Most have been reviewed on here by me, but everyone loves a good list, especially at the end of the year.
10 📕 No Milk Today @ Beano Niblock
Once again, Niblock hits it out of the park. Not only is this an excellent collection of stories that reflects working class life, the different facets of the male personality in a competitive (or hostile) environment and a Belfast that still holds a grip on the collective psyche fifty years on, but it also does an immense job of adding character and drive to men who have been consigned to history as either faceless killers or grotesque caricatures.
9 📕 Quantum Diaper Punks – Stuart Buck
10 📕 No Milk Today @ Beano Niblock
Once again, Niblock hits it out of the park. Not only is this an excellent collection of stories that reflects working class life, the different facets of the male personality in a competitive (or hostile) environment and a Belfast that still holds a grip on the collective psyche fifty years on, but it also does an immense job of adding character and drive to men who have been consigned to history as either faceless killers or grotesque caricatures.
9 📕 Quantum Diaper Punks – Stuart Buck
From pseudo-Situationist pranks right down to mass murder, the story is recounted in a matter-of-fact tone that suggests the narrator is aware of the need to demonstrate some kind of distance between his actions but isn’t as remorseful as he’d like to be. Buck has a style of storytelling that involves taking silly ideas to levels beyond ludicrousness but, looking beyond that, he is a very human writer concerned with how alienation and loneliness will push people into extreme terrain.
8.📕The Road to Ukraine @ Frank Furedi
Running to 114 pages, this is an intriguing and thought provoking read that demonstrates just how those who do not understand history will unwittingly repeat it, while those who do sit and sigh in exasperation. A segment about how people are adopting the Ukrainian struggle for their own ends (i.e., to demonstrate that they are Good People) is infuriating because of the narcissism depicted, but also offers up hope that people will slowly come to recognise the importance of history.
7 📕 Convulsive @ Joe Koch
Convulsive combines both the penny dreadful and the literary to give us a modern horror anthology for our times. Koch’s rich (yet cryptic) style of writing never lets the reader establish where the boundaries between reality and fantasy lie. That is a very good thing. Everything feels “off”, and the end of certain stories feel less like a resolution and more of an interlude to nastier events, but always portrayed eloquently and with gravitas due to Koch’s prose, which is tapestry like in places.
6 📕 God is a Killer @ Max Thrax
All too often, crime writers tend to fixate on plot as opposed to character. Here, the plot has the potential for greater elaboration but, wisely, Thrax keeps it condensed to necessity. While elaborate plotting will always have its place, it’s compelling protagonists that keep the interest of most readers. The end result here is that the reader is always on edge, expecting an outburst of violence any minute.
5 📕 Redblackinfinite @ Alexander Kattke
Described as a long-time writer and film buff who has been writing for over fifteen years, Kattke describes this book as “… a kind of exorcism.” And reading it, I can understand why. He has constructed a post-modern, post-apocalyptic world where meaning and life blend into insignificance, evident by the use of quotes as well as deliberately misattributed ones in order to demonstrate the absurdity and intellectual banality of using quotes as a philosophy.
4 📕 Pornography for The End of The World @ Brendan Vidito
With an astonishingly beautiful cover from Wieslaw Walkuski, what you have is an exceptional short story collection that manages to detail the horror of what is underneath the surface while offering a more cerebral take on the contrast between mundanity and horror. Some of it is also deeply visual, offering the potential for greater exploration not only through other books but through the medium of film as well due to Vidito’s evocative and off-kilter writing style, especially his settings.
3 📕 Bodies! Life and Death in Music @ Ian Winwood
Winwood draws upon his extensive career interviewing the likes of Biffy Clyro, Frank Turner and Creeper while discussing the insidious machinations of the industry, how it (at best) downplays questionable behaviour and (at worst) enables such behaviour by creating circumstances that can lead to self-destruction. He also examines the effects drugs and alcohol have had on him, as well as the trauma of his father’s accidental death, which culminates in a half-hearted suicide attempt.
2 📕 Radio Off @ Marcus Meltdown
For his third book of the year, Marcus recounts having to travel down to London to collect his daughter from police custody. On his way, he muses on everything from the film Radio On through to the likes of Matt Walsh and Piers Morgan and encounters the most remarkable types in service stations, as well as bushes. It’s his most ambitious read yet, akin to David Thewlis’ character in Naked ringing you up at 2am and telling you the facts of life.
1 📕 Faith, Hope and Carnage @ Nick Cave/Sean O’Hagan
This book, made up of many hours of discussion with Armagh born Sean O’Hagan (ex NME and currently writing for The Guardian/The Observer) is a fascinating, humourous, and insightful read from two men who have known each other for a long time. O’Hagan gives Cave plenty of room to make his case, but occasionally pushes back on him or puts him on the spot (such as reading old quotes back to Cave), so don’t mistake this for a hagiography.
🕮 Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.
I recommended Bodies to a colleague whose son is studying music and plays in several bands. A very good book.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly is, which is odd as he used to annoy me when I read Kerrang nearly 20 odd years ago. Just goes to show.
DeleteCheers for the recommendations Christopher. Do you know of any good books on Fergal Sharkey? I was always taken with his passion for helping young musicians make their way.
ReplyDelete