"What if, instead of being born into a life of privilege, power and political opportunity, Sir Winston Churchill had been a bicycle?"

The headline is taken from a recent Spectator competition, for which the challenge was to "compose the most off-putting book blurb that you could muster". The quotation comes from my favourite entry, which concludes:

"How might the Great War have been different if fought by varying lengths of 5B graphite pencil? Concentrating on persuasive timelines and cogently argued political and economic analysis, Snigg uses these and other scenarios to shed fascinating sidelights on human history unlikely to be unearthed through study of the mere facts. If you’ve ever wondered whether Stalin’s second Five Year Plan would have increased steel production more consistently under the direction of British comedian ‘big-hearted’ Arthur Askey, this book will prove an indispensable aide."

The lipogrammatic novel which is "situationist aesthetics with a twist" is also highly tempting.