Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker

I have often felt that Will Self was not for me. Too clever by half, too much using of words that I didn't know, too much drugs, too much superciliousness, too much braggadocio.

It turns out that I'm wrong. As it happens, he's rather good. He sends himself up rather a lot in this short book - ostensibly a book of restaurant reviews from his New Statesman column, but something that's actually a social commentary - and as a result it's rather a good read.

The restaurants in question - ranging from McDonalds to Greggs, Paul to EAT, KFC to Pizza Express - aren't, quite, the standard restaurants for a restaurant review; but there again, these aren't the standard reviews anyway.

If you wanted an introduction to Self's work, this isn't bad.