Shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award 2019, Diary of a Somebody is a unique mix of poetry and diary by the unofficial Poet Laureate of Twitter, the enigmatic Brian Bilston. Otherwise known as the poet laureate of Twitter, he has an uncanny knack of seeing the absurdity in everyday life and then turning it into rhyme. Whilst that goes by the wayside some days, we are still treated to many poems of the very clever and mostly rhyming variety that I love. It also has genuine heart - and scores of poems so witty and accomplished that, in the real world, their author would surely be as famous as, well .

The plot is familiar - washed-up middle-aged guy is out of step with family, work and the wider world, but finds companionship and finally redemption through poetry and books. The witticisms came thick and fast, sometimes so many punchlines in a row that at times I felt rather, um, punched. or Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim; or it may be lit up by a character of memorable monstrousness (Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel Deverell in Angel, Philip Roth’s Mickey Sabbath in Sabbath’s Theater … name your favourite). Eithne Farry * Sunday Express * Bilston is no stranger to crafting cleverly composed poetry * Huffington Post * Part John Cooper Clarke, part Frank Sidebottom . This is the humdrum, unglamorous side of poetry that is often hidden from ordinary members of the public.He has also published a collection of football poetry, 50 Ways to Score a Goal (Macmillan, 2021), and his acclaimed poem Refugees (Palazzo, 2019) has been made into an illustrated book for children. So here comes Brian Bilston, using his gift of turning the mundane, the everyday into a diary entry and/or a poem, using the power of wit and the ability to mine the language for puns and other delights. As if life couldn’t get worse, this paragon decides he will relocate to the US taking Sophie and Dylan with him - this, just when Brian was starting to bond really well with his son. A beautifully written story, peppered with poems that enhance and advance the story, rather than distract. When Toby goes missing, just after the announcement of the publication of his first collection, This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave, Brian becomes the number one suspect.

In fact I rather regretted reading it over just a couple of days - it would have been better to take longer and saver it. When you are in the slightly desperate state of needing a book which is going to make you laugh out loud on every page, the chances of picking one up are obviously vanishingly small.This was an interesting, semi-autobiographical novel by one of my favourite poets, Brian Bilston, based on the author's purported diary for a year.