wisdom and much, much more.

But eventually they come to understand that the very realm of Peginoor is under threat from dark forces that challenge the important goodness that is at the very heart of the existence of Peginoor.

Jack and Marcie find themselves at the heart of a battle to defeat these dark forces, yet they ultimately become aware that Peginoor is holding them both captive. And to free themselves they must seek out and discover the object that they are searching for.

This is an ideal Christmas present for children aged 7+ (for parents or grandparents to read from) or for older children aged 9 and upwards.

The book is published by Matador at a very reasonable £7.99 and will make an excellent stocking filler.

You can buy this book just over to the right from the That’s Books and Entertainment bookshop.

Ilona Lost

Ilona Lost is a romantic yet tragic novel by author Jim Pinnells.

It is set during the First World War and it tells the story of an English nurse called Evelyn who is working with the wounded on the Eastern Front in the year 1916.

She witnesses great horrors, the mutilations, the loss of sight, the illnesses like tetanus, the problems caused by gangrene and even worse as the “lucky” ones are invalided back home to face an unknowable future filled with pain and heartache.

Evelyn rescues a teenage Polish girl, Illona, from being raped by Cossack cavalry.

Numbed by the horrors that they have seen the two women manage to flee as Lenin and the Red Army begin to take over and they fall in love.

Eventually they arrive in England but they quarrel and part.

But is their love story over?

Or is there still more tragedy to follow?

Read this novel to find out more.

It is published by Matador at £7.99.

Twelve Thrilling Tales

Twelve Thrilling Tales by Rita Cheminais is exactly what it says on the tin. Twelve thrilling tales.

Each of the stories is short, yet are packed with several punches lacking in some novel length works that I could mention. But wont!

And the twists within each story? Oh, how beautifully they are executed!

And all with a touch of humour that certainly helps to boil the pot just a little more!

There’s a couple who meet up with a dead woman on a luxury cruise ship, a murder mystery weekend with a difference, a very unfortunate occurrence at the Hotel California, a little trouble in an overgrown jungle of a garden, some problems at a writers’ circle and a variety of other grim, yet gripping, stories.

Rita Cheminais is a film and TV extra, a voice over artiste and also works as a promotional model when she is not penning cracking short stories. And she is also a member of a writers’ club.

The book is published by Matador at the rather nifty price of £7.99 and will make an excellent Christmas gift for the reader in your life.

It's ideal for reading in front of an open fire, with brandy and minced pies at your side on Christmas afternoon!

You can buy it from the That’s Books and Entertainment bookshop. You’ll find the portal just to the right hand side of this review.

You can also purchase thousands of other books, Christmas presents, Christmas food and drink, etc., there, too.

Belinda: The Forest How Red Squirrel

Belinda: The Forest How Red Squirrel is an utterly charming and highly captivating book that is a three-year photographic study of red squirrels in their natural habitat by squirrel enthusiast Peter Trimming.

The study was undertaken by Peter in Forest How, which is situated in Eskdale, Cumbria.

During his research he witnesses a terrible and highly destructive outbreak of squirrel pox. Sadly this outbreak killed the entire adult population in Forest How.

However, despite this dreadful event a small number of the younger red squirrels who were born in the spring of 2014 managed to survive the outbreak and began to rebuild their shattered colony.

They emerged in gu4esthouse gardens from the late summer of 2014. A squirrel, named as Belinda, is chosen by Peter as a special recipient of his attention and he watches her closely.

This book is about wildlife conservation and it contains a wealth of detail about the colony, but it also features a multiplicity of full-colour images of the squirrels and their lay-to-day lives.

The introduction was written by Helen Butler MBE, who is of the Wight Squirrel Project and the IOW Red Squirrel Trust.

As Helen Butler MBE puts it: “Peter is not only a keen observer but a very good photographer.”

The book is published by the Book Guild in hardback at £12.95 and is a must buy Christmas present for the wildlife lovers in your life. Or even for your own Christmas stocking!

You can buy it from the That’s Books and Entertainment bookshop, which you will find just to the right of this book review.