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

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In January he'd received just two texts in an entire week, and one of them was to offer him two-for one pizzas if he replied with the word PEPPERONI. One of Mark Watson's previous novels, Eleven, is counted amongst my favourites and I enjoy both his humour and his writing. It’s well-written and I enjoyed meeting Sally and the story arc around her work and her assistant, as well as his widowed mother’s relationship with a new partner while still missing her husband. He’s one of life’s triers, but his romantic relationship and his career have both fallen apart, and a family relationship has gone wrong as well. 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.

I was emotionally invested in the outcome, and found the prose very readable, despite some minor head hopping. It’s been some time since I cried at a book, but this one packs an emotional punch that all but made it an inevitability.In Australia, his sister cancels her meetings, unable to get home and support her brother, taunted by unpleasant memories of their last meeting. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook).

I never imagined loving this book as much as I did and although it did take me a while to get through (purely because I need to be in the right state of mind to read something so heavy), it was amazing and truly heartbreaking. 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. Mark Watson is probably best known for his comedy work, having been one of the most diligently hard-working and hilarious comedians on the circuit for ages. And then there’s his ex girlfriend, now living with her seemingly unpleasant new German boyfriend, and James’s former best mate and boss Karl. Yes, ok, I know it sounds grim, not the kind of scenario that lends itself to being funny BUT if you approach this novel with positivity then you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise.

But I did think Watson's narration of the audiobook was really enjoyable and I'm keen to pick up something else by him. The story was so unusual and such a deep and insightful look at the way technology has changed the way we humans interact with each other. They all respond differently to James' message, and not necessarily how they expected themselves to respond.