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How to Be a Husband  By  cover art

How to Be a Husband

By: Tim Dowling
Narrated by: Tim Dowling
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Publisher's summary

The much-loved Guardian columnist asks what it takes to make a husband, and looks to his own married life to provide the answer. (Anything resembling advice should be taken at listener's own risk.)

You'll never get divorced if you never get married. Not even your granny minds if you live in sin anymore. And if you're single you can choose curtains without somebody else butting in. So why bother with marriage? It can't just be an easy way round having to buy your own deodorant.

Guardian columnist Tim Dowling is a husband of some 20 years. His marriage is resounding proof that even the most impossible partnership can work out for the best. Some of the time.

So while this book is called How to Be a Husband, it's not really a how-to guide at all. Nor is it a compendium of petty remarks and brinkmanship - although it contains plenty of both. You may pick up a few DIY hints. You might learn that, while marriage is founded on love, it endures through bloody hard work. Most likely it will make you whimper with the laughter of painful recognition. How To be a Husband is a cautionary tale about throwing caution to the wind. It's the strange romance of two people consenting to share a roll-on. It's a new manifesto for marriage and an answer to why, even when we suck at it, we stick at it.

©2014 HarperCollinsPublishers Limited (P)2014 HarperCollinsPublishers Limited

Critic reviews

Praise for Tim Dowling's column:

”Tim Dowling is one of the funniest journalists around, with each of his pieces guaranteed to produce at least one belly laugh and further scattered smiles of appreciation” (John Self, Asylum)

”The highest-profile newspaper columnist in the UK” (Fleeting Books)

Praise for Tim Dowling's previous books:

”A sharp and fun Gilbert Pinfold for the modern age”(The Times)

”An acerbically dry and hilarious tale”(InStyle Magazine)

”Dowling keeps up a strong narrative thread and never for a moment loses sight of his primary purpose and talent” (Spectator)

”Dowling's novel is a fine comedy of domestic triviality, reaching laugh-out-loud funniness reassuringly often” (Metro)

”Here's a novel that'll make you laugh out loud” (Eve)

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