;)
tagged: Andrew Mueller, Barack Obama, books, Chuck Palahniuk, Hunter S Thompson, Jeremy Clarkson, literature, Richard HammondOn Books
Posted by Claire Connelly in Uncategorized
Except that this year I realised I’ve actually exceeded my reading expectations.
I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite literary experiences of 2009:
Every single Jeremy Clarkson book ever written:
I am not a car person; and I despise almost everything that he stands for:
Sure he may not be Keats or Wordsworth but he is bloody entertaining and I feel as though he balances out my constant angst regarding everything that is wrong with this world.
If his books could speak, they would say that we’re all going to die one day so why not take the time to enjoy the fun things in life like crashing cars, throwing political correctness to the wind and making broad generalisations about lorry drivers?
Boys will enjoy On Cars and Don’t Stop Me Now.
Girls will enjoy The World According to Clarkson.
This is the kind of novel that will have you laughing inappropriately on the train and making fun of topiary.
Buy it. Buy it now.
I wouldn’t start from here: A misguided tour of the 21st Century – Andrew Mueller:
Andrew Mueller doesn’t consider himself a proper journalist due to his utter lack of discipline, a negligible attention span and “certain juvenile difficulty taking things seriously.” Despite this Mueller has managed to chronicle his travels from Afghanistan to Abkhazia, Belfast to Belgrade, New York to Jerusalem.
For all the wise-cracks and irony, you cannot accuse Mueller of apathy. He is one of the few so called reporters who is actually out there asking the important questions, writing it down, and treating everything with necessary caution and sense of humour.
Because most of our political news is filtered through national government press releases, we forget to even consider that what we are being told may be completely and utterly different to the lives of everyday people, especially in post-civil conflict zones.
Mueller draws together the absurd, the horrors and hope of the 21st Century and cleverly contrasts it against the national sentiment that is often generalised by the media.
Hilarious, and poignant this was my most favourite book this year, and possibly one of the greatest examples of grass-roots political correspondence.
I was actually lent this book by a friend of mine (hi Hannah), and I’m afraid to say she won’t be getting this back.
I loved this book so much, probably because everything I want to achieve as a journalist has been condensed in this delightful, thoughtful and intelligent page-turner.
The Audacity of Hope & Dreams of My Father:
Do I really need to provide a reason for reading these? Come on!
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail – Hunter. S. Thompson
I love reading about politics. I consume it like…. toilet paper! (Although we don’t so much as consume toilet paper as use it and throw it away…. then again maybe it is a fitting metaphor)….
Anyway what I’m trying to say is that it takes a piece of real genius to hold my attention.
Something sharper, with a unique edge…. I’m so tired of the same self-important drivel that is so often published by “serious” journalists. Most of the time all I learn from these 400 page paper-weights is that someone was either a very good person, or a very bad one, and not a lot else.
Though it’s subject matter may pertain to Nixon’s dirty election campaign against George McGovern, Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail has something much more important to say about the state of American politics, and the resultant cyclical nature of the electorate.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign trail is a transcendent statement about the American Dream, and what happens when people lose hold of that dream, or worse, stop seeking it altogether.
I like authors who aren’t afraid to poke holes in our pretentions, who can think outside of the box, whose validation comes from standing outside the compulsary border of loyalty and political correctness that most journalists and political correspondants feel they have to straddle in order to do their job effectively.
Hunter S. Thomson is this author.
It’s not the drugs or the vulgarity that appeals to me… what appeals to me most is his vulnerability.
Any literature of the Fear and Loathing kind (sex, drugs, rock & roll) is usually predicated on a pre-existing cynicism about its subject.
I was suprised to find that this cynicism just doesn’t exist for Hunter in writing about his experiences on the campaign trail with George McGovern and Richard Nixon in the 1971 Presidential election.
With every disappointment came this sheer indredulity, anger, and suprise.
The fallout, made for beautiful prose.
I was shocked (and a bit relieved) to discover that Hunter S Thompson with all his life experience, was an idealist.
Despite all his railing against Nixon, the hopeful optimism that is sustained throughout this hilarious and sad account of the 1971 election is where we locate the humanity and integrity that is at the very heart of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.
It’s a critique about The American Dream and what happens when we lose our way.
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail is one of the most relevant and important critiques of American politics and I believe it will find new relevance when read against the context of the 2008 Presidential election.
The book also includes a cutting euology for Richard Nixon (long before his death) towards the end of the book, and if nothing else, it is worth reading this book simply for the greatest living eulogy I’ve ever come across!
The man is a genius!
I know, I know, I have a growing obsession with the Top Gear lads, but if you’re looking for something a little bit different, and you don’t want the arrogance of Jeremy Clarkson or the historical density of James May – this is your book.
As You Do, is all the stuff they weren’t allowed to show on Top Gear.
Hammond writes skilfully (and hilariously) about all the cool shit that his Top Gear fame has afforded him – racing dogsleds across Canada, racing cars across Africa, and toupe Safari (just to name a few).
You wouldn’t really know from watching Top Gear but Hammond is very VERY funny, and very VERY grateful for all the wonderful things life has afforded him. I suppose you’d have to be after not one but two near death experiences.
Anyway, this isn’t a masterpiece but it is very funny, very entertaining, and I always fell asleep with a smile on my face after reading As You Do.
Honestly, I didn’t finish this book. It was too effing full on.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t recognise its brilliance!
Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most subversive writers I’ve ever come across and he artfully draws together fiction, fantasy, and reality in this collection of short stories that make up a larger narrative about a group of writers trapped in an abandoned theatre with the intention of each creating their very own literary masterpiece.
His use of sardonic black humour is chilling, as he deconstructs the seemingly banal pretentions that make up the pillars of western society.
Haunted is a stomach-churning, mind blowing horror!
One day I will finish this book…. but not for now.
Not for the weak of heart.
So all up I’ve read eleven Clarkson books, Obamas two exceptional memoirs, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Hammond’s shenanigans, the nausea inducing Haunted, and a misguided tour of the 21st century – that’s seventeen books! (And those are just the ones I like!)
I rule!
So in conclusion: whatever mediocrity I may have been responsible for perpetuating this past year – I cannot complain that I haven’t read enough.
The end.
;)
;)
;)
