July 06, 2004

The must-read books in just 400 words. The Observer's take on popular books. Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton gets a particularly scathing going-over, and Katie Price's Being Jordan closes with the lines: "I'm tired of being 'the girl who gets her tits out.' Maybe it's time to drop my knickers." Ouch.
posted by Dawson 20 years ago
  • Curious Monkeys should be careful searching for Katie Price: it throws up NSFW sites. Here's one that's ReasonablySFW (depending on where you work). But here be lingerie.
  • A.K.A. The must read book reports.
  • my favourite parts are the "digested digested" versions, summing up the summary in 1 sentence (e.g. Being Jordan: "The only time you'll ever feel sorry for Dwight Yorke")
  • Should I be happy or sad that I've never eaven HEARD of any of these "must-read books," let alone read any of them?
  • Blow Fly is an actual release -- met a copy on a friend's shelves. caution: Cornwell does graphic description of post-mortem encounters, and the less left of a homocide victim/suicide the more grist for her well-crafted mill. Writes police-procedurals about a female pathologist/coroner named Scarpetta, if you enjoy such dark tales.
  • jccalhoun: Is it because you are foreign and not in fact a member of her Majesty's blessed dominion? I suspect it might be. Some of these are pretty funny, but it sometimes helps if you've already read the book. Eg, The Lemon Table one is much better for that, though I suspect the Jordan one would be understandable either way.
  • biffa-- I'm not a foreigner, I'm an American! seriously though, I assumed that these were released in America as well and were on the New York Times bestseller list or some other list that I never pay attention to. (but I'm in grad school so I couldn't tell you the last time I read a fiction book by someone that wasn't long dead either...)
  • Alain de Botton thoroughly deserves what he gets, but not as much as Sting does.
  • I saw Katie Price a couple of weeks ago at "Top Gear" (thanks to BitTorrent now aired in the whole world) and thought she was pretty blond. It was funny though to see her race, because they had to beep out a lot of her speech.