ANDREW FFRENCH talks to author Guy Browning about how he has used maps to illustrate his childhood autobiography.

Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade: How to survive life's Smaller Challenges did actually sell in spades across Europe. But translators found Guy Browning's dedication, "To Prince Charles: a king-sized good egg", rather hard to translate, which perhaps shows that certain types of humour only work well on certain levels and in certain locations.

The author's decision to write Maps of My Life, an autobiography of his childhood, linked to his love of maps, is a brave one, because he has removed himself from the comfort zone of writing his weekly How To ... column in The Guardian, and tested his strengths as a storyteller in the context of a much longer narrative.

I must confess that in the past I have run a mile from a miscellany of stocking-filler books that might raise a chuckle on Boxing Day but are earmarked for Oxfam by the New Year.

I'm delighted to say that this is not one of those books. Browning, pictured inset, doffs his cap to travel writer Bill Bryson, telling us the story of his young life and numerous journeys in his first 19 years, and manages to raise plenty of laughs along the way.

"I have always loved maps and I think they are beautiful things," the father-of-three told The Guide.

"With my Guardian column I have become a bit of a miniaturist and it was really nice to take a deep breath and take a longer look at some little things — it was liberating and refreshing.

"I wanted to include a number of humorous maps because maps usually encourage seriousness."

The 44-year-old was a well-travelled child because his father took a number of jobs abroad, so the story takes in a number of far-flung locations including El Salvador and Texas.

But this is a book rooted very much in Browning's native Oxfordshire — he and his family now live in Southmoor, near Abingdon — and the local chapters provide some of the biggest laughs.

In the North Oxford chapter, a teenage Browning and his girlfriend have a row at the theatre and she then upstages King Lear in the storm scene by trying to pull Browning's hair out.

It doesn't sound quite so funny when I retell it, but Browning takes humour seriously enough to know precisely how best to write up a scene to get the most out of it.

His 15-year career in advertising and marketing agencies — he started out as a copywriter in 1988 — provided him with good training as a writer.

And he also completed his apprenticeship as a stand-up comedian, appearing in front of Marti Caine on New Faces in 1987.

Eleven years ago, the map lover who owns plenty of maps and books about maps, started his own product development agency called Smokehouse, which specialises in "blue-sky thinking" for companies.

But writing is now taking up more time and the author is contemplating a new book about his long-standing efforts to learn Spanish.

"Humour is like a barnacle — it justs needs a surface," Browning tells me, and I'm left wondering what his Spanish translators would make of that one.

Guy Browning will be talking about Maps of My Life at Mostly Books in Stert Street, Abingdon, at 7.30pm on Thursday, October 23. Tickets cost £4.

The book is published by Square Peg, a Random House imprint, and costs £12.99.