But that's good because that means when I find a book I dislike I really hate it.
Like this one for instance.
It was the first in my New Attitude to Books: that some should stand as an example to the others. I let my displeasure be known, and now they all know.
What I thought was going to be a history of the Japanese doomsday sect was a poorly attempted dramatised thriller. Even allowing for translation problems the author doesn't know how people speak nor think, hence Unreadable.
And I think I spelled 'excrable' incorrectly too.
The next was one of any number of things that spring out two years after a conversation with LordMattressHamster40K. We were discussing doing a PhD in Rhetoric at Oxford University. When it came to the appropriate time there were two options in response to the question "How will you defend your thesis?"
a) a very angry "WHAT?!?!?" and storming out.
b) a smug "I don't think I need to" and walking out.
Anyway, it seemed sensible to sometime, eventually find out what studying rhetoric would actually entail.
"A whole lot of wank" is the answer to that foray into the unknown.
So, I felt my laziness quite vindicated in my decision not to earn a degree in "making really crap shit up as I go along".
*This* is the humanities subject that the rightwing are always going on about, and I quite agree with them.
So what would happen if you combined these two books in some bringing together of the broken-signet-rings of Gross Incompetence and Literary Affrontery?
Wouldn't it be funny if there was a book out there that was as shit as this two books combined?
Shaza-am!
..which some evil bastard gave me for Christmas after getting it inscribed by the 'author'.
(Several years ago I received a letter containing a review and photo of that Reilly fool which immediately found a place impaled on an aluminium kungfu practice sword I had lying around.)
Which brings me to the best book review I have found. It is from September 10, 2000 and is entitled "Everyone has a book inside them... Sadly James Thackara's is terrible."
If everyone was this honest and entertaining the world would be an infinitely better place.
I wonder if the reviewer chortled to himself that it took a year and a day for him to find something perpetrated by man that was more horrible .
