Contacts: From the award-winning comedian, the most heartwarming, touching and funny fiction book

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Back in London, his flatmate worries what she’s about to come home and find, but is determined to find and save him. We see snippets of his childhood, the fun times with his sister, his love for his Dad, the dreams of conquering the world when working in a start-up company with his buddy Karl, how he met his partner Michaela. This book is written by comedian Mark Watson and though James’ thoughts and experiences and his friends’ and families’ reflection on their relationship with James are often raw and poignant, (I’m afraid) the topic itself meant it really did not hit or even tickle my funny bone. I think it was about an hour too long, At 11 hours and 5 minutes it is on the long side and it could do with a bit more of a ruthless edit.

And yes, it's great that James changed his mind in the end, or had it changed for him by circumstances, but he didn't really change his mind in the sense that he doesn't acknowledge how much of an ass he was and that he hasn't ruled out getting back to his plan in the future. Just to say at the outset that this novel deals with the subject of suicide, a sensitive subject for some no doubt.Clearly everyone else seems to love this book, so this is just a suggestion if you are feeling vulnerable - and I am certainly not against tackling the very important subject of suicide in fiction. James is a wonderful creation, someone pushed to the very limits and doing something incredibly extreme.

Funny and wise, tender and deeply moving, Contacts is a beautiful story about the weight of loneliness, the importance of kindness – and how it’s never too late to reach out. The irony is that in this storyline mobile phone technology can be instrumental and invaluable in connecting both loved ones and strangers, across continents, uniting them in a common cause, whilst James himself feels disconnected from his fellow human beings.It’s worth noting that it doesn’t require any one momentous event to bring an individual to the same decision our protagonist James has made. James Chiltern is embarking on his final journey, uncomfortably holed up in a cell like cabin on the London to Edinburgh sleeper train. No spoilers but I did feel that the decision, though interesting and nuanced, didn’t quite gel with the rest of the novel for me.

Imagine what your first thought would be when your phone lights up with a new message, and you read the words that someone is saying goodbye to you.It's realistic, I guess, that someone suicidal wouldn't do a complete 180 over the course of a single day.

One aspect of Contacts that I enjoyed was the use of technology as a force for good; building a safety net around James even as he travels north completely unaware of what is unfolding across the globe from Berlin to Melbourne. This poignant statement, for whatever reason really struck a chord with me, a weary acceptance that he’s come to the end of a long travelled road, all avenues apparently exhausted. It will not turn you into a blubbering mess; instead you’ll find yourself chuckling along with these characters as they account for the significant roles they’ve played in this man’s life. In that regard, this reminded me of the only other book of Watson's I've read, Eleven (which I think I preferred a little more but couldn't say for certain having read it so long ago).It’s impossible to ignore the paradoxical nature of mobile phones and modern technology that can both increase self inflicted isolation or else provide our only means of communicating with a world that to all intents and purposes has temporarily shut down. His 24 hour comedy events are the stuff of legend and I’ve got a deluge of memories of sitting at the Pleasance Dome or in strange Edinburgh lecture halls, drunk with excitement and fatigue, as an ever perky Mark Watson leapt around the room. Setting aside the serious nature of this novel I think it’s a witty well constructed storyline with a lead character that’s hard to forget.