Teeth like a weeping father at a wedding give you away Like St Peter they will betray you three breakfast lunch and dinner Teeth are a memento mori a sudden glimpse of the naked skull beneath the skin John Patrick Higgins has had bad teeth for as long as he can remember and you might expect him being English not to notice But he has noticed and he s doing something about it This book recounts his journey from a mouthful of moist gravel to a pristine pacific smile with the Pole star wattage of a Hollywood A lister But first comes the horror of stabilisation The trenches dug into his gums The water boarding horror of the dentist s chair The deforestation of his bank account Will he survive the ordeal And if he does blinking into that bright new day will there be anything to smile about An Oral History is a bitingly funny story illustrated by the author and featuring a glossary of useful terms as most of his references pre date the discovery of fluoride Teeth An Oral HistoryTeeth aren t they strange They are these odd shapes made out of enamel and dentin that help us chew food and yet they provide comedic value Look at the cartoons Whenever one is bashed in the face and all the teeth fall out it is funny they also express the type of animated character if there are buck teeth it denotes lesser intelligence braces are geeky and gold ones generally means a villain. This comedic aspect of teeth is featured in John Patrick Higgin s memoir The books starts off with John conscious of the fact his teeth are not in the best condition and thus begins many detailed sojourns to the dentist in order to take care of his mouth. We all know that comedy and pain are rooted see what I did there together and John Patrick Higgins tales of extractions operations the formation of dentures and the eventual wearing of dentures to his teeth being capped must sound agonising However John has such a turn of phrase with puns and sharp one liners one can t help giggling As a person who has over forty fillings and a false tooth I could relate to the multiple dentist visits pain involved obviously not as bad as Author s. In between there s some trivia about famous people and their teeth most famously the late Martin Amis spending the advance he received on The Information on restructuring all his pearly whites. By the end the author does get his wish and has his teeth capped and things look better does this mean that having good teeth will equal a brighter future ummm maybe but don t forget it all comes at a hefty price and with teeth work is continuous. If you are equally fascinated by teeth or have been stigmatised for having less than normal ones then Teeth is a fun read Don t forget John Patrick Higgins pain will be your pleasure English Teeth is a book that guarantees to make you brush your teeth to floss for at least a week and to avoid the tooth butcher aka dentist at all costs Our author has spent his life being a teeth grinder obvs his own teeth this ain t that type of book and they are in a bad way he gives the reader some wonderful descriptive terms to showcase just how bad they are and even though he is suffering with pain and self confidence you can t help but laugh out loud Seeing as he is one of those wealthy Hollywood types he is going to get them fixed and we are lucky enough to be along for the journey. The book starts off with a little history lesson filled with facts over who has the worst teeth Brits or Americans the results will shock you an in depth discussion on how vampire teeth work and a shared opinion on who has the brightest teeth in the movie industry All of this was entertaining and it was at here that I found I may have been laughing out loud a bit too much I got some strange looks from the neighbours stranger than usual that is. Then we start on this journey to recover his smile Higgins shares his fears over the expected pain and cost and whether this is the right thing for him he was very honest with the reader even though he was constantly using humour as a self defence mechanism The whole process was interesting explanations of the work being carried out were easy to follow and as the butcher was ripping out teeth left right and centre Higgins shares what was going on in his head. Whilst Higgins was suffering before and during all this work on his teeth I managed to get a large amount of entertainment from this book there is a lot to make you cringe and there is a lot to make you laugh I hope that now he has his smile back the jokes of putting him self down all the time has lessened I m also looking forward to a sequel butt implants maybe The only weakness on this book is the title I do wish Higgins had gone with his idea of Does Dracula Floss Blog review English I thoroughly enjoyed John Patrick Higgins Teeth Powerfully succinct with his turns of phrase Higgins is funny as all get out when describing the horrors of everyday life In this case paying thousands of pounds to undergo multiple long painful oral surgeries He deals with celebrity teeth expecting sympathy from friends and getting advice or nothing at all music cool to see mention of The Cleaners From Venus in there and a whole lot of little things kicking off major mishaps It might be schadenfreude though the descriptions of distress and disgust induce much wincing in the reader and I sure hope my own receding gumlines never give way to require such brutality especially to my wallet but this short book 121 pages is a delight I m jealous of the phrase written in relation to America manifest dentistry And But what the hell It s only vast amounts of my money I d otherwise waste on memories and experiences had me laughing out loud Complete with very amusing glossary too English