Perkins, Sue "Spectacles"

Perkins, Sue "Spectacles" - 2015

Sue Perkins is one of my favourite comedians. She is witty, she is funny, she is smart, she is kind, there is nothing about her not to love.

When I saw her memoir, I just had to get it. After all, I try to see anything that comes up on television with her, whether she turns up on her own in shows like "QI", "The Big Fat Quiz of the Year" or with her comedy partner Mel Giedroyc - yes, the one with the unpronounceable last name - in The "Great British Bake-Off" or other shows, she is just great.

I was only reading the back cover and was already captivated. Read the text below and tell me it's not an invitation to read the book.

I was not surprised that I liked the book but I can honestly say that I think Sue Perkins is also a great writer, she can tell a story on the page as if you are right there. You have the feeling, she is sitting there right next to you and you can hear her voice.

And a lot of things are just so hilarious, even if they wouldn't seem like that if you came across this in real life. But she just makes it so funny. One of the books that you don't want to read in public if you have a reputation to save. I had to laugh out loud so many times and couldn't even prevent tears running down my face.

So, it was fun to see how she got to be on the show: "The World’s Most Dangerous Roads" even though she claims she doesn't like driving. Well, they hired her for a show called "The World’s Most Interesting Roads" and then conveniently "forgot" to tell her they'd changed the concept. Everyone else would make a big deal of this, Sue Perkins turns it into the funniest story ever.

Little anecdotes about her school life, her family, just the things that could happen to any of us, made the book even funnier.

I also really love the cover "picture", a brilliant design just highlighting the most important parts of her face.

From the back cover:

"When I began writing this book, I went home to find what my mum might have kept of my stuff. What I found was that she hadn't kept some of it. She had kept all of it - every bus ticket, postcard, school report - from the moment I was born to the moment I finally had the confidence to turn round and say 'why is our house full of this shit?'

Sadly, a recycling 'incident' destroyed the bulk of this archive. This has meant two things: firstly, Dear Reader, you will never get to see countless drawings of wizards, read a poem about corn on the cob, or marvel at the kilos of brown flowers I so lovingly pressed as a child. Secondly, it's left me with no choice but to actually write this thing myself.

This, my first ever book, will answer questions such as 'Is Mary Berry real?', 'Is it true you wear a surgical truss?' 'Does orchestral conducting simply involve waving your arms around?' and 'is a non-spherically symmetric gravitational pull from outside the observable Universe responsible for some of the observed motion of large objects such as galactic clusters in the universe?

Most of this book is true. I have, of course, amplified my more positive characteristics in an effort to make you like me.

Thank you for reading."