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.
The perfect Christmas present for cat-lovers, comic-book fans and animation addicts alike, The Media Bookshop brings you Simon’s Cat by Simon Tofield. The award-winning illustrator, Simon Tofield, began uploading his much-loved animations to YouTube in 2008 and has since become an internet sensation. His short films have received almost 50 million views between them and this book sees Simon’s Cat offline debut. The premise of each cartoon is basically the same: irritating-yet-lovable cat comes up with ever more destructive ways of getting fed, but the result is ever-more pleasing. This delightful book serves as the perfect coffee break pick-me-up.
For our next Christmas gift recommendation, The Media Book Club, brings you Lynne Truss’ autobiography of an unwitting sports writer. Get Her Off the Pitch! is a particularly hilarious account of someone who literally couldn’t care less about sport and is for some reason tasked with reporting it. Truss is well-known for her best-selling guide to misplaced grammar: Eats, Shoots and Leavesbut she spent four years as sports writer for the Times. What Truss brought to the world of sports writing was not knowledge or lifelong dedication but a refreshing point of view that could only have come from an outsider. Fans will remember her colourful descriptions of sportsmen and women while critics will be interested in what-on-earth possessed her to take on such a role.
Continuing with the theme of books good enough to give away to someone nice, The Media Book Club brings you Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. A part-fictionalised, part-fact-based account of Oliver Cromwell’s rise to power amidst a backdrop of King Henry’s protestant reformation. Mantel’s historical novel has seen praise by all and sundry and was awarded this year’s Man Booker Prize. The Guardian’s Sarah Crown described Mantels achievment with writing Wolf Hall as having “taken a well-known – even well-worn – story and inject[ing] it with thrumming vitality”. This mammoth book is packed full of detail with a cast list spread across five pages but Mantel manages to weave these element together to make a very readable and very original work of literature.
With Christmas roughly in mind, The Media Book Club brings you a series of books perfect for giving. To start us off we begin with The United States of McSweeney’s edited by Nick Hornby and Eli Horrowitz. McSweeney’s is a much-loved publisher of literary journals started by American writer Dave Eggars in 1998. McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern has become famous for it’s quirky approach to design as much as for the fine writers that have featured on it’s pages, including Michael Chabon, Roddy Doyle and Joyce Carol Oates. Previous issues of the journal have taken the guise of a cigarette box and the resemblance of a pile of junk mail. This book pulls together some of the “accidental classics” from the last 10 years of the journal.
This month marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and to tie in with the celebrations, The Media Book Club brings you The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor. Crafting official history together with original archive research and personal stories Taylor’s well researched book charts both the rise and fall of the most divisive structure in history. Described as a “superb, fast-paced and readable history” by the Evening Standard, this book provides a refreshing look at the events that shaped modern Europe.
