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Pucci released by Taschen
In the US TV series Mad Men – set in an advertising agency in the late 50s/early 60s – one of the executives comes up with a campaign that asks women if they are a “Marilyn” type or a “Jackie” type. Monroe and Kennedy may have been two of the era’s archetypes - and media representations of their personas very different - but they were united by their love of fashion; and Pucci was their go-to style. The brand was begun by Emilio Pucci with a boutique on the isle
SEPTEMBER 10 BOOK REVIEWS
Book of the Month:
How To Live: A Life Of Montaigne In One Question And Twenty Attempts At An Answer
Sarah Bakewell, Chatto & Windus, £16.99
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne was a French nobleman who died in 1592 but has since been described as the first truly modern thinker. His musings on life – compiled under The Collected Essays – are extended texts on digression, taking in everything from what his cat is thinking to the civil wars raging around him. This truly fabulous biography takes a three-pronged approach to covering his history. Firstly Bakewell expertly draws us into his life and times: a very turbulent period in French and indeed, European history. As she does so she reveals his writings to us; breaking his philosophies down into twenty questions, each of which is posed as a chapter heading. She also tackles his afterlife: how his works have been collected and viewed since his death. Written with great warmth and no little wit, this is the perfect introduction to this singular man, as well as a primer on ‘how to live’ and sure to have readers reaching for Montaigne’s collected works. RM
La Rochelle
Michael Nath, Route, £8.99
This darkly comic and highly original novel is set over two weeks in 2004, where we find protagonist Dr Mark Chopra, a chaste and passive neurologist. One evening Mark is summoned to help his intriguing friend Ian, whose girlfriend Laura has, simply, vanished. When we learn of the images of Laura that play in the film-roll of Mark’s mind, we realise that this disappearance has bigger consequences than initially meet the eye. Always more ready to read than to act, Mark draws on the lessons of the great philosophers and generals as both men settle in to the comfort of a drink as they try to figure out what it all might mean. What are the triggers that can free such a man from his passive state and transform him into a gallant knight and go after his beloved Laura. Uneasily inhabiting a world which has the air of being orchestrated around him, Mark must accept assistance from extraordinary people in unexpected places, and sift enchantment from whatever might pass for reality if he is to learn the lessons of Don Quixote and La Rochelle… JL
Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker
James Mcmanus, Souvenir Press, £14.99
Barack Obama once told a reporter that he considered himself to be “a pretty good poker player”. I suppose most people who play poker consider themselves to be good players, but Obama’s love of the game is reflected in America’s belief that poker is its national game. However, poker originated elsewhere as this thorough book makes clear. It follows the game’s history as it grew from the French parlour game of poque, combined with the English game of brag and into a national craze by the time of the American Civil War to its current role as the world’s most played game (especially online). McManus combines colourful history with anecdotes, descriptions of how poker strategy created the history of our time (the Cuban Missile Crisis used the classic tactic of playing the man rather than the hand you’re dealt) and poker’s remarkable hold on popular culture. GM
The Kremlin’s Geordie Spy
Vin Arthey, Bite Back Publishing, £9.99
It’s true what they say about the best stories being those that are true-life tales (apart from The Wizard of Oz - that’s one made-up story that has yet to be topped by anything real) and this amazing story is an account of an English grammar school boy, going by the name of Willi Fisher, who went on to become Rudolf Abel. Abel was a KGB Colonel, a man who, in 1962, was exchanged by the Americans in swap deal for a US pilot who had been captured by the Russians when his U-2 plane was shot down over Soviet Union airspace…
Willi was born at 142 Clara Street, Benwell, Newcastle-upon-Tyne to revolutionary parents who fled Russia in 1901 and brought up their son to share their ideology. It’s great to read about his early days in and around Newcastle and surrounding areas (including Whitley Bay) but the action soon shifts to Moscow and New York as Willi/Rudolph gets caught up in all manner of cold war shenanigans. A clearly told, and intriguing tale, and as gripping as anything you’ll find in a John le Carré novel. GM
Eleven
Mark Watson, Simon & Shuster, £12.99
Mark Watson is that comedian fella who you’ll probably know from his appearances on Nevermind The Buzzcocks, Mock The Week, Have I Got News For You etc as well as countless stand-up shows. And like many comedians of his ilk, he’s thrown his hat into the novel writing ring and come up with Eleven. Xavier Ireland is a radio DJ who by night listens to the hopes, fears and regrets of sleepless Londoners, aided by his nervous sidekick Murray. By day he keeps very much to himself, dreaming of his youth in Australia as Chris Cotswold, before his emigration and reinvention, but it’s not until a chance encounter with a one-of-a-kind cleaning lady that Xavier is forced to confront his own biggest regret. A tale of love, loss, Scrabble and six degrees of separation, asking big questions about life and death, strangers and friends, and whether the choices we don’t make affect us just as powerfully as those we do. GM
The Story Of Grass
“A friend recently asked me, if I could meet anyone from history, alive or dead, who would I meet? And as a music lover the answer was easy. Noel Gallagher. Dead.” Just one of the ‘Letters from Daves’ in this, frankly hilarious, new fanzine from James Harris and Gus Hughes. I say “hilarious” and I stand by it. I genuinely guffawed my way through this
Trenchfoot
Super villains causing all sorts of mayhem in the sleepy environs of the Lake District? Welcome to Trenchfoot.
The last time I looked, villains – of a super-powered nature – were intent on kidnapping a police commissioner’s daughter for ransom; infecting the inhabitants of a sprawling metropolis with laughing gas for nefarious political means; or blowing up the moon
Middlesbrough Book Group
Run by New Writing North, this is a book club with a difference. No stuffiness, no rules really and no attitudes; just canny people meeting up to talk, listen and drink tea and cocktails. Entitled The Middlesbrough Book Group, it’s a monthly bash for people of all ages, held at Uncle Albert’s (opposite the train station)
The Circular Scrolls by Bridget Trafford
Cumbrian-based author, Bridget Trafford, has just released
the first two novels in her epic fantasy series, The Circular Scrolls,
concerning a young girl named Sam.
And Sam is no ordinary girl. Inquisitive, at odds with modernity and torn between wanting independence and finding acceptance with her school friends, she finds solace in her vast collection
Hammer Glamour, Titan Books
Featuring an assortment of sultry snake charmers, nubile slaves of Satan and prehistoric savages (in full 1960s style make-up) this book is a glorious laudation of the actresses who vamped their way through many of the best – and worst – British horror films of the 50s-70s. It’s replete with some fabulous images but the author, Marcus Hearn, has written an
Wiffle Lever To Full, Bob Fischer, published by Hodder
Negotiating an army of Red Dwarf fans clad in penguin glove puppets; dancing to Wham’s “I’m Your Man” with Blake’s 7 fans; and clomping coconuts with Monty Python loonies… That’s Teesside’s Bob Fisher, a man who has been to the outer limits of fandom and reported his findings in “Wiffle Lever To Full”.
Jack Common, by Keith Armstrong
Common was born in Heaton in 1903 and it was his formative years around the terraced houses of the area which form the backdrop to his most famous, and autobiographical work, Kiddar’s Luck. Keith Armstrong’s new book “Common Words and the Wandering Star” is a biographical study of his life and work and is being launched
Doctor Who: Hornets’ Nest
Does a two-page splash in the Radio Times indicate “mounting excitement” towards the official debut of the new – and 11th Doctor – in Doctor Who next year? Possibly, but for some, the only true Doctor, THEIR Doctor, is Tom Baker whose woolly scarf and Jelly Baby fetish
Crikey
It’s hard to define what makes a British comic. After all we DO have what you could loosely call “heroes”, but ours don’t usually battle to save the world or are struck down by existential angst. They’re too busy pilfering the tuck-shop or grabbing mum’s sausages for their pet dog of indeterminable breed
Read Regional
Four novels by local authors have been flagged up this year as must-reads and if you’re hankering after details, then read on. Welcome To Life is the debut from Alice de Smith (pictured) and, as the name hints
The Disco Files 1973-78 by Vince Aletti
‘These wizard technicians in the raised booths are the underground stars of the discotheque boom that began three years ago and is now approaching the turning point from genuine phenomenon to media fad. No longer just human jukeboxes, discotheque DJs talk about creating “total evenings” or turning the night into a “whole big song, a trip”.’ That’s Vince Aletti
Tank Girl 1 & 2, published by Titan Books
You know you’re getting old when you’re suddenly confronted with the fact that Tank Girl is 21. The creation of Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett, she first give the world of comics a Doc Martened boot up the arse back in 1988 and two volumes have just been released collecting all
Kicked Out, Richard W. Hardwick, published by Burning House books
Kicked Out is a fantastic new novel from local author, Richard W. Hardwick, concerning homelessness.
It concerns the trials and tribulations of Danny, a sixteen-year-old who is kicked out by his mam and dad
The Father Cotton Chronicles
Welcome to the dark and dismal world of Father Cotton, a graphic novel (of a sort) from three Gateshead raised types.
I say “of a sort” as this isn’t a conventional graphic novel; it’s mainly text, although what pictures there are are incredibly striking. The whole project has been two years in the making and springs from the fertile imaginings of
Hammer Films: A Life In Pictures
British film studio Hammer, didn’t just concern itself with fruity scientists, mitheringmummies and frankly improbable lesbian vampires. As a new book – Hammer Films: A Life In Pictures – points out, they also foisted On The Buses on the British public, too.
Reg Varney, star of 1970’s sitcom, On The Buses, died last year causing me to dredge
Watching The Watchmen is published by Titan Books
Watchmen is the Citizen Kane of comics. Running for 12 issues in the mid-80s, it raised the bar for the medium to such a height that the series was installed as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the last century by Time magazine. Inverting the hackneyed world of superheroes,
A Dose Of Rock ‘n’ Roll
Most of the pop-stars featured in Nancy Lee Andrews’ new book had already done their hard work when she took these photographs. George Harrison, Keith Moon, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, The Band, Ringo Starr, Donovan etc had all made their names during the 1960s
The Non-Beardy Beer Book
“There’s an old women who sits with her dog in the snug of our local faux-Irish pub. She drinks Guinness, but swears blind that it tastes much better in Ireland. She also swears blind that her dog knows
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: The Killing Joke originally came out in the 1980s and not only produced one of the most legendary superhero/supervillian show-downs of all time with Batman and The Joker, but also saw the UK dynamic duo
The Hardy boys
Hardy Amies’ book, ABC of Men’s Fashion, is to stylish men what Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book was to China’s cultural revolutionaries (i.e. get caught without it and you’re likely to end up punished one way or the other). 'A man should look as if he has bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care and then forgotten all about them.’
The Hot Zone
Sex and violence
The Hot Zone is the first volume in the comic book satire, Army@love, which sees the US army employing below the belt tactics – in every sense – to find new recruits for the ongoing war in Afbaghistan…
WIN: We’ve got five copies of The Hot Zone to give away to readers
Old Wives Tales, Penkas, Parties and Pirate Radio
Do you remember playing marbles when you were young? Do you remember playing ‘knocky nine door’? Do you remember hiding under your bed covers and listening to pirate radio? Julia Hankin and Carol Cooke do, and luckily for those of us who love to bang on about that thing we call ‘the past’, they’ve recounted such episodes in a great new book, Old Wives Tales, Penkas, Parties and Pirate Radio.
Book up
It’s a book club; in a bar room: it’s a bar room book club.
The salubrious surroundings of The Living Room in Newcastle is the venue for this new monthly event which will host a new kind of book club which will let readers discuss contemporary fiction over a glass of wine.
Confessions, Romances, Secrets, and Temptions
A new book from Fantagraphics - Confessions, Romances, Secrets and Temptations – raises an eyebrow to the popular romance comics of the ‘50s.
“Romance offered me an escape from my hopeless routine as a salesgirl. But instead of being faithful to the first fellow who fell in love with me, I brushed him aside for a better catch…” And so begins, They Caught Me Cheating At Love, a comic-book story culled from the pages of Pictorial Confessions 3
Hale and Arty!
Despite the net hosting an ever expanding collection of fan-driven websites, we're pleased to report that the good old fanzine (the ones you can physically pick up and read, and generally waft around if you so wish) are in rude health. Arty is a particular favourite
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