In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 13/52

Four books last week - 5th to the 11th of November.  Two audiobooks, one that I'd read before, and two on kindle, including on that I'd read before.

Herding Hemingway's Cats is a nice popular genetics book, and I found that listening to it - even without paying a huge amount of attention - really helped clarify concepts for me which later came up in lectures.  I already had an overview, so it was easier to get on with the little details.  I also re-listened to About a Boy.  I'm so glad it's now studied in schools; there's so much to discuss in it.

I also read The Ex-Factor, a very silly book in which four friends decide to set each other up with their exes rather than risk another Tinder date.  It was 99p on Kindle.

Finally, I re-read Myth-ing Persons, the fifth in the Myth Adventures series.  I just looked it up, and apparently there are nineteen books in total.

I found out on the 16th that Sheri Tepper died on the 22nd of October.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 27th Year, Week 25/52

Six books last week!  That's the 28th January to the 3rd of February.

Three were audio books and relatively short.  Charm School and Flour Babies are both around three hours long and both are books I first read and loved around 11 or 12.  I do love Anne Fine's writing.

I finally finished Adventures in the Dream Trade.  That's a collection of introductions and other bits and pieces by Neil Gaiman, including his online diary of the bits between writing and publishing American Gods, which I'm now rereading.

Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears is a collection of modern fairytales.  There are some particularly good ones in this collection, including my favourite one about a kitsune, which is a lovely word to say.  Kitsune.

About A Boy is a book I first read as a teenager.  This was the audiobook and I love Julian Rhind-Tutt's performance, actually more than that of Hugh Grant in the movie (and not least because I'm a bit of a Green Wing fan).

I've just heard that the book is being taught in secondary schools now, which I love.  I've reread it a few times over the years and I can see it would be an excellent point of discussion for teenagers.

It's weird to think of a book that I love being a 'school book'.  Though, of course, Shakespeare and Dickens et all were all very popular authors, and I do read Dickens novels for fun.

Better Than Before was a useful book.  It's about habits and motivation and so far I'm using two very useful tips.

The first one is the 'tendencies' the author sees people as being split into.

Upholders who are equally motivated by external and internal expectations.
Obligers, who are more motivated by external goals but more likely to let internal goals or expectations lapse.
Questioners, who will not accept a goal or expectation until they have question it and internalised it as acceptable.
Rebels, who defy expectations and find it hard to be motivated by a goal.

I'm definitely an obliger; if I decide to do something I find it very easy to talk myself out of it, whereas if someone else expects me to do something I find it harder to avoid. So the trick for me will be to externalise any habits I decide to do.  I've already done this; I've told my fb friends that if I don't stick to my study schedule for the week then I'm going to put the UKIP logo up as my facebook banner and my PC and phone background.   So far, that threat has been sufficient to get me up at 7am to study between 7:30am - 8:30am because I couldn't manage at any other time in the morning.

The other useful bit is realising that I'm very much a starter.  I LOVE starting new projects.  I love making new blogs, buying new notebooks and pens, making details plans...but I'm a bit meh on actually finishing things.  Knowing that is useful.  It's why my unread pile doesn't go down and why I end up buying books which I later just donate to charity.  Still working on ways to get around it, but at least I understand the issue better now.

In Which We Discuss Extra-large Tits and Rizlas

...along with Donkey Dick Movie Star and Flash Wanker.

Or, more specifically, Matt Beaumont. Even more specifically, The Book, the Film, the T-Shirt.

I've only read three of Beaumont's novels so far - e., Where There's a Will, and the afforementioned book, film, t-shirt (which is how it is going to be refered to from now on, because I am very lazy).

Excuse me, I'm just going to get on the library website and see what they can do about that.

...nope, it appears to be down for Easter.

That's the thing about the library. Generally, the opening hours are pretty good - 9am to 8pm most days, 9am to 5pm on Saturdays, and closed on Sundays. But, anything even close to a holiday, and they're off. I was quite surprised to find that they were open on Saturday, and, from what the librarian told me, I wasn't the only one. He reckoned they'd had about fifty calls querying whether they would be or not.

I'm not entirely sure why that should effect the website, but, apparently, that has Easter off too.

So, anyway. Matt Beaumont.

His first novel, e., was written in an epistolary style, that is, formed from various documents. It takes part at fictional ad agency, Miller Shanks, and consists of emails sent between employees, from the CEO down to the temp, and including one written by a cleaner.

Bookfilmt-shirt is written in a similar style, but merely switches between points of view, rather than written documents, which offers a little more freedom.

Once criticism often levelled at epistolary novels is that they can encourage laziness - when an author needs to explain something, they can just switch to another character.  Many authors simply avoid using one or more of the key characters, leaving those around them to simply guess at what they're thinking.  Jodi Picoult did it in My Sister's Keeper (the film of which kind of sucked, by the way), and Matt Beaumont does it here.  Pulls it off, too.

Quick note on the film of the book here since I'm not going to give it it's own post; although the book of My Sister's Keeper had an unusual, extremely unlikely ending, it worked for it.  It gave the book a fresher feel, made it a little more unusual.

Where I think the film suffered was, it changed that ending, and downplayed the legal parts, and some of the issues resulting from the court case, which was the book's other strength.  In the end it was just, basically, a made-for-TV movie about a kid with leukaemia (why yes, that is an About A Boy reference), with some famous faces in it.  Rather meh, really.

Anyway, extra-large tits and rizlas.

It's a little difficult to really describe the plot of bookfilmt-shirt, since there are so many different lines and subplots going on at once.  Each character has their own little one, some short, others arcing to the end of the novel.  Pretty much the only way to tell it is as it's written, which eventually ends with me saying "oh, just read it."  Which really is rather good advice, if I do say so myself.

I am going to have a go at summarizing the plot anyway, just because it would be rather lame if I didn't.

The book's about the making of an advert for Blackstock tires, an American company trying to make a name in Britain.  It stars Joe Strider and Rebecca Richards, young stars of Dawson's Creek-type show, All Our Lives Before Us.  Rebecca, a Brit, had been dating Joe (a yank), until he filmed Body Matter with Keven French (who also happens to be the director of the advert in question, since he and the adman go way back).  Joe's star is on the rise due to this, and he's holding that over Kevin, who believes that he needs to make Body Matter II in order to keep his career (sadly, Hollywood really does value actors over directors).  Joe also dumped Rebecca for their young co-star, Greta Bastendorff (an oversight on Beaumont's part, I think; he made her seventeen which, while acceptably young here, is completely illegal and much more shocking over there).

Joe has become a complete diva; he demands extra staff, a new bed, and constantly belittles Rebecca.  Then there's the runner, the PA, the executive-in-charge-of-jellybeans, the adman, the amateur drug dealer turned bouncer (who christens Rebecca 'Extra-Large Tits and Rizlas' after he spots her being searched at the airport), the hairdresser, Norman the Cook, and a whole host of other characters, all with their own viewpoint.  Some are only in for a few scenes, others comment throughout the entire novel.

The book just makes me laugh.  A lot.  That's what I really like about it. From the first page, I was giggling my little head off.  And it's just gone midnight, and I've been working on this post intermittently for almost a week now, so I'll leave it at that.