In honour of the Annual Academy Awards held this week, The Media Book Club (surprisingly) brings you a book about films. Mark Kermode’s It’s Only a Movie: Reel Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive is part-autobiography, part-sociological exploration of the films that changed Kermode’s life. If you’re a fan of his broadcasts then you are bound to like this book written in his humourous and self-deprecating style. Highlights include his musings on 70s horror classic, The Exorcist and his witnessing the shooting of German director Werner Herzog during an interview in the Hollywood Hills.
Out this week is the book everyone has been talking about and The Media Book Club was hardly going to ignore it. The End of the Party by Andrew Ranwnsley, is the book that set tongues wagging on the alleged bullying culture at Number 10. I’m not sure that’s much of a revelation to anyone who’s watched The Thick of It on BBC2 but Gordon Brown and his team have been fiercely fighting off the allegations. It is pretty hard to argue with Rawnsley’s credentials. Currently working for The Observer as chief political commentator, his newspaper columns have won him several prestigious awards. The End of the Party follows on from his best-selling book Servants of the People and if the amount of publicity is anything to go by his new book is bound to match that success.
Public Journalism 2.0: The Promise and Reality of a Citizen-Engaged Press
This week the Media Book Club brings you a collection of essays entitled Public Journalism 2.0 edited by Jack Rosenberry and Burton St. John, both members of the Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group. Released this Friday, the contributors to this book demonstrate blogging and other participatory journalism practices enabled by digital technology are not always in line with the original vision of public journalism.Featuring original research and case studies by scholars; Joyce Nip, David Ryfe, Serena Carpenter, Donica Mensing, Sue Robinson and Aaron Barlow this book would be a useful resource for anyone interested in or studying contemporary journalism practice.
This week The Media Book Club brings you Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik. We used Kaushik’s earlier book as a reference guide for our own PPC and Analytics research. This new edition promises to be a useful tool for anyone faced with the web analytics challenge from online marketeers to anyone wishing to measure their web activity’s success. Kaushik is the author of the highly rated web analytics blog Occam’s Razor so he is well placed as the author of this thoroughly modern guide.
Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
This week we bring you one of the top ten books of the decade as chosen by the New Statesman. The Spirit Level provides an overwhealming body of evidence that suggests a more equal society benefits both the rich as well as the poor. The book demonstrates a correlation between almost every social problem and economic inequality; from life expectancy to depression levels to violence and illiteracy. Raising the question of why we so often value growth over equality.
This week the Media Book Club brings you a look at the history of the relationship between the media and politicians from former Blair advisor Lance Price. Where Power Lies is a witty and informed analysis of this long-running battle, from Lloyd George to Gordon Brown. Price discusses the exclusive relationship between Downing Street and the media and how ‘truth’ and more importantly, the public are often left out. Includes interesting examples of how journalists as well as politicians use ’spin’ for their own gain.
This week the Media Book Club brings you a classic book from one of the founders of Media and Cultural Studies, Richard Hoggart. Uses of Literacy was published in 1957 but the ideas posed in this influential work are still relevant today. Hoggart asks at what price does a society become affluent? Are the skills that education and literacy gave millions wasted on consuming pop culture? Exploring themes of rapid social transition and class inequality, Hoggart looks at the role the media has to play in the abuse of literacy and the working classes.
Twitterature by Alexander Acimen and Emmett Rensin
This week The Media Bookshop brings you possibly the most controversial book ever to be written, well in a “it’s-probably-wrong-but-we-like-it” kind of way. Twitterature by Alexander Acimen and Emmett Rensin, reduces 75 works of some of the greatest western literature into 140 characters of succinct genius. If you’re the sort of person who’s been beaten by Ulysses, put off by Tolstoy or shied away from Dostoevsky then Twitterature is perfect for you. To give you an idea of the process through which these classics have been put through, just read this extract from Hamlet: “WTF IS POLONIUS DOING BEHIND THE CURTAIN???”. A very funny book for the open-minded among you.
Through The Eye of The Needle by John-Paul Flintoff
It’s been a while since we’ve received any reading recommendations from our readers so to start you off here’s a staff pick: Through The Eye of The Needle. In which we join Sunday Times features writer John-Paul Flintoff on his semi-spiritual journey through religion, carpentry, economics and crochet towards a more meaningful and self-reliant life. Flintoff documents the “combination of dependence and obliviousness that lies behind so many of the big problems facing us today” and attempts his own solutions in a book which is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking.
Here’s hoping everyone had a lovely Christmas and what better way to start the New Year than listening to the dulcet tones of legendary broadcaster Alan Whicker in the audio version of his most recent autobiography, Journey of a Lifetime. Many will remember his long-running series Whicker’s World but this book follows his journey to revisit the people and places that shaped his 50 year career in television.
