Stuart, A Life Backwards (amazon link)
Just like the book before this (Boy A) its also been subject to a TV programme and it also has to doom ridden small font. The saving grace tho, is the layout. Its rich with paragraphs, good margins, varying font sizes for featured sections and even the odd drawing thrown in to break things up. With a decent font size this could have been waaaay up in the 4 or even 5 stars, but as it stands its only getting a 3 from me. Stuart is a pretty unique book, covering a life in reverse from nutter to lovable child. Hope plenty of people check this one out. I’ve not read it yet, and I’ve only half seen the TV programme, but I’m looking forward to settling down to it.
Review: I am reading ‘Stuart: a life backwards’. Its about a documented life of a homeless person told in reverse to the point whereby he went from a innocent lad to a twisted psycho, nick named ‘Knife man Dan’. Recommended reading if you care about people caught up in a world and fighting for a way out. This is a funny, yet informative read, which forces you to care about someone you would normally keep well away from.
Born On A Blue Day
Ok this was probably the quickest book i’ve ever read. For a couple of reasons, firstly its a true story. Not autobiographical, but more like a travel write for a recent journey, ever since Daniel Tammet recalled publically Pi to about 22,000 digits. I do like faction, so that helped. Also the formating is good and with it being a hardback you know theres going to be plenty of margin & line spacing. Basically the subject matter meant I couldn’t stop reading this. I’m researching aspergers for a book I’m writing so this was spot on. Oh also I recently watched the accompanying TV programme featured about Daniel. This is definitely a niché audience read, but I’m still giving it 4 stars… it gripped me all the way through. Click through to amazon to learn what its about.
I have the feeling that most readers, secretly (or publically) want to be writers… and if you agree, then you like me, could do with the right read to write right. Enter this title. I dug through an entire shelf before settling, as i really liked the different approach it took. NP?NP! takes on the angle of ‘finishing’. The hardest challenge any writer will face. And it does it beautifully. So if you’re thinking ‘I could do this’ but have never gotten round to actually commiting yourself, then be sure to check out this book first. Its the perfect kickstarter… trust me!
The formating is really good, its a small sized book, not quite pocket sized, but that’s okay, the paper is really good quality, nice and flickable /thumbable, great font, loads of excellent formating… and at around 175pages its no struggle to get through. If only all novels were written with this degree of formating! 5stars.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
This is one that i’ve been meaning to put up for a while now, even tho I’m not sure why. This is a book that’s been taunting me for ages…. I first heard about it years ago… then stumbled upon it in Waterstones one day. Its not normally appealing, the formating is very standard, apart from the diary form ‘chapters’. I recall narrow margins and pages of text, which makes it very unappealing. However the story of a nobody observing the world and school he exists in, reminds me a little of myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever read this… but its a grower for sure… this is probably one of my favourite books that I haven’t read yet.
oh I’ve just checked my phone: 200 pages, Good paper & font, cheap but bad kerning.
One Red Paper Clip
I don’t really remember too much about the formating on this one, but the story is so good it’ll really appeal to non-readers. It starts with a sale of a paperclip on ebay and continues on and on with various sales getting big and better…until.. well you’ll have to have a look at it to discover where it leads. I recall decent margins, the occasional picture and easily managable chapters. But as I’ve already said…. the unbelievable, incredible, fantastic story is the selling point here. A really mesmerising read.
Life on the Refridgerator Door
This is probably my first true ‘girly’ book, which I’m regretfully proud of. Regretfully, because I guess I should have found one a lot earlier. But anyways… not very many pages, and short well formatted chunks of text. Basically this is what it says it is, notes left on the fridge door about the relationship between a mother and daughter (if I remember correctly). Whilst I didn’t read much of this book in the shop, it did make a large enough impact on me to ‘phone-it’ … hate reading? you’ll love reading this.
The End Of Mr Y
This was a surprise find. Its big bold red spine grabbed my attention and was stunned to see the pages were all black (not the faces, but just the edges). I knew this would be a good one, cause anyone going to that length for presentation alone, deserves to be purchased. The cover is quirky, the back cover is equally as mysterious…. and even tho its states itself as being ‘a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death (ed: yawn) … and time-travel’ <– Ooo ello, this raises an eyebrow. Sooo… all this manages to get me to to open the pages and have a flick through… lovely big line-spacing, and a decent font, but other than that its pretty standard format, normal margins, lots of pages of unthrilling text and paragraphs that don’t really look much like paragraphs at all, cause the indents and gaps aren’t big enough. But either way, I sat for a bit and read the first few pages. Thankfully, its a contemporary tale, set in the ‘now’ which makes it much more palettable in my (pun) book, I’m gunna give this one a go anyway… I’ve bought it so I might as well.
I’ll probably add more this once I’m done, or mid way at least. Worth checking out I think. 4 stars for the black edged paper alone, how often do you see that??
the average american male
Wow, this is a good’un. A cool front cover, not that many pages (250ish), tiny chapters (the first is called ‘Christmas with Mom and Dad’ and the word count is 3 ‘Same old bullshit’) perfect. It gets better. Apparently it sparked a youtube storm… which is probably a load of bollocks as I haven’t had chance to check it out yet… but the story is about a guy thats young enough to know what he wants in life (sex) and old enough to know what he doesn’t want in life (commitment… and a partner with a fat ass). This book is absolutely incredible, I only bought it today and have read half of it already and I don’t want it to ever end. If this was a blog or a channel on youtube, I’d check it out every day for years. Women need to read this to know how we (men) think… and men need to read this to laugh at how fucking ridiculous we are and confirm that we’re not alone. Oh and the paper is average, loads of dialogue (makes for quick reading), smallish font (boo!) … standard margins… nothing special on the formating front but the subject matter is worth it.
A full 5 stars awarded. If you don’t buy this book, you are an arse.
Edit: a youtube frenzy? uhh no. However the clips are funny:
Atomised This grabbed my attention probably because of the ‘3 for 2′ sticker on the front and a black n white blonde in panties. Its a meaty read for me at well over 350 pages of not particularly good paper, however the linespacing is ok, and the margins are decent. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of dialogue in the read, which makes for lots of paragraphs of unappealing chunky text. ergh. I read the back cover (a rarity for me) and found the storyline interesting, plus its been/being made into a ‘major film’ so the sticker on the front cover tells me… and with that sticker comes lots and lots of quotes from influencial sources, further convincing me that it’ll be worth me time purchasing. Fair enough … however I swear the girl in panties did more for me than anything else. I might read this if I ever have enough time on my hands, or catch a terminal illness. Better still, I might buy the DVD and tell everyone I’ve read it.
The Raw Shark Texts
This book took a bloody long time to get on here. Why I’m not sure, because I’ve been stalking it in Waterstones for aaages… waiting for it to come up in a ‘3 for 2′ offer no doubt (like it did in Leeds, when I ’should’ have bought it) Grrr. anyways….
this is like a picture book with text… formatted wonderfully… loads of effort gone into making it diverse and interesting. With each turn of the page you’ve no-idea whats coming next… and that’s without reading a word of the story. This is a grand book. A real non-readers book. I will buy this in its hardback version, cause I’m not 100% certain that they’ll continue the formating in a paperback version (I hope they do cause its kinda key to the storyline) … click the cover above and read about it. The story has got flavours of the Matrix and Memento.
