Books I intend to read within the next 6 weeks
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Books
J.D.Salinger – For Esme, with Love and Squalor
Niall Ferguson – The Ascent of Money
Tags: 1984, Books, For Esme with Love and Squalor, Nausea, Niall Ferguson, Orwell, Salinger, Satre, The Ascent of Money
Lets Talk Books: Celebrity Literature
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Books, Culture, opinion
Being in my final year at university; and potentially going on to postgraduate education, I’m naturally starting to accumulate a large amount of books. In fact I even find myself being unnaturally drawn into the second hand book stand that occasionally appears in Wolverhampton’s Wulfrun shopping centre; I’m literally (by which of course I mean metaphorically) like a bee attracted to honey (ok, that was a simile)
So recently while I belatedly tried to locate a science section within a local WHsmiths store; while waiting for someone else within the store, I couldn’t help but notice the amount of celebrity tush that was being peddled. Usually when I purchase books I tend to do it online, more often than not from amazon, and this is the reason the amount of celebrity “so called” literature that is being pushed had escaped my knowledge. From what I could see, the shop was; on the whole, nothing more than a temple praising the vacuous cult of celebrity, presumably Jordan, Kerry Katona and Cheryl Cole make up the Holy Trinity. But while these books appear to be spawned by satan himself, they actually play a vital role in keeping books alive.
Without actually going into the marketing figures yet, I can only assume that celebrity books are most probably single handedly keeping the book industry; as we currently know it, alive. So while the books are soulless and evidently appear to have a more elevated importance that science in mainstream stores, I’m willing; unlike many likeminded people I’ve spoke to, to accept that they could in fact be price worth paying. In a world where the choices for consumption of information and knowledge are ever growing and diversifying books should continue to play an important role, be them in traditional or digital form (a topic for a future blogpost perhaps).
So maybe rather than slating people for reading this celebrity rubbish, we should in fact be praising them for at least entering a book store and giving reading a go. Possibly we should thank them for keeping the industry alive for the time being. For I’m sure that many if not all of you will agree that books still have a vital role to play in shaping our knowledge of the world.
Edit: Perhaps I need to read even more, cannot believe I mis-spelt the word literature in the title, doh. Mistake has been corrected.
Tags: Biography, Books, Celebritiy, Cheryl Cole, Jordan, Kerry Katona, Knowledge, Literature, Media, Science
Hay Fever.
Posted by unluckydip | Filed under Books, Culture, TV, University
I’ve recently been watching the sky arts coverage of the Hay festival, which incidentally was an accident in the first place. I’ve known about the festival for sometime now but have never really taken an interest in it, particularly as it always comes across, at least via TV coverage, as being rather pompous. However flicking through the vast amount of TV channels I came across it, and the only reason I actually continued to watch it was due to the presence of Chris Addison, a comedian that starred in the recent satirical film In The Loop. I’ve gone on to watch many more episodes and really been rather interested in the book themed conversations. What has really struck home of late is how much of a book worm I’m slowly becoming, which I blame; and it’s no bad thing, on university.
I’m currently reading The English by Jeremy Paxman, but in a pile awaiting me I also have the following treats to go through:
Selected Tales by Edgar Allan Poe
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Prince by Machiavelli
The Metamorphosis by Kafka
Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
The Foucault Reader edited by Paul Rainbow
The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
The Book with No Name by Anonymous
Flat Earth News by Nick Davies
and
Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
In addition to this I have a load more saved in my amazon basket yet to buy. As many may know, I’m very much into my gadgets, but I really cant see the printed word dieing out anytime soon, at least not in book form anyway. And should I do poorly at my degree; which I of course would not wish to be the case, at least I can credit always the university experience for nudging me into doing more reading than ever before.
Tags: Books, Chris Addison, Festival, Hay, Sky Arts, TV, University
