Book Review: I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

I Feel Bad About My Neck

Written by: Nora Ephron

Published: 2006

Synopsis: With her disarming, intimate, completely accessible voice, and dry sense of humor, Nora Ephron shares with us her ups and downs in "I Feel Bad About My Neck, " a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself.

Ephron chronicles her life as an obsessed cook, passionate city dweller, and hapless parent. She recounts her anything-but-glamorous days as a White House intern during the JFK years ("I am probably the only young woman who ever worked in the Kennedy White House that the President did not make a pass at") and shares how she fell in and out of love with Bill Clinton--from a distance, of course. But mostly she speaks frankly and uproariously about life as a woman of a certain age.

Utterly courageous, wickedly funny, and unexpectedly moving in its truth telling, "I Feel Bad About My Neck" is a book of wisdom, advice, and laugh-out-loud moments, a scrumptious, irresistible treat.
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“…the amount of maintenance involving hair is genuinely overwhelming. Sometimes I think that not having to worry about your hair anymore is the secret upside of death.”

I grew up primarily watching three types of movies, Disney, sports (thanks dad) and romantic-comedies (which only made dad double down on the sports films). I have a bucket load of memories of me sitting on the couch with my mum watching Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally. I doubt I really understood the majority of the films (the "I'll have what she's having" scene definitely went flying over my head) but I still loved them. I watch them now and they make me weep at what passes for romantic comedies now, clumsy women who trip over their feet and men who do little more than smile in their direction to deserve their adoration. We are in desperate need of a revival in smart and funny romantic comedies.  I Feel Bad About My Neck only further establishes that fact - maybe we could get some of the superhero films to funnel money into some worthy projects? Oooooh, maybe a superhero rom-com in the vein of Nora Ephron? Yes please, I'll take 5.

I Feel Bad About My Neck hasn't really got anything to do with romantic comedies, unless you count the story about her love affair with a rent controlled apartment in New York or the one about falling out of love with Bill Clinton. But it's funny and sharp and self-deprecating and god, so New York. It has the same essence of all of those brilliant romantic comedies in the 1980-90s. Or maybe I just tie Nora Ephron so tightly to the romantic comedies she wrote and directed that I can't help but see that same essence here. *shrugs* This is so not important, MOVING ON.

This book is a wonderful collection of short stories that centre around Nora Ephron becoming older. There are stories about dealing with an empty house after 20 years of raising noisy children. There are stories about the death of her best friend and realisation of her own mortality. There are stories about the endless stream of make up aimed at women over 40 and the vanity that is just as much a part of a woman's life at 50 as it is at 25. The stories range from funny and silly to serious and sombre, but they're all very warm and personal glimpses into her life. Speaking of, I saw a few reviews on Goodreads that really pissed me off which I mentioned on Twitter during the minithon. They were scoring the book low and criticising Nora Ephron for writing about handbags and make up instead of abortions and human trafficking. First, Nora Ephron was under no obligation to write about "serious" feminist issues just because she's a well known feminist. This isn't Bad Feminist or PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, it isn't being marketed as a book of critical thinking and feminist theory. And second, fuck right off with your ranking of important issues. Obviously human trafficking is horrific and has traumatic implications for the people involved, but that doesn't mean discount all of the other squicky things done against women, even if it's something as simple as women feeling badgered by beauty companies about needing their products to remain attainable and youthful. And unlike the countless books and articles and short stories that look at the harmful influence of images on young women and children, it is rare to come across anyone writing about how it effects older women. Feminism isn't only for the young, nor is it only for the life and death issues.

NOT IMPRESSED

What a mess of a review, I should probably start over, but who has time for that? NOT I. So read it. Read it in spite of it not covering Very Serious Feminist Issues and dealing with silly and frivolous topics like ageing and price gouging in real estate and the expectations children, spouses, family and strangers have. Or read it FOR spite, because nothing would make me happier than people ignoring the complaints of those sour puss reviewers. Read it because it might not be When Harry Met Sally but the wonderful woman who wrote that also wrote these stories. Or at the very least read it because Nora Ephron emphatically understands how important reading books is to people like us.

“There is something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he's liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All of this happens to me when I surface from a great book.”

(audio)book review: Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Yes Please

Written and read by: Amy Poehler

Published: 2014

Synopsis: In Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book is full of words to live by





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“I have the Angelina Jolie of vaginas.”

I have found my book soul mate.

Am I surprised that I loved Yes Please? No. Of course I loved it. It's Amy FREAKING Poehler. I was guaranteed to enjoy the crap out of this book. But I am surprised that I loved it this much. When I read Tina Fey's Bossypants I had a ball. I laughed a lot and I gained a huge appreciation for her creativity, work ethic and feminist views. But once I finished it and wrote a gushing review that was kind of it. I'd recommend it to friends who liked 30 Rock and I'd occasionally reblog tumblr posts of quotes from it but it isn't like it shook the foundation of my world y'know? But I can't imagine that I'm going to pop Yes Please aside when I finish this review. It's the kind of book I'll keep around so that I can flip to those particular parts that resonated the most when I need a pick me up or a laugh. I've already replayed chapters to Tom so he can understand why I was cackling to myself in the bedroom for 20 minutes.

One of the reasons I love this book is how much effort was put into it. Audiobook memoirs are always better when read by the writer, they take on a much more intimate feel than I think you'd ever get from reading the physical copy. But Amy Poehler's audiobook is insane. It's an actual production. Aside from her reading and yelling and laughing a lot (her laugh is so infectious), she has Patrick Stewart reading haikus and Kathleen Turner reading the chapter titles and narrating the more serious moments. Her parents come by to offer their lists of important things to do as parents. Carrol Burnett drops by to reiterate that Poehler isn't exaggerating about their first meeting. Michael Shur annotates her chapter on Parks and Recreation, adding little nuggets of gold about one of my favourite comedy shows. The final chapter is read live to an audience, and their laughs and applause are the perfect button to the 7 hour journey Poehler leads. It's unlike any audiobook I've listened to. It's like a variety show for your ears.

Narratively, this book is very similar to Bossypants. But as friends who met in their early 20s and have travelled a very similar career path that isn't really surprising. Poehler also talks about growing up and her first forays into improv and "making it" as an actor and then juggling marriage and having babies with this hectic career, and while they approach these subjects from two very personal perspectives (and hey, it's not like there aren't eleventy billion memoirs about dudes doing the exact same thing) this is probably the main reason I would recommend the audio over the physical book. I'm sure it reads well enough as a physical book, but as a book that stands out from the crowd, I think you need the variety show element that the audio introduces. And while I would never want to say a negative word about my book soul mate, there are some rough chapter transitions and clunky sections every once and awhile. I didn't find them to be glaring in the audiobook, but they might have bugged me if I were actually reading them on a physical page. There are also moments that I think perhaps translate better to audiobook, although without reading the physical copy I'm not even sure exactly how they appear in the physical copy. For instance, during the Parks and Rec chapter there is a moment where she addresses each of her co-stars and then mentions a favourite moment or scene with them in the show. In the audiobook this is a really sweet and funny section where she conveys not only her love of the show but  for each of her co-workers. I don't know how well this would read on the page though. Maybe it'd be fine, but maybe it'd feel a little disjointed or filler-ish.

All that said though, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well Poehler could write. I knew the comedy elements of the book would be fantastic, as would the bursts of outrage or excitement, but there were also some beautifully crafted moments in the book that were really touching. Any time she mentioned her kids her writing softened and glowed. You could tell the moments in her life that have had the biggest impact because the writing was sharper, like she'd been replaying and  rewriting the moment in her head ever since it happened. She's brutally honest about moments in her life that can't have been easy to talk about, like her divorce for instance, but she also tempers those moments by including a section devoted to coming up with self help books for divorcees that are more realistic and, of course, hilarious. This isn't a typical memoir. It reflects Poehler's improv origins, full of short, sharp and eclectic moments. And like improv some of it works while some of it falls short. But the entire package, the entire 7 hour variety show/improv performance is bursting with creativity and heart and far more hits than misses.

Amy Poehler is a really special lady. I'd love to say that I see myself reflected in these pages but when it comes to the personalities of famous funny ladies I probably fall closer to Tina Fey. But Amy Poehler is the kind of girl I would want by my side. There's that Groucho Marx saying that "When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.” Amy Poehler is definitely the best friend saying "damn that was fun" but she'd also probably be the reason you're in there, maybe because she picked a fight with a guy in the airport who told her she shouldn't be in first class because she talked too much.

“All of my lower-middle-class Boston issues rose to the surface. I don’t like it when bratty, privileged old white guys speak to me like I am their mouthy niece. I got that amazing feeling you get when you know you are going to lose it in the best, most self-righteous way. I just leaned back and yelled, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU.” Then I chased him as he tried to get away from me.”

She's a firecracker, hilarious and tiny with a mouth like a sailor and definitely the person you want in your corner. She's put together one hell of a book, one that is an absolute must read (or must listen. DEFINITELY a must listen) for anyone who fancies themselves an Amy Poehler fan (which honestly, is anyone who has ever heard of her).

(Audio)book review: Fool by Christopher Moore

Fool 

Written by: Christopher Moore

Published: 2009

Audiobook read by: Euan Morton

Synopsis: A man of infinite jest, Pocket has been Lear's cherished fool for years, from the time the king's grown daughters—selfish, scheming Goneril, sadistic (but erotic-fantasy-grade-hot) Regan, and sweet, loyal Cordelia—were mere girls. So naturally Pocket is at his brainless, elderly liege's side when Lear—at the insidious urging of Edmund, the bastard (in every way imaginable) son of the Earl of Gloucester—demands that his kids swear their undying love and devotion before a collection of assembled guests. Of course Goneril and Regan are only too happy to brownnose Dad. But Cordelia believes that her father's request is kind of . . . well . . . stupid, and her blunt honesty ends up costing her her rightful share of the kingdom and earns her a banishment to boot.

Well, now the bangers and mash have really hit the fan. The whole damn country's about to go to hell in a handbasket because of a stubborn old fart's wounded pride. And the only person who can possibly make things right . . . is Pocket, a small and slight clown with a biting sense of humor. He's already managed to sidestep catastrophe (and the vengeful blades of many an offended nobleman) on numerous occasions, using his razor-sharp mind, rapier wit . . . and the equally well-honed daggers he keeps conveniently hidden behind his back. Now he's going to have to do some very fancy maneuvering—cast some spells, incite a few assassinations, start a war or two (the usual stuff)—to get Cordelia back into Daddy Lear's good graces, to derail the fiendish power plays of Cordelia's twisted sisters, to rescue his gigantic, gigantically dim, and always randy friend and apprentice fool, Drool, from repeated beatings . . . and to shag every lusciously shaggable wench who's amenable to shagging along the way.
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“...Heinous Fuckery, most foul!”

The minute I finished reading Lamb I wanted to read more of Christopher Moore but I am reading books so slowly at the moment, that it felt unfair to all the other authors crowding my shelves and remaining unread. So I jumped onto Audible and had a look at which of his books were audiobooks and surprisingly there were only two, Fool and The Serpent of Venice. And since The Serpent of Venice is a sequel to Fool, the choice was rather obvious.

Fool is Moore's interpretation of Shakespeare's famous tragedy King Lear* from the perspective of Lear's fool, Pocket**. It's not a faithful interpretation, at least not in the strictest sense, it borrows from other plays and mixes up some of the history but Moore channels the Bard where it really matters, i.e. foul language and sex.

"This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as nontraditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank . . . If that's the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!"

It is HELLA bawdy guys. Lots of T&A, dirty puns and crude innuendo, and since the language is much more updated than your traditional Shakespearian play you tend to actually notice exactly how filthy it is. There's a lot less "wait, was that meant to be dirty?" "why does Hamlet want to still his head in Ophelia's lap? Am I reading too much into this? (no)" and a lot more cackling at Pocket's nastiness. Because I was listening to an audiobook I didn't note down any of the truly hilarious dirty bits and Goodreads has completely let me down (for shame readers, where are your priorities?) but trust me, dirty.

So the book obviously has that going for it but you don't need to be a borderline pervert to find enjoyment in the story. It's got a lot of the other good Shakespearian elements, subterfuge, witches and demanding ghosts and really fantastic language. It's no Shakespeare obviously, but Moore does a brilliant job in creating a book that bursts off the page with its colourful*** language. The audio reader, Euan Morton, was one of the best I've come across so far. I looked him up and he's a stage performer which makes complete sense. He has absolute control over the writing, drawing sentences out or hitting the enunciation on certain words to really emphasise the writing. There was a particular repeat  line that just hit me every time, when Pocket would say "Moi?", said I, in perfect fucking French", and it shouldn't be that funny but Morton's line read is so brilliant that I would be caught by surprise and laugh out loud every single time. I love to read Shakespeare, but it really is so much better when it's performed. I felt the same with Fool, it might not be in iambic pentameter and it might technically be a book but I wholeheartedly believe that listening to this book is the way to go.

But back to the actual book. Pocket is a perfect fool. He is the quintessential Shakespearian fool, ruthless, smart, hilarious and constantly outwitting everyone and playing them against one another. Isaac Asimov once said that the great secret to the fool is that he isn't a fool at all, and that's the beauty of this book. It's twisted the well known story so that the fool is in the background of every scene, pulling the strings and putting words in everyone's mouth. Pocket might seem like the man in court with the least power, just a man with a puppet and black silk clothes, but he's got a finger in every pie. Nothing happens without him knowing about it and with his protégé Drool (who can mimic every voice he hears perfectly), he has every tool at his disposal to take power, wreak havoc or convince someone to fall in love with him - whatever he wants really.

“Perhaps there is a reason that there is no fool piece on the chessboard. What action, a fool? What strategy, a fool? What use, a fool? Ah, but a fool resides in a deck of cards, a joker, sometimes two. Of no worth, of course. No real purpose. The appearance of a trump, but none of the power: Simply an instrument of chance. Only a dealer may give value to the joker.”

This book is first and foremost a funny, funny book but it also has a hell of a lot of heart. Pocket isn't simply a mischievous trickster trying to make trouble for everyone. I mean he is, but there's also more to it than simply acting to move the plot along. Throughout the book we get glimpses into his childhood, and his early days in the castle with Cordelia, the little princess who didn't talk until he came to work for the king. It's still pocketed with humour, but these moments help round out all of the characters and give them a purpose so they aren't simply replicas taken from Shakespeare's page.

If you're fond of Shakespeare or bawdy tales or laughing a lot then you should hunt out this book and give it a read. Or a listen, because even if you've never been a fan of audiobooks I'm certain this one will change your mind. I'm off to download the sequel now, although I'm trying hard to hide my disappointment that it isn't simply a full length version of the play a group of travelling performers told Pocket about, Green Eggs and Hamlet.

“We've been rehearsing a classic from antiquity, Green Eggs and Hamlet, the story of a young prince of Denmark who goes mad, drowns his girlfriend, and in his remorse, forces spoiled breakfast on all whom he meets.”

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*Which is a much better and much shorter time than the original title Shakespeare used "The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters". Oof, get an editor dude.

**It's been a long time since I've read Lear, but I'm fairly sure he's just called Fool in the play right? 

***And not just colourful = crude language.

Book Review: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem and Other Things That Happened.

Written by: Allie Brosh

Published in: 2013

Synopsis: In a four-color, illustrated collection of stories and essays, Allie Brosh’s debut Hyperbole and a Half chronicles the many “learning experiences” Brosh has endured as a result of her own character flaws, and the horrible experiences that other people have had to endure because she was such a terrible child. Possibly the worst child. For example, one time she ate an entire cake just to spite her mother.

Challenges: Memoir for Book'd Out's Eclectic Reader Challenge

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"For me motivation is this horrible, scary game where I try to make myself do something while I actively avoid doing it."

Books made from blogs are not something I usually go in for. I mean, it typically means paying for content you've already read online for free so why bother? But when I saw Hyperbole and a Half on Netgalley I figured why not, it's free and I only read the blog sporadically, so it'll hopefully be stuff I've never read. And you guys, I loved it.

On the off chance you've never read Hyperbole and a Half, it's the blog of Allie Brosch. She combines humourous and hyperbolic personal anecdotes with illustrations she makes in paint. Oh and she's responsible for this meme.

 Like I said, I only read her blog sporadically, so I came to all of the content in this book with new eyes. I did recognise a chapter on depression from her blog, but without searching for it I don't know if it's reproduced in its entirety or if it was altered and added to for the book. But everything else was new (to me) and awesome. So much of it is so silly and ridiculous and Allie has such a knack for comedic writing and timing, I laughed out loud a lot, and i'm not to kind of person that laughs out loud that often when I read.

The book shifts from insane anecdotes about Allie's childhood to thoughtful essays about depression and suicide. I'm sure that hardly sounds giggle-inducing, and some of it isn't, but even the darkest most heartbreaking moments are broken by glimpses of levity. For instance, after discussing a consuming depression that overtook Allie for several months she mentions how after months of feeling nothing, she ended up impervious to her normal fears and anxieties of social interactions and began to feel like a superhero, a superhero who can buy 10 packets of skittles and rent out 6 horror movies and no longer worry what the guy at the counter thinks.

"But my experiences slowly flattened and blended together until it became obvious that there's a huge difference between not giving a fuck and not being able to give a fuck."

"And that's the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn't always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn't even something - it's nothing. And you combat nothing. You can't fill it up. You can't cover it. It's just there, pulling the meaning out of everything." 

And when you accompany this story with one of her comics, I don't know, it just works so well. It's thoughtful and honest and personal and darkly funny and it's why people love Hyperbole and a Half so much.

As good as these more serious essays were, my favourites were definitely the humourous ones about Allie as a kid and her two dogs, Simple Dog and Helper Dog. They're probably the kinds of stories I expect when I think about Hyperbole and a Half, they're outrageous, funny and the illustrations add so much to an already great story. Stories about kids always crack me up, they're just the weirdest bundles of creative insanity. I'm the person who will ask your parents for stories about you, because I love hearing about teeny tiny X and the batshit crazy things they used to do.

"You can't take your clothes of and hide in the corner hoping no one notices. You can't trick the teachers into letting you be naked by burying yourself in the sandbox - your clothes are in a pile next to you. They know."

The best of the lot was about little Allie's obsession with cake and sugar and the extreme lengths she went to to get hold of the birthday cake her mum made for her grandpa's birthday. It's utterly charming and hilarious, although I feel for her parents, little Allie must have been exhausting!

This is a short book, I read it over a lazy afternoon with Seinfeld breaks, and it still didn't take longer than 2 hours or so to read. I don't know if it's because I had an ARC or if it'll be the case with all digital editions, but the illustrations were teeny tiny, and since they're such an integral part of the Hyperbole and a Half personality that was a bit of a bummer. So perhaps hunt out a physical copy* if you can, or sample it first and make sure the pictures are of a decent size. It's funny, thoughtful, honest and there is a scene where Allie and her boyfriend are terrorised by a goose in their house so you know it's worth checking out.


*Sarah read a physical copy of this book and seemed pretty impressed by the images/layout, so maybe that's the way to go.

*All images are screenshots from the book and remain the property of Allie Brosch.*

Book Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Warm Bodies

Written by: Isaac Marion

Published: 2010

Synopsis: 'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.

Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.

This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...

Challenges: RIP VIII
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"Once you've arrived at the end of the world, it hardly matters what route you took"

So it seems like 2013 is the year of YA reads. It's also the year of swallowing my pride and admitting maybe I was a little quick to judge. When I first heard rumblings of Warm Bodies online a year or so ago, I grumbled to myself about zombies finally being given the Twilight treatment. When favourable reviews started to come out I attributed it to people not really knowing the zombie genre too well, and therefore having pretty minimal expectations. In fact, I just went back to Alley's review (which is brilliant by the way, go read it and give her some love) and I commented saying:

I have this on my 'to read' list but it's definitely going to be a library book, because I still feel like it's going to be a universal joke to make me read a zombie Twilight story.

I was ready to write this one off without giving it a real chance. And considering I've been studying zombies for the past 2.5 years and have been burnt by shitty representations of zombies in literature in the past - I think I had a right to be a little wary. But when my PhD supervisor told me the film was actually pretty brilliant I had to reconsider my stance, because if Australia's best known and respected horror expert thinks it's a nifty take on the genre then maybe there's something to it. He was right, you all were, and I was very, very wrong. Warm Bodies is everything everyone said it was, it was funny and clever and a really solid YA read. It wasn't perfect, and I'll get to that later, but i'm definitely glad everyone wore me down and it was sitting on the "HEY! Read this immediately" shelf at the library.

So a lot of the reviews I've read have said "this isn't like any zombie story you've ever seen before" and that isn't entirely correct. Isaac Marion, who surely must be a pretty big fan of the genre, actually builds on the work of George A Romero. Romero's best known for the first two of his six zombie films, but if you follow the two trilogies there's a clear evolutionary path that the zombie takes. From mindless cannibalism and the reckless spread of their virus (Night of the Living Dead), the zombies slowly start to show recognition of household items (Bub and the telephone in Day of the Dead), to organised attacks against human oppressors (Big Daddy in Land of the Dead), to choosing to eat animals over humans (Survival of the Living Dead). What is new, however, is taking this idea and showing it to us from the zombie point of view. Whether Marion actually intended to build on Romero's work is up for debate (I can't honestly be bothered to see if he's said anything to this effect in an interview), it's clear he needed to take this approach to make the story work, because a story from a traditional zombie's point of view would be terribly boring. But Marion manages the difficult task of balancing this idea of consciousness with well-known zombie conventions. It's true that they think and maintain relationships and families, but they do still attack and eat the living, rot and decompose and can be taken out completely by a blow to the brain. It advances and adapts the genre without slapping die-hard fans in the face - something that Stephenie Meyer never managed to get a hang of.

I intend to throw Twilight under the bus A LOT more

I'm sure you've all heard the basic breakdown of the story, but here's a refresher just in case. Warm Bodies is based on Romeo and Juliet, although beyond the forbidden love angle and a scene on a balcony, it's a pretty loose adaptation. Did it actually need to be based on one of Shakespeare's most famous plays? No, but unlike Twilight it's not just a ham-fisted shout-out screaming "LOOK IT'S JUST LIKE GREAT LITERATURE". Romeo, or R in this case since he can't remember the rest of his name, is different to the other zombies. He seems to have retained more of his humanity and is constantly battling with the existential crisis that is life as a zombie. He goes through the motions, he kills and eats the living, "marries" another zombie and adopts a couple of kids,  rides an escalator around and around - but it never seems like enough. And then one day on a hunt he finds himself drawn to protecting a human, a girl named Julie. He covers her in blood, pretends he turned her into one of them, and takes her back to his home in an aeroplane.

And this is where my favourite part of the novel comes in. The reason R falls for Julie is that he eats her boyfriend. And in Marion's world, when a zombie eats a brain they get a brief flash of the life that their victim lived. Some flashes are stronger than others, and R seems to live (ha! sorry not sorry) for these brief reminders of life. So when he takes a bite of Perry's grey matter he experiences a flash far greater than he's ever experienced, and Perry's love of Julie is passed on to R. It's this initial flash of life and emotion that leads to the development of our two leads' relationship and the unfolding of the narrative. R becomes almost addicted to revisiting Perry's life (he keeps the rest of his brain in his pocket for snacks) and eventually it develops into something...more. And the small flashes of Perry's life and his struggle to find a reason to live in a post-everything, zombie-infested world were brilliant. It's not that R and Julie were bad characters per say, but they are both cut from well-worn YA cloth and didn't really deliver anything new. Perry on the other hand felt more human and less like an archetype, and I shared R's curiosity in unfolding the story of his life.

The zombie life mirrors the life of the living in Warm Bodies. Both groups have banded together into larger groups for protection, they train their young to survive in this apocalyptic world, and they struggle to retain a semblence of pre-zombie normality. There's not a lot of cheer and optimism in the living camps, but there's even less in the zombie hives. They live in groups, but given their inability to truly communicate or physically respond, they're always alone.

"We recognise civilisation - buildings, cars, a general overview -but we have no personal role in it. No history"

Their hunger isn't something they have any control over, and R isn't the only one who seems to detest what they've become. All of their attempts at living life, their marriages, attempts to have sex and fascination with eating brains are so sad and empty that it's hard not to feel sympathy for these people who were once us. And Marion manages to weave these small moments of levity into the greater romance plot in such a way that it never feels overly sad or philosophical, but it's impossible to completely ignore them.

Mild spoilers - Although I liked the book overall, I actually didn't love the central premise, namely that through meeting Julie R begins to transform. The execution felt a little rushed and it was a little overwrought and under-explained. I think it could have been a fascinating book if they had to learn to love and live with each other despite their differences, differences which are impossible to ignore. I understand that Marion is writing a sequel which perhaps will explore the cause of his transformation and the ramifications, and certain hints regarding the boneys give a cursory explanation but I wanted more about the how and why and less about the R&J love story. But then I'm pretty stone-hearted when it comes to YA romance stories. End spoilers.

I don't particularly like being wrong, but when it comes to a book exceeding expectations I'll happily accept it. Warm Bodies is a funny and sweet novel that I'm starting to think might actually be my new favourite zombie novel. And in case you're nervous about it being scary (it isn't) because zombies are always scary (seriously it isn't scary) you can actually read the short story that this was based on, which will 100% prove to you that I'm not lying about it being non-scary.

Book Review: The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliott

The Pilo Family Circus 

Written by: Will Elliott

Published: 2009

Synopsis: "You have two days to pass your audition. You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?” Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself. When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!

Challenges:  RIP VIII
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“The classic definition of slapstick runs along the line of, "Funny is someone else ramming his face repeatedly into a brick wall.”

When I decided to take part in RIP VIII I knew it was the perfect opportunity to finally read The Pilo Family Circus. Tom had bought it a few years ago and had raved about it, but for whatever reason it continued to sit unread on my shelf. Maybe it was the clowns thing, for some strange reason I've always found clowns terrifying.

Oh right, that's why.

So anyway, when RIP VIII was announced I immediately started this book so that I couldn't pass over it yet again. And while I liked it, I didn't like it for the reasons I thought I'd like it and it wasn't nearly the terrifying clown nightmare I'd been expecting.

But first a note about the author Will Elliott. Elliott is from my adopted home city Brisbane, so there's a certain level of squee for me reading this since I know the streets he's talking about and I can work out which hotel or club he's mocking based on the hints he gives which is awesome because I normally haven't been to the places in books I read. At the time of writing this book, Elliott had recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia and I think that adds a fascinating level to the novel. He's said that the book is in no way autobiographical, but considering the crux of the story is a young Brisbane male who "shares" his body and mind with a psychotic clown and has to try and find a way to extricate himself from the situation - I think it's safe to say that his own experiences aren't entirely divorced from the novel.

So if you read the synopsis up yonder, it seems like it has all the ingredients for a terrifying clown-filled horror novel that will have you literally shaking in your boots. It's actually a lot more of an absurdist dark comedy that plays with horror and thriller tropes than anything truly terrifying. And I actually think this played out a lot better than anything I expected to read. The real beauty of this novel is that so much is written matter-of-factly, "oh clowns wandering the streets? We are in New Farm afterall, no big deal" that it's only when you put it down to take a break or eat dinner that you realise how bat-shit crazy it actually is. The majority of the novel takes place in a circus that exists in some metaphysical space between Earth and Hell, where centuries-old circus folk put on shows for "tricks" (people on earth who wander into this show from an earth-bound circus or fair) because that's their job. Yes they're also doing it to collect the tricks' souls, but that's not nearly as important as putting on a Good Show. Add to this the co-owner of the circus, Kurt Pilo, who looks wolfish and eats teeth as snacks, one of the clowns is engaged to a fern, there's a yeti that eats glass which makes him sad, souls can grant wishes and murders are a regular occurrence. And while writing all of this makes me feel like I'm stuck in some kind of fun-house mirror room, in the book is just is. It's a circus that has something to do with Lovecraftian demon creatures, so of course things are crazy. Of course, everyone tries to kill each other. Of course the clown face paint transforms Jamie into the demonic JJ the Clown. Of course, there's a character called fishboy who is just lovely. Of Course, the circus is somehow responsible for WWII. It all just makes complete sense while you're caught up in the narrative, it's only back in the real world that the images start to seem warped and twisted.

While I say this book is more of a dark comedy, there are still instances of horror and suspense, so if you're horror-wary maybe don't run to your library for this book too quickly. The opening scenes that are set in Brisbane, where Jamie goes from hotel concierge to unwitting clown recruit, are brutal and tense. After picking up a bag of mysterious crystals that the clowns dropped (some kind of drugs, Jamie supposes), Jamie's house is destroyed, his housemate is kidnapped, he's poisoned and he sees the clowns in the basement of his hotel with a lit match preparing to blow the whole thing up. And this is only the first 20 or so pages. There are two more returns made to this above-world in the novel, and in both of these scenes the grotesquery and horror that seemed so normal in the circus was thrown into sharp relief. Will Elliott has a pretty sick and sinister underside, and considering this was his debut novel and he was in his early 20s when writing it, it's damn impressive how well he manages to accomplish all of this.

So if you're after a Halloween read that won't continue to haunt you post-Halloween, then I wholeheartedly recommend you take a closer look at this one from Will Elliott. Entertaining and well written with brief moments of pure horror, The Pilo Family Circus is still more likely to make you laugh than run for the bedcovers.

Graphic Novel Mini-Review #14

Ten Grand (issue #1)

Written by: J. Michael Straczynski, Illustrated by: Ben Templesmith

Published: 2013

My Thoughts: I will buy anything Ben Templesmith adds his name to, so perhaps my opinion is terribly biased, but I did love the crap out of this comic. I found this story of a depressed and end-of-his-tether ex-crime-enforcer who will now take on any job for the right price really engaging, and Templesmith's art has a key role in that. The darkness and lonliness of the text and story blends gorgeously with Templesmith's style and colour palette and I can't wait to see where this cult-investigation heads.

Axe Cop: President of the World (Volume #4)

Written by: Malachai Nicolle; Illustrated by: Ethan Nicolle

Published: 2012

My Thoughts: Written by a kid and illustrated by his older brother, this series is the most amazing and wonderfully bizarre thing I've ever read (check out their website and youtube stuff too!). In this volume Axe Cop (soon to be played on TV by Nick Offerman) is president of Earth and after one million years of peace, the bad guys are back and ready to kill everyone and take over Earth. The stuff this kid comes up with is crazy creative, and it's kind of sad to think one day he'll grow up and outgrow it all, but until then drink in the weird guys, it's delicous.

Oldboy (Volume #1)

Written by: Garon Tsuchiya; Illustrated by: Nobuaki Minegishi; Translator: Kumar Sivasubramanian

Published: 1997

My thoughts: I really love the Korean movie that is based on this manga series, so I thought I should check out the series to see what the film missed out or changed. But because I know the basic narrative structure and plot sequence I found this book a little boring. It's well written, well illustrated and I can see it's leading towards the juicy stuff, but at this point it's too much set up and not enough stuff. Definitely good enough for me to continue on with though, just make sure you loan/buy the first few volumes at once.

TV Review: Orange is the New Black (2013)

Orange is the New Black (season 1)

Created by: Jenji Kohan

Starring: Taylor Schilling
Laura Prepon
Jason Biggs
Kate Mulgrew
Natasha Lyonne
Pablo Schrieber

Synopsis: Piper must trade her comfortable New York life for an orange prison jumpsuit when her decade-old relationship with a drug runner catches up with her. (Via Netflix)

The series is also based on a book, Buzzfeed wrote an article about the main differences between the two if you're curious.


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With my boyfriend down in Melbourne for PAX, I decided the time was ripe for a tv binge. I've been watching a hell of a lot of The West Wing recently, but I decided to log some hours with a show that didn't have a gazillion seasons made up of a trillion episodes. I'd heard a few positive mutterings on twitter about Orange is the New Black and since it was only 13 one hour episodes it seemed perfect. And perfect it was, because holy shit I stayed up until 4am watching all but the last three episodes and had to be up at 9am for work. So if you take obsessive binge watching as an indicator of quality, then this show is GOOD.

The concept didn't initially inspire much hope for me, I mean, a white girl who lives in a nice New York loft with her writer boyfriend and makes fancy soaps for a living goes to prison...all signs seemed like they were pointing directly towards a white-girl-saves-all-the-poc-and-desperate-criminals-because-she's-white-and-therefore-jesus type situation and I am not on board with that shit. But then I saw that it was created by Jenji Kohan (creator of Weeds which y'know at least had 3 good seasons) and I was like ok ok, I'll give it a chance because my girl Kohan doesn't really go for that white girl saves all BS.

Anyway, yeah it's totally NOT THAT. At times it's like Piper (the main character) thinks she has the power to heal or fix the others, but she's basically the worst person in there. If you've seen Weeds she's basically the Nancy Botwin character, and I hated Nancy, and to be honest, by the end of the series I pretty much hated Piper too. But hating Piper doesn't really matter, partly because I think you're supposed to (or at least think she's not so great) but also because even though this is a show about how a white girl goes to jail for transporting drug money across international lines because the girl she was hopelessly in love with was a drug baron (of sorts) ten years after the fact, the best parts of the show are when we see all the other prisoners interact and their flashbacks. It's a little black and white at time, the guards are evil and mean and take advantage of the prisoners (save a couple) and the prisoners are all really nice, they're just misunderstood/in the wrong place at the wrong time/caught in the system. But even with that, the characters are all really interesting and complicated and the actors who play them, mostly unknowns, are all so wonderful. Even the characters who are kind of stereotypes i.e. the loud, brash black woman, the Russian tyrant, the in-your-face lesbian, are revealed to have much more to them than you'd initially think, and in some cases, are using those stereotypes as shields to help them survive prison.

Each episode one or two of the characters have their pasts shown in flashbacks interspersed through the episode, and they're basically there to humanise the women, "yes this woman is loud and angry and anti-authoritarian but here are the events in her life that lead to that".  They're short and spread out enough that they don't overtake the actual story, but they're also crucial to the show's success. I don't think I would have liked the characters half as much, or understood them anyway, if I hadn't had these small glimpses. And even though the women in the prison are friends, and in some cases think of one another as mother/daughter, there's a real separation to their lives inside and outside prison, so with the flashbacks we're privy to a side of their character that no one in the prison gets to see or know. And that's pretty great, even if it does leave you wanting to scream "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW HURT AND MESSED UP SHE IS BECAUSE OF X" at other characters when they react certain ways.

So all the characters are fucked up in their own unique ways, and I can't even begin to tell you how much I adored all of them, and all of the little relationships and families that exist in the prison. Like Lorna Morello (played by Yael Stone) who is the most adorable little lady with this 1940s vibe who looks like Madonna in A League of our Own, or Crazy Eyes (played by Uzo Aduba) who I desperately want to know more about, or Sophia Burset (played by Laverne Cox), a transgender woman who is struggling to get her son to acknowledge her existence, or Taystee and Poussey who start out hating each other and end up the best of friends (seriously, they made me cry several times).  Even Piper, who is going through a major identity crisis and having to come to terms with her 'old' and 'current' lives, is fascinating. And to be fair, by the final four or so episodes the guards are also being fleshed out more, so hopefully by season 2 it will be less about how mean and ignorant the guards are and more as one guard tells Piper, "we all make dumb mistakes, the only difference is that you got caught for yours*"

Because it's set in a female prison, it's also a fantastic show for ladies. In some ways it's like a high school soapie on crack, there's name-calling and hair-pulling between the inmates, but it also deals with a lot of issues like sexual assault, prostitution, misogyny - both inside the prison and in the flashbacks outside of prison. And judging by the reviews all this lady drama and menstruation talk isn't scaring off the dude viewers which is AWESOME, because it's about god damn time they started to understand some of this shit!

When I was looking for gifs of the show on tumblr I saw some people complaining about the amount of lesbian scenes and boob shots in the show. To some extent I'm sure this was Netflix or whatever producer saying "sex sells! moar boobs, moar!" but it's also got an actual purpose, or at least I see a purpose to it**.

First, the boobs. It's a female prison and it's made pretty clear that there is zero privacy the second Piper shows up. So by showing us the naked females when there are scenes in the bathroom (a bathroom which has no doors and only shower curtains on some stalls) it forces you to recognise this lack of privacy. For sure some of it is the boobs=male audience thing, but I never really got an especially male gaze vibe from it all, and it all slotted in quite nice with the rest of the zero privacy aspects in the show.

Second, rape and relationships are both realities in male and female prisons. And this series looks at how this manifests, and the different ways this manifests, for these women. In a lot of cases it's in the form of friendships or mother/daughter relationships. Red, the Russian cook, takes young ex-junkies under her wing and looks after them, calling them her daughters. In other cases it becomes a sexual relationship, sometimes it's simply a consensual relationship between two women who'd perhaps be dating on the outside too. For some it's a power thing, and they "trade up" girlfriends every so often. For others it's about retaining sanity or doing something for themselves while they're in prison, and like Piper mentions at around the midway point to someone (to her fiancée Larry maybe?) she needs comfort, and to touch someone else so she doesn't completely lose touch with the world***. There is also the threat of rape or being forced into a relationship to survive the prison experience, but you don't ever really see this side of things in the series although it's mentioned on a couple of occasions.

Anyway, basically my point is, if you're going to see relationships in a place without doors on the bathroom stalls and without doors or screens to their sleeping quarters and where there is always a guard watching them, you're going to see boobs and sex from time to time. It's a small place, and they don't exactly have free reign to go and do as they choose, so why hide the reality of this situation?

So yeah, I don't really want to talk about the characters any more because I think you really need to learn about them as you go, and I actually don't like the love triangle between Alex (Piper's drug baron ex), Piper and Larry so I'm not going to bother with it (I will end up raging guys, I swear to god) but the last thing I want to mention, which I don't think spoils anything, is that halfway through Larry ends up on radio talking about his relationship with Piper while she's in prison. And he tells all the stories about the inmates that Piper told him, and they're completely warped from the events we actually saw or heard about. He just sees murderers and junkies and dangerous women so the stories he tells come across as really violent and frightening. And I kind of love that a lot, because at first I was like "Yes! That's exactly how we see people in prison, we just assume they're evil and they have malicious intent, so we don't listen to the actual stories or treat them like regular people". But then I was like, this is also true in reverse, we grow to love these women so much that the fact they murdered someone just seems unimportant, and maybe the stories actually are frightening but we don't see that because we're blinded by the awesome lady rap Tastee did in the previous scene?

So clearly this show is great because it made me think and it's all super lady-centric and there is not enough of that - but also, it's really funny, and touching, and the characters are bonkers good. So watch it, it's all on Netflix (and if you aren't on Netflix there are other...ways) and it's pretty great. So yes. All that.

Taystee is my girrrrrl

*Not a direct quote, I was too lazy to go back and find it word for word.

**According to the Buzzfeed article I linked to, the book basically has no sex/sexual relationships, so maybe it all entirely for the ratings and dude viewers, but I stand by my points.

***Also not a direct quote, see above re: laziness.

Book Review: When You're Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

When You're Engulfed in Flames 

Written by: David Sedaris

Published: 2008

Synopsis: Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from "a writer worth treasuring" (Seattle Times).

Challenges: Humour for Book'd Out's Eclectic Reader Challenge
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Guys I am in a crazy review slump at the moment. I have all these books I've read (ok, like 2 but still) and really loved but then I sit down to write my review and I just can't think of anything to say, which is weird because normally my reviews are crazy long and I have to forcibly stop myself from talking rubbish for 2000 words. So bear with me for the next week or two, my reviews will probably be pretty short but hopefully decent enough. And even if  they're rubbish, BE NICE OK.

David Sedaris is one of those authors I feel like you're supposed to read. And while I usually find myself yawning at those 'must read' authors, I've always been sure I'd enjoy David Sedaris. So when I was at the library the other week I decided to see which of his books they had and now I can finally say that I've read one of his books, AND that I enjoyed it. Success!

There were a lot of things I loved about this book. The essay format made it easy for me to read on public transport, the writing is stream-lined whilst also feeling like a conversation with a friend, his self-deprecating style of writing and humour is very familiar, the writing is great, and the stories are a combination of bizarre and completely normal/mundane making them completely unpredictable. Basically it hit all the hallmarks of a remarkable and memorable book of autobiographical essays, and if the rest of his books are as honest, forthright and funny I am going to thoroughly enjoy getting to know Sedaris's work.

One of the things I loved most is the structure he uses to tell his stories. They typically opened with some sort of anecdote or conflict which then morphs into the actual thrust of the story. Sometimes the opening element has a clear tie to the rest of the essay, while other times it seems completely at odds until you get to the final paragraph where he ties the two together with finesse. Regardless, they come across as very intimate stories, almost like being in his head as his thoughts stumble across one another and make sense of the collection of actions and reactions and events which have occurred in his life. It's a process, and rather than have him dictate a story or lesson to you, it's like he's explaining it to himself as well as you. You're in it together so to speak. It's nice, I came out the end of the book feeling like I knew the man, which is especially great since I jumped in with one of his more recent books.

I always find books of essays or short stories hard to review, because I'm never sure if I should discuss each story/essay or just my favourites, or an eclectic pick, or some of the weaker ones or.... you get the gist. I think in this case I'm just going to pick two or three that I found the most captivating.

This Old House - Coco Chanel said that before leaving the house you should look in the mirror and take one accessory off. This story sort of felt like Sedaris's discover of that in terms of his own identity. In wanting to be different from his family and the place he grew up he went to the complete cliche hipster extreme, revelling in nostalgia.

That's Amore - This was maybe my favourite story of the lot. It's the story of his New York neighbour Helen. She's sort of your stereotypical New York old lady, basically Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet in Rosemary's Baby, loud, a know it all, gossipy, a sticky beak, forthright, a little delusional but the kind of person you love to know. Sedaris's descriptions of Helen and her various indiscretions were hilarious, heart-warming and just GREAT.

The Smoking Section - Spanning 80 pages, this is David Sedaris's farewell to nicotine. It starts with his parent's smoking habits, progresses into the start of his tumultuous relationship with cigarettes, drugs and alcohol and then finishes with the lonely and difficult decision to give up smoking in Japan. It's about his smoking first and foremost, but there are so many other things going on in this story - family, addiction, disconnection, relationships, isolation - that make it phenomenally personal and intriguing. A perfect way to wrap up the book.

I've seen a few critcisms in reviews where people have said that once you've read one Sedaris you've read them all. I'm hoping that isn't true, because I love his style and voice and would love to read, and enjoy reading, a bunch more of his books. I guess that isn't something I'll know for sure until I've tried some others, but it does make me a little hesitant to pick another one up. But I've also seen a lot of people compare Sedaris to Woody Allen (which I get, but only in a neurotic American male writer kinda way), and I love A LOT of Woody Allen movies, so I'm going to assume that that is proof that I'll be fine and enjoy Sedaris for the rest of my life. Or at least for the foreseeable future.

10 Reasons why you should watch Happy Endings

When I'm not reading or doing my PhD stuff I watch a lot of TV. Like a ridiculously huge amount. Unfortunately, I seem to have a habit of developing deep feelings for shows bound for cancellation, which is where Happy Endings looks like it's heading toward (knock on wood). But it isn't too late! I can't help because I'm in Australia, but all of you Americans MUST watch the show, or at least DVR it, so that people like I can enjoy it for years longer. But I'd prefer if you watch it and like it OBVIOUSLY, so here is another gif filled list that will make you a Happy Endings convert. FYI, don't search Tumblr or Google Images for gifs of this show without the safe search on...live and learn people, you live and learn.


The Premise

After Alex (Elisha Cuthbert) leaves Dave (Zachary Knighton) at the alter for a dude on rollerblades the foundation of this crazy group of 6 is shaken as they try and make the gang hang stick. But this show isn't really about that, it's basically Friends in the late 2000s, set in Chicago with food trucks, gay guys, pop culture references, mile a minute dialogue and lots and lots of puns. And dancing, sooo much dancing! I didn't realise how much song and dance was in this till I collected the gifs. The characters are all loud and outrageous, and Max (Adam Pally) is easily one of the greatest comedic gay characters on TV because his sexuality doesn't define him, he's just a hilarious and lazy slob who happens to like dudes. So if you're a human with anything resembling a sense of humour you're sure to find *something* to like in this show. Or, y'know, ALL OF IT.

"Hollywood can not live up to the power of imagination"

In honour of Game of Thrones' return to TV, here is the wonderful Axis of Awesome (the band who brought you 4 Chords - if you haven't seen that yet then what are you waiting for?') and their brand new song Rage of Thrones. 

*headbangs*

Movie trailer: 3,2,1 Frankie Go Boom

This one isn't a bookish film but I had to post the trailer here because 1) Charlie Hunnam, 2)Lizzie Caplan and 3) Ron Pearlman in drag.

Death: A Life by George Pendle

Death: A Life
By George Pendle

Published: 2008

Synopsis: At last, the mysterious, feared, and misunderstood being known only as "Death" talks frankly and unforgettably about his ininitely awful existence. Chronicling his abusive childhood, his near-fatal addiction to Life, his excruciating time in rehab, and the ultimate triumph of his true nature, this long-awaited autobiography finally revels the inner story of one of the most troubling, and troubled, figures in history. For  the first time, Death reveals his affairs with the living, his maltreatment at the hands of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the ungodly truth behind the infamous "Jesus incident," and the loneliness of being the End of All Things.


Death makes an interesting narrator, I enjoyed the crap out of his role as narrator in The Book Thief,  and after seeing this book reviewed on Gabe's blog I thought this would be an interesting, and contrasting, read to Death's previous literary incarnations.

Poor Death, he's lived a hard life. The son of Satan and Sin, he found his purpose in life, by chance, on Earth. As The End of All Things he saw civilisations rise and fall, God take a leave of absence, other religions lose their supporters and stupidity reign supreme. As I'm sure you can imagine though, it got a little tedious to collect souls day in and day out, but it was never a real chore until he met the love of his life, Maud, a woman who has no fear of death. A glitch in the system sees her reincarnated in similar forms for centuries, and Death begins to skive off work to spend some time with her before she's sent off to the Afterlife. She proves to be his downfall, and is the catalyst for his dangerous addiction to life, which results in several decades in a rehab trying to regain his gloomy persona.

In case you haven't grasped it yet, this book is a rather silly and hilarious revision of history. Because of Death's ability to be anywhere and everywhere, George Pendle was able to have some creative fun with historic and mythological events that most people are acquainted with. The humour is the predominant feature of this book, and for the most part it's clever, genuinely funny writing that incites feelings of empathy for Death and the trials he's survived in his very long existence. At times the humour reaches for the easier, or more convenient jokes, which do grow old very quickly, but I found these to be in the minority and spread far enough for them to quickly become overlooked.

I enjoy revised history, even if the only revision is instilling a conversation between Death and a random Roman soldier, or peasant. George Pendle has quite a knack for taking an aspect of myth, text or history and twisting it from how it's typically portrayed just a pinch. So the angel Gabriel is now power-grabbing, God is a little distracted, Jesus is a bit of a dick, all the Gods in mythology existed and were interviewed by God for their roles, and the four horsemen of the Apocalypse didn't include Death (he just had a brief stint with them as the fifth horsemen). Those examples all centre around religion (and primarily Christian religion at that) and while other aspects of history do play a role in this book, religion is one of the key themes and topics. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, even though it's all in good fun, anyone who is particularly religious should probably steer clear of this one. I'm not sure if you would actually be offended by the ideas in the book, but it's definitely something to keep in mind. Perhaps read a chapter or a few other reviews first.

All in all, this was a fun book to read and an easy and enjoyable one at that. The addition of a few photos were a cute touch, even if they were mostly too dark and too small to be clearly viewed. It gets a little flowery towards the end, but overall it was an interesting and funny book that added a unique perspective to the Death/Grim Reaper mythology.

Review: Happyslapped by a Jellyfish by Karl Pilkington

Happyslapped by a Jellyfish
By Karl Pilkington

Published: 2007

Synopsis: A collection of baffling, hilarious, infuriating yet curiously compelling insights and anecdotes, diary entries, poems, "true" facts, cartoons, and assorted witterings concerning travel from the mind of Karl Pilkington.




About a year ago Tom introduced me to the Ricky Gervais podcast series which featured Ricky and Stephen Merchant (Both of whom I knew thanks to The Office and The Extras) and an oddball named Karl. I was hooked, the dynamic between the three of them and the absolutely batshit crazy tangents Karl would take the conversation on would have me doubled over in laughter. After listening to them all I moved on to the TV series An Idiot Abroad and this year on my birthday, Tom bought me two of Karl's books. Happyslapped by a Jellyfish is the travel diary, of sorts, that Karl wrote when the podcast was in its prime.

OK, so I may be a big fan of the podcast, but one thing that always irked me is the notoriety that Karl Pilkington has received since his rise to fame 5 or 6 years ago. In one podcast Stephen reads out a letter to the editor of a newspaper in which a woman wrote in complaining that Karl had been given the opportunity to film several 5 minute spots extolling his opinions on worldly matters. The one she watched was the one in which he said that museums should get rid off all their stuff, because one set of dinosaur bones is just like another...do we really need so many? Part of the charm to the podcast (to me) was how ridiculous and misguided his views were (I dare say he's never read a newspaper in his life) but also how sincere and (I say this without criticism) simple he was. That was where most of the comedy came from, he had no idea why people would laugh when he suggests we plant a "seed" in 78 year old women which becomes a baby when she dies. However, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of giving him the opportunity to preach his bizarre ideas in arenas where an expert, or someone with a basic understanding of anything, would be better suited. The idea that there are wonderful talented authors out there struggling to get published while Karl gets handed a publishing deal to spout rubbish for 200 pages makes me a little queasy.

90% of the anecdotes and diary entries in this book are ones I heard on the podcast. However, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who isn't a fan of the podcast series because I think you need to be able to visualise Karl's voice (yeah I know how silly that sounds!) as you read this, in order for it to maintain some of its humour and understand the bizarre tangents and references. He isn't a particularly literate or eloquent writer, and the only reason I found any of it funny was because it triggered memories of the podcast, and the conversations that were incited when Karl said something like, "There's too much fruit knocking around nowadays, and I think this is why we're told to eat five pieces a day-it's to get rid of it all." The start of the book appears as though he's trying hard to write intelligently and correctly, however he soon falls back into his conversational vernacular, using words like 'Nowt,' (naught)  'Sommat' (something) and regularly leaving the K or G of the ends of words. That's fine in your regular diary, or even in photocopied diary entries like in The Cobain Diaries, but when you're reproducing it in a book the least that he could do is put 10 minutes into actually writing a legible book.

The chapters, which range from 3-12 pages in length, each centre on a destination that Karl has travelled too, except the Australia chapter which is used to describe why he'll never come over here. Some of the chapters are copies of his diary from the trip and he describes the minutia of his holidays, and all the things that annoy him. Others are written as a brief description of the place he went to before meandering off to discuss some anecdote of him as a kid or a trip to the shops. Littered through are also a few poems he's written, "Rome wasn't built in a day/it just looks that way," comics he's created about weird stories, and a smattering of cartoons he's drawn which are actually quite good.

I've spent this entire blog post criticising the book, and for good reason. It's written in a very simple style, with   an amateur writer's attempt at stringing together anecdotes, ideas and insights. The subject matter isn't deep or critically aware or detailed enough to really be informative. BUT. But, if you're a fan of Karl Pilkington or the podcast, chances are you'll enjoy reading through this short book, if only for the nostalgia that you'll encounter when you're reintroduced to popular anecdotes from the show. So, I recommend this book under the proviso that you're aware of what you're getting into, the kind of comedy frequented in the podcast, and the less than stellar writing Karl is capable of. Enjoy?

My rating: 3/5