Finished off a few books that were half or more read over the weekend, in large part because many are due back at the library this week, and found time for some guilty reading pleasures along the way.
Reach For The Stars by Michael Cragg
I do like a book that takes pop music seriously, and this – through a series of interviews – does that (it’s actually quite reminiscent of that Channel 4 format they used to use where a series of talking heads opine on a subject and they edit it together to look like a conversation, which was very much a 1990s/2000s type thing). This starts with the Spice Girls and runs to the end of X Factor which was cancelled in 2006. If you have any interest in the bands it covers (both the well known and the less well known) I’d recommend this. Lots of fun.
Going Dark by Julia Ebner
Ebner is a researcher who specialises in extremists and this is a thoughtful and alarming account of her time with different extremist groups, both online and in the real world. The ease with which the internet allows these groups to spread their messages and the extent to which religious fundamentalists and extreme white wing groups use the same tactics to recruit should frighten all of us.
Joey Goes To The Oberland by Elinor M Brent Dyer
This episode of the Chalet School passed me by on previous Chalet School binges and had I read it as a child I’d have been horrified at how boring it was. I was somewhat horrified this time round, as it really is a very dull account of Joey taking various children (there seemed to be different numbers at different stages – I think I was not paying attention when someone took some of them elsewhere) from Wales to Switzerland. It opened in true Chalet School fashion – random seemingly amusing accident (Joey falls into a box) after which a doctor drugs her so she can recover BECAUSE LET US NOT FORGET HOW FRAIL SHE IS (despite having 8 or so children at this point – I’d argue if she’s that frail they should probably investigate contraception), some random people turn up randomly (I never fully understood the Venables, the Chesters etc and who they all are), and then they rock up at the Chalet School where the teachers pretend to be delighted even though you know they were just wishing the whole family had got lost somewhere around Strasbourg and hadn’t arrived to make their lives difficult. I particularly loved the bit where the removal vans (SHOCK) turn up A WHOLE DAY SOONER THAN EXPECTED (GASP) and Joey bemoans the fact that it could only happen to her (WHY? WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON?) and it’s the most dramatic thing that has ever happened but also not so dramatic that they don’t all agree they need to have Kaffee und Kuchen before they go to let the poor removal men into the house. These people have driven from Wales to Switzerland, remember, and have a job to do, but no one feels it is necessary to help them until they’ve had coffee and cake with lashings of whipped cream. Total nonsense but now I’ve discovered a source for many of the unread ones, I expect there will be more of the same in the near future.
Big Beacon by Alan Partridge
Some entertaining and occasionally very funny light reading. Alan renovates a lighthouse while trying to engineer his way back onto our TV screens. We all know someone who is a little bit Alan. I thought this was good fun.
Letters To My Palestinian Neighbour by Yossi Klein Halevi
This is a series of thoughtful and often poetic letters by an Israeli resident to an imaginary Palestinian friend whose house he can see on the hillside close to where he lives. I found this fascinating – it was a really powerful insight into the Israeli mindset, what draws people there and drives them to establish homes in the West Bank despite the obvious reasons not to.