This book is about the end of the world, so it talks about diet cookbooks, self-help gurus, criminals crawling in the sewers, overworked editors, the US economic crisis and the mass cultivation of alfalfa fields. One character appears to lose a finger during the course of the story. This is the story of the Apocalypse of Pleasant Days. It tells about a deadly plague of human happiness, an epidemic of warm fluffy hugs and a mysterious trailer on the very edge of the desert... Everything else in the book is a lie. Just remember that Happiness™ is close - very close. Before you even blink an eye.

"Happiness™" by Will Ferguson is a must-read for those people (how many of them are there left?) who have not forgotten how to laugh without turning off their brains.

Jonathan Coe