Cool colouring books

What can you buy to cheer up a 30 year-old-man, who's hobbling round his house on a stick trying to recover from a knee operation? Well, my experience this week tells me it's this Ryan Gosling colouring book. I spent £7.50 on this book, designed by I Love Mel (the clever lady also behind the joyful 80s colouring book), for my suffering boyfriend and it's cheered him up a treat.

And here he is, proudly showing off that he's used no less than three colours to decorate the jacket of his man crush.

But what if someone you know (or yourself) is seeing red or feeling blue and, for whatever reason, don't happen to subscribe to Gosling fandom? Cheer up! I've discovered there are many more pop culture icons available for colouring in therapy.

Like Bill Murray. Several different illustrators have been commissioned to create images for this colouring book and hopefully inspiring some equally creative keeping-in behind the lines. This book is available for £8.09 from Amazon.

Even more old school is this Stone Roses colouring book, designed by Piper Gates and available in very limited quantities. £17.99 will get you sixteen pages of colouring fun, or you could get inspired by John Squire and splatter a lot of paint all over it.

Getting tired of colouring in images of moody men? Then you need some prettiness courtesy of this 90s pop diva colouring book. It's one of a fantastic range of books from Teamart on Etsy, who also sells boyband and cat versions, all available for approximately £5.95 each and £1.65 shipping from Canada.

This book is packed full of some of the decade's finest popstrels including Lisa Loeb, TLC, the Spice Girls and Brandy and Monica. Just one condition on this one: no erasers allowed. Why else would you think TLC don't want no scrubs?