Sebastian Faulks is one of my top three favourite writers but how shall I most eloquently express my view of the book? IT SUCKED!

Faulks is a master parodist and he's on good form here. As is often the case with this type of collection some of the work is a little hit and miss, but the good outweighs the bad.

Enjoyed these little pieces, and read them aloud to Paul in bed! May pass it on to my brother- or sister-in-law...

'Pistache, pis-tash n. a friendly spoof or parody of another's work. [Deriv. uncertain. Possibly a cross between pastiche and pisstake.:] This should have been very, very good. In the end it was a little hit and miss, with some of the bits of bite-size satire more gimmicky than anything else. Worth reading for a few of the best though, including 'Dan Brown visits the cash dispenser', 'Charles Dickens has a shot at being concise', 'Henry James writes a stand-up joke' (my personal fave!), 'Sylvia Plath tells the story of Goldilocks', and 'William Shakespeare writes a speech for Basil Fawlty'.

Very witty and clever, but having also read the follow up Pistache Returns, I rate it higher. Maybe they got better over time. A fun book to dip into and some good illustrations.

It is spoof of another's work. None of the spoof is more than 2 pages long. Few ecamples, Martin Amis sends his lad to Hogwarts, Jane Austen steps out with American Psycho or Dan Brown visits the cash dispenser. Some of sotuations alone are funny. Sometimes complex writing on innocent subject as 'how to boil an egg' makes it funny (Updike). Though since I have never read Martin Amis, Philip Larkin, Chaucer or Updike - several of spoofs were lost on me or I couldn't appreciate their art completely. When I actually read these authors, I will come back to this book.

3.5⭐️

My review here

Excellent. The Chandler and Greene sections were particularly well observed. But probably my favourite line was "Are you licensed to till?". I laughed a lot.

I enjoyed these pieces on The Write Stuff, but they don't stan up as more than momentary jokes, not proper parodies, which critique a writer by amplifying their weaknesses. The best are satires, which use the writer's style to critique contemporary mores. The Pope and Larkin pieces work well like that.

Little nuggets of amusing prose. Would make a great present for a literary friend.

Very short excerpts that show Faulks has a mastery for mimicking another writer's tone. I particularly enjoyed Wodehouse in the world of Chandler and vice versa. It's a very short book and should be taken slowly so as to savour it all the better. Unfortunately it is only truly amusing if you are familiar with the style of each of the writers mimicked but this is not Faulks' fault and even the ones I didn't know are bound to have been true to form if all the authors I did recognise are anything to go by.