Reading - April 2025

Backtrack by Tessa Niles (2015)

Tessa Niles might not be a household name, but if you come from the generation of music fans that reads credits on albums or CD booklets (I assume this basically excludes anyone under about forty) then there's a good chance you'll have seen the name - and given her incredible list of credits, you will definitely have heard her. The physical book feels like it's a print-on-demand copy (I bought it on Amazon so it's possible) and I can't quite decide whether Panoma Press are a vanity publisher or not; the writing style is a bit Mills & Boon and could definitely have done with better editing in places. But that said it does come across as her genuine voice rather than a bland ghost written account - and I found it very readable and enjoyable.

Beserker! by Adrian Edmondson (2023)

This had been recommended in various places, and despite the fact that the only bits of Edmondson's output from the last 40+ years that I'm familiar with is The Young Ones (which I haven't seen since it was originally broadcast) and vaguely remembered bits of The Dangerous Brothers ("dangerous!") from Saturday Live, it was worth reading. He's an honest and relatable companion and it's refreshing to hear the trials and effort involved in what could appear, to an outsider, like a comfortable life in entertainment.

The Perfectly Dressed Gentleman by Robert O'Byrne (2011)

I found this on the book exchange shelves at work, and it looks like a Christmas stocking filler; slim, but a hardback, with a slightly novelty integrated bookmark. But it's surprisingly full of information.

Paradise Valley by Robyn Carr (2009)

Forbidden Falls by Robyn Carr (2010)

Angel's Peak by Robyn Carr (2010)

These next three books in the Virgin River series seem to have randomly assigned titles representing places that are literally never mentioned anywhere, but they are decent, readable and enjoyable stories that get you involved and wanting to know how things work out - not just whether they will work out (obviously they will). There are more and more secondary characters turning up and they have their own arcs too. Perfect bedtime reading.

White Heat by Dominic Sandbrook (2006)

A hugely impressive and authoritative history of mid-to-late sixties Britain. It takes a history with this kind of perspective, the kind only afforded by time, shorn of bias and with the egos long eroded, to be able to show the real causes and the real effects. Sadly, it also shows that politics hasn't changed, with decisions made in the interests of self or at least, party, heavily overriding any wider concerns. Harold Wilson comes across as an incredible political operator who nevertheless was more focussed on keeping his job than in running the country for everyone's benefit. Opposition parties still grabbed every opportunity to carp and pick holes instead of behaving like adults. It also shows the impact one determined person can have, usually for the worse - whether that's Mary Whitehouse, Enoch Powell or Ian Paisley (all of whom claimed to be speaking on behalf of a silent majority that didn't exist). Sandbrook's summary (if you can summarise anything as complex as this) - that Britain wasn't swinging or in fact vastly transformed in any ways other than by the normal march of time - is sane and rational and a deliberate counterpoint to those who might try to twist the evidence to suit their own prejudices. Politicians were still politicians and people were still people. Still, it's great to have this kind of history to read and I've come away vastly better informed. I'm looking forward to the next books, which cover the times during which I was actually alive. I might give myself a bit of a break first though!

Screenwriting for Dummies by Laura Schellhardt (2008)

I picked this up ages ago in a charity shop because I thought it would give a good insight into screenwriting (and as a more practical counterpoint to William Goldman's peerless Adventures in the Screen Trade). Well, it was interesting but I didn't find it compelling: it's taken me over two years to finish it! There's lot of good advice here but neither does it shy away from making it clear that there's a huge effort involved. That's true of everything worth doing, of course, but it's probably killed any faint fantasy that I might try my hand at it!

Paper Cuts by Ted Kessler (2022)

Despite being the last editor of Q magazine before it folded, Ted Kessler describes himself as essentially being an NME writer - and even if he hadn't, his off-hand dismissal of Q as "smug, self-congratulatory, purposely fogey" would give him away. But I loved magazines like it and Word, and would say it was ironic, with a keen sense of the innate ridiculousness of much of the music industry. By contrast, the weekly inkies always had the breathless, over-excited feel of a bunch of teenagers seduced by the myths of rock 'n' roll and unable or unwilling to see past them, and Kessler sounds like he fit in exactly. The monthlies were clearly dying long before he arrived to oversee their last days and I'd ducked out years before. All of which is a long way of saying that I've never read or even come across Ted Kessler before, and in any case, I probably wouldn't have had much time for him. Which is my loss, because he's a really good writer, not just when he's being self-deprecatory about his younger self's misadventures, but about the music that's inspired him. This took me a solid day to read and was never less than entertaining and often insightful.

Promise Canyon by Robyn Carr (2011)

Some sort of horse whisperer thing going on here, and a mild tribute to Native American traditions, but otherwise pretty much exactly the same as the others in this series - which is to say, a satisfying but maybe slightly forgettable romance.

Pick of Punch (1991) edited by David Thomas (1991)

I found a couple of these in a charity book shop (in a National Trust property) and couldn't resist adding to my little collection - I now have five. Yet now I've read it, I'm not sure why I bother. It's the penultimate annual from the "proper" run of Punch (the 1996 re-launch under Mohamed Al-Fayed doesn't count) and by this point it feels like it's trying to emulate Private Eye in a bid to recapture readers - and it's not working. Too much is just not funny. Add in a couple of execrable Richard Littlejohn pieces that would be rejected these days by the Daily Wail for being overly reactionary, and what you have a is a museum piece with a few gently amusing cartoons. Still, it didn't cost much (and the money went to good cause) and didn't take long to read.