200 Review Milestone

The Four Eyed Book Worm blog has reached two-hundred reviews – a milestone on its never-ending (and of course, unachievable) quest to devour every book in the world. The story began all the way back in the fog of time – or June 2009 to be exact – with the intention of reading as many books as possible, whilst giving some scathing and partisan reviews.

The milestone book review was a rather poor book on the history of football; which recieved one terrible, lonesome and pathetic nod. Not a great book to celebrate this event; but neither was the 100th book review from the Worm: Roy Jenkins’ rather dull memoir Twelve Cities.

Where was the 5 nodder review to spark off the fireworks? Well, as you readers fully well know, the Worm does not give too many of those in the past 200 reviews. In fact, there have been just nineteen 5 nodder reviews out of the two-hundred (accounting for a mere 9.5%). The biggest award has been 3 nods, amounting to 71 reviews (35.5%). Sadly, 2 nodder reviews are also a major player at 52 books read and reviewed, whilst more encouraging is the 4 nodder review on 47 books. Thankfully, 1 nodder reviews are uncommon at 12 in total (less than 6% of all reads). The Worm has been more conscious in recent reading-seasons in avoiding horror reads, and instead concentrating on renowned books and authors. Hopefully, the current season will bring more of the 5 nodder big-hitters.

Non-fiction is the victor, currently accounting for 116 books, in comparison to fiction’s 84 books. The largest particular type/genre is History on 47 books read throughout the past three-and-a-half years; not surprising for a reviewer who graduated within that field. However, the novel is snapping at the heels of the top spot (currently on 43 books read and reviewed). In fact, the novel was the victor in the first book reading season in 2009-10 (18 books to 17 books) and second season in 2010-11 (15 books to 9 books); however, it was truly trumped during 2011-12 with 7 books to 16.

Next on the list are books of the political variety, on a modest 14 books read and reviewed. Others vying for third spot are short fiction/stories (12 books), graphic novels (12 books), and autobiographies (10 books). Looking at the bottom of the barrel include seeming one-offs in the genres of trivia (giving the Worm a few cold shakes), philosophy (moving the Worm to vow to read more in this field), TV & Film as well as genealogy.

Newly bought books (those from Waterstones and which still have that lovely, enticing fresh-book-smell) account for 24% of books read; but they miss out to the big leader: second-hand books at 32%. Nothing can beat the find of the second-hand book, its own story and history from the printing press to become an unwanted, abandoned item on a forgotten shelf: only to return, a phoenix from the flames, to find a home on the Worm’s bookshelves. Tried and trusted library books account for 12.5%; borrowed books from friends and foes 9%, and books given as presents account for 6%. The Worm has not been absent from the technological revolution that surrounds us, with books read on an iPhone accounting for 8% now giving way to a big riser of Kindle read books (5.5%). Another recent development has been the advent of downloaded books, currently at 3%.

Two-hundred reviews down; and many, many more to come. The Worm marches on, as keen as ever before – always in search of the elusive reads that move him to applaud ecstatically and enthusiastically on the web-pages of this blog.


Read End of Season Reviews below:http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2010/08/worms-yearly-review-2009-2010.html
http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.com/2011/07/year-in-review-2010-11.html
http://4eyedbookworm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/2011-12-season-review.html

And for a blog that celebrates the number 200, look no further:
http://maanumberaday.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/200.html

#200 A History of Football in 100 Objects (2012)

Author: Gavin Mortimer
Title: A History of Football in 100 Objects
Genre: Sport History
Year: 2012
Pages: 290
Origin: bought from Truro Waterstones
Nod Rating: 1 nod out of 5

Telling a history of a particular event, country or thing within the space of one-hundred objects has become all the rage in recent years. It was fantastically executed in the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects; and less tremendously so here in this book, Gavin Mortimer’s A History of Football in 100 Objects.

Mortimer is a nice enough (if sometimes annoying in his desperate attempt to please) host in this journey through one-hundred objects. However, there are many annoying features. Many of the objects hold a rather tenuous link with the actual related article (such as a loaf of bread or a cone of chips), whilst much of the text reads as a glorified Wikipedia article – a few dates, key people but lacking in engaging commentary. However, Mortimer must be applauded for his attempts to give a true span of history of the sport, with many objects located in the Victorian era. This may come as a surprise for many fans who believe that football was invented in the 1990s when the Premier League (copyrighted the “World’s best league”) was created.

A History of Football in 100 Objects is perfect Christmas stocking-filler material; the present fodder for family/friends/acquaintances (delete where appropriate) who you may no longer care about as you once did, but whom you still recall having a fascination for good ole’ “footie”. Beyond that, it will be surprising to see Mortimer’s book on the shelves of good book-stores within a couple of years. As for the Worm’s copy, the Oxfam-destined box awaits.

Yes, it is agreed that this is a different approach to the history of football; but it is a shame that this sport has so few quality writers able to tell a narrative that engages and fulfils serious readers.


Buy it here

#199 The Price of Everything (1994)

Author: Andrew Motion
Title: The Price of Everything
Genre: Poetry
Year: 1994
Pages: 100 pages
Origin: a tried and trusted library book
Nod Rating: 4 nods out of 5

Following in the footsteps of a review of Britain’s current poet laureate – Carol Ann Duffy – the Worm had a masterful idea of completing a tour back into time through all of the poet laureate’s that this island has had to offer. Of course, the Worm – in his blessed ignorance – was not to know that the position harks back to medieval England under the grand sounding title versificator regis (one of whom was Geoffrey Chaucer). The Worm has much work to do!

Next on this travel through time is Andrew Motion, the country’s poet laureate from 1999 to 2009 (the first not to die or be removed from the post). The collection under consideration in this review – The Price of Everything – was published five years before the bestowal of the laureate position, when Motion was a man just into his early forties.

The collection contains two long poems: ‘Lines of Desire’ and ‘Joe Soap’. As Motion states in the collection’s introduction, ‘both the poems in this book are about various kinds of conflict, and both take the First World War as their starting point’.

‘Lines of Desire’ consists of smaller segments: ‘A Dream of Peace’ (‘What should I die for? / Answer me that’); ‘Money Singing’ (‘Money is getting noisier… Money is getting taller… Money is getting long-faced… Money is getting ambitious’); ‘A Modern Ecstasy’; and ‘Lines of Desire’. Motion revisits the theme of apathy and lack of connection with the larger world concerns; he can simply ‘press the button’ or ‘change the channel’ at the sight of tanks, of soldiers standing in the desert, and of shouts – ‘it means nothing to me’.

Of the two, ‘Joe Soap’ is the greater and more ambitious poem. It is a combination of rhyme, of longer prose, of news reports, of thoughts and of political motive all woven together. It follows the character Joe Soap, who is everywhere and everyone: a man who is reborn in different times and locations throughout the twentieth century. As popularly known, “Joe Soap” is British slang noting a foolish scapegoat (‘soap’ rhyming with ‘dope’); its influence as a First World War song – ‘Joe Soap’s Army’ – is a clearly shown on Motion’s poem.

‘Forward, Joe Soap’s army
Marching without fear
With our brave commander
Safely in the rear’.

Motion’s use of the term is an everyman of life, akin to the name and usage of ‘Joe Bloggs’ in today’s society. As such, we witness the falling to earth of Motion’s Joe Soap several times during the course of the poem, beginning in 1918 and a police report concerning the suspicious death of Joe’s friend, Captain Atkins. Joe returns to the front-line before dying in action: ‘Nothing remained of Joe Soap. He had been on the earth, and then he was not on the earth. He had been a person, then he was no longer a person’. Yet he returns; not as Joe but as Joanna in 1930s Germany:

‘I first fell to earth
A whole sea and half a continent away from the country of my birth.’

And later returns back as ‘plain Joe’ many ‘thousands of miles east and a few thousand more south’. Here, a man gathering oil, he notices the transformation of the planet:

‘There used to be silence stretching all the way up to the sun;
Now there are pumps squeaking, and builders yelling orders:
Wherever next in the world,
And when?

There used to be high valleys even the birds said no to;
Now there are signposts, and a price for every grain of sand:
Wherever next in the world,
And when?

There used to be me alone, lighting a match in the dark;
Now there are flames, and a view into infinite space:
Wherever next in the world,
And when?’

The last time he falls to earth he is ‘sent out to die in some shit-hole basement lair. Don’t say you don’t know what I mean. You’ve seen me there.’ Throughout it all the Joe Soaps (and Joanna) are used for the bidding of others; Motion is ambiguous about this force, but it could be deemed the industrialisation and “progress” of mankind. That this “progress” is blind is a cause for concern, with a warning sounded out for the eventual destination of those on this planet.

The Price of Everything shows a poet in good form. Although the poems may be confusing due to a dream-like narrative, at no point do they disappoint the reader. Meaning can be induced, but only for those who are patient enough to stay the course.

Buy it here

#198 The Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week (2012)

Authors: Christopher Yost, Eric Pearson, Luke Ross, Daniel HDR
Title: The Avengers Prelude: Fury’s Big Week
Genre: Graphic Novel
Year: 2012
Pages: 100
Origin: Read online during Xmas 2012
Nod Rating: 1 nod out of 5

2012 was the year Marvel cleaned up at the box-office. Their block-buster of a film – The Avengers (or, as rather cumbersomely marketed in the UK as Marvel’s Avengers Assemble) – saw on-screen action of what Stan Lee once billed, “The Earth’s mightiest heroes.” Its success appears to have changed the formula of “franchise” (and the Worm squirms at typing such a word) movies in Hollywood: now the likes of DC and the new owners of the Star Wars brand are frothing at the mouth and rubbing their hands together in the hope of repeating such success.

2012 was also the year of a little known cash-in (ahem, the Worm means tie-in) comic book series: Fury’s Big Week (or, again, to give a rather cumbersome title: Marvel’s The Avengers Preludes: Fury’s Big Week). Printed to prepare fans for the forthcoming movie, its few issues saw a story set within the film-time-line between Iron Man 2 and The Avengers in what is now widely known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The series follows the adventures of Captain Nick Fury (that’s Samuel L. Jackson to those who have watched the films) and his number two, Agent Coulson. The pair put out the fires and dampen the mayhem caused by the marauding heroes, in the hope of tying up loose ends for eager, panting fans. However, a major problem cannot be overcome: the reader who wants to find out more of their comic book heroes is subjected to the administrative process of clearing up their mess. Therefore, there is little consequential action. Furthermore, for anoraks the process can be rendered null and void by the film studio simply ignoring such material; all of which renders the comic series rather pointless. Pointless, that is, apart from stuffing the already overflowing pockets of Marvel studios.

Yes, it is simply a movie tie-in; there to make money, rather than entertain. All of which is a shame, as there was the opportunity to make a bigger, longer lasting impact. For a start, the predictable plot and uninspired dialogue could have been erased and replaced with something that enthused and got a Marvel-fan on the edge of their comic-reading seats. Of course, such a route may have meant a different team given more time to create.

One Marvel website notes how the series is ‘punchy, suspenseful and funny’; all of which is a rather large lie. It is none of these things, and therefore is a comic book run best left well alone. For fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, please await the next instalment in this “franchise” to get your kicks. The wait will be worth it.

Buy it here

#197 English Language For Beginners (1998)

Author: Michelle Lowe & Ben Graham
Title: English Language For Beginners
Genre: Language
Year: 1998
Pages: 200
Origin: a tried and trusted library book
Nod Rating: 3 nods out of 5

‘Language is the dress of thought’, once wrote Samuel Johnson. He was true – but yet, it is much more than that. Language is power; language is beauty; language can be all things to all people. What better for those interested than a book on its origins, its uses, its abuses and its ability to change and yet remain the same.

The Worm has earlier experience of the ‘For Beginners’ series in the form of The Holocaust For Beginners book; reviewed back in November 2011 (read it here). It is an intriguing series, dealing with themes ranging from African history to marital arts, from Marilyn Monroe to Freud. They add a great deal of theory and research, couching them in accessible bite-sized chunks and illustration: a lesson with both humour and heart.

English Language For Beginners – put together by Michelle Lowe and Ben Graham – splits the book into four sections. There is ‘History’ that concentrates on the origins of language, the development of the English language and of the study of Linguistics; ‘Child Language Acquisition’, which concerns itself with the developmental stages (and the providing of the story of Genie); the sobering ‘Sex and Power’ with its emphasis on the bias in speech; before ending on ‘Variety and Change’ and how change itself does not necessarily spell the end of language.

The section on Sex and Power is of particular interest, with a balanced approach taken to the possible abuses of English language. There is no agenda, but rather an enlightened awareness. Take, as a brief example, the words used to describe ‘womanly’: weakness, feebleness, debility and impotence; whilst ‘manliness’ is listed as courage, moral fibre and heroism. Furthermore, the authors are keen to note the prejudice of those in the western world and those of white skin. It backs up the words of influential writer Angela Carter: ‘Language is power, life and the instrument of culture, the instrument of domination and liberation.’ Writers as a whole, from Johnson to Orwell to the present day are clear on its potency.

On a whole, the book provides fresh insight at best, and an interesting distraction at worst. Admittedly, the book serves only as an introduction to this area – but the topics raised and the possible routes forward make this book (and series as a whole) not merely one that briefly covers the key points, but rather a book that engages the reader fully. The Worm, for one, is happy that this series exists; a copy on the bookshelf is surely a healthy sign of a good person to have a coffee with.


Buy it here

* On Amazon, one of the authors (Ben Graham) commented that the book is currently out of print. If publishers are interested – and have any sense - in re-publishing the book, then to get in touch (bensspambox@hotmail.com).

#196 Ward No.6 (1892)

Author: Anton Chekhov
Title: Ward No. 6 / Ward Number Six
Genre: Short Story
Year: 1892
Pages: 60
Origin: read on the Short Stories app
Nod Rating: 4 nods out of 5

Life is a vexatious trap; when a thinking man reaches maturity and attains to full consciousness he cannot help feeling that he is in a trap from which there is no escape.
Anton Chekov – Ward No.6 (1892)

Like many nineteenth-century Russian writers, Anton Chekhov was a master in examining the above mentioned “trap” of the human mind and condition. Although primarily a playwright, his short story – Ward No.6 – is widely celebrated. A man of many talents – including being a practicing physician – he once remarked: ‘Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.’

Ward No. 6 (also spelt Ward Number Six in many publications) centres on a lunatic asylum in a rural, provincial hospital; in which Chekhov writes that ‘probably no other place is life so monotonous as in this ward’. There are few inmates, including the quarrelsome Ivan Dmitritch, the thuggish porter Nikita, and the Jew Moiseka, ‘a peasant so rolling in fat that he is almost spherical, with a blankly stupid face, utterly devoid of thought. This is a motionless, gluttonous, unclean animal who has long ago lost all powers of thought or feeling’.

Having briefly outlined these characters, the story focuses on the doctor, Andrei Yefimich: a man who spends half his salary on books, and worries about his purpose at the hospital. He has little affection for the dull town in which he lives, spending his time slowly reading the pages of his books and discussing matters with his supercilious friend Mihail Averyanitch. However, his attitudes change having engaged the inmate Ivan Dmitritch in conversation, leading his eventual removal from his post as doctor.

Yefimich ends up without a job and in debt, becoming all the more isolated from the world around him and the futility of life. He begins to think that all is ‘trivial and nonsense’, realising that all will:

‘sooner or later perish without leaving any trace on the world. If one imagined some spirit flying by the earthly globe in space in a million years he would see nothing but clay and bare rocks. Everything – culture and the moral law – would pass away and not even a burdock would grow out of them.’

Those around him – including his friend and replacement doctor – believe him to be insane. But the doctor asks himself: ‘Which of us is the madman?’ for not wishing to be a part of society’s rules and regulations. All of which consigns him to become an inmate of Ward No.6, where he suffers a savage and beating at the hands of the porter, before accepting his ‘Hamlet-like dread of death’ and seeing a vision of ‘a herd of deer, extraordinarily beautiful and graceful’.

Like many Russian novels and stories of the nineteenth-century, Ward No.6 carries an implicit message about the state of Russian society as a whole. It is a path well trodden by earlier writers, including the likes of Turgenev and Chernyshevsky; who used fiction as a well to veil their attacks and commentary to avoid being targeted by the authorities in Tsarist Russia. The character Ivan Dmitritch best fits the political soap-box mode:

‘Yes, I am ill. But you know dozens, hundreds of madmen are walking about in freedom because your ignorance is incapable of distinguishing them from the sane. Why am I and these poor wretches to be shut up here like scapegoats for all the rest?’

Other connections to Russian literature abound, including fear of death (Tolstoy), as well as a seemingly unhealthy obsession with the look of coats and jackets (including Gogol’s influential short story The Overcoat).

Literature may have been Chekhov’s mistress; but it was a mistress he loved well. Ward No.6 is a strong, descriptive story – and a story that has hidden depths for any reader willing to enter its world.

Further Reading
Read it here
Buy it here

#195 Henry VII (1972)

Author: S.B. Chrimes
Title: Henry VII
Genre: History
Year: 1972
Pages: 350
Origin: a tried and trusted library book
Nod Rating: 4 nods out of 5

Around four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon published a history of the reign of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. He wrote in glowing terms:

'(He is) one of the best sort of wonders: a wonder for wise men. (Henry) professed always to love and seek peace. For his arms, either in foreign or civil wars, were never unfortunate. He was of a high mind, and loved his own way; as one that revered himself, and would reign indeed. Had he been a private man he would have been termed proud: but in a wise prince, it was but keeping of distance, which indeed he did towards all; not admitting any near of full approach neither to his power or to his secrets. For he was governed by none.'

Fast forward to the 1970s and a man came forth to test the long-enduring words of Bacon; that man was S.B. Chrimes (or Stanley Bertram Chrimes to his family). It was a book worthy of much chin stroking consideration, changing the way historians looked at Henry’s reign. Unlike the book by David Starkey on Henry’s son – reviewed during January 2013 – Chrimes is keen to point out that his study is not a biography, ‘since little evidence exists for the more personal and intimate side of Henry’s life’. Therefore, the book ‘might perhaps be best described as a study of the impact of Henry Tudor upon the government of England’.

The introduction, then, sets out a manifesto against the earlier swooning phrases of Bacon and others; Chrimes lamenting how so many had fallen under the sway of Bacon’s ‘seductive prose style’. His own study is an axe to many of the flowering myths created in the seventeenth century – and Chrimes acts as willing woodsman throughout three-hundred and fifty pages of analytical prowess.

With chief focus on the administrative functions of Henry VII’s reign – by the thorough examination of existing records and files – Chrimes gives a narrative account of the events leading to the battle of Bosworth; with focus on ‘The Personnel and Machinery of Government (including the King’s Council, Financial administration and parliaments); as well as ‘Statecraft’ (including law-making and enforcement, fiscal and financial policy, and much more). All is concluded in an extended epilogue (entitled ‘The King’s Grace’) in which Henry’s own personality and legacy is considered. Furthermore, inclusion of interesting sources, ranging from Henry’s companions in exile during 1483-85 to the papal dispensation for the marriage of Henry to Elizabeth in 1486.

Chrimes highlights central themes: that of Henry’s underdog life leading up to the dramatic events of 1483 when two kings made way to the unpopular Richard III; and of the security of the many threats faced down during the reign (including the infamous imposter Perkin Warbeck); and how Henry’s policies – foreign and financial – were all geared towards protecting and cementing his throne.

In the book’s foreword, George Bernard deems Chrimes as having written ‘authoritatively, presenting his conclusions as manifest common sense.’ And it is this “common sense” approach that makes Chrimes so enjoyable. Of course, many of his conclusions have since been superseded; but Chrimes himself was aware of the limitations that he was working with. He was able to state his conclusions having considered the evidence at his disposal; whilst leaving pointers and clues to future historians willing to pick up on his work and develop it further. In this manner, Chrimes is working as the historians’ historian: furthering the knowledge of our past and sharing his own findings.

“Common sense”, then, led Chrimes to play down the novelty of Henry VII’s reign; that his Welsh-ness was exaggerated; that the threats to his reign were never big; and that laws did not make him an innovative law-maker; and his taxes and money gains were never so great as to make him a malicious, swingeing king. Such an approach can be seen in his writing:

‘Though the surviving records are sparse and inadequate, and the problems of detail probably insuperable, the difficulty of envisaging the council under Henry VII has been greatly, though unnecessarily, enhanced by historians’ misconceptions and reluctance to accept existing evidence realistically’.

The dichotomy with Bacon continues throughout the book and is brought to a head in the epilogue. Chrimes quotes Bacon in large chunks of text, attempting to establish meaning and context, as well as point out the truth: as far as any “truth” can be obtained from the surviving records and Chrimes’ own use of “common sense.” However, Chrimes’ own conclusion is fairly flattering, when considering his attempts over the previous three hundred odd pages to destroy myths:

‘In the ultimate analysis, the quality of Henry VII was not that of creator, but rather a stabiliser, for lack of whom the ships of State are apt to founder. For that quality, he stands out pre-eminent among British monarchs.’

Chrimes’ Henry VII is a definitive work; useful for historians but also with high worth as an entertaining book to the every-day reader. History as it should be researched, written and enjoyed.

Buy it here