The Wimp Chimp

Willy wouldn't hurt a fly - he even apologises when someone hits him. The suburban gorillas call him Willy the Wimp. Then, one day, Willy answers a bodybuilding advertisement - with hilarious results

A chance discovery was the impetus for this book. I had a cerebral aneurysm, was incapacitated for awhile, and had time to amuse myself on the internet. I discovered serendipitously that chimps, our closest genetic relatives, couldn’t float. Chimps only live in Africa, and we have a common ancestor. So by extension, we must have been living with them in the beginning and probably separated from them by crossing some watery barrier there. The rest of the book all came as a result of this realization, and over the course of several years I believe I've discovered the answer to those age old questions, where did we come from, and how did we come to be? The ebook is best viewed in colour.

A young chimpanzee, tired of being bullied by the suburban gorilla gang, decides to build up his muscles so he won't be a wimp anymore.

Not very good at sports or fighting, mild-mannered Willy nevertheless proves he's the champ when the local bully shows up.

Synopsis coming soon.......

Anthony Browne offers a glimpse at ten classic tales with the help of a library-loving chimp. Every week, Willy walks through an ordinary-looking set of doors and straight into an adventure. Where will those doors lead him today—to a mysterious desert island with footprints in the sand? Down a deep, dark rabbit hole full of curious objects? Or perhaps aboard a pirate ship to stand face-to-face with Captain Hook? This book revisits well-known stories from: Robinson Crusoe Treasure Island Robin Hood The Tinderbox Peter Pan Alice's Adventures in Wonderland The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Rapunzel The Wind in the Willows The Adventures of Pinocchio Anthony Browne’s captivating illustrations, starring his trademark primates, pay tribute to the library and the wonders within.

Willy the chimpanzee loves to play soccer, but he is never picked for a team until a stranger gives him some shoes that he is certain are magic.

Some people lost their sense of proportion, others their sense of scale, but Simon Dykes, a middle-aged, successful London painter, has lost his sense of perspective in a most disturbing fashion. After a night of routine, pedestrian debauchery, traipsing from toilet to toilet, and imbibing a host of narcotics on the way, Simon wakes up cuddled in his girlfriend’s loving arms. Much to his dismay, however, his girlfriend has turned into a chimpanzee. To add insult to injury, the psychiatric crash team sent to deal with him as he flips his lid is also comprised of chimps. Indeed, the entire city is overrun by clever primates, who, when they are not jostling for position, grooming themselves, or mating some of the females, can be found driving Volvos, hanging out on street corners, and running the world. Nonetheless convinced that he is still a human, Simon is confined to the emergency psychiatric ward of Charing Cross Hospital, where he becomes the patient of Dr. Zack Busner, clinical psychologist, medical doctor, anti-psychiatrist, and former television personality—an expert at the height of his reign as alpha male. As Busner attempts to convince him that “everyone who is fully sentient in this world are chimpanzees,” Simon struggles with the horrifying delusion that he is really a human trapped in a chimp’s body. Written with the same brilliant satiric wit that has distinguised Self’s earlier fiction, Great Apes is a hilarious, often disturbing, and absolutely original take on man’s place in the evolutionary chain. In a strange and twisted tale that recalls Jonathan Swift and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Will Self’s comic genius is impossible to ignore.