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splashes of Pink Floyd collaborator Gerald Scarfe. This large format hardback is a kind of memoir, recounting the warning from Hughes’ doctor as he approached 50 that he was drinking too much and needed exercise, and his subsequent purchase of a wire haired fox terrier.
There is no conventional narrative, as such, just a hell of a lot of dog walking, reminiscing, asides and authorial ponderings, mostly heavily misanthropic rants at the world which, although raising the odd smile, do tend to become banal in their repetition. Combining elements of collage, lo- fi design and drawing, Hughes is adept at creating an idiosyncratic, aggressive and self- referential atmosphere, but over 300 heavy- duty pages, the lack of engagement makes it ultimately wearing. (Doug Johnstone)
COMEDY PROJECT ALEX HORNE Wordwatching (Virgin Books) ●●●●●
Alex Horne is a true logophile. He’s a lover of words, especially rare words, like ‘logophile’, that seldom make it into dictionaries. Or ‘bollo’, ‘pratdigger’ and ‘mental safari’, his own recent coinages that the comedian has been trying to propel into common usage by any (borderline illegal) means, posterity in the OED his ultimate goal. Like Dave Gorman, Horne’s various comedy projects on Latin, birdwatching and trying to meet all the world’s nationalities, have begun to beget and cross-pollinate each other, and he’s used every publicity
ALSO PUBLISHED
5 HEALTH BOOKS Susan Hepburn Hypnodiet Subtitled ‘Lose Weight, Feel Fabulous the Stress- Free Way’ this claims to help reprogramme your mind into making the right choices about grub. Should you care, Lily Allen is an advocate. Piatkus. Paul McKenna I Can Make You Thin He can do anything, this guy. Bantam.
Jorge Cruise The Belly Fat Cure This one is snappily subtitled ‘No Dieting with the new Sugar/Carb Approved Foods’ and aims to help you (yes, you) lose 13 pounds in a mere ten days. Hay House.
Stephanie Mclellan & Beth Hamilton So Stressed The inevitable subtitle here is ‘A Plan for Managing Women’s Stress to Restore Health, Joy and Peace of Mind’ as a pair of gynaecologists pool half a century’s experience together to suggest ways of defusing stress. Simon & Schuster. Alison Scott- Wright The Sensational Baby Sleep Plan If Santa left some of his work to the stork this Yuletide, this could be the book to get you to change your world and get some proper kip. Bantam.
platform available to him to plant his wordseeds including, it transpires, The List. Notwithstanding the
entertaining finale of his Countdown appearance, it’s the amorphous, absorbing qualities of English that impress most, and while this is lightweight compared to Melvyn Bragg and Bill Bryson’s popular tomes on language, there’s an enjoyable audacity to Horne’s approach that extends to spreading lies about himself and Natasha Kaplinsky. (Jay Richardson)
7–21 Jan 2010 THE LIST 35
world’s first residential recording studio whose alumni include Queen, Iggy Pop and Oasis – Tiffany Murray’s second novel is part dysfunctional family drama, part rock’n’roll epic. Spanning 1977 to 2006, the eponymous narrator struggles with an unshakeable adoration for her adopted brother Fred, the biological son of legendary rock star parents who is destined to be in the music industry’s spotlight himself. Murray’s novel
successfully recreates the ecstasy of growing up in a vibrant musical environment through dense, image-laden prose. However, the energy fizzles out towards the book’s conclusion, which seems too neat for a storyline that deals with such an unorthodox – and often unconvincing – love affair. Nevertheless, with a rich, Bowie-heavy soundtrack to hand, Diamond Star Halo is certainly effective in reminding readers of the pivotal ways in which music can create and invoke memories. (Yasmin Sulaiman)
COMICS MEMOIR DAVID HUGHES Walking the Dog (Jonathan Cape) ●●●●●
David Hughes is an illustrator, graphic designer and artist whose work is pitched somewhere in the hinterland between the poignantly funny line scribbles of artist David Shrigley and the acerbic
SOCIAL ANALYSIS BARBARA EHRENREICH Smile or Die (Granta) ●●●●●
What’s wrong with positive thinking? Anyone who’s been forced on a team bonding day or made to sit through the platitudinous drivel of a ‘motivational guru’ by their employers will tell you exactly what’s wrong with it. And that culture of oppressive, enforced positivity gets wonderfully savaged in this sharp, funny and frightening book. Subtitled ‘How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World’, this is a wonderfully readable and meticulously researched look at the all-pervasive cult of positive thinking in American culture. The worlds of medicine, religion, science, national security and, most topically, big business all come under scrutiny, the author exposing the cynicism, delusion and greed of those who punt this stuff at society’s most vulnerable sections. Barbara Ehrenreich is no detached observer, and begins the book with a frank account of her diagnosis with breast cancer, and subsequent dismay at being engulfed by pink ribbons and therapy sessions in which there was no room for anger or sadness. Contrary to received opinion, there is no scientific link between positive mindset and rates of cancer survival, and Ehrenreich’s questioning of the endlessly cheery therapy resulted in her being ostracised. That picture has been echoed on Wall Street, in factories, in the Pentagon and in the country’s money-grabbing ‘megachurches’, with devastating effect. Advocating a pragmatic defensive pessimism or realism instead, Ehrenreich ruthlessly picks apart the psychology of blind devotion to positivity in US society, in a book full of eye-popping revelations concerning the extent of the problem. Truly worrying, but brilliantly written. (Doug Johnstone)
SHORT STORIES WILLIAM STYRON The Suicide Run (Jonathan Cape) ●●●●● On first glance at the cover image depicting a uniformed soldier speeding across a field, The Suicide Run looks like your average war story. But this is no ordinary tale; we should have guessed really, as William Styron is no ordinary chap. The award-winning author (Pulitzer Prize no less) of such classics as Sophie’s Choice and Lie Down in Darkness died in 2006, and this posthumous collection
of his time in the US Marine Corps not only offers a compelling insight into military life but also into the mind of this mighty wordsmith. Four narratives unfold,
set in gruelling training camps, prison quarters and training fields and we are introduced to
captivating and complex characters which draw on Styron’s own experiences in the forces during the 1940s and 50s. Beautifully written, the stories feature awe-inspiring paragraphs of evocative imagery and cleverly conjured sentences. Honest, devastatingly powerful and also quite beautiful. (Camilla Pia)
FAMILY DRAMA TIFFANY MURRAY Diamond Star Halo (Portobello) ●●●●● Inspired by her own upbringing at Monmouthshire’s Rockfield Studios – the