Celebrity novels

[tobee]

Reading the disappointing reads thread it made me wonder if any celebrity novels are any good?

So Richards Osman and Coles, Bob Mortimer 👎 (hear the Family Fortunes "uh-oh" X sound affect. And everyone seems to hate David Willaims books on Mumsnet. But seen people talk about Jenny Eclair books favourably.

So can celebrities write novels?

I tend to avoid like the plague as I think agents/publishers are after the buck that the cachet of the celebrity name gives and standard of writing is a secondary consideration. I may be missing out.

Anyway, celebrity novels that you loved, hated, feel indifferent to.

NB This is really about fiction only not non fiction.

I received Michael Caine's novel Deadly Game for Christmas so will report back.

This thread has reminded me how much I enjoyed one of Dawn French's novels, I should look for her others. Can't remember what it was called, I grabbed it off the display shelf at the library assuming it was a memoir as I'd no idea she wrote fiction. Not literature, to be sure, but utterly entertaining.

Julian clary wrote a few grown up books before he started writing kids books, they were great and I live in hope he’ll write more. They were very Julian tho, innuendo etc but really well written.

his kids books, the bolds series, are also great if you have 7-11 year olds

Dawn French as a novelist is absolute shite. One of the worst books I have ever read. Had she not been Dawn French there is no way it would have been published.

The most worrying trend is for celebrity childrens authors.....David baddiel, ade apitan, Aylisha Dixon , dermot o'dreary, rochelle humes, chris hoy, clare balding ..frank lampard, miranda hart....the list is endless all shite and probably ghost written

I hated the first Richard Osman book. Couldn’t go further than a chapter or so. I have quite enjoyed Anton Du Beke & I read one of Carol Kirkwood. Hers is very lightweight read on the beach type but ok. Anton’s was a bit better I thought

Part of whats annoying is not knowing which authors actually wrote their books and which are ghost written. Or heavily supported by editors.

Find it hard to believe that Anton du Beke, Alisha Dixon, Alan Titchmarsh and many others didn't have help .

Just been catching up on this thread. Some interesting and amusing responses!!

Wrt pp I'm surprised that David Baddiel's kids' books aren't good as he's extremely bright, used to writing comedy/serious stuff and has written several adult fiction. I haven't read any of his books for any age range. Maybe he doesn't really bother for kids' books or can't get the genre right?

I've enjoyed all of graham norton's fiction and his latest one was his best yet. Really good.

Also agree that dawn French's books are awful...pains me to say it as she's a comedy icon and I love her. But they're all dreadful.

I like graham nortons novels too!