Blog: Book Club

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The start of this year has been pretty HECTIC and MAD - I've had LOADs of work on (i don't like to mention it, being a LIVING SAINT and all, but i have been working until 7 o'clock at night some nights and, as previously stated, that was NOT what I was signing up for when I joined Her Majesty's Academic Forces) and also lots of ROCK for which I need to travel. THUS many aspects of normal life, like getting home, hanging around with The Dimple In My Wimple, or Just Going To The PUB have fallen by the wayside a little.

HOWEVER things are now gently returning to normal - the BOTTLENECK of work i was doing has now been pretty much GOT through, the demoes are FINISHED, the gigs are DONE, and I've got a couple of weeks now when I'm not got much to do apart from go hang, hang out with The VeggieBurger In My Bap, or Just Go To The Pub. I know it's not very Rock & Roll to say so, but this is BLOODY GRATE, and every day just now is a joyous reaquaintance with Aspects Of My Life that i LOVE - last night, for instance, I went to the pub with my brothers, as i do EVERY Thursday night, except for the last five or six weeks. We argued, drank BEER, and went home, and it was MAGIC.

ANYWAY, with that in mind I thought today I might return to a theme long in ABEYANCE on these pages, i.e. BOOKS. Apparently, people who are DENSE and in Succesful Bands find LIFE ON THE ROAD to be a tedious process of travelling and then hanging round with nothing much to do. PERSONALLY i find it a GRATE opportunity to LOOK OUT THE WINDOW at the places you are travelling to, actually say HELLO to other people you meet (and goodness me, so very few People In Bands seem able to bring themselves to do this), and - hey HEY! - do some READING. On my recent forays into ROCK i have read some bloody GRATE books, so i thought i might SHARE some of this reading with you. It's like Richard & Judy, but without that Naming Things game the so degrades us as a species. Here we GO!

The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter - Charlie from The Fighting Cocks got me into Stephen Baxter, he writes Big Proper Science Fiction about IDEAS and PEOPLE doing STUFF. I am repaying this favour by forcing JANE AUSTEN upon him - funnily enough, another book i read recently had a LOT to say about Science Fiction fans usually really enjoying Jane Austen, but not many Jane Austen fans liking Science Fiction. As i will tell anyone who wants to listen, this is because SCI FI opens your MIND to all SORTS of new ideas, if you'll let it, so most SCI FI fans are pretty open minded about things. HOWEVER the world of LITERATURE is very insular and closed and so its members SCORN genre fiction LEST they be caught reading something UNCOOL in the playground. ANYWAY, i got this book because I couldn't decide whether to get ANOTHER Stephen Baxter book or ANOTHER HG Wells (who i got into via The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen), and HAPPENED upon this combination, as it's a sequel to "The Time Machine". It's a HUGE book and i PLOUGHED through it as it is UTTERLY BRILLIANT and PACKED with IDEAS and EXCITEMENT and THORT. It's GRATE!

The Rotters Club, by Jonathan Coe - i read this because I loved the telly series so much, and read a review that said the BOOK had loads more in and was Cleverly Written. It did, and it was, and it was GRATE!

I Didn't get Where I Am Today, by David Nobbs - this is the autobiography of the chap who wrote Reginald Perrin, amongst other things, although I bought it thinking it was a novel. I read his book "Going Gently" AGES ago and thought it was utterly LOVELY, and though this wasn't quite as ACE as that was, it was still DEAD GOOD.

The Time Traveller's Wife, by someone whose name i have forgot - i got this one because, to be honest, it had the Richard & Judy Bookclub sticker on it, and I'd REALLY enjoyed that "Star Of The Sea" one that, I think, WON last year. Richard & Judy, they did not steer me wrong as this was the BEST book i have read in YEARS. MAN, it made me LARF loads and loads of times (out loud on the aeroplane to Cork, for instance, so people LOOK at me funny) and also CRY quite a bit (in the airport in DUBLIN, when a woman asked me to fill in a Questionnaire and I had TEARS running down my face - yes, i am NEW MAN! i BLUB in public, due to BOOKS!) and THINK and wonder about STUFF and all round have a FANTASTIC time of it. The last book i read that MOVED me so much and made me want to get everyone else to read it was "The Lovely Bones" (oh Richard & Judy! AGANE!), but this was EVEN BETTER. Everyone! Go and buy it! It's FAB!

The Jane Austen Book Club, by someone else whose name escapes - a bit of a come down really, another Richard & Judy and another one I'd seen on LOADS of adverts on the tube, and it was OK, all right, and not bad. Actually, the major emotion this ENGENDERED in me was a DESIRE to go and read either "Northanger Abbey" or "Sense & Sensibility" again, although it DID have that interesting thing about Jane Austen and Sci-Fi in it.

Yeah, BOOKS! Those are all my recent BOOKS what i have read. Books! They are COOL!

posted 11/3/2005 by MJ Hibbett

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