Crap at Kipling? What the Dickens?

Never ones to sit on their laurels or let a social trend pass by unexploited, the clever folks at the Threadbone Press have added yet another new series - Threadbone Social Skills - to their roster of self-help titles designed to give the modern man and woman a tenuous foothold on the slippery ladder which stands on the pavement of obscurity, leans against the wall of indifference and points towards the dizzy heights of social acceptance. As the great social commentator Spud Common-Tater memorably had it "Nothing so befits a man as a wodge in his hand and a book down his trousers". It is a lesson the folks at the Threadbone Press have learned well.

Dickens and what to do if you're invited to one is the first in a series of pioneering literary/behavioural manuals designed to open the cracks of the socially clenched

Recognising that one of the most effective yet daunting, points of social entry is the literary soirée (or in less affluent circles the monthly book-club), the folks at the Threadbone Press have commissioned a series of books which, using famous authors as a focus, furnish readers with the wherewithal to maintain a pre-prepared five minute conversation which can be inserted into proceedings at any required point (though preferably at some stage between arrival and coat collection). Designed in addition to masque unfortunate gaffs and diffuse tense situations by anticipating likely pitfalls (eg the cocktail olive flicked accidentally down the open cleavage or, more prosaically mention of last night's footie scores), these "authors in a social nutshell" volumes will be a boon to those who have always wanted to known what the great literary giants of the past had to say for themselves but simply can't be arsed to read them for themselves.

Inspired by the same principles of a helter-skelter lifestyle that brought us The Threadbone Bakery's hugely successful Threadispread [find out more HERE], the Threadbone Social Skills series launches with Edwin and Barnaby Grudge's Dickens and what to wear if you're invited to one. It will be followed in the late Spring by Kim and Rikki Tikki-Tavi's Kipling and what to do if you're caught red-handed. Further titles are expected, though not perhaps any time soon. Anyone for Tennyson?

Poster for the new Threadbone Press Social Skills series: armed with them even a relative novice can go cheek to cheek with the in-crowd.