Monday 31 May 2010

#28 Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby (Penguin Group)

Five months into this enterprise, I have yet to give out a 10/10 mark (there hasn’t even been a 9/10), and, in truth, this doesn’t bother me. A book has to be really good to qualify for that rating, and for all the fine books I have read so far, none have seemed quite worthy of such an assessment of excellence.

However, I don’t want to give the impression that such a mark is an outright impossibility, and I was reminded of this when I embarked on Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby, whose first book, Fever Pitch, would probably have received a 10/10 rating had I read it as part of this challenge. It’s a magnificent piece of work.

Juliet, Naked is very enjoyable, without reaching the quality of Fever Pitch. As always, Hornby writes with humour about relationships – this time between a man obsessed with a reclusive American musician and his partner – and there are numerous laugh-out-loud moments and some wonderful observations.

But while the plot held my attention, and the career of musician Tucker Crowe and the ramifications of fame and fan obsession had a real ring of authenticity, I never really committed myself to the characters or their motivations.

In conclusion, then, not Hornby’s finest. But then he set a very high standard in the first place.

So, rating time:

#28 Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby (Penguin Group) - 7/10

Next up: How to Paint a Dead Man, by Sarah Hall (Faber and Faber Limited)

  • Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating
  • Sunday 23 May 2010

    #27 The Best After-Dinner Sports Tales, compiled by Will Chignell (CollinsWillow)

    In the event (see previous blog), I opted for The Best After-Dinner Sports Tales, compiled by Will Chignell, the reasoning being that I could do with a bit of cheering up rather than sinking further into the fount of despair.

    Unfortunately, The Best After-Dinner Sports Tales wasn't really the book to provide assistance in this area, with the numerous collected tales decidedly lacking in much cheer. There was the odd chuckle, admittedly, not to mention occasional insight into life as a sportsman and the incidents which take place behind closed doors, but actual guffaws were few and far between.

    In some ways, it was a perfect choice. The short excerpts from famous sports celebrities such as Phil Tufnell, Rodney Marsh and Ray Reardon were quick to read and easy to dip in and out of, which was helpful as I tried to erase a particularly annoying spyware programme which had somehow downloaded onto my computer. Indeed, given its unchallenging nature, it was no surprise I finished the book before I managed to delete the spyware.

    Times may be changing, but when I picture after-dinner speeches, I have an image of a very male-orientated world, a smoky room (despite the ban - it's my mental image, remember) and a boozy atmosphere. It’s hardly a surprise, therefore, that the majority of the contributing speakers are male, and there is an impression you are never far from an Englishman, Scotsman and Irishman joke.

    All that said, I can't be too sniffy about a book which raised thousands of pounds for charity. But it scores much higher in the worthiness rating than in my quality assessment.

    So, rating time:

    #27 The Best After-Dinner Sports Tales, compiled by Will Chignell (CollinsWillow) - 5/10

    Next up: Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby (Penguin Group)

  • Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating
  • Thursday 20 May 2010

    Depression brought to book

    It’s just over two days after the trauma of this season’s greatest disappointment, and in the aftermath, I found myself considering which novelists would best suit my mood.

    While I’m probably not at the point of considering the point of living, existentialist giant Albert Camus I know and have read before. Of course, Camus knows what he’s talking about – he was a goalkeeper, so must have been involved in one or two penalty shoot-outs in his time.

    I’ve not yet delved into any poetry, so I wasn’t keen on starting with Sylvia Plath, who tragically committed suicide, so I sought the assistance of a work colleague, who is far more literary than me.

    Try Philip Larkin, was the suggestion, ‘he’s a miserable sod’, or what about the ‘downbeat’ novels of Jean Paul Sartre or Philip Roth? Failing that, Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) was the final offering. I wonder if they’ve got that at the library…

    Of course, I’m not seriously depressed, just a bit down, and depression should be no laughing matter. Indeed, friend and author Charlie Connelly makes that very point in fine fashion on his website (incidentally, fans of Charlie’s work may be interested to know I am actually in his fantastic Stamping Grounds: Liechtenstein’s Quest for the World Cup).

    Can I find any consolation in the crushing disappointment? Maybe it’s that I’ll have a bit more time to complete this challenge.

    Sunday 16 May 2010

    #26 Screen Burn, by Charlie Brooker (Faber and Faber Limited)

    This is my third Charlie Brooker book of this year – guess what the Wench got me for Christmas? – and it’s been interesting reading them out of sequence.

    Screen Burn is actually his first published compilation, dating back to 2000 and the days when he was solely penning articles on television for the Guardian, before his role was expanded to a further weekly column with a wider remit.

    These articles, then, are all focused on the silver screen, and if I had one minor criticism (one that has probably only occurred to me after already reading The Hell of it All and Dawn of the Dumb), it’s that I could have done with a bit more variety.

    That’s not to say that Screen Burn isn’t as brilliantly funny as you’d expect, because it is. It’s also interesting to see how his writing style is more or less fully formed from the outset. That’s not to say that Brooker hasn’t developed at all over the past decade, but more that he has produced sustained excellence over a long period.

    Part of the fun of Screen Burn lies in his topical descriptions of what are now historical television events, such as the start of behemoths such as Big Brother, 24, Pop Idol and Trisha to the likes of the best-forgotten LA Pool Party, Touch the Truck and much more.

    The arrival of Simon Cowell as a TV celebrity prompts a particularly memorable and prescient rant: “…leaving the role of chief abuser to A&R man Simon Cowell, who’s instantly made a name for himself by acting like an unpardonable bastard, unafraid to star a contestant in the eye and overstate their uselessness with the sub-zero precision of a misanthropic character from a Neil LaBute movie. As a result, he looks less like an expert and more like a man clawing at fame with even more sad desperation than the hopefuls anxiously awaiting his judgment.”

    While Brooker’s lengthy diatribes are what he does best (that’s only about a third of his analysis of Cowell), he also knows how produce a concisely worded quip (My favourite line: on 24 character Kim Bauer: “Jack’s daughter Kim (hobbies: peril and cleavage)").

    Indeed, it wouldn’t surprise me if Sky+ had been invented solely due to the number of laugh-out-load moments produced by Brooker’s columns and books. In my house, I have jurisdiction over the remote control (damn right), and many’s the time I’ve paused whatever has been on to read the Wench the latest section to have tickled my fancy. I imagine it’s quite annoying.

    So, rating time:

    #26 Screen Burn, by Charlie Brooker (Faber and Faber Limited) - 7/10

    Coincidentally, my counterpart (nay rival) in this 100-books-in-a-year challenge, the Friend of the Wench, has just read Dawn of the Dumb on my recommendation. Read his review here.

    Next up: Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby (Penguin Group)

  • Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating
  • Sunday 9 May 2010

    #25 In the Kitchen, by Monica Ali (Transworld Publishing)

    Loved the set-up, loved the characters, loved the plot - didn’t like at all how the book progressed and ended.

    Despite its critical acclaim, I wasn’t a fan of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, the novel that catapulted her to national fame in the literary world, but it was enough to pique my curiosity when looking for the book that would take me to my quarter century this year.

    In the Kitchen, much like Hearts and Minds, is a story of the seedier side of immigration and London life, focusing on a chef on the verge of opening his own restaurant who discovers a body…

    A measure of how much I was enjoying things is that I demolished the first half of the novel in double quick time, reveling in getting to know the traits of the numerous nationalities and their roles in the hotel kitchen and how they interacted with one another.

    Add in some unspecified goings on in a bedroom within the hotel and some well observed vignettes regarding the chef’s upbringing and history, and it was all combining to produce the best novel I’ve read so far this year - until the chef (and Ali) loses the plot.

    Without spoiling the book by revealing what happens, things start to go wrong very quickly, and having invested so much time in believable characters, it’s a shame when they start to act in increasingly bizarre ways, and my interest quickly waned.

    So, rating time:

    #25 In the Kitchen, by Monica Ali (Transworld Publishing) - 6/10

    Next up: Screen Burn, by Charlie Brooker (Faber and Faber Limited)

  • Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating
  • Saturday 8 May 2010

    One fine day

    It seems I'm still being cursed by the New York Trilogy. Not only did the collection of short stories severely hamper my efforts to complete this challenge, it's now cost me cold, hard cash as well.

    Confused? So was I when I returned some books to the library the other day, only to be told I still had one outstanding. Which one? I think you know the answer...

    Some other random thoughts.

    I've been thinking a lot about Robert Harris over the past few days. Not only has the film adaptation of Ghost recently been released to widespread critical acclaim, but I was reminded of Fatherland when I watched the film Good. Except Good was, well, really good.

    Just to keep you abreast of events, the next review will be of Monica Ali's In the Kitchen, I'm currently reading yet another Charlie Brooker compilation (he's just been slagging off Simon Cowell), and on the reading list for future weeks are the following:

  • How to Paint a Dead Man, by Sarah Hall

  • Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby

  • Penguins Stopped Play, by Harry Thompson

  • The Best After-dinner Sports Tales, compiled by Will Chignell

  • Tokyo Year Zero, by David Peace