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Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

Started on April 21st. Finished on April 21st.

I love Chuck Klosterman. I’ve had many different writers that I wanted to “be like” when I grew up. Dave Eggers was number one for a while, as was Chuck Pahlanuik. Klosterman is top of the charts right now, because he writes the type of smart, funny and incisive essays that I adore. The simple fact is that he thinks about pop culture more than anyone else in the world. There are plenty of people that write about popular culture but there are very few that put the depth of thought into it that Chuck does. For once, I’m going to be concise. This book is awesome. Read it.

American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson

Started on April 21st. Finished on April 23rd.

I’ve never actually watched an episode of the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Nor have I seen Craig Ferguson perform standup comedy. I vaguely remember him from The Drew Carey Show, and I’ve seen a couple of clips online of his rather successful tv show. I’m not what you would call a ‘Craig Ferguson Fan’. All of that being said, this is probably the best book I’ve read in the last twelve months. It’s astounding and funny and true and it warms your heart and breaks it all at the same time.

There are a few reasons for me feeling this way. He’s from the same city as me, he was a standup comic before he went into the realms of late night tv. He’s funny in a very Scottish way, but has an incredible affection for all things American. He loved the idea of New York city before he lived there. I identified with his story on a very personal level, especially given my recent defection from Scotland to Canada. He’s a very rare breed: a Scotsman who is considerably more famous in the US than in Scotland. Read this book, please, as soon as possible.

Show Me The Funny by Peter Desberg & Jeffrey Davis

Started April 30th. Finished May 11th.

This is a book about comedy writers. Or at least, that’s what I thought it was about when I bought it. The book is a collection of interviews with various people who have been employed as comedy writers at some point in their career. Some write for TV, others for movies. All identify themselves as comedy writers. They are given a very basic premise for a comedy project, and then are asked to explain what they would do to the premise to turn it into a fleshed out tv show or movie. I’m a huge comedy/writing nerd, and I’m always looking for books that pull back the curtain on how things work in a writer’s room. I thought this book would be great. This book kinda sucked.

The quality of writers involved varied wildly, as did the quality of the interviews themselves. Clearly, all have done well to get involved in what is a very difficult industry to break into, but some of them are responsible for writing really bad movies and tv. Like, really bad. As far as I’m concerned, the value of your experience and opinion is equal to the quality of your work. If you’ve written shitty tv, I don’t want to learn from you. Some of the interviews stuck with the premise breakdown, and others just flew past it. Often the writers would be recycling old plots from previous shows. The level of insight offered was minimal. It got repetitive and old pretty quickly. Don’t read this book. Read And Here’s The Kicker instead.

Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

Started 11th May. Finished 17th May.

Terry Pratchett is an amazing writer. His books are criminally underrated. You can write them off as funny fantasy books if you want, but there’s an intelligence and sharp satire in his writing that blows me away. Interesting Times is about China. Of course, in Terry Pratchett’s world, there is no such place, which makes it easier to be satirical. It’s hilarious, too. I know of no other fiction writer who is as good at crafting throwaway jokes. Put another way, I laughed more at this book than I did when reading a book that involves professional comedy writers making jokes. Highly recommended - it’s the best book involving wizards that I’ve read this year.

The Year of Living Biblically by A J Jacobs

Started 12th March. Finished 20th April

A J Jacobs is a very funny man. I thought this would be a funny book. It turned out to be more than that. The premise of this book is interesting, and asks many questions: what would happen if you tried to live your life by the rules set forth in the bible? How would that change your beliefs about religion and spirituality. Just how big a beard can you grow in 12 months? I found this book to have a lot more heart than I expected it to. In the hands of a less talented writer (or a less genuine human being) this could’ve been a cynical project which made fun of religious types and pointed out all of the stupidity that is caused by people taking the bible literally. Jacobs somehow manages to make it clear just how silly some of this stuff is, but commits to it anyway, just to see what would happen. His journey remains compelling throughout. Jacobs (and his family) are the emotional core of this book, and it ends up being more heart warming than laugh-out-loud funny. Good book, though. Well done, God!