In Which We Discuss Further Chronological Reading Challenges

A little while back, I decided to read everything Lisa Jewell had every written, in the order in which she'd written it. It was quite an interesting experience, and most of it was chronicled on this blog. You can find it through the "Chronological Reading Challenge" tag, which is also on this post. Scroll on down a bit and you'll see it.

Although I had read most of the books before, reading them in this way did give me further insights into them, and into the author. The main thing I noticed was her growing...obsession? Focus?...something - with children. More and more, children became the driving force in her character's lives. Not necessarily the fact of having them, more the consequences of various things connected with them, if that makes sense. For instance; one character's life changes utterly when she becomes pregnant and proceeds to give the child up for adoption. Another has her life change when she accidentally orphans and paralyses a child in a single accident. Yet another has her relationship go off the walls when she accidentally becomes pregnant.

Those events and the novels they appear in aren't in chronological order, as listed above. Generally speaking, things which happen to children get worse and worse as Jewell grows older, and writes more novels.  And, of course, as she has her own children, and presumably, worries and obsesses over all the horrible things that could happen.

However, moving away from Jewell, I am inclined to repeat the experiment. I'm considering doing it with Sheri Tepper, but her bibliography is long, complex, split over many different names, and occasionally out of print.

Excuse me, I must shriek like a fangirl.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Tepper's writing a sequel to Plague of Angels, set to be released this year! Ah!

Ahem.

I just googled Tepper's bibliography, looking for a complete list in chronological order, including those books published under pseudonyms, and spotted that. Now I am happy.

Anyway, her wiki page is probably the most thorough list, and you can see that that would be quite a project. Especially considering that I probably own less than half of them right now, and the library almost definitely doesn't stock many of them. So Tepper wouldn't be a great choice for this project, not until I have lots more money and free time (sadly, the two do not come together).

I do have a fair amount of books to get through at the minute too. I've just started the Mavin Manyshaped trilogy, of the True Game series, and I still haven't read most of my current library books. I need to get through those quick, before my reservations come in. So another CRC would take a while to get off the ground.

At the minute, authors I'm considering include Ben Elton (although I recently gorged myself on his work, so maybe not), Jenny Colgan (I already own most of them, and I know the library has the rest, so that would be easy), Nick Hornby (ditto), Trudi Canavan (a relatively new author, so less of a back catalogue), and Matt Beaumont (would have to buy, since the library is missing a few of them). Maybe Alice Hoffman or Kjartan Poskitt (I'm just looking at my shelves for random inspiration here - those aren't authors I've really considered before, which may actually be a point in their favour). Stephen King would represent many of the same problems as Tepper.  Dahl, maybe?  I don't know.

Any suggestions, comment. It should be open to those people without accounts 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.