Books: The Walking Man by Wright Forbucks

"The Walking Man is a unique book which deserves to be discovered by a much bigger audience."

The Walking Man by Wright Forbucks

The Walking Man tells the story of Francis 'Buddy' Morris, a selfish yet strangely likeable character who suffers from Myasthenia Gravis, an autoimmune disease which causes paralysis after muscle use, and right from the start it quickly becomes clear that this is a book which isn't afraid to pull any punches.  Likewise, author Wright Forbucks isn't a writer who will sugar coat his stories.

I was hooked right from the very start, and a combination of the unique story and the memorable characters meant that within a few chapters I was thoroughly engrossed.  It's the type of book where you say to yourself, 'I'll just read one more chapter,' and then two hours later you realise that 'one more chapter' has quickly become an extended reading session.

If you were a cynical person then you might possibly argue that certain elements of the plot are unrealistic, but as Wright Forbucks himself points out, the truth is often stranger than fiction.  Real life can also be incredibly unrealistic sometimes, and despite the non-conventional nature of the plot, the blurb describes The Walking Man as 'loosely based on a true story'.

Books: How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy by Charles Fudgemuffin

"...an entertaining humorous read."

How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy
by Charles Fudgemuffin.

On Worthy Of A Bigger Audience I usually feature music, movies, TV shows, books, etc which in my opinion more people need to know about.  However, I'm not really qualified to make an unbiased decision as to whether the book featured this week is worthy of a bigger audience, because I wrote it.

The book in question is How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy which is the first book in the 'How To Save The World' saga.  You can sample the first three chapters for free on amazon's website, so any Kindle owners (or Kindle app users) who enjoy sci-fi comedy have nothing to lose by downloading the first three chapters for free and giving it a read:
US: How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy
UK: How To Save The World: An Alien Comedy

Here's a quote from a review of the book on amazon.com from Todd A. Fonseca (member of Amazon Vine™ Voice):

"How to Save The World by Charles Fudgemuffin, is funny.  Think Monty Python meets Saturday Night Live funny...  ...this is an entertaining humorous read.  The style of humor is likely one that will not resonate with everyone, so grab a sample from Amazon or Charles' website and find out.  If you like the sample, you'll enjoy the rest."

Books: The Hoax by Clifford Irving

The Hoax: An engrossing read which gathers momentum as the hoax develops.

The Hoax by Clifford Irving

The Hoax tells the true story of Clifford Irving, a writer who one day came up with the ambitious idea of writing the authorised biography of Howard Hughes, an eccentric and reclusive American billionaire.  The only problem was that Clifford had never even met Howard and so he and his co-conspirator, Richard Suskind, set about concocting a scam whereby they would write a fictional biography and then attempt to convince McGraw-Hill Publishing House this biography was the real deal.

To convince McGraw-Hill, Clifford originally wrote up three fake letters allegedly from Howard Hughes explaining that Hughes wanted Clifford to write his official biography in order to tell the world the truth about some of the media misconceptions about him.  From there on in the hoax quickly developed until in very little time at all Clifford Irving and Richard Suskind had been given the go ahead and were researching the information they would need to create their ‘autobiography’.

In the very early stages of the hoax it becomes apparent that Clifford is out of his depth and doesn’t really know the ‘dos’ and don’ts’ to follow when you’re trying to trick someone.  In fact on a couple of occasions it’s only really a mixture of luck and the fact that McGraw-Hill desperately wanted it to be true that allowed him to avoid getting found out, but as the scam progresses so Clifford’s deceptive side develops and he gradually begins to become more accomplished in the art of illusion.

The Worthy Of A Bigger Audience 2012 Awards (Part 1)

My favourite album, book, iPod app, party and TV show featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 2012.

Worthy Of A Bigger Audience is only a small blog I run in my spare time as a hobby but I’ve enjoyed sharing my opinions on some of the music, movies, TV shows, etc, which I love and think deserve to be appreciated by a bigger audience.  So as 2012 is now at a close, just for a bit of self-indulgent fun I thought this would be a good excuse to revisit the reviews featured over the last few months and pick my favourite choice from each category.

So without further ado here are my favourite albums, movies, TV shows, etc, featured on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience during 21012…

The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable

Albums:

Wonder by Lisa Mitchell
Singing From The Grave by Anna Von Hausswolff
Proof Of Youth by The Go! Team
The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable
Pomme Fritz by The Orb
The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man On Earth
High Violet by The National

This was by far and away the most difficult category to decide and not just because I’ve reviewed more albums than anything else on Worthy Of A Bigger Audience.  I absolutely love all of the albums reviewed in the list above so if I was to compile my top fifty favourite albums of all-time then pretty much all of those listed above would be strong contenders for conclusion.  In the end though, I had to pick a favourite and I decided to go for The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable simply because it just keeps getting better and better with every listen.

Winner: The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable

Books: Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

Skipping Christmas:  An easy and enjoyable read.

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

Given that this is technically a blog devoted to featuring underrated books, movies, albums, etc, which some potential fans may have overlooked, it probably seems a bit out of place to be covering a book by that little known undiscovered author by the name of John Grisham.

However, although Skipping Christmas is written by multi-million selling John Grisham, it’s nevertheless not the first book that springs to mind when you mention his name and is arguably far less famous than some of his more well-known books such as The Pelican Brief, A Time To Kill or The Runaway Jury.  And secondly, as it’s only a few days until Christmas, it therefore seemed appropriate to include a suitably Christmas themed review. 

I generally prefer Grisham’s legal stuff and more action orientated plots, so for a long time a seemingly throwaway story about Christmas didn’t really hold much appeal.  Many other John Grisham fans may also have overlooked it, and that’s a shame because although Skipping Christmas is not really in the same typical style as some of Grisham’s more usual novels, it’s nonetheless a lovely book. 

Books: Blockbuster by Tom Shone

Blockbuster is a book written by a fan of blockbusters for readers who love blockbusters.

Blockbuster by Tom Shone.

From the opening few pages of Blockbuster it is clear that Tom Shone is a writer who is not afraid to celebrate success and he has obviously chosen his subject matter based on a topic which he visibly has a great deal of positive enthusiasm for.  To put it simply, Blockbuster is a book written by someone who loves blockbusters for readers who love blockbusters.

And that’s perhaps one of the main reasons why I enjoyed this book so much.  Right from the start it becomes apparent that Tom Shone is an author who much prefers to praise some of the brilliant and memorable moments in movie history, rather than criticise the occasional failures.  He is also someone who clearly takes pleasure when deserving movies are a commercial success as well as a critical success, and he doesn’t see ‘money’ as a dirty word.  All in all these factors make him the perfect choice to write this book.

Books: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

If you’re a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy then it’s a safe bet that you will also love this book.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has that unmistakably
unique Douglas Adams sense of brilliant weirdness about it.

Usually when reviewing a book it’s normally quite a simple task to provide a brief one chapter summary at the start of the review to summarise the basic plot of the story, but with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency the brilliantly unique quirkiness of the story make it a somewhat more difficult task to sum it all up in one paragraph.

So instead I’ll quote from Douglas Adams himself when he describes it as, “A thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic.”  There are so many elements to this book that it’s extremely hard to categorise, but that comment from Douglas Adams sums it up as accurately as it’s possible to do in one sentence.

And although the title might suggest that Dirk Gently is the one man star of the show, in actual fact there are several interesting characters in this book with Dirk himself not actually making a first appearance until a few chapters into the story.  In actual fact Richard MacDuff, a computer programmer who’s creations include software to convert company accounts into music and a 3D computer model to attempt to work out how to remove the sofa stuck halfway up his stairs, is perhaps closer to what you would usually describe as the main character than Dirk.

Books: The Half Life Of Stars by Louise Wener

Filled with some very touching human moments.

The Half Life Of Stars featuring an
attention grabbing opening chapter.

The Half Life Of Stars immediately grabs your attention as it opens by focusing on the Challenger space shuttle disaster as told from the point of view of Daniel (main character Claire’s older brother) and his father, and then goes on to relate their family's own traumatic events on that day.  Once this is dealt with the story then jumps to the present day and the interest level drops off slightly as Daniel goes missing and the focus turns to how his family deal with his disappearance.  Within a few chapters though, Claire makes a significant discovery in her quest to find her brother and things start to get interesting again, although even then it’s not until the second half of the book that it really hits its stride.

The story deals with the sudden and unexpected disappearance of Claire’s older brother Daniel in the run up to Christmas, and when dealing with a serious subject like this, the first half of the book is as you’d expect quite heavy and weighted at times.  Once Claire’s search gains momentum, however, and Claire and her ex-husband meet up with Huey and Tess there is a sudden and welcome injection of humour which was probably necessary to avoid the reader becoming constantly weighed down in doom and gloom.  Tess in particular is a very entertaining and amusing character, and one who would make an excellent lead character for future books by Louise Wener.

Books: A Bus Could Run You Over by Colin Butts

Or In My Case ‘A Coconut Could Land On Your Head’

A Bus Could Run You Over by Colin Butts

I was actually relaxing on the beach reading this book when a coconut came crashing down from the tree above me and smacked into the sand, landing close to my head.  The near miss from the coconut really underlined the message of the story and there was one paragraph in particular which left a strong impression on me to make the most of life.

It was a message I listened to, as for the last eight years since that fateful near miss with the coconut, I've lived by that philosophy and gone backpacking for five or six months every winter to see more of the the world.  Life's too short to waste time doing things you don't want to do, and although perhaps reading  'A Bus Could Run You Over' wasn't the only factor which helped me arrive at that realisation, it nevertheless played its part in nudging me in that direction.

Anyway, aside from leaving a positive impression on me this is a book which I would definitely highly recommend.  Most people will probably be more familiar with Colin Butts' first two books ‘Is Harry On The Boat?’ and ‘Is Harry Still On The Boat?’ (on account of the TV series shown on Sky) and while they were also funny books, this is my clear favourite.  It feels as if by this stage Colin has expanded on his ability to write very funny stories and added the ability to also create writing which can be very memorable and powerful.