Rufus Needs A Haircut: Shaggy Dog Stories For Adult Readers

Rufus Needs A Haircut is an entertaining collection of shaggy dog stories for adult readers that is designed to amuse, frustrate and perhaps – infuriate the reader and their audience.

Rufus Needs A Haircut is a compilation by retired English teacher David Selby who has reworked a number of shaggy dog stories that he has encountered over the years. 

David embellished and refined these stories by telling them in classrooms and on school trips for over three decades, and the COVID lockdown inspired David to commit these stories to paper and bring the delights of the shaggy dog story to many other people.

Writer, David said: ‘I had thought of writing ‘Rufus Needs A Haircut’ for three or four years but never quite got around to it.’

‘Then during the first lockdown while standing on the doorstep for the Thursday evening Clap For Carers, the thought struck me that perhaps I could do my bit too by bringing these shaggy dog stories into a book to sell in aid of NHS Charities Together,’ adds David.

A good shaggy dog story takes the reader or listener on the circuitous journey of a far-fetched tale before concluding with a punchline designed to raise a smile, a laugh or, occasionally, a grimace.  

Rufus Needs A Haircut is beautifully illustrated, equally enjoyable when read or read out loud, and it celebrates a perhaps lost genre of storytelling. 

The book is ideal for today, as the stories can lift your spirits and engage others in a little light humour, despite difficult times. From chickens visiting libraries to prawns going on adventures, Elizabethan heroes to knights engaging in derring-do, disasters on the San Francisco trams and magic violins, Rufus has it all. 

Rufus Needs A Haircut is a little bit different and a little bit quirky. As lockdown inspired Rufus, David has chosen to donate £1.50 from each copy sold to NHS Charities Together to support its extraordinary work, thus making the purchase of this book rewarding in more ways than one.