An early Christmas present...

During this rather quiet international break I have taken the opportunity to catch up with some football reading and the book that has been virtually a constant companion to me over the past few days is the Fulham Review, written by our friends over at the Craven Cottage Newsround - with some contributions from Chopper at the Hammy End Chronicle.

Now, I'm not on commission here - nor have I been bribed - but it really is one of the best books that I have read in a very long time - and this is coming from someone whose shelves are groaning under the strain of practically every footballing tome that has been published during the past decade.

Superbly written and running to over 80 A4 pages (ie magazine size) it combines witty, insightful match reports with thought-provoking and 'laugh out loud' funny features, and is an absolute snip at just £5.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to bring myself to read about our 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Manchester United on the opening day of last season - but the 2-1 victory over Arsenal at the Cottage has been very well thumbed! Sore loser? Nah, not me.

Here are a few cracking lines to whet your appetite:

The match report of our defeat at the Emirates: "If this season were a cartoon we'd now be hanging onto a clifftop by our fingertips. A willing but fruitless defeat at Arsenal changes nothing and all it takes is a bad result to happen around us and we'll lose our grip and scream downwards."

Describing our 4-0 defeat at Anfield: "The 0-0 half-time score was deceptive; if Dirk Kuyt had been playing with his eyes open he'd have had a hat-trick."

The report of our 3-3 away draw with Watford: "The Italians have a theory that the perfect football match should be 0-0: the game can only be perfect if there are no mistakes, and if there are no mistakes there will be no goals...Fulham and Watford's collective response to this theory was a 3-3 shambles at Vicarage Road tonight."

Great stuff. You can order your copy by visiting this website set up for the purpose. You won't be disappointed.