'What Aitken writes about fun is worth reading' Mail on Sunday
'Irresistible' Christopher Somerville, author of The January Man and Walking the Bones of Britain
'A great book' Simon Rimmer, Sunday Brunch
'Aitken's writing is always a delight' Madeleine Bunting, author of The Seaside


Are you getting enough? Bestselling travel writer Ben Aitken wasn't.

Increasingly flat and decreasingly zen, Ben gave boredom the boot and stress the cold shoulder by embarking on a whimsical journey into the serious business of having a laugh.

He did a pilgrimage in Spain, a summer camp in Kent, and a cruise of the Baltic with 2,000 grannies. And when he wasn't on the road, he searched for merriment at home: by giving bridge a go, volunteering a chance, and gardening a crack of the whip.

By incorporating the thoughts of key thinkers and boffins, Here Comes the Fun offers a satisfying balance of the playful and the profound, the serious and the silly, the daft and the deep.

What Aitken writes about fun is worth reading ... **** - four stars! * Mail on Sunday *
Irresistible. A buzzing mixture of experiment, farce and revelation as Ben Aitken road-tests the outer limits of fun till they squeak. -- Christopher Somerville, author of The January Man and Walking the Bones of Britain
A great book -- Simon Rimmer, Sunday Brunch
Aitken's writing is always a delight -- Madeleine Bunting, author of The Seaside
Boy, can he write * Daily Mail *
Ben Aitken finds the funny in everything but he does so without ever losing his warmth or his curiosity. He didn't just make me laugh - he made me want to be a better person. Life affirming and - yes - fun! -- Max Dickins, author of Billy No-Mates

Ben Aitken was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. He was conceived by a nurse and a shipwright, grew up in Portsmouth and was in a boyband for a spell in the noughties, then worked as a carer throughout his twenties. He is the author of six books: Dear Bill Bryson, A Chip Shop in Poznan (a Times bestseller), The Gran Tour ('Both moving and hilarious', Spectator), The Marmalade Diaries, Here Comes the Fun and Shitty Breaks. He writes for The Guardian and The Times, was the TCG Travel Journalist of the Year in 2024, and is an occasional lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.