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The Deeper Meaning of Liff by: Douglas Adams, John Lloyd

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Average rating -

Rating: - Entertaining, but slight

This is an excellent little humourous dictionary of things that don't actually have names, but really should (like those corrugated bits of flesh you get round your ankles from wearing too-tight socks). Good fun, and Douglas Adams fans will find lots of great jokes within, just be aware that by it's very nature this is the sort of book you'll pull off of the shelf and randomly flick through for 5 minutes from time to time, rather than something you'll sit down and read from cover to cover. Great fun, but admittedly slight, even in it's expanded form.

Rating: - Disappointing

I was expecting something readible, and entertaining. I would advise anyone considering buying this book to buy Salmon of Doubt instead. It is important to note that this is not a proper book, it's a dictionary. It follows this format:

-name of obscure town-: -obscure meaning for 'word' aka obscure town-

1 star, not worth the effort.

Rating: - Pure Genius!

What a fantastic book - what a brilliant concept. Hundreds of words simply wasting their time hanging around on signposts. Hundreds of objects, situations, states of mind etc. for which there are no words in common use.

Two quick examples...

Have you ever walked along a street, only to encounter someone coming in the opposite direction, at which point you engage in a little dance that involves both of you skipping from side to side, interspersed with apologies? You have? Droitwich!

Those bits you find in bacon, that you only actually discover when you bite on them and break your teeth...? Beccles!

As for seeing someone you recognise at the opposite end of a long corridor, and judging when is just precisely the right time to let them know you've seen them... well I'll leave that for you to find out yourself.

This is a great, great book. One you can come back to time and time again, and always find yourself sniggering, or laughing out loud, or sometimes just nodding sagely (with a smirk at your mouth!).

If anything, The Deeper Meaning of Liff is not quite as good as the original Meaning of Liff, the former being a thicker version of the latter (extended by using words hanging around on non-British signposts), but if you don't have the original, you might as well buy this. It can only be 5 stars! Fantastic!

Rating: - Random, hilarious...the best book in the world.

Douglas Adams has already become famous with the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy with it's really random approach to the world in his classic sci-fi humour. In the Deeper Meaning of Liff, Douglas teams up with John LLoyd to make the ultimate in random and true humour. If things that are funny becasue they're true are you thing, then you will instantly fall in love with this book. There is not a single page where there isn't at least one word that will set you bursting out with laughter. All words are place names from around the word and some words even have illustrations to go with them. What should really be known as the random bible, The Deeper Meaning of Liff is a collection of common objects or experiences for which there is no word for it and damn, is it funny or what? Even the little bit at the beginning about the preface reprints is hilarious. So why not sit back when your bored, get the Deeper Meaning of Liff off the shelves and prepare to be laughing for ages, therefore making it the worst book to take to places where you must be quiet. Genius.

Rating: - This book had me helpless with laughter

A wonderful concept. Douglas Adams and John Lloyd used actual place names from the UK and beyond, and then assigned meanings to them for situations and descriptions of things that don't have a word in the English Language.

That descrition doesn't do it justice really, but a quick read of a few of the definitions at my local book shop had me convinced (You'll be lucky to find it at a local bookshop these days, so buy it here).

I'm a major fan of all of Douglas Adams work, and this ranks right up with the best of them. It isn't a story like the Hitch-hikers 'trilogy' or Dirk Gently books, but it just bursting with Douglas' unique brand of humour. I was truly helpless with laughter.

Fantastic!!

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