Book review: Screen Burn/Dawn of the Dumb
Alongside whatever other books I've been reading, for the last couple of months I've also had a couple of collections of articles on the go: Charlie Brooker ( @charltonbrooker on Twitter) is The Guardian's TV critic, although lately he seems to be making TV more than critiquing it - he wrote last Halloween's brilliant zombie thriller Dead Set, and if you've got BBC4 or iPlayer you shouldn't miss Newswipe. The books are his collected Guardian columns, and reading them all again there's loads of laugh-out-loud moments as Brooker unleashes his bile at everything and everyone. (There is a lot of stuff on TV he passionately loves, but by his own admission he's funnier when he's angry.) There's some genius stuff in there, like describing Kate Thornton as "the human equivalent of a scarcely detectable kitten's fart" - not something I'd ever thought of, but so apt once it's pointed out. By the second collection, Dawn of the Dumb, he also had a second column in the paper, a more general opinion-piece. On the whole I prefer the TV reviews, because as well as his miserablist ramblings you get a reminder of some of the best (but mostly worst) TV from 2000 onwards. Such as Celebrity Love Island - the show whose stars were so obscure they had to drop the word "Celebrity" from the second season. Basically, both these books made me laugh a lot, and I'm bound to give them repeat readings.