My Family and other Disasters

by Lucy Mangan

'Hi Dad.''Who's calling, please?''It's Lucy ... Your daughter.''Ah, yes. Which one are you again? The one that reads or the one that shops?'For Lucy Mangan family life has never exactly been a bed of roses.With parents so parsimonious that if they had soup for a meal they would decline an accompanying drink (soup IS a drink), and a grandmother who refused to sit down for 82 years so that she wouldn't wear out the sofa, Lucy spent most of her childhood oscillating between extreme states of anxiety.Fortunately, this hasn't affected her ability to write, and in this, her first collection of Guardian columns, she shares her hilarious take on everything from family relations to the credit crunch and why organised sport should be abolished.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Autobiography, Biography

236 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2009

About the author

Lucy Mangan (born 1974) is a British journalist and author. She is a columnist, features writer and TV critic for The Guardian. Her writing style is both feminist and humorous.

Mangan grew up in Catford, south east London, but both her parents were originally from Lancashire. She studied English at Cambridge University and trained to be a solicitor. After qualifying as a solicitor, she began to work instead in a bookshop and then, in 2003, found a work experience placement at The Guardian.

She continues to work at The Guardian writing a regular column and TV reviews plus occasional features. Her book My Family and other Disasters (2009) is a collection of her newspaper columns. She has also written books about her childhood and her wedding.

Mangan also has a regular column for Stylist magazine and has been a judge for the Booktrust Roald Dahl Funny Prize.

Reviews

[Diane Barnes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucy Mangan is a funny lady who can find the absurd in anything. Most of these pieces were written for The Guardian. My favorite section was the one in which she describes and skewers television shows, a lot of them American. A good pickup and putdown anytime book.

[Keris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't realise this was a collection of columns. I'd actually read lots of them already - and I find Lucy's writing pretty memorable so didn't re-read - but it still made me laugh out loud on a couple of occasions.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of columns from 'The Guardian' from the past few years, organised into five broad categories.

Some of the columns are amusing (although unfortunately the best lines are quoted in the introduction, rather dimming the humour when read in context later on). Some of them even made me feel a tug of kinship with the author. And others were trite, rather pointless and silly. Possibly this is inherent in having to produce a regular column, since inspiration won't strike every day.

The writing is very good - Mangan has a distinctive style and some excellent turns of phrase. Not a book to sit down and read over a few days, but enjoyable to dip into now and again. The kind of book to leave around for visitors, perhaps.

[Ciara H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and entertaining. She has a quirky outlook. A little dated as the columns are from mid-noughties but enjoyable nonetheless. Hubby is a huge fan which is why I read it. It's more a dip in and out book, rather than reading from cover to cover.
I loved her book "Bookworm".

[Liz Owen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was quite an amusing read, good to dip in and out , lots of short articles.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucy Mangan = perfection, nuff said.

[Sally George · Rating 3 out of 5]

My father always read the Guardian newspaper and years ago we enjoyed reading Sue Limb's column. For a while there was nothing that matched the humour, until Lucy Mangan. This book is a collection of Lucy's columns from the Guardian....some very funny - and a couple of my favourites...when Lucy's father does all the cooking, because, should her mother accidently stumble upon the kitchen, all she can make is "gin surprise"! As a graduate Lucy went to many job interviews in the City and the interviewer would say something like "Tell me again why you would put the proceeds of an index-linked, high-yield, guilt-edged, covalent-bonded, well-endowed hedge fund.....in a Lloyds current account?" and she would say "Because they give you a free money that sorts the coins for you," before being gently escorted off the premises! The next book I am to read, is also from my father's collection and another columnist from the Guardian - Charlie Brooker.

[Josie-anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucy Mangan is a force for good sense and reserve in a world of solipsistic rubbish and nonsense. She and I share a common phobia, for travel and a deeply held suspicion of excessive demonstrations of emotion. She's a glorious bookworm, thoroughly sensible and laugh out loud funny in her columns for The Guardian.

[Ruth Jalfon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of columns from 'The Guardian' newspaper from the past decade or so by Lucy Mangan. Mixture of good and bland but generally amusing and at odd times tears running down my face hilarious. If you read it, read the editor's introduction at the end because it steals some of the best lines and then it is monotonous reading them later.

[Michelle Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, at first I really liked this book it was funny and well written, it was broken up into different sections and a different topic was written about on each entry and I liked that style, however it soon became an effort for me to pick it up as I found it less and less funny and I struggled to finish it.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious!

[Ben Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

lucy mangan is funny.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book, very funny from a clever and witty woman.

[Hannah M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laughed out loud several times and have never read a book that's required me to check the kindle dictionary as often!!

[Ekaterina Botziou · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely collection of Lucy's columns exploring her family and other disasters.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

lightweight, but funny