24 Books To Read Before You Snuff It

Christmas was kind to the Worm: a few new books to devour and feast upon. One particular book caused a breathless flick of the fingers: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Now, normally, the Worm cares not a jot for such lists. However, it is always intriguing to see the shape in which one’s book-reading journey has taken, and how this journey compares with the selection of self-professed professionals.

There have been a few editions of this particular series of books. The Worm’s copy is an international edition; as such, it attempts to move away from the Anglo-American duopoly on fiction. It is split into four sections: Pre-1800, 1800s, 1900s, and the recent 2000s. The usual suspects are to be found (Dickens, Greene, Rousseau feature heavily), but there are a few raised eyebrows and fresh titbits that kept the Worm entertained as he tallied up his own score.

So, 1001 books. The Worm admits now that he has a long way to go. Sixty-four is his own total. Just over 6% of the reads available. O, the shame. O, the humiliation.

The Worm has yet to reach the number of 250 reviews; this in around four-and-a-half years of reading and reviewing… ever since that fateful day when he decided to set up a blog back in the summer of 2009. At this rate – and if the Worm was to be highly selective and stick to the 1001 list – it would take the Worm another four years to reach the magic number.

Of course, this is not going to happen. The Worm hopes to increase the sixty-four number over the course of the coming years, but he also has his eyes on a different, more manageable list: the BBC’s Top 100 Reads. Devised back in 2003, it attempted to seek out the nation’s best-loved books; it brought together an interesting and seductive list. Despite the inclusion of a criminally high number of Harry Potter books, it also includes an engaging road-map of possible future reads. The Worm’s own number stands at a rather modest nineteen. However, 19% surely trumps 6%, whilst allowing the Worm to achieve this target in the space of a year’s serious reading (even allowing for Harry Potter’s banal adventures).

Whilst pondering these lists, the Worm decided to devise his very own list: Books To Read Before One Snuffs It. This has been selected from the reviews over the past four-and-a-half years. Included are every 5 nodder, as well as a few note-worthy and thought-provoking 4 nod reviews. And, so here it is (in order of review):

Season I (2009-10):

Simon Schama – The American Future (2008)
Thomas Paine – The Rights of Man (1792)
Richard Dawkins – The Selfish Gene (1976)
Joseph Conrad – Lord Jim (1900)
Tacitus – The Annals of Imperial Rome
Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights (1847)
William Shakespeare – Macbeth (1606)

Season II (2010-11):

J.D. Salinger – The Catcher in the Rye (1945)
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels – The Communist Manifesto (1848)
Thomas Paine – Common Sense (1776)
William Faulkner – The Sound and the Fury (1929)
Tony Judt – Postwar (2005)
Wilfred Owen – Poems (1920)

Season III (2011-12):
William Golding – Lord of the Flies (1954)
Fyodor Dostoyesvky – Notes from Underground (1864)
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons – Watchmen (1987)
Primo Levi – The Drowned and the Saved (1986)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
John Hanson Mitchell – Ceremonial Time (1984)

Season IV (2012-13):

T.S. Eliot – Selected Poems (1954)
William Shakespeare – Richard III (1591)
Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Earnest (1898)
Mikhail Lermontov – A Hero of Our Time (1841)
Tennessee Williams – A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

 

The list has a less catchy title than others: 24 Worm Endorsed Reads. But each and every one is a fantastically captivating read in its very own way. Is anyone game to take on the Worm's list?

 

1001 Books Before You Die
BBC's 100 Books

#238 The Ancient Greeks For Dummies (2008)

Author: Stephen Batchelor
Title: The Ancient Greeks For Dummies
Genre: History
Year: 2008
Pages: 320
Origin: read on the Kindle
Nod Rating: 2 nods out of 5

 

The Ancient Greeks For Dummies is the third of the For Dummies books consumed by the Worm during the summer of 2013. As with the other books, let us not kid ourselves that we are entering upon a highly enlightening read deserving of richly plump nods. 2 nods is all that is to be dished, as previously. But this is not to say that this book is not a worthwhile read.

The author – Stephen Batchelor – is a man who knows his ancient Greeks. He is a fitting guide through hundreds of years of dense history, highlighting the key areas and events. These range from ancient history and prehistoric civilisations (such as the Minoans and Mycenaneans), the onslaught of the Persians, the rise of Athens, the life-style of the Spartans, as well as the conquests of Alexander. As with the other For Dummies books, information moves beyond the narrative of history, with focus on other areas. This includes the home and family, architecture, as well as the famous Greek gods.

This completes the (un)holy trilogy of the For Dummies books (Tudors and Ancient Egyptians for the earlier two). The Worm feels as if he is repeating himself: nice reads, good for an introduction, but completely lacking in substance. It is another well eared 2 nods for the series, with no threat of taking any more. As for the Worm, he intends to go For Dummies hiatus for the remainder of the book-reading season. Overviews are all well and nice: but the real meat of words are needed to be ingested if he hopes to survive the coming winter.

Buy it here

#237 Frank Miller's Robocop (2007)

Authors: Frank Miller (script), Steven Grant (writer), Juan Rose Ryp (artwork)
Title: Frank Miller’s Robocop
Genre: Graphic Novel
Year: 2007
Pages: 210
Origin: read on an iPad
Nod Rating: 2 nods out of 5

The success of 1987’s Robocop spawned a host of dubious sequels that confirm the law of diminishing returns in a movie series. Before the terrible made-for-TV movies of the later 1990s, the Robocop "franchise" once stood at the point of enduring commercial and critical success. In the hope of creating an engrossing sequel, producers called in the help of comic-book artist Frank Miller.

However, rather than take-on Miller’s (always) interesting ideas, the producers carved up his script and used various elements in two films. The legend grew that Miller’s vision was one that would have satisfied audiences, leading to a rising call for his work to be created in the form of a series of comics. And so the demand brought forth a nine issue series published between 2003 and 2006: Frank Miller’s Robocop.

But, with a catch. Yes, it is based on Miller’s script and original ideas. Yet it does not contain his comic-book writing or art-work (obviously, distinctive hallmarks of Miller’s work). Instead, we have Steven Grant (writing duties) and Juan Rose Ryp (art duties).

Certain plot elements will be known to viewers of the Robocop sequels: a city full of corruption, evil corporations (the infamous OCP), the police and other public services crumbling and full of mistrust, and Robocop’s quest to regain his lost humanity. Regrettably, none of these areas are developed beyond simple ideas. Instead we are “treated” to lots of fighting (Robocop shooting various people and battling bigger robots). Violence attempts – and fails – to cover the absence of a sustaining plot.

As could be expected from Miller, the result is chaotic and dark. The themes of a near-future that has decayed and become overrun with crime is one continually referenced in Miller’s work. Furthermore, we have the inter-slicing of media and TV commentary that was used so effectively in Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. However, rather than a cutting-edge device and revolutionary – as it was three decades ago – the result there is tired and clichéd.

As for the art-work, it attempts to create a highly detailed waste-land of a city. However, the panels are filled with dense and unimportant features, all of which becomes an annoyance that prevents the story proceeding at an adequate pace. In the climatic fight sequence the action is actually hard to follow, leading to some confusing sighs from the Worm. Never a good sign, he can tell you!

Very much hyped, unfortunately Frank Miller’s Robocop fails to live up to the lofty expectations of the fan-base. The script does not pay-off all of the years of misplaced hope. But perhaps it is the character that is at fault: apt for a one-off movie, rather than a failed “franchise” of half-arsed films, animation and heartless comic-books. It looks increasingly likely that the character of Robocop will not join other great protagonists of fiction – an Othello and Sherlock Holmes – and will remain an interesting idea that entertained for a two-hour period back in the 1980s.

Buy it here

#236 Always Right (2013)

Author: Niall Ferguson
Title: Always Right
Genre: Kindle Single
Year: 2013
Pages: 30
Origin: bought for 99p on the Kindle
Nod Rating: 1 nod out of 5

 

There is a saying that one learns more about someone at the end of a relationship than at the beginning. O, how fitting this is for the Worm’s very own relationship with Niall Ferguson. Back in the salad days of 2009 the Worm devoured a fair number of Ferguson books. These included The War of the World (4 nods), Empire (3 nods), and his edited volume Virtual History (4 nods), gaining Ferguson a total of eleven fruitful nods from the Worm during the first book-reading season. Then, silence…

Once seemingly so energetic, bringing history and debate to life, Ferguson became stale and stagnant. The warning signs were there, particularly in his television series Civilization: The West and the Rest (and his annoying use of the “killer apps”). However, the Worm decided to plunge right in and pay the ninety-nine pence needed to download Ferguson’s Kindle Single centred on Margaret Thatcher. After all, at least one retrospective read on one of Britain’s defining Prime Minister’s was in order… right?

Always Right – as the title loudly declares – is a fawning defence of Thatcher’s time in government. Within the space of thirty pages Ferguson manages to raise the bar of sycophantic prose, wagging his finger and telling the poor reader to remember the good of Thatcherism, and to ignore the left-wing propaganda spouted through the conduits of social media. As Ferguson writes:

‘this little book is unapologetically based on the great woman theory of history….she was right much more often than her critics… Those who have had the bad taste to celebrate her death will probably not read this book, not least because it will remind them of just how wrong they were in the 1980s.’

Used as evidence is the decline in living standards. ‘Nothing worked’, he argues. ‘The trains were always late. The payphones were always broken… Worst of all were the recurrent strikes. Strikes by coalminers. Strikes by dockers. Strikes by printers. Strikes by refuse collectors. Strikes even by gravediggers.’ Thankfully for us all, Britain economically recovered, putting an end to tense industrial relations and by bringing back employment. And what of privatization? Ferguson, wisely, remains coy: ‘How far it succeeded in this continues to be debated.’

Yet Ferguson over-eggs his pudding. All progress of the past three decades is assigned to Thatcher: car ownership, holidays abroad, telephone communications, colour television, the growth of gyms and health culture. All of which completely ignores the vast advances made in technology and media communications in this period. Sorry, Mr Ferguson, but Thatcher is not responsible for digital media, for mobile phones, for the ability to travel to Spain on low-budget holidays. Unfortunately, Ferguson is so far up the anal cavity that he is unable to see or speak sense.

Describing himself unconvincingly as a ‘punk Tory’, the author states that Thatcherism was ‘so impressive’ due to its ‘aggressiveness’. Ferguson recounts parties of his youth and various debates, as if his undying support for Thatcher’s vision of Britain was something to be proud of.  He uses Thatcher’s “triumph” as a way to gain his own revenge against left-wing historians and other schools of historical thought. They, he argues, were wrong to attack her: ‘her legion of left-wing academic critics were just part of hat she attempted to save Britain from.’ It is as if tired of years of ridicule for support of the Tories, Ferguson has decided to hit back, using Thatcher’s death as a vehicle in which to trumpet his own conservative values.

Regrettably, Ferguson appears to have lost any sense of balance. All of which has the Worm rather worried: was balance and reliance of real evidence ever apparent in the earlier reads? Perhaps, the Worm has been taken in on a scam all along. Such is the disappointment in this slim volume that the Worm has come to the conclusion that his relationship with Mr Ferguson is at an end.

Buy it here

#235 The Eugenics Wars: Volume Two (2002)

Author: Greg Cox
Title: The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh (Volume Two)
Genre: Science Fiction
Year: 2002
Pages: 330
Origin: read on the good old Kindle
Nod Rating: 2 nods out of 5

 

Having read the first volume to this story, the Worm decided to return for more. Not out of particular desire for enjoyment, but rather because the Worm hates to leave a read unfinished. Volume One (reviewed here) outlined a plot that combined elements of one of Star Trek’s premier villains – Khan – alongside minor characters from an episode in the Original Series in the late 1960s. It ended with Khan a free man who attempts to bring about World War Three and the supreme rule of the genetic supermen. The people to stop him? Gary Seven and his sidekick Roberta Lincoln.

Weaving in real life events with his fictional story, Greg Cox does an intriguing job. The reader finds another interpretation of the Balkans crisis and the destabilisation of India. Furthermore, the threat of the ozone layer – involved in Khan’s planning of Earth’s destruction – is threaded throughout. At the end of this volume the author includes a ‘Historical Notes’ section, emphasising the expansion of research for the writing of the book. However, fiction clearly triumphs over fact. There was opportunity for Cox to go further, by bringing in more real events and thereby creating a sterner rod in which to support his clearly outlandish plot.

Other annoyances include the character of Khan; the reader will find it hard to match up this youthful portrayal with the one famously played by Ricardo Montalban. Whilst Gary Seven’s sanctimonious personality wears incredibly thin incredibly fast.

In the end, Seven and Roberta are successful in bringing down Khan’s plan for domination. Khan’s own raging and egocentric personality – traits of his creation – are seen as flaws that are beaten by the humans. He is caught and sentenced to a prison-stasis on board a space-ship, all of which nicely ties-up the character’s appearance in the Original Series episode Space Seed in which he is found by a young William Shatner.

Cox’s novel fills in the blanks of Khan’s creation and origins. And ultimately, that is all that his two volume series is. As stated in the review for Volume One, the plot is far too integrated within the Star Trek world that it is off-putting to the casual reader. However, thankfully for that proud race known as Trekkers (or Trekkies), the universe of Star Trek will continue to be expanded, written and read, for many years to come. The Worm just isn’t sure if he will be one of them.

 

Read the review for Volume One here 

Read more about the author here

#234 The Ancient Egyptians For Dummies (2007)

Author: Charlotte Booth
Title: The Ancient Egyptians For Dummies
Genre: History
Year: 2007
Pages: 370
Origin: read on the good old Kindle
Nod Rating: 2 nods out of 5

 

What is this? Another For Dummies book consumed by the Worm? Are standards slipping? What is the reason for this? And can the Worm continue to ask questions rather than complete a review?

Yes, dear readers, a second For Dummies book in the current book-reading season. In fact – brace yourselves – this is the second of three For Dummies reads. Three! The Worm went a little crazy during the month of August and binged on The Tudors For Dummies (review posted during November), The Ancient Greeks For Dummies (to be posted soon), and this book, The Ancient Egyptians For Dummies. It appears these easy-reading textbooks are an addiction in which the Worm needs to wean himself off. Or does he? (Apologies, yet another question).

Written by Egyptologist Charlotte Booth, The Ancient Egyptians For Dummies was the Worm’s first foray into this period of history. A brief and gentle read will bring to life – in a basic way – the society of ancient Egypt. Thankfully, Booth cuts out the dense terminology that has put off the Worm from accessing this period of history previously. Instead, a portrait of this age (or indeed, ages) is built up: of various pharaohs, military victories, epic buildings and – of course – those mummies.

Of particular interest is the story of those who set out to discover Egypt’s ancient past. These include the Victorian adventurers who deciphered hieroglyphics and who walked into tombs that had remained untouched for centuries.

As with The Tudors For Dummies, there is nothing of specific interest: however, this series of books should be used for just one thing. An introduction. The Worm’s whistle has been whetted; ancient Egypt is no longer a topic off his reading limits.

Charlotte Booth's website

Buy it here

#233 The Betrayal of Richard III (1959)

Author: V.B. Lamb
Title: The Betrayal of Richard III
Genre: History
Year: 1965
Pages: 110
Origin: bought in a charity shop for £2.99
Nod Rating: 3 nods out of 5

 

The discovery of Richard III’s body in a Leicester car-park has provoked debate and activity within this period of history. Lamb’s book, The Betrayal of Richard III, could just as easily fit in as a freshly published book in 2013, despite it being originally published in the 1950s.

Lamb attempts to do away with hundreds of years of whitewashing and Tudor propaganda. Instead of the villainous Richard who, as Shakespeare once wrote, murdered his brother, a king and his son, his wife, and nephews, the case of Richard’s innocence is put forward. The villainy lies not with Richard’s actions, but rather with the treachery of those he surrounded himself with.

The reader is shown the beginnings of Richard, his reign as king, his removal and then the succeeding historical writing that has painted the former king – arguably England’s last true king – in an unfavourable light. Lamb’s chapter ‘The Legend is Established’ looks at the histories of Polydore Vergil, whilst other chapters concentrate on Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare’s involvement in the traditional view of Richard as the scheming tyrant who got his just deserts.

It is refreshing to see the flipside to this established debate. However, such is Lamb’s blindness that annoyance is a constant factor within this read. Richard, no longer the villain, is taken to the extreme: portrayed as a saint. Let us read a few examples:

‘There is no truth in the story that the people turned against him; his downfall was brought about by a combination of adverse circumstances, the disloyalty of three discontented nobles, and one scheming woman.’

All of which ignores the importance and causes of the small rebellions against Richard, as well as the reasoning behind the Stanleys switch of allegiance between Richard and his successor, Henry Tudor. Also, we have this:

‘Entirely loyal himself, he was unable to recognise treachery in others or to deal with it with sufficient ruthlessness.’

This, the same Richard who had some of his closest advisors and friends – Hastings and Buckingham – alienated and then executed.

Lamb speaks of ‘facts’; but cannot see the woods for the trees. Furthermore, Lamb uses the defence of “no evidence” time and again. Yes, there may be minimal evidence for some of these events, but this does not mean the historian should simply shrug and move on. No, the historian – a historian who wishes to piece together the dots – must go beyond and attempt to weave together a narrative with the best information possible.

However, despite being a book ignored for its flaws, the book should be read and enjoyed for this very reason. There are many mistakes and annoyances, particularly in Lamb’s ignorance of reality. However, like a good pantomime, it is nice to have a read every now and then in which the Worm is shouting at the words running on the line.

Richard continues to have both his detractors and supporters. The recent find of his body will undoubtedly encourage more scholarly activity. Hopefully it keeps the same spirit of Lamb’s work, but instead injected with reason and intelligence.

 
Buy it here