Paperback: Reasons to be Cheeerful by Mark Steel

Part gag-packed polemic, part autobiography of a stroppy south Londoner, this is also a skewed, if insightful political history of the past quarter century. We learn that Steel's career as a bolshie comedian was jump-started by being expelled from school for illicit banana consumption, but the book also reminds us of Neil Kinnock's response when asked if Peter Tatchell was the victim of a Labour Party witch-hunt: "I don't know, but I know the difference between a witch and a fairy." Steel gives a devastating account of police brutality after the Brixton riot, but also ponders how people change at 30. They shriek when you approach their new sofa waving a glass of red wine.