In Which We Discuss Chart Throb and Lilly Aphrodite

...okay, I'll get to the Lisa Jewell thing just as soon as I'm done reading all the library books I had reserved.

Chart Throb, by Ben Elton (who worked with Richard Curtis on Blackadder) is about reality TV shows, particularly those along the lines of Pop Idol. It describes a man who's come up with the very epitome of what made pop idol work, and done it so well that he's ousted Simon Cowell (presumably, this is so Simon Cowell doesn't sue). The story focuses on his quest to have a certain person win, based purely on clever editing, and, in doing so, exposes many of the tricks pop idol uses. It's definitely worth a read. One of the things it points out is the sheer impossibility of the judges actually seeing the seventy-five-thousand-plus people who usually show up for these things (up to ninety-five-thousand for the book). At ten minutes each, with ten hour days for the judges, it'd take around three years. It's well-written, absorbing, intriguing and hilarious.

Another book I read recently was Beatrice Colin's The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite. It's fiction written as if it might be fact, focusing on the career of a German silent film star, Lilly Aphrodite. What I found most interesting was the portrayal of everyday life in Berlin throughout World War I and before World War II. It's something I've thought about but not really seen before. Turns out, it wasn't so different from here, except for the fact that they lost.