The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie

[Forkboy]

I first read this years ago but read it again just recently.I figured with the deserved attention Mr. Laurie is getting that more people should read his book.It's one of the funniest books I've ever read,and I think a lot of his newer fans will be suprised at how good he is as a writer as well as an actor.

Imagine a funny Ludlum or Forsythe novel and you've got a good idea where this book comes from.



Chapter 1 excerpt here;

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?z=y&ean=9780671020828&displayonly=EXC

Rayner, I estimated, was ten years older than me. Which was fine. Nothing wrong with that. I have good, warm, non-arm-breaking relationships with plenty of people who are ten years older than me. People who are ten years older than me are, by and large, admirable. But Rayner was also three inches taller than me, four stones heavier, and at least eight however-you-measure-violence units more violent. He was uglier than a car park, with a big, hairless skull that dipped and bulged like a balloon full of spanners, and his flattened, fighter's nose, apparently drawn on his face by someone using their left hand, or perhaps even their left foot, spread out in a meandering, lopsided delta under the rough slab of his forehead.

And God Almighty, what a forehead. Bricks, knives, bottles and reasoned arguments had, in their time, bounced harmlessly off this massive frontal plane, leaving only the feeblest indentations between its deep, widely-spaced pores. They were, I think, the deepest and most widely-spaced pores I have ever seen in human skin, so that I found myself thinking back to the council putting-green in Dalbeattie, at the end of the long, dry summer of '76.

Moving now to the side elevation, we find that Rayner's ears had, long ago, been bitten off and spat back on to the side of his head, because the left one was definitely upside down, or inside out, or something that made you stare at it for a long time before thinking 'oh, it's an ear'.

[Geezus]

1. Hm, actors don't usually write books.

At least not by themselves. That might be worth picking up.

[Forkboy]

2. He started in comedy so it comes naturally

"Fry and Laurie" is still one of my all-time favorite shows and it was twenty years ago.The books really funny,but not at the expense of story.

See if the library has it.That's where I got it. :)

[Geezus]

3. Will do. N/T

[matt819]

4. Hilarious

I read this years and years ago and have been hoping he'd write another one. Absolutely hysterical.

[Forkboy]

5. News is he's writing another novel,and the screenplay for The Gun Seller!

YES!