1001 Books Challenge - UPDATE 48
It's been an age hasn't it? Mostly because I'm busy ploughing through Mary Barton which is long and not always easy going. Still, picked up a novel in a charity shop yesterday and sped through it.
e Squared by Matt Beaumont
I picked this up because I'm a massive fan of e. The Novel of Liars, Lunch and Lost Knickers and the Christmas sequel. This is the third story (which I had no idea about) and so I was delighted to find it.
Premise is pretty simple - the life of a dysfunctional ad agency is told over several months purely through electronic media. This involves emails, chat, texts, news articles, and blogs. Very meta. The previous books were set in the up-itself company of Miller-Shanks where despotic boss David Crutton, bitchy secretary Susi Judge-Davis, loafer copywriter Liam O' Keefe, deadly dull accounts worker Nigel Godley and the delusionally superior executive Simon Horne all worked. David Crutton (after an impressive meltdown in book one) returns here as manager (or, as he hates to be known, 'the man') of Meerkat360 - which is basically Miller-Shanks but with a ball-pit, an on staff hairdresser and floatation tanks. Most of the old characters have returned - older but no wiser. Susi is worse than ever, forming a bizarre trio with the other PAs - Dottie and NotGay!Milton. Liam O' Keefe has turned to theft to try and repay his £95,000 gambling debts, and David Crutton is trying to save his marriage in between selling miniature cigarettes to kids.
Overall? I tend to read the books with a split personality. Sometimes they're funny, often they're just really annoying. Beaumont is often over heavy with his satire - but all that achieves it giving us a cast of characters that - no matter how right or wrong - are universally dislikeable. They all have their successes and their comeuppances to be fair, but reading the book is like meeting these people in real life - you think they are absolute tossers and only stick around to keep reminding yourself that they can't really be that bad.
Liam O' Keefe - who varies between the straight man and an absolute tosser (and btw if Chris Addison is looking for a new role he could play him perfectly) is the only sympathetic character (aside from the very background characters of afraid of flying Don Gold and his assistant Kazuo). He's completely out of his depth financially and fast realising that he's sold his soul to the devil. His bizarre friendship with 'lunatic' Harvey Harvey (who is obsessed with Doctor Who and replies to spam with helpful messages) is one of the few touching aspects and his journey to his suicide attempt is well handled. But that doesn't mean he isn't an absolute tosser the rest of the time.
Overall it's always worth it for the meta - a story completely limited to email is always going to be interested and even though E2 doesn't have as much fun with the backstabbing nature of email (there was a lot of that in E) it does have a deeper look at the relationships outside of the work environment (Liam's friendships with old work buddies, David Crutton's disasterous home life, etc). Only thing I will say is that the whole Simon Horne thing didn't work - no one who hasn't read the first book would have a clue why he's suddenly everyone's butt monkey here, and unless you can understand french working out the joke on him is a bit hard going.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 29
Current Point: 57
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dumas, Alexander: The Count of Monte-Cristo
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Forster, E. M: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M: Howard's End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Gibbons, Stella: Cold Comfort Farm
Grossmith, George: Diary of a Nobody
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon's Mines
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Pit and the Pendulum
Queneau, Raymond: Exercises in Style
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader
Shelley, Mary Woolstonecraft: Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Treasure Island
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walker, Alice: Possessing the Secret of Joy
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wyndham, John: The Midwich Cuckoos
Wodehouse, P. G: Thank You Jeeves
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Grow Up (and yes, there are crossovers between the lists.)
Starting Point: 61
Current Point: 69
(For reference I'm only going to read books from ages 8+, anything below that age range was already read before starting this)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of the Root Children
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Father Christmas
Burglar Bill
The Snowman
Can't you Sleep, Little Bear?
A Visit From St. Nicholas
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The House that Jack Built
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
Pippi Longstocking
The Worst Witch
Matilda
Tales from Shakespeare
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A Christmas Carol
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
Mary Poppins
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Hurrah for St. Trinian's
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
James and the Giant Peach
Stig of the Dump
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Magic Finger
The Carpet People
The Indian in the Cupboard
Goodnight Mister Tom
The BFG
The Demon Headmaster
The Sheep-Pig
The Snow Spider
Bill's New Frock
Truckers
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Bomb
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Skellig
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Artemis Fowl
The Graveyard Book
Gulliver's Travels
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Madame Doubtfire
Flour Babies
Witch Child
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Young Visiters
Around the World in 80 Days
War Horse
Peter Pan
The Call of the Wild
Tom's Midnight Garden
Ballet Shoes
-------
My Private To-Read List
Books Read: 14
Further Reading
Forster, E. M: Maurice
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Classics
Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw
Recommended
Austen, Jane and Grahame-Smith, Seth: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. (recommendation by a friend)
Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere (read previous books)
Jones, Lloyd: Mister Pip (celebrity recommendation)
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (booksyoushouldread recommendation)
McCall Smith, Alexander: The Saturday Tent Wedding Party (read previous books)
I Liked the Look of Them
Grogan, John: Marley & Me
Salamon, Julie: The Christmas Tree
Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Trashy But Fun
Beaumont, Matt: e Squared
Orlov, Aleksandr: A Simples Life
e Squared by Matt Beaumont
I picked this up because I'm a massive fan of e. The Novel of Liars, Lunch and Lost Knickers and the Christmas sequel. This is the third story (which I had no idea about) and so I was delighted to find it.
Premise is pretty simple - the life of a dysfunctional ad agency is told over several months purely through electronic media. This involves emails, chat, texts, news articles, and blogs. Very meta. The previous books were set in the up-itself company of Miller-Shanks where despotic boss David Crutton, bitchy secretary Susi Judge-Davis, loafer copywriter Liam O' Keefe, deadly dull accounts worker Nigel Godley and the delusionally superior executive Simon Horne all worked. David Crutton (after an impressive meltdown in book one) returns here as manager (or, as he hates to be known, 'the man') of Meerkat360 - which is basically Miller-Shanks but with a ball-pit, an on staff hairdresser and floatation tanks. Most of the old characters have returned - older but no wiser. Susi is worse than ever, forming a bizarre trio with the other PAs - Dottie and NotGay!Milton. Liam O' Keefe has turned to theft to try and repay his £95,000 gambling debts, and David Crutton is trying to save his marriage in between selling miniature cigarettes to kids.
Overall? I tend to read the books with a split personality. Sometimes they're funny, often they're just really annoying. Beaumont is often over heavy with his satire - but all that achieves it giving us a cast of characters that - no matter how right or wrong - are universally dislikeable. They all have their successes and their comeuppances to be fair, but reading the book is like meeting these people in real life - you think they are absolute tossers and only stick around to keep reminding yourself that they can't really be that bad.
Liam O' Keefe - who varies between the straight man and an absolute tosser (and btw if Chris Addison is looking for a new role he could play him perfectly) is the only sympathetic character (aside from the very background characters of afraid of flying Don Gold and his assistant Kazuo). He's completely out of his depth financially and fast realising that he's sold his soul to the devil. His bizarre friendship with 'lunatic' Harvey Harvey (who is obsessed with Doctor Who and replies to spam with helpful messages) is one of the few touching aspects and his journey to his suicide attempt is well handled. But that doesn't mean he isn't an absolute tosser the rest of the time.
Overall it's always worth it for the meta - a story completely limited to email is always going to be interested and even though E2 doesn't have as much fun with the backstabbing nature of email (there was a lot of that in E) it does have a deeper look at the relationships outside of the work environment (Liam's friendships with old work buddies, David Crutton's disasterous home life, etc). Only thing I will say is that the whole Simon Horne thing didn't work - no one who hasn't read the first book would have a clue why he's suddenly everyone's butt monkey here, and unless you can understand french working out the joke on him is a bit hard going.
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Die
Starting Point: 29
Current Point: 57
Realistic Goal: 300 (I should finish, reading one a week, in about 5 years!)
Adams, Douglas: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Adams, Douglas: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale
Austen, Jane: Emma
Austen, Jane: Mansfield Park
Austen, Jane: Northanger Abbey
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility
Bronte, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Carroll, Lewis: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Christie, Agatha: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Cunningham, Michael: The Hours
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
du Maurier, Daphne: Rebecca
Dumas, Alexander: The Count of Monte-Cristo
Eugenides, Jeffrey: The Virgin Suicides
Forster, E. M: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M: Howard's End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: Cranford
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Gibbons, Stella: Cold Comfort Farm
Grossmith, George: Diary of a Nobody
Haddon, Mark: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon's Mines
Hugo, Victor: Les Miserables
Ishiguro, Kazuo: The Remains of the Day
Kafka, Franz: The Metamorphosis
Lawrence, D. H: Lady Chatterly's Lover
Lee, Harper: The Kill a Mocking Bird
Levy, Andrea: Small Island
Lindegren, Astrid: Pippi Longstocking
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Martel, Yann: Life of Pi
Nabokov, Vladimir: Lolita
Orwell, George: Animal Farm
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe, Edgar Allen: The Pit and the Pendulum
Queneau, Raymond: Exercises in Style
Schlink, Bernhard: The Reader
Shelley, Mary Woolstonecraft: Frankenstein
Stevenson, Robert Louis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Treasure Island
Stoker, Bram: Dracula
Verne, Jules: Around the World in 80 Days
Walker, Alice: Possessing the Secret of Joy
Walker, Alice: The Color Purple
Walpole, Horace: The Castle of Otranto
Wharton, Edith: The House of Mirth
Wilde, Oscar: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wyndham, John: The Midwich Cuckoos
Wodehouse, P. G: Thank You Jeeves
1001 Novels You Must Read Before You Grow Up (and yes, there are crossovers between the lists.)
Starting Point: 61
Current Point: 69
(For reference I'm only going to read books from ages 8+, anything below that age range was already read before starting this)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Story of the Root Children
The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck
The Cat in the Hat
Green Eggs and Ham
Father Christmas
Burglar Bill
The Snowman
Can't you Sleep, Little Bear?
A Visit From St. Nicholas
Grimms' Fairy Tales
The Emperor's New Clothes
The Ugly Duckling
The House that Jack Built
Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
Pippi Longstocking
The Worst Witch
Matilda
Tales from Shakespeare
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A Christmas Carol
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
Mary Poppins
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Hurrah for St. Trinian's
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
James and the Giant Peach
Stig of the Dump
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Magic Finger
The Carpet People
The Indian in the Cupboard
Goodnight Mister Tom
The BFG
The Demon Headmaster
The Sheep-Pig
The Snow Spider
Bill's New Frock
Truckers
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Bomb
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Skellig
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Artemis Fowl
The Graveyard Book
Gulliver's Travels
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
Madame Doubtfire
Flour Babies
Witch Child
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Young Visiters
Around the World in 80 Days
War Horse
Peter Pan
The Call of the Wild
Tom's Midnight Garden
Ballet Shoes
-------
My Private To-Read List
Books Read: 14
Further Reading
Forster, E. M: Maurice
Ishiguro, Kazuo: Never Let Me Go
Classics
Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw
Recommended
Austen, Jane and Grahame-Smith, Seth: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. (recommendation by a friend)
Gaiman, Neil: Neverwhere (read previous books)
Jones, Lloyd: Mister Pip (celebrity recommendation)
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (booksyoushouldread recommendation)
McCall Smith, Alexander: The Saturday Tent Wedding Party (read previous books)
I Liked the Look of Them
Grogan, John: Marley & Me
Salamon, Julie: The Christmas Tree
Shriver, Lionel: We Need to Talk About Kevin
Trashy But Fun
Beaumont, Matt: e Squared
Orlov, Aleksandr: A Simples Life