Real page turner!

I am only part way thorugh this book but I am loving it! Its a real page turner, I can't put it down! Ok, as another reviewer pointed out - we all go through tough times and not all of us can afford to pack off and travel the world for a year to recover but it is fascinating reading how she deals with her troubles and the people she meets along the way. It makes you want to just grab your backpack and go off and travel thats for sure!

Merely mortal Mandy?

How you hear things in politics depends where you stand. Mandy heard things from"the heart of New Labour" not as a dispassionate third man but as a fully committed protagonist. In the ceaseless jockeying for power between Blair and Brown he sides with Tony and paints Gordon as curmudgeonly, unco-operative and clever. Yet as PM Gordon needed Mandy's help and brought him back to prominence for an unprecedented third time, which only goes to show Mandelson's skill as a slippery smooth manipulator who played characters and events to his own advantage - that is, he would say, to the advantage of his country and his beloved New Labour. No wonder Bush called him"Silver Tongue".<br />This is a gripping tale from the days of making Labour again electable after the misuse of Union power and the countrywide Thatcherite drift to the Right up to the nail-biting horse-trading of the coalition a few months ago. It gets down to the specifics of wielding power from the viewpoint of Mandy's monstrous ego, yet with brief acknowledgements that he is merely mortal, though more mortal than most. I liked the passages on his childhood after being"born into Labour" and I liked his affection for his Brussels posting.<br />It could have been written with more colour even though there are colourful characters on every page and the Blair/Brown contest gets a bit repetitive. But as a personalised diary of the minutae of important political events it stands out as a must read.<br /><br />

Ultimate toilet book?

I seriously considered hiding in the toilets all afternoon so I could read this uninterrupted. I worry if Stewart Lee were to discover this, he might be insulted, given what he has to say on the subject of Chris Moyles and 'toilet books'.<br /><br />But it's not some compendium of randomly assembled trivia to read between bowel movements; rather, it's the transcripts of three of Lee's shows, annotated to within a inch of their lives. I think there is at least as much text in the form of footnotes as there is actual script.<br /><br />It's fascinating; along with the shows themselves (that I know fairly well from incessantly watching them on DVD for the past two years) there's a full account of why he stopped doing stand-up, and why he started again. I'd only known him for Fist of Fun in the mid-90s, so this is, at least for me, wonderfully educating stuff. Particularly in the lows of the early years of the century:<br />"Thus, Andy accompanied me on a strange holiday, a bizarre and unwanted chaperone figure visiting random and largely empty rooms in faraway towns where his contribution was not required, watching me lose my way emotionally, creatively, geographically, while I paid all his hotel bills and made him tramp across Scottish moors in search of uncharted stone circles during the long dead days off."<br /><br />There's some learnings on stagecraft (although Lee makes a point of saying he doesn't have the crowd-controlling instincts of a Comedy Store veteran) but what's much more interesting is the context he puts everything into; explaining the structure of each show, why he put it together in that way, and what message he was trying to get across. For me, it gave a few eureka moments (the purpose of the Christ-and-vomit bit had eluded me up to now, which suggests I'm inattentive, incapable of understanding subtext, or Lee needs to explain things in writing after doing them on stage) and overall the whole thing seems like a wonderful gift, explaining to us both why and how he's doing these things.<br /><br />Or was, because with each show he's moved on and abandoned some of these techniques as they become too worn for him; the DVDs become a way of putting them to bed. A bit like this book, I suppose.

North Korea

I thought this was an excellent book. Given that entering North Korea is difficult for anyone, let alone US journalists, Barbara Demick has done the best anyone could to understand this bizarre state, through the device of talking to exiles.<br /><br />She befriended and talked to 5 or 6 people, men and women of different ages and backgrounds. Their stories reveal the oddity, not to say brutality, of North Korea and, by inference, the personality of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il, who even now rules the country as his own personal fiefdom.<br /><br />What you don't learn is why it has proved so difficult for the rest of the world to bring North Korea out of the darkness. Perhaps if there were giant oilfields there, something would have been done...<br /><br />Other strange and autocratic states have improved over the years: some close to home, such as Albania, others further afield. There are plenty more to go: Uzbekistan and one or two others in Central Asia, Belarus on the edge of Europe, and of course Burma, which still rules its people cruelly and remains a blot on the conscience of the EU, which has done little to change the situation apart from make pious statements. Books like this one are vital components in the quest to bring such human rights abuses more into the public consciousness.

An entertaining and informative book.

The Game is the first book I decided to buy about pick up artists. I found it well written, informative and entertaining. I recommend it as a first read before you decide to buy in to the whole Pick Up Artist scene because this book tells you about bad stuff along with the good. If you're looking for tips on how to be a pick up artist this book really isn't it. It isn't that there aren't any, there are, but this book is more Neil's story about how he gets in to the scene and how for a while at least it almost takes him over.<br /><br />The Game can become an obsession and if you get in to it, especially if you start attending and paying for boot camps and seminars, it will change you. These changes can of course be good but there are also pitfalls and this book mentions these in perhaps more detail than most other books, seminars and boot camps on the subject.<br />

apt: THE SKY OUTLIVES EVERYTHING.

Little did I guess how apt this choice of book would be. 'Three Cups of Tea' by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, centred on Pakistan, not simply brought back some poignant memories of my visit there quite a few years ago but its message of hope, inspiration and depth of feeling was particularly apt, as reading it coincided with the ghastly tragedy of the floods. <br /><br />In Chapter 16, the Balti poet, Bowa Johar is quoted as saying 'All is temporary. The sky outlives everything. Even suffering.'<br /><br />Food for thought, indeed.<br /><br /><br />Jack Lynes. Pinner. Middlesex UK.

Masterful descriptive writing

I loved this book; it's beautifully written and describes the swimming locations that Roger Deakin swam throughout the British Isles with an enchanting prose. He swims rock pools, rivers, streams, tarns, lakes, lochs, lidos, ponds, fens, dykes, moats etc.. It's written with a different perspective that draws you in from the start. It's an unforgettable journey and a travel book with a difference that will be long remembered after you have finished the book.

Better than the rest, but not the best.

I'm not entirely sure what all of the negative reviews are getting at, clearly they bought this book thinking it would be nothing but Mock the Week content. It isn't. This book does make you laugh out loud on many occasions, however, this is a book about Frankie Boyle's life - so don't expect it to be full of sunshine and roses. The problem probably is that people think that Frankie on screen is different to Frankie off screen. From what I've seen and read they're the same person, not some sort of angry, Scottish 'character'. So if all you're looking for is lots of jokes then don't buy this. If instead you'd like to read about Frankie Boyle's life with some hilarious jokes chucked in the mix, then go ahead and buy this. Beware, this isn't for the faint hearted.

Savage! read.

Have to say after all the hype from Mr Savage on his Twitter account, I decided to give it a read.....well I think he should stick to what he does best. What ever that is!

An unexpected and compelling read

I stumbled upon a review of"Teach Us To Sit Still" by Tim Parks in the Weekend Financial Times and was immediately intrigued. The Financial Times is not a newspaper for people who like to sit still and I wasn't sure why the paper was at least tacitly encouraging such unproductive behavior. The Weekend Financial Times, on the other hand, is decidedly more relaxed and in that regard quite unlike its weekday sibling. And I would have to say having now read"Teach Us To Sit Still" - after a longish wait from Amazon UK as the book does not yet seem to be available here in the States - it is quite unlike any other book I have read.<br /><br />Despite the title, this is not a self-help book and doesn't pretend to be. After finishing it, I decided it was more of a"travel book", though there were large parts of Mr. Parks' journey that no one would wish to share. He writes more matter-of-factly than movingly of his struggle first to eliminate debilitating pelvic pain and then when conventional Western medical advice fails to offer relief to understand the pain as something else entirely - as the product of"a tussle in the mind." Mr. Parks' narrative becomes decidedly less clinical as he begins a reluctant and discursive journey towards a different sort of healing, one that takes him from reflections on the bowel complaints of Coleridge and Thomas Hardy, through a marvelously titled book,"A Headache in the Pelvis", and finally to his ongoing encounter with meditation. It is a skeptic's journey through alternative medicine but one that is ultimately taken in good faith - almost in spite of himself, insights come tumbling out about the provenance of his pain, the tyranny of words, writing and ambition, and the endless, consuming distractions of modern life that serve mostly to separate us from who we are.<br /><br />"Teach Us To Sit Still" makes a provocative case for a more expansive understanding of chronic pain - how it is experienced, managed, and, if the sufferer is fortunate, eventually diminished - that includes as much silence and acceptance as traditional medical intervention. I admit to being skeptical of this sort of claim myself, but I resolved after reading this most engaging book that I was going to at least find someone to teach me how to breathe. <br />

Memorable and marvellous

This is a beautifully written book about culture, art, creativity, belonging, deracination, family, memory, loss, all the things that give meaning to life. Edmund de Waal is uniquely well-placed to write this family memoir by virtue of his education, erudition and talents, but what makes it extraordinary is the perception and empathy that he brings to the task. One of the most memorable and marvellous books I have ever read.

Excellent book

I would highly recommend this book. I love autobiographies and this one is definitely a page-turner.

Don't Stop The Car

I bought this after reading the comments of the one-star reviewer (someone who can't spell claiming something is poorly written tells you all you need to know sometimes). A big thankyou.<br /><br />David Lloyd has made me laugh endlessly as a television commentator and now he has me guffawing in print.<br /><br />As previous reviewers have said, this book is rather like him chatting to you down the pub. Actually, it's like the best all-dayer you've ever had. He is exactly the kind of bloke you'd like a session with. And his mates the Regiment would be welcome too.<br /><br />His crackpot enthusiasm spills off every page and although his pen-portraits of his Sky colleagues at the start of the book are outstanding, Start the Car's greatness is in the latter half of the book. Here, we find out everything that has shaped the man thousands of us dearly love (his childhood, his cricket club, Accrington Stanley, love of a pint, a passion for comedy).<br /><br />Above all, this book promotes our Bumble as a natural storyteller. The young Flintoff dressing room escapade is priceless and how could anyone other than Bumble get away with trying to locate the whereabouts of a confiscated blow-up doll while in charge of an international team? Legend.

good s**t

I absolutely loved this book...how amazing is Justin's dad?! actually almost choked with laughter! Have given my copy to my sister, who also loved it, and am seriously thinking about buying another copy for myself, to read again and again. Has definitely made me rethink my parenting style...more please Justin!!

Je t'aime a la Folie

I previously enjoyed Michael Wrights book"C'est La Folie". With this second book, again I find the writing a delight. Michael clearly and humourously, describes his life in rural France. His column in the Telegraph on Saturdays, gives a good feel of what these two books are about.<br /><br />A lot of the pleasure comes from the quality of the writing. Too rare these days.

An excellent read

This book is so atmospheric, so detailed, I really couldn't put it down. A fabulous account of the 'working girls' day to day lives and told from a very affectionate yet honest viewpoint. Highly recommended!

peter

peter andre is a great guy..he has got talent not like the plastic women he married..jordan has got no talent what so ever.