Films I Haven't Seen Meme

Friday June 27, 2008

From The Pickards.
Are there any extremely famous, worthy or acclaimed films that you’ve never made the effort to see? I’ve seen all of Hitchcock. I’ve also seen most of Truffaut. But I have a lot of gaps. In the days of video recorders I would tape worthy films, keep them for years and eventually tape over them. I kept The Mission starring Robert De Niro for years and never watched it. Films I have simply never seen and have never had the urge to see include:

I’d also like the time back I wasted on trying to understand the Bourne films.

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Since I've Been Blogging Meme

Monday April 28, 2008

Top twenty favourite books in no particular order. Don’t think about it for too long. Take twenty minutes only to compile your list. Bold the ones you’ve read, or reread, since you’ve started blogging. Include novels, non fiction and plays.

So make of it what you will, compiled in just under twenty minutes. There are less since I’ve been blogging books that I would have thought, and while The Road and Gormenghast will probably stay on my list for a long time, it will be interesting to see how long Neil Gaiman and Tom McCarthy stick around for. And, not having read Salinger for a long time, it’s only pleasant memories that put him on the list.

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Cover Versions

Thursday March 27, 2008

From Booking Through Thursday:

While acknowledging that we can’t judge books by their covers, how much does the design of a book affect your reading enjoyment? Hardcover vs. softcover? Trade paperback vs. mass market paperback? Font? Illustrations? Etc.?

I’m often too swayed by a book design. I’ve bought bad books because they look good, and avoided good books because they look bad. I never read Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh because the cover looked awful. An awful choice in itself, but I couldn’t help it. I’m also tempted – or put off – by too much misleading blurb, which appears to have crept onto the cover of paperbacks in recent years. Even new releases in hardback have blurb these days and sing the praises of an author’s previous work.

So because I am easily tempted by eye-catching design, I like a book cover to catch the essence of a book, without telling me too much about it or misleading me. A good recent example is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Its cover picturing a row of dying trees told me what to expect and suited the mood of the book perfectly. Both hardback and paperback versions of the book used the same design, so it obviously worked in the eyes of the publisher. Another recent design I found effective was the creepy cover for Darkmans by Nicola Barker, although the subsequent paperback noticeably went for something much lighter. And even though I’d read about the book and wanted to read it I suspect that the paperback would have made my decision harder, presenting me with what looked more comic than sinister.

Bad covers are ones that perplex and only make sense with some knowledge of the book’s content. I’m currently reading Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel. The cover is an illustration of a lady in colourful garb with a vacuum cleaner. This begins to make sense when you discover that the lead character in the novel is a medium. The colourful garb is a reference to tarot cards. The vacuum cleaner is a reference to a passage very early in the novel, which suggests to me that the designer only read a couple of chapters in before sketching out the cover. Am I being hard on the designer?

Probably the best thing about cover design is that it can serve to nicely date a book. Films and tv set in the fifties and sixties ask their props departments to line the bookshelves of their set with the iconic orange covered Penguins of the period. Since book design has become less uniform in later years it’s probably still possible to tell from which decade a book belongs to, whether the cover shows art, typography or actors in ridiculous poses (I’m thinking of mass market horror, romance and detective fiction over the years).

Sometimes though it’s just the quality and packaging of a book that impresses. The hardbacks of Susanna Clarke’s two recent books Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and The Ladies of Grace Adieu, are just beautiful. Quality design, printing and illustration. The writing’s good too. And let’s not forget that this is the most important thing.

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Six Word Memoir

Saturday March 1, 2008

A meme to keep things ticking over – if you’d like to join in.

A life. Yours. In six words.

I first heard about this when driving into work one morning and listening to Radio 4. It’s based on Hemingway’s famous six word memoir:

For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.

You can’t really beat that, but I think it’s in our nature to all have a go. Oddly, Tom Stoppard was dragged in to the BBC studios to judge listeners’ own contributions but put a damper on proceedings in his total disinterest in the idea. Funny bloke Tom Stoppard. However, the one that’s stuck in my mind was this:

Two weddings, three kids. Then cancer.

Which kind of cast a dark shadow over the rest of the day.

I was reminded of the six word memoir by Chartroose and decided to have a go for myself. Here’s mine then:

Can I have a refund please?

The please is very me. But I’m sure you can all do better.

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Six Not Very Extraordinary Things About Me

Tuesday February 26, 2008

A meme to keep things ticking over. I found it at The Pickards.

  1. I have only ever asked for two autographs in my life. Beatle Paul McCartney and poet Roger McGough – a Liverpool connection although I’ve only just realised this. Both signed without complaint, although apparently the ex-Beatle now refuses to sign them.
  2. Although I’m a big fan of the 1963 film Zulu, I much prefer Zulu Dawn, the 1979 prequel. Who can turn their noses up at a film starring Burt Lancaster, Peter O’Toole, Bob Hoskins and Phil Daniels?
  3. There are very strict rules on time keeping where I work. Lunch is always at noon, and afternoon tea is at two thirty sharp. Someone (rashly, in my mind) called tea at two twenty today and I was thrown into turmoil.
  4. I hurt my back at the weekend by foolishly carrying a heavy box. Ironically, the box contained an exercise bike.
  5. The most listened to song on my iPod is This Old Town by Paul Weller and Graham Coxon. However I have recently been rediscovering 80s indie music, including bands such as Wire and Felt (who I’m listening to right now).
  6. The nearest book I can see from here is a freebie by children’s author Geraldine McCaughrean featuring extracts from five of her stories.

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