Flip Martian
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Posts posted by Flip Martian
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This was another book picked up for a quid after thinking "might be worth a read". And it was. An enjoyable celeb biography, written by Crowther, who was one of those people who was seemingly always on tv from the 1960s through to the 1990s before having a rather bad car accident which resulted in his retirement. The book is written with honesty, dealing with his alcoholism (inherited from his father - something else he talks about) and recovery from it later in life, as well as his car accident.
A unique touch was provided by his wife writing the first chapter - dealing with his accident, his coma, brain surgery and the months that followed in hospital as he slowly started to regain speech and movement with lots of therapy. One really gets a sense of how much it affected her and the family. Sadly Crowther also had a heart condition and was never destined for a long life - despite making a good recovery from his injuries, he died just a few short years later.
His childhood and early career are all dealt with in some detail, as is the impact his alcoholic father had on him as a boy and later in life, when he was virtually supporting him, as well as his own family. Crowther comes across as a decent chap, happy to muck in with events in his local village and with endless charity requests. He was clearly a workaholic, even after he got on top of his alcoholism, and its likely that contributed to his being tired enough to nod off at the wheel, which it seems, caused the crash (on the day in question, he was driving home from 2 separate carpet store openings which had followed a charity lunch).
He wrote the book in 1994, the year after his accident, and seems happy to have retired and to take life easier. Sadly he passed away 2 years later from a heart attack at only 63.
The book is now in the "back to the charity shop" bag but it was well worth a read. I only really knew him as an old style showbiz type tv presenter and had never really paid him much attention. However, he came across in the book as a man who appreciated his family very much but was driven to try and reach the top for his Mother, who had encouraged him in that direction but died before he "made it".
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I read this at the start of the year; sadly of course Vaughn died just a few days ago.
An easy to read account of his own life and career, including much detail of his upbringing. In fact, he comes across as a rather spoiled, precocious little snit in his far younger days - but then, when raised by a theatrical mother who wanted her only child to be an actor, I guess that was somewhat inevitable! Thankfully he seems to have matured rather, as he grew up.
Its a very enjoyable memoir of his career, taking in the early days of TV, 50s Hollywood, the theatre etc. Its easy to forget now just what a huge star he was in the 1960s with The Man From UNCLE and the book is a nice snapshot of what it was like to be a big star back then, with all that goes with it. Not a heavy read by any means but then its a "star's memoir", designed to be picked up and put down! The story does jump back and forth a bit and could have done with a tidier edit, to me. However, what is clear is that Vaughn was a bright, well read guy who led an interesting and full life outside of Hollywood too. Definitely worth picking up.
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There are far worse things you can decorate your house with, to be fair.
I have been browsing ebay but for specific things (and nothing as old as yours!). Buying job lots I guess is a bit lucky dip. I have seen in some used bookshops where they sell job lots of antiquarian books for decorative purposes. 1 of the guides in an NT house actually said they bought in a random load of books as a job lot to fill the library with, as the house contents were empty when they took it over - they just had to be "of the period".I've decided I'll try and hold off until the new year before I go book shopping again. I should be able to manage that; after all, internet shopping doesn't count, does it?
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Angury and Nollaig - I guess both you and your eyes are somewhat younger than me and mine! Not being patronising at all but your eyes do fail a bit eventually. I notice the strain when reading on LCD screens now - and reading text on a phone, other than the odd email, is a no no too. I did get some offer on my ipad to download a free book extract with an app once and did so - but it wasn't a relaxing experience at all so the app got deleted afterwards, I was never going to use it again. More like reading a web page than a book. I'll stick to the book.
But each to their own, innit?! -
People read books on their phone? I guess they're younger people with good eyesight...
Nollaig - while you can of course do that on a tablet, you are straining your eyes as much as if you were reading on a laptop or desktop computer.
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Thanks for clarifying about the light - I didn't mean to suggest the ipad used e-ink at all, I probably wasn't very clear.
iPads, Kindle Fires, tablets generally, all have that glossy computer type display which does strain the eye after a while.The joy of e-ink screens as a whole is they are relaxing on the eye and you can read them in the sun - I took my Sony to Aruba one year and read it by the pool in full sunshine. E-ink displays (whether on kindle, Sony or Kobo) were developed to be as easy on the eye as a printed page and every bit as readable as a book. Which is why I never understand people using tablets to read books (its not what they were designed for). E-ink is a wonderful technology, I think. Although seemingly quite restricted to perhaps only 1 main use - reading at length.
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I now know why I was never moved to be a music journalist, despite being able to write a bit (at least when I was younger) and loving music. You can't just love music - you have to be obsessed with it. Mark Ellen is a writer I remember from Smash Hits in the early 1980s first of all - he turned that music magazine into an amusing read, and as I grew older I moved on to Q, which he had also moved on to. I've always enjoyed his style of writing, although as I fell out of love with music in the 90s (there were few bands I was interested in), so I lost touch with what he went on to do: Select and Mojo (which I bought the odd issue of), and then Word (which totally passed me by, to my now regret!).
Ellen takes us through his music obsession and how it impacted on his life - from his early innocent visiting of festivals to University, to squats and getting a freelance writing gig with the New Musical Express music paper. Along the way we meet some of the people he worked with and some of the musicians he encountered. Its not a book stuffed with "then I met...and they were AWFUL" stories but there are a few. The story of meeting an early musical obsession Roy Harper, along with Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin in the Lake District for a filmed piece for the BBC music programme "Whistle Test" had me in stitches and had me reaching for youtube to find the final edited clip they rescued from the experience (its up there too - all the more interesting when you read the story behind it - neither musician comes out of it well at all). Similarly his final encounter in the book, a week spent on a jet with Rihanna is an eye opener and he uses it to show how things have changed in the music business over his time linked with it.
Very enjoyable book - Ellen's writing style is engaging, witty and very entertaining. Perhaps the only fault I can find is that the encounters were so entertainingly told, I would gladly have taken a few more in there. -
An easy but interesting read. Not the usual story you get from a footballer.The book has a strange layout with new paragraphs almost on every other sentence and double spaced lines but I got used to that quickly enough. Rob Jones was a footballer in the 1980s and 1990s who retire early due to injuries, cutting short a career that saw him as a first team footballer for Liverpool FC and for England. However, its not a tale of "woe is me" and "life can be so unkind". He comes across as a pleasant fella who knows how lucky he was to play as long as he did, and to achieve what he did. While he did struggle for a while to find a direction after retiring at 27 he and his wife have since built a successful children's nursery business - including branching out into the United Arab Emirates - so while there is plenty of detail about his time as a footballer, in many ways its seen as something he once did, and its not ruled his life since.
Its not a book that's ever very controversial or gossipy but a pleasant read nonetheless. A good read for any LFC fan really with plenty of personal memories of players and games. But also a good example of someone making the most of what he had, then when that was taken away, focusing on something else and (with the undoubted help of his wife) making that a success too. -
David Tomlinson found wider fame in 3 films for Disney that he's still known for - mary Poppins, The Love Bug, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks - but as this book shows, he actually had a very long career in both theatre and cinema and seemed rarely out of work for long.Its a very gentle autobiography. Rarely a bad word is said about anyone (Jack Lord - he of "Hawaii Five 0" - being the exception, in one brief, sharp sentence made all the more shocking as its so out of character to the rest of the book) and its often frustratingly lacking in detail - almost as though the publisher was determined to keep him to only so many words but still insisted on him covering all his life, rather than any one thing in great detail.
For example - his first marriage ended tragically with his wife having mental health issues and committing suicide by jumping from a building with her 2 sons from a previous marriage. That whole relationship dealt with in a couple of pages and the sons not named at all. Film buffs will be out of luck too - there is very little on the filming of Mary Poppins for example - although there is more about how he first met Disney in the first place. There's more about his family, really, including that one of his sons had Autism - which went undiagnosed in the UK (1 doctor telling him to send his son away to a home and forget about him!). It was actually Disney who arranged for an American specialist to examine the boy and diagnose what was wrong. There are also interesting stories about his father, a London solicitor who basically ran 2 homes and 2 families entirely separately for many many years.
Its a good read. We don't really find out what made Tomlinson tick, although he comes across as a generally decent sort and as someone who had his feet firmly on the ground. He knew how lucky he was to be earning a good living doing what he did; unusually he never had a manager or agent. He was clearly financially astute enough to know his own worth and negotiate his own deals - he was no pushover by any stretch. He (at a relatively young age) found a decent size house in a small village, did it up and lived there for the remainder of his life - indeed, after he died (in 2000) he was buried in the grounds there. Perhaps the book contents ultimately reveal that acting was something he did but home and family were what concerned him most. -
A relatively short but enjoyable book. A journalist in 2006 tries to interview all the surviving members of the 1966 England World Cup team as part of a 40th anniversary celebration for his newspaper. Some choose not to speak to him - and to be honest, he comes across as rather annoying when he continues to try and hassle them a bit into talking (even gate crashing an event they're at). Part of a journalist's make up is never taking no for an answer, I suppose but it does make you sympathise with the players who just didn't want to talk, yet again. In fact, 1 or 2 said they'd only talk if they were paid - I guess if I'd been interviewed to death on a subject for nearly 40 years and wasn't particularly well off, I'd ask for a few quid too. But he had no budget from his newspaper to offer money, so he chose to try and gate crash an event to get it for free anyway. I suppose you can't blame him for trying...but he got turfed out (and as a reader, I was somewhat happy about that).
But the interviews with those who DO talk, including Sir Bobby Charlton who apparently never gives interviews, are interesting even if much of what they say has been seen elsewhere (its a subject that has been done to death over many separate interviews by the players over the years.
Sad that within a year of his interview here, Alan Ball, who came across as very positive and enjoying life despite his wife dying a couple of years earlier, himself died of a heart attack. And that since the book came out, 3 of those interviewed now have Alzheimer's Disease.
Ultimately what shines through is that these are/were all "normal" people who were all self aware enough to know that that's ALL that it was; they're not supermen or Gods, just normal people with a talent who did an extraordinary thing in their youth - they were never highly paid (compared to footballers more recently), pampered or spoilt - they worked hard and got the rewards available at the time. And that it was all a long time ago and age stands still for no man; even the fittest of young men grow old. A reminder to grab life while its there and make the most of it, I think. -
When I used my Sony more than now, I was on a "mobile readers" forum - maybe 3 years ago. Kobo seemed to be quite popular with American users then but were budget rather than premium models I think and I think were tied to Barnes and Noble - obviously once marketed overseas I'm sure that tie up is no longer there. They were generally seen as inferior to Sony and Kindle in terms of reliability I think. But that was then.
What's the situation with backlit e-ink readers like the PaperWhite anyway - does the back light not induce eye strain like using an iPad or similar to read from?
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That really is quite lovely, no wonder you were pleased with it. My Thomas Hughes arrived this morning and is actually 1871 so a bit earlier, and well looked after. A couple of hundred years younger than yours - quite mind boggling.
While visiting NT places I get ideas for my own perfect library - mostly it revolves around dark oak wood panelling, a roaring fire, leather chair, dark red walls and subdued lighting. As well as a bay window with seating in it. Not QUITE sure I'd ever get one room that had both!
I think I'd still want bookcases all over the house though. I've already earmarked a wall in my stepdaughter's bedroom for another bookcase when she moves to Scotland next year. I've just not discussed it with my wife yet -
My new oldest book is now from 1656 - thanks to the owner at Eagle bookshop who showed it to me before he put it on the shelves
Bought some really great books (again), now need to buy a bigger bookcase.
Marvellous.
What was it? I just bought the first illustrated edition of "Tom Brown at Oxford" (the less well known sequel to the famous public school novel) from 1882. For about £8 incl postage. A steal, really.I am also on the lookout for another bookcase - this will be my 5th in about 2 years...I tend to go for "old" again though now, after buying new pine ones. I even have permission to put this one in the entrance hall
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Similar here. I have a decent Sony model with a 6" screen that works well, is light, displays every format under the sun. I loaded it with out of copyright books from Project Gutenberg and used it for holidays, in place of the usual 3 or 4 books I'd cram into my suitcase. Easy to read by the pool in direct sunlight even. But I've probably used it once in the last 18 months. I just prefer "real" books.
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Indeed not - hence my comment earlier - Amazon's marketing did the business and killed off any meaningful competition. Although e-book readers are hardly taking over the world as they expected, thankfully.
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Few chairs in each room, 5 rooms of books.
Parking is difficult in that area, but if it's middle of the day there should be spaces.
Parking is free on most of the side roads,but check whenyou park.
We walked there, which put a natural limitation on how many books I could buy. Which keeps the costs down.
I can recommend parking a few minutes walk away to avoid the temptation of buying enough books to start your own library!
The owner told me he has sold a book printed in late 15th century for £10000, so the books there span from cheap bargains all the way to unaffordable.
I'm very pleased you mentioned it, I'll be a regular customer there!
Well don't curse me if you accidentally spend too much in there some time.
If I lived within walking distance of such a place, I think I'd be risking divorce! Thanks for the info, does sound more inviting than I thought! I'm off work at the moment so when I'm up to it, I'll probably head over there on a week day and see where there's a space. -
Damn... 13 inches? I think that a product that big defeats one of the purposes of having an e-book reader in the first place.
Looking at it, I don't think its really being marketed as an alternative to Kindles. More business oriented.
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Ooh, interesting. I like the idea of lots of chairs.
Thanks for that, I can see me paying it a visit soon. Was parking ok? (sorry for the constant questions, I'm not that familiar with Bedford but have a satnav). -
I didn't realise Sony still made e-book readers. That Sony DPT-S1 seems to be something aimed at a different market - 13" displays are fine to read but bigger than most books so maybe not as comfortable to read as a book.
As much as I hate to say it, Amazon demolished the opposition in the e-reader market with their infinitely better marketing despite locking content. Still have my old Sony though!
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Your daughter sounds very much like my wife! haha.
I guess its good to have someone restraining you, even a bit... No its not, what am I saying?!
I think the Eagle bookshop is the main used one in Bedford? I've not visited there either - from their website it looks like they seem to charge quite a bit and I'm quite partial to a bargain. I have bought a couple of things on ebay but tend to use Abebooks for mail order more - lots of sellers and choice there (but you have to watch the overpriced stuff). I think worldofrarebooks on ebay I've bought from too - they have their own website too which is a good browse. I should really get into the habit of using ebay more.There's an Age UK bookshop near here which is pretty good (although most of their antiquarian goes on Amazon) and a couple of good used shops in Northants I've been to a few times, plus Astley Book Barn in Warwickshire - which is about 55 mins from me so am guessing it would a 90 minute schlep for you. But they do have 70k books in stock and a great cafe (plus a decent children's section). Good for a few hours out. Assuming your daughter would ever allow you to visit a bookshop of course!
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I noticed you were in Bedford - can you recommend any used bookshops around there that are worth a visit? I haven't really investigated Bedfordshire bookshops yet
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Don't we all!
That's the thing about the NT houses we look at - ideas for my ideal library/reading room. Just need a lottery win and a suitably large house next... -
just found this:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Verney+family%22
Not in "real" form, but interesting nonetheless!
Excellent. Isn't the internet wonderful?
Plenty of copies for sale too:
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?sortby=1&tn=Verney+Family&n=200000169
Not overly expensive either (after the first few copies on that page, anyway!).
Plenty of copies of the real thing out there too - I did have a look recently but haven't bought yet. I was sat in the drawing room (at the house) and there was a copy of each volume on the table to read, which is how I found it. Only had time for a quick browse then but it did look fascinating.
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The present court of Spain: or, The modern gallantry of the Spanish nobility unfolded, by the ingenious lady-author of The memoirs and Travels into Spain. Done into Engl. by J.P.
It's a first edition as well - but missing a few pages in the beginning.
It contains stories and letters.
I enjoy letters and have a few books containing letters - as you say, they describe a world long gone, and it is fascinating how different is was, and at the same time not different at all. Their concerns and feelings were the same, even though they were much better at articulating their thoughts.
I'm mostly interested in the time from the Tudor period to the Georgian Era but letters from that time are hard to come by in first editions
But other editions will do, as long as the book is readable and have a nice look at feel.
Do you have a favourite book?
Ha ha, unless you're in the habit of robbing museums, I'm sure they are hard to come by
A snapshot of Spain from that time must be quite fascinating.Speaking of letters, we visited a National Trust property called Claydon House not far from here and the Verney family who have lived there since the 1600s have their family correspondence published - it comes in 4 volumes. I think some covers the civil war period. They had a copy in 1 of the rooms.
My favourite oldie that I've read is probably Roughing It by Mark Twain - his experiences travelling across America by stagecoach. It was like watching a film almost, the scenes and characters he describes are so vivid. And his sense of humour and the absurd is surprisingly modern. I've only read it as a free e-book off Project Gutenberg though - I would like to find a "real" copy.
The favourite in my collection is quite different. An 1869 copy of Warnes Model Cookery which is complete and only cost a few pounds. Its a small leather bound guide for cooks in country houses, pretty much. Lots of recipes with ink illustrations of dishes - even some colour illustrations (pre affordable photography after all!). Some of the ingredients (and indeed some of the recipes!) are quite obscure now but the detail gone into preparation is a wonderful historical snapshot. The whole thing is quite elaborately put together too. Imagine a simple cookbook coming leather bound today...
Flip's 2016 Books Read
in Past Book Logs
Posted · Edited by Flip Martian
A collection of Kuper's articles about footballers over a period of 13 years or so. The older articles (written as far back as 1997) are interesting but out of date, they were written so long ago. Kuper has tried to keep these articles relevant by writing a small update at the end of each article. Except some don't get an update at all, and those there were clearly written very quickly - the updates are frankly pithy and barely 2 sentences, quite often - they don't really update you on what happened to that player in subsequent years, which really is what you're after after reading an interesting interview with, or article about, a player from so long ago. I found myself reaching the end of the chapter (article) and heading over to the internet to learn more - something the update could have done if it was done in a less lazy way - it seemed a poor way to keep old articles in some way "current", to me. A couple of paragraphs on each wouldn't have taken a researcher long.
Simon Kuper is a well known football write with several books to his credit. He's intelligent and can write really well. He speaks several European languages which gives him an advantage for this book - he has interviewed in their own language several European footballers and it's interesting to hear what they have to say, quite often (what they say is more likely to sound more natural if they were speaking in their own language). But the more recent articles seem the most pertinent as they're closer to the present day; the updates on the old articles (where they've been added) just feel lazy to me and a half arsed attempt to make the articles relevant for a book coming out over several years later.
There are some really well written analyses of personalities in here though - the second one on Arsene Wenger, for example, detailing exactly why he doesn't buy "big" name footballers all makes perfect sense and would shut a lot of people up...but there are 2 articles on him and Maradona, for example - both written years apart but appearing close to each other in the book, of course. So there is a little repetition, although the articles are written about different things.
Ultimately its a book with some fine writing, and much of it is interesting, in discovering what some of the people are like. But many of the articles are old and possibly irrelevant in some cases, with little done in quite a few cases to bring them into a more modern context (ie the time the book was published around 2011). The book felt like it could have been edited better.