Reading - May 2024

Teacher, Teacher! by Jack Sheffield (2007)

I found this on the shelves of the book exchange at work and have been reading a chapter at a time, a couple of lunchtimes a week. It's quite an episodic style, described on the cover as "Heartbeat for teachers" - although personally I'd say it was basically All Creatures Great and Small set in a school, but perhaps that's not a current enough reference. Anyway, it bears all the signs of a first-time writer (too many adjectives and unnecessarily detailed background information) but is nevertheless amusing, sweet and nostalgic. Apparently there are another nine books in this series!

Not The End Of The World by Christopher Brookmyre (1998)

A brilliant, tightly-plotted, righteous takedown of organised religion and in particular US fundamentalist Christians. Spot on in every respect of course. Hugely entertaining and deserves to be much better known - I keep recommending Brookmyre's earlier output since no-one I speak to appears to have heard of him!

Bright Lights, Dark Shadows by Carl Magnus Palm (2008)

Originally published in 2002, so a couple of years after the initial success of Mamma Mia! on stage, and well before the film, this was apparently the first serious book about Abba. It's comprehensive without being trainspotter-y or boring, and really brings out the unique nature of not just their music but their history, and why they sounded like they did and achieved what they did. Really interesting - although I'd love to read a more recent edition to see if it's been updated in the light of Voyage, since Palm confidently predicts in the book that they will never reunite!

The Wichita Lineman by Dylan Jones (2019)

One of the wonderful things about Jimmy Webb's classic song "Wichita Lineman", and in particular Glen Campbell's original and definitive recording, is that it manages to say so much about love and heartache in so few words. You might now be able to guess where I'm going with this review! At its core, this book strikes me as a decent, in-depth magazine article for something like Mojo, but with a lot of padding inserted to make it into a short book. As a result, it kind of misses the point, because there's far too much here that's not about the song itself - probably because, once you've quoted Webb and Campbell themselves, there's not that much to say (unless you want to get into the technical aspects of the song and recording itself, which Jones doesn't and in fairness would be a different book). Ultimately, this failed the main criterion I set any book about music: it didn't make me want to go and listen again, even though I love the song.

Bloodhounds by Peter Lovesey (1996)

I picked this up at the book exchange at work while looking for something to read during lunch, primarily because I vaguely recognised the author's name. I hadn't read any of his books before, but I will look for more, as this is a very good murder mystery. I think the twist at the end is somewhat implausible, but the story is well told and the central character - detective Peter Diamond - an appealing character who I am pleased to find features in at least a dozen more of Lovesey's books. Off to the library I go!