Diary of a Somebody

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His ex-wife has taken up with a new man, he seems to constantly disappoint his long-suffering son, and at work he is drowning in a sea of spreadsheets and management jargon. I predict that Brian Bilston will soon be * Reader's Digest * Brian Bilston is a laureate for our fractured times, a wordsmith who cares deeply about the impact his language makes as it dances before our eyes -- Ian McMillan Brian Bilston is bringing poetry to the masses . He sinks deeper and deeper into a state of lethargy, with only the cat for company, and his funny and sometimes subversive poems to lighten his mood.

The character of Brian Bilston (it was unnecessary for him to use his own nom de plume) was so insufferable, not just in the little amusing ways I found relatable, but in huge sympathy-sapping ways that meant you never rooted for his redemption. Brian Bilston should be Poet Laureate -- John O'Farrell The English comic novel, whose death this year was announced prematurely, is actually alive, well and in the safe hands of Brian Bilston -- Jonathan Coe * The Times * In a similar way to Morrissey and John Cooper Clarke, [Bilston] has the ability to make the mundane both funny and beautiful - whether that's taking out the bins or procrastinating on Twitter .

Photograph: Alamy View image in fullscreen Diary of a Somebody focuses on Brian, a 45-year-old sad sack with a yen for custard creams.

William Hartston * Daily Express * Word play, laugh-out-loud poems and the deft skewering of office life are part of the fun in this brilliant comic debut.Brian is my hero, stuck in a rut, divorced with a teenage son with going nowhere job, dreams to become the next big poet. Even when Liz quite obviously asks Brian something where her meaning is quite obvious, for instance, if he would like a nightcap, she gets a monologue with the reasons why he is unable to, or even told that he is watching reruns of A Touch of Frost on the TV that night! topical, witty, thoughtful * Irish Times * The pseudonymous Brian Bilston turns the base metal of comic verse into gold . However, by the middle of the book the too-clever-by-half poems and incessant painting of Brian as a hapless Some mother's do 'ave 'em sad-sack began to pall.

Read this novel in short bursts, pausing to savour its individual brilliancies * Guardian * Bilston is the greatest English anti-hero of our time. When Toby goes missing, just after the announcement of the publication of his first collection, This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave , Brian becomes the number one suspect.

He finds it difficult in his depressed state to engage with his teenage son Dylan who visits once a week. A combination of traditional story peppered with pithy poems about love, life, music through the ages and family dynamics. So here comes Brian Bilston, using his gift of turning the mundane, the everyday into a diary entry and/or a poem, using the power of wit and the ability to mine the language for puns and other delights. A new collection, Days Like These, which features a poem for every day of the year, published in October 2022.