Book Review: The Logic Problem Puzzle Compendium

The Logic Problem Puzzle Compendium is the latest in a long line of popular books, though, having read through this one in the space of an afternoon, I am unable to say from where their popularity arises.

More like a series of short stories than an actual narrative, I was bemused by the events making up the book, and could not find a way to connect them. Indeed, they seem like nothing more than a disparate series of situations and comments about them! On one page I read of children doing different things in order to make money (selling lemonade, babysitting, mowing the lawn, etc), and then, when I turned the page, eager to see how the events unfolded, I was confronted with an entirely new situation, about Christmas presents being bought for family members at various locations. What happened to the children? What became of their money-making schemes? Presumably the author (un-named, I hasten to add) wishes us to guess the outcomes for ourselves!

The laziness of the author does not end there. There is no semblance of character development or literary technique in this book whatsoever. In chapter six, for example, we are told that “John did not go to the party with Mary.” Why not? What had Mary done for John to spurn her party invitation? More to the point, who are John and Mary? It continues: “Nigel (who isn’t a banker) attended the party with the Estate Agent.” What kind of scene setting is that? How are we, the readers, expected to use this sparse description to come up with any sort of interior picture of the story?

And don’t get me started on the so-called ‘illustrations’ adorning most of the pages. Almost identical childish grid-like structures appear almost everywhere within the book. Presumably this is the author’s idea of a suitable accompaniment for a publication that lacks content, narrative structure and any merit whatsoever.

A truly awful book from start to finish.

Philosophical Book Round-Up

Some of you may have guessed from previous posts that I have a background in Philosophy. I believe that we can learn a lot from the deepest thinkers of the last few thousand years, and that current philosophical thought is advancing the knowledge and experience of the human race as much as anything else. I have recently been delving my nose into some of the latest books of philosophical thought written by the most eminent minds of our generation, with no fear of even the longest, most complicated words and sentences. Much of what I read was thought provoking, erudite and quite, quite brilliant, though some of the arguments and logical reasoning on display showed some room for improvement. Here are my findings.

On the Epistemological Qualities of Hegellian Dialectical Thought in the Twentieth Century by Professor Rutger Blenschneitz is a rubbish book because it has a brown cover. Brown covers are rubbish. I hate brown. Plus this book smells like asparagus. Professor Blenschneitz is a terrible writer because he has a silly name.

I enjoyed Cognitive Ethology and Quantum Philosophy: A Radical Comparative Approach by Sir Thomas Miller. This was because the book had some pictures of dogs in it. Dogs are great, aren’t they? They run around loads and they bite my sister. And then when they get wet they shake themselves dry and the wetness goes all over everywhere and everyone gets wet and starts crying. A wonderful book by a preeminent thinker.

Further Investigations into the Inter-Totality of Essence by Gottfried van Dyke went like this: “Dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur symbolism.” And then it went like this: “Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah meaning.” And then it went like this: “Dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur dur I smell, signed Gottfried van Poop.”

Professor Jayne Maddox is my favourite philosopher ever. I’ve got all her books, even the really rare ones that nobody else has. Her latest masterpiece, Godel’s Proof of the Incompleteness of Formal Systems and its Implications on the Progress of Science, is amazing, because it has a picture of her on the back cover. I can move the book around and her eyes follow me around. It’s like we’re dancing, Jayne Maddox and I. We’re dancing! Together! And in love!

This is the best book ever.

Finally, The Philosophy of Hannah Montana is an excellent introduction to the world of philosophical thought as told through the popular Disney Channel series. Existentialism, Leibniz’s Monadology, Plato’s Republic, Hume’s problem of induction and Descartes’ famed Cogito argument are all brilliantly explained in terms of Miley Cyrus and chums. Particularly strong is the section on the Philosophy of Language, with special mention being given to Tarski’s T-Scheme, metalanguages and the implication of the existence of paradoxes on formalised language. My only problems with this book are that it doesn’t have any pictures of dogs in it, and Professor Jayne Maddox isn’t on the cover.

Autobiography Review - Maddie Briann Aldridge: My Story

More and more people are writing their autobiographies these days. Celebrities and sportspeople are finding time in their busy schedules to produce works of several hundred pages’ worth of material, not even counting the pictures and indexes. Most surprisingly, troll-faced footballer Wayne Rooney (a man who finds it difficult to string two words together, let alone a grammatically correct sentence), was able to write 320 pages of prose at the same time as playing and training for both Manchester United and England. Miley Cyrus’s autobiography will be released early next year, surely an essential purchase for anyone interested in learning about the no-doubt sizable amount of events and experiences she has had in her fifteen years of existence on Planet Earth.

Before that, though, comes My Story, the long-awaited autobiography by Maddie Briann Aldridge, the daughter of Jamie Lynn Spears. Reports claim that as soon as Britney’s sister announced her pregnancy, publishing houses were falling over themselves to secure the rights to the offspring’s story. Random House won out, and rumours have it that they paid Spears several million dollars for her child’s book.

Beginning with her time in Spears’s womb, Maddie writes with surprising clarity and presence of mind, especially for a three-month-old. Many subjects are covered, including some very private ones: her bout with depression after the pregnancy was announced, for example, while her mother was vilified by the press. Her intense confusion and disorientation upon being thrust into the world. The incessant sensory stimulation that constantly contributed to the development of her brain.

And anyone looking for celebrity gossip need look no further than this book, either. Aldridge talks at length about her views on the relationship between her parents, the torrid life of her aunt, Britney, and the other celebrities she has met since being born. She writes of her own ambition, too, and the singing opportunities that have come her way in the twelve months since her conception.

There is a lot to recommend from this book. Maddie has an excellent writing voice and sense of pace considering she was in a prenatal state for much of this book’s production. Indeed, one may say that this was a benefit, as the book was allowed to gestate just as the author was gestating. It’s not without its drawbacks, however, and I found several sections were dull and self-serving. Aldridge skips around the subject of her grandmother, which will disappoint many star-watchers, and her political opinions are ridiculously ill-informed.

Maddie Briann Aldridge: My Story is a well-written, fascinating insight into the world of a newborn celebrity. I would recommend anyone interested in the book to buy and read a copy soon, because rumour has it that Maddie is planning a second volume as we speak. At this rate, it should be released in time for her first birthday.

The author celebrates at the book's release party

Maddie Briann Aldridge: My Story is published by Random House and has lots of pages. Other books are available.

Bestiary Review: The Bestiary of Creatures from the Land of Golgorrth-Heckup

For fans of role playing games, the biggest thing to hit the shelves since the infinite-sided die and the metallic girdle is the new Bestiary of Creatures from the Land of Golgorrth-Heckup. The book lists an awe-inspiring number of new creatures for gamers to encounter on their adventures, with pictures, attack ratings and descriptions. I’ve never met a real dungeon master in my life, but with so much hype surrounding this new book, I set my EXP to ‘Fuck, Yeah!’ and donned my Cape of Intellectual Curiosity. It gives me +2 Literary Criticism Points!

The first thing that hits me as I glance through the Bestiary of Creatures from the Land of Golgorrth-Heckup is the sheer absurdity of the animals included within. The writers and artists must have been smoking something particularly potent when they came up with the wacky and awful beasts in the book. I know if I were an adventurer who came across them in my travels I’d need my Grey Sage’s Golden Pants of Poo Stain Prevention (+6 to clean underwear)!

Choosing a page at random, I find a truly ridiculous animal, undoubtedly the product of a fevered mind. With a grotesquely long neck and tiny head, this “Giraffe” supposedly feasts on the leaves of tall trees, but is surely anatomically impossible. I know we’re in fantasy worlds here, but surely the authors of the book should realise that having such a long neck would prevent the animal from standing up without falling. Having animals so far away from the realms of possibility is a definite shortcoming of the book, in my opinion.

Some people may commend the The Bestiary of Creatures from the Land of Golgorrth-Heckup for the level of astonishment it creates. But when I look at the picture of the “Kangaroo”, an animal that is said to hop along with its young in a pouch on its front, I can’t help but wonder at the sick minds that came up with it. And where do they get the names from? I mean, Kangaroo? Seriously?

I should also warn any parents who allow their children to play RPGs, they should definitely check this book to make sure it’s suitable for their young ones. I refer mostly to the pages dedicated to the “Koala” and the “Penguin”. These animals and their descriptions are so outlandish, so terrifying, why, just thinking about them afterwards gives me a cold sweat. I’m sure pre-teens would get nightmares from them.

I find few things to recommend about this book. Even someone playing Call of Cthulhu would be upset by the “Moose”, a creation so ugly and bizarre that I would not be surprised to discover that it inhabits the first circle of Hell, torturing adulterers. There was more scientific ignorance in this book than in an argument with a creationist. For example, take the utterly ridiculous “Canary”: according to the writers of the book it is able to utilise its long, flappy limbs to defy gravity! And don’t get me started on the section of the book entitled “Amphibians”…

I cannot see the allure of the Bestiary of Creatures from the Land of Golgorrth-Heckup, even for gamers who have exhausted their entire collection of Warhammer 40,000 books. If I were engaged in a quest to rid the world of Zordaxx the Disturbing and the Dungeon Master told me I had to roll a six or higher from two six-sided dice to avoid facing a “Kitten”, I’d laugh at the implausibility of the situation. No, the authors of this book would be well advised to keep their imaginations in check the next time they invent animals for fantasy gamers.

The Bestiary of Creatures from the Land of Golgorrth-Heckup is available now from all hobby stores and that creepy guy who hangs around the mall

The New J K Rowling Book: Reviewed!

Much to the surprise of her biggest fans, J K Rowling’s new book is totally unlike any of her previous publications. The book, titled How to Increase the Traffic to Your Website, is a non-fiction guide to getting more and more new people to look at the contents of your blog. Readers expecting scenes of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley in a magical new adventure are going to be let down by this book, which shows a new direction for the creator of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The majority of the information contained within this excellent work deal with attracting new readers to one’s website through search engines, like Google. One of the more interesting tips involves finding ways of including phrases in your blog that will trick people into thinking it contains information about something that interests them, when in actual fact it contains nothing of the sort. According to Rowling, including something along the lines of “Jay Z’s new album” or “John McCain homicide rumor” in otherwise-tangential sentences can increase one’s stats by up to 200%.

Another point driven home in J K Rowling’s new book is that tapping into the cultural zeitgeist is a big boon when attracting people to your site using irrelevant phrases and words. Using their knowledge of the things that people commonly search for, a good blogger can see their traffic rise and rise. There are many sites listing the most widely-searched words and phrases in a specific length of time, so that you can use this information to post a story about – for example - Coco Vandeweghe, Jimmy Carter and the cast of Dancing with the Stars 2008 running wild at the Democratic National Convention.

I was particularly intrigued by the chapter on the uses and abuses of pornography in attracting people to one’s website. According to Rowling, pretending to have naughty pictures of a popular, well-known actress or musician on your site will not help gain new readers, as it will still be low down in the Google rankings. What one must do is mention pictures of a lesser-known celebrity, or one whose appeal is limited to a select few. Claiming to have nude pictures of Kelly Ripa is a lot more beneficial than explicit Jessica Alba videos, as the former will be less prevalent on the net and your site will be more visible on the search engine. It is a fine line, however; a throwaway comment on the subject of “hardcore elephant fucking” may put you at the top of a search for such a term, but it is unlikely that many people will be typing it into Google. And let’s face it, do you really want that kind of reader on your site?

Aw, look at the cute kittens! Look at them! LOOK AT THEM! BASK IN THEIR ADORABILITY, YOU BASTARDS!

Finally, Rowling gives us some of the most blatant techniques for attracting new readers: using pictures and links. It’s a known fact that a picture of some really really cute kittens (like the one above) can increase your website’s audience tenfold. Getting someone else to link to your kitten post can help even further. In her new book, Rowling explains how, in a way that is clear, concise, and doesn’t mention Barack Obama’s secret lovechild.

To conclude, the latest J K Rowling book is full of great ways to trick people into coming to your website, which is especially handy if you’ve spent the last month or so in a cottage with no Internet access or on a last-minute trip to England to see your family and you’ve been a bit rubbish at updating your hilarious blog but you promise that you’ll be much better in the near future, honest.

The Imaginary Reviewer accepts no responsibility for Ashton Kutcher upskirt pics.

Self-Help Books

The newly-formed Pyrrhic Book Company has begun releasing self-help manuals for all kinds of activities in the home, workplace or garden. With titles covering design, hobbies, computing skills and general personal growth, the books all share one common attribute: they are, without exception, completely useless. I decided to take a look at some of the upcoming titles in the manner of someone who needed improving in some way. Here are my findings.

Firstly, the jewel in Pyrrhic’s crown is the mammoth two volume set, How to Piss Yourself. Exquisitely bound in brown leather with gold leaf edging, the two books would look handsome on any shelving unit or coffee table. The contents, meanwhile, are quite substantial, with the first volume dealing with self-urination for absolute beginners, while the second contains essays and papers by many well known self-confessed pantstain-afflicted writers.

The first volume covers so much ground in its 800-plus pages, it’s difficult to summarise here. From the best imbibes for the job to the effect pissing oneself has on different trouser materials, there’s very little missing here. The history of ‘little accidents’ is informative and interesting, and the illustrations are both grisly and gripping. In the second volume, Paul Theroux’s essay on pissing himself across Europe and Umberto Eco’s Public Urination and Postmodernism are both highly readable. Germaine Greer’s feministic history of pissing oneself is also eye opening. But on the whole, as someone who likes to wait until confronted by a porcelain receptacle when evacuating the old aqua vita, this book was not exactly what I would call ‘handy’. I look forward to Pyrrhic’s forthcoming three volume sequel, How to Not Piss Yourself.

How to Make Love to a Handful of Soil is part of the Pyrrhic Boudoir Collection, which contains books of a more romantic nature. This publication was to be a companion piece to the more explicit How to Fuck a Handful of Soil, but since the latter broke enough indecency laws to become banned, …Make Love… is a standalone book.

I found How to Make Love to a Handful of Soil a difficult book to get into, not least because the soil in my garden is more of a sandy consistency than the ideal type given by the authors. The diagrams were, quite frankly, bemusing, and the index only contains words beginning with ‘F’. If a little more attention had been paid to this book, it could have been useful, but as it is, it’s rubbish.

Slightly more promising is the next home renovation-themed book from Pyrrhic, How to Interior Decorate a Potato. The techniques used are self-explanatory and the language is not off-putting, as the authors have kept it simple for us beginners. My main problem with the book was that I was unable to see the fruits of my labours, as cutting into the potato to see my handiwork meant that it was now on the exterior, and I had to start again. But for those who are not put off by this lack of satisfaction from the interior decoration of root vegetables, the book comes with a free scalpel, salt cellar and two potatoes.

Tripecraft is the hot new craft from Eastern Europe, and it’s also the name of the last Pyrrhic book that I’ll be reviewing today. This remarkable publication shows you how to make beautiful things in a variety of methods using only tripe. From tripe crocheted blankets to tripe sculpture, this book has everything for both the beginner and the advanced rejected meat artist. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you could adorn your living room with the tripe tapestry (or ‘tripestry’)!

This book contains everything you’d need to know about tripecraft, from acquiring, handling and dyeing the tripe, through to dealing with the smell and preventing maggot infestations in your artworks. This was the best book out of this group, as the fruits of my labours attracted a great many stray dogs to my house, so I won’t be going hungry for a while.

Pyrrhic books are available from the Internet today and Publishers’ Book Clearance Stores soon.

Book Review: World History by Mohamed Al-Fayed

In 1483, two young prospective heirs to the throne of England, Edward V and Richard, 1st Duke of York, were locked away in the Tower of London by Richard III, who had proclaimed them illegitimate and therefore unfit to rule the country. They were never seen again, and the discovery of a pair of children’s skeletons found in the Tower two hundred years later seemed to indicate that the boys had been murdered. The identity of the killer, if indeed there was one, has been disputed by historians ever since; was it Richard III himself, Richard’s right hand man Henry Stafford, or Henry Tudor, future king of England? Well at last, the answer to the riddle has been found. According to Mohamed Al-Fayed’s new book, World History, the Princes in the Tower were killed by Queen Elizabeth II, who was aided by MI6.

It may sound far fetched, but Al-Fayed has a lot of circumstantial evidence to back up his claims. A diary written by someone living close to the Tower mentions “a lady with a tiara and a faraway gaze” wandering around and looking shifty. Also, a bottle of gin has been dug up by archaeological teams near the site, indicating that the Queen Mother may also have been at the location many, many years ago. The fact that none of the current Windsors were alive at the time does not seem to bother Mister Al-Fayed, who claims that the Princes were killed by Elizabeth II “so that she would get used to offing other Royals before she killed Princess Diana.”

Despite Al-Fayed’s book being a history text that covers many centuries, the current Royal Family features surprisingly often. The Watergate scandal that rocked Richard Nixon’s presidency in the U.S., for example, was instigated by Prince Philip, according to this book. Furthermore, The Titanic was not sunk by an iceberg, but was instead sabotaged by Prince Charles, who planted a bomb in the engine room. Indeed, Al-Fayed claims in the book that the first instance of human aggression in recorded history, some two hundred thousand years ago, was by perpetrated by a hominid known as Princess Eugenie of York.

Mohamed Al-Fayed holding a copy of his new book, World History

Indeed, it is a recurring theme in World History that events – usually ones with negative repercussions – were caused by current Royals, and that they performed these actions in order to further their cause of killing Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed, the author’s son.

Some of the prose in the book is beautifully written. The life and times of Mother Theresa, for example, are conveyed with such poignancy and feeling that one is at times moved to tears at the kindness and charity shown by this modern-day saint. This clarity of feeling then turns to angers when we learn of her death at the hands of Princess Michael of Kent, who killed the nun on the same weekend as the Princess of Wales’s car crash. According to Mister Al-Fayed, this was done with the intention of distracting people from the events in Paris.

Al-Fayed’s World History really comes to life in the modern ages, when he is discussing the familiar things that have shaped our current lives. Who can forget the OJ Simpson car chase, so thrillingly described here? The writer certainly has done his homework on the subject, revealing at great length how the whole thing was instigated by the Queen, who wanted the secret service to practice chasing celebrities’ cars at high speeds. Again, his evidence for this is somewhat flimsy, saying that he was given the information by “a man in the pub in exchange for a pie.”

Mohamed Al-Fayed’s World History is a very eye-opening book. I was completely unaware that the British Royal Family had had such an influential hand in so many events, such as the fall of the Roman Empire, the invention of the Panzer tank and Ben Johnson’s gold medal being taken away from him due to doping allegations. It really does surprise this reviewer to see so many events being indirect – or even direct – causes of the death of Princess Diana, from King Harold’s death in the Battle of Hastings (when he was shot in the eye by Camilla Parker-Bowles) to the bombing of the World Trade Centre in 2001, four years after Diana died.

This book is a great addition to any history lover’s collection, and a must for those little old ladies who collect plates with pictures of the Queen and her corgis drawn on them.

Conspiracy Theory, starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts, is in video stores now.

Magic Book Review: Thee Necroholicus Asymptoticus Mordandum, 2008 Edition

In the wake of the clamour surrounding the Harry Potter franchise, many new books of magic spells have been published to cash in on the craze for wizardry and all things thaumaturgical. Thee Necroholicus Asymptoticus Mordandum (NAM) has been printed since the thirteenth century, when scribes of mystics wrote their favourite spells on leaves and bound them together in an attempt to trap a small genie. Since then, the book has been a favourite with serious magic practisers, but the increase in competition has seen the publishers resort to updating the format of the books (which are now printed with ink, rather than the blood of demons) and including many spells just for newcomers to the art.

My first reaction to the 2008 NAM was that it certainly matches its predecessors in aesthetics; nothing says “I’m a hard-arsed warlock, bee-yatch, so don’t mess with me” more than having a large hardback with demon faces poking out of the spine in one’s bookcase. If, for some reason, this doesn’t appeal, the new NAM is also available in paperback with a picture of Jennifer Lopez on the cover.

Many of the spells in the 2008 NAM are much simpler than the ones in previous volumes, including the famous ‘Invisible rabbit’ conjure and several small spells to create various amounts of bran. While these will certainly appeal to the beginner, many of the Mordandum’s existing readers will already be familiar with these basic tricks.

The book has fixes and updates for many of the bugs that were found in past editions, which is certainly a welcome touch. The spell for keeping dry in a rainstorm has been tweaked now, so that anyone using it should no longer find themselves covered in margarine when stepping inside. Also, many of the soul-selling spells will now get you at least 30% more value for your soul, which goes against all the current anima-trading trends.

That’s not to say, however, that there are no bugs in the 2008 NAM. When I tried to conjure a djinn using plasticine and buttons, the creature proceeded to impregnate my cat, despite my following all the directions perfectly. It should also be noted that a huge oversight during publication led to the unforgivable error that two spells – one for raising the dead, the other for making one’s windows clean – were reversed. My neighbours were not too pleased when my attempts to help them with their spring-cleaning resulted in them being attacked by zombies.

But overall Thee Necroholicus Asymptoticus Mordandum, 2008 Edition is a great asset for anyone wanting a cohesive collection of useful magic spells. I’m not sure that I would recommend it to beginners, as some of the latter entries are particularly powerful, and the temptation to try them may be too great for a naïve newcomer to resist. The implications of this could be disastrous for mankind. I would recommend a book more suited for beginners, such as Spellcasting for Dummies or Rosie O’Donnell’s My Wiccan Life, which has some great tips for aspiring witches and wizards.

Finally, a warning: At all costs, avoid the upcoming spoken word release of the NAM, as listening to it could turn you into a ham sandwich.

Thee Necroholicus Asymptoticus Mordandum, 2008 Edition, Published by Gandalf and Faber, priced Six Undin Entites and a piece of Scarletite. Paperback available for £9.99.

Book Review: 674pp – A Biography of John Cage by Matthew Ng and Norman DeSauza

While many biographies of composer John Cage have been written, 674pp claims to be the definitive story of his life, from his birth, through to the composition of his most famous piece, 4’33’’, up to his death in 1992. Setting it apart from the other books is a single, simple fact: Just as 4’33’’ is a piece of music consisting of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, 674pp is a book consisting of 674 numbered, but otherwise empty pages.

This book, therefore, is not for the casual reader who has a passing interesting in John Cage’s life and works. This is certainly for someone who already has some (ideally extensive) knowledge of the composer, and who will be able to meditate on their existing knowledge while staring at the blank pages.

Despite the lack of any sentences or words on the pages, I found this book took me rather a long time to read. The feeling of the paper against my finger as I turned from chapter 8 to chapter 9, for example, conjured up wonderful memories of the first time I heard Cage’s Musicircus being performed. The last two chapters were very difficult for me to read, knowing the impending death of one of the world’s greatest living composers was approaching. Indeed, I could not bring myself to read the final eight pages at first, setting the book aside for several days in an attempt to delay the inevitable. But then, as I came back to the empty, ink-free pages, the sadness I had been avoiding flooded in, and I was moved to tears.

But to concentrate on the sadness in the book is folly. Look at the highlights of Cage’s life, which, while not actually mentioned in the book, appeared in chapters 12 to 15 for me. The sense of accomplishment and pride one feels on behalf of Cage when his star grows, and when he is described as a genius by his tutors, comes through wonderfully during this period of the book.

There has been some argument regarding this book and the usefulness thereof; Mike Blatt has published a very similar, yet more concise biography one hundred pages long, again with no words. But it is the length of this work and the quality of the non-writing that set 674pp apart from the others. If you look beyond the actual blank pages, and dwell upon the words that Ng and DeSauza didn’t write, you will gather an additional layer of enjoyment from the book.

674pp is a great addition to the works about John Cage. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the composer, Zen Buddhism, or anyone who needs a large and well-bound sketchpad.

Book Review: Gingerbread Hunter by Kathryn Wehrle

Kathryn Wehrle's first piece of non-fiction is the story of her quest to find the best-tasting gingerbread in the whole of Toronto. Along the way she finds and befriends all sorts of different people, bringing them together under the tasty brown umbrella that is a good gingerbread.

The book takes the reader through the Toronto bakery world, from the upper class croissant houses of Yonge to the seedy sesame bun shacks that form the city's notorious backstreet baking underbelly. The chapters dealing with these latter parts of the quest are terrifying, especially when the author's taste testing is interrupted by a visit from the bakery's owner, the notorious crime lord Saffron Tumerick, head of the Danish Mafia.

Other elements of the story are uplifting, such as the chapter in which Kathryn manages to save a struggling patisserie by recommending them to a hungry passer-by; the man is none other than Richard Branson, and he invests huge sums of money in the bakery, rescuing it from bankruptcy. There are also hilariously funny scenes, such as the impromptu food fight in a tea shop populated by upper-class ladies, and the scene in which Kathryn finds a woman's toe in a gingerbread man. Her search for the toe's former owner took her to three different continents and started a friendship that would eventually lead to divorce.

But rather than the people, the star of Gingerbread Hunter is the gingerbread itself. Kathryn's description of each morsel alone is worth the price of the book. From the 'delapidated creosote bungalow smell' of an out-of-date coffeeshop pastry to the 'smarmy self-confident sneer' of Guutenborg's $3,000-a-piece luxury gingerbread, Wehrle's prose makes each mouthful of biscuit real.

All in all, I would give this book five icing sugar buttons out of five.

The New Collins Dictionary is out!

Just as the day is always followed by night, the release of a new updated Collins dictionary is always – inevitably! - followed by controversy. While the outcries that have come after recent publications have not matched the riots and uproar that occurred during 1976 (when the dictionary ruled that ‘cactus’ was no longer a word and that the past participle of ‘run’ was ‘graven’) there have always been a few out-of-joint noses whenever Collins go to press.

This year will certainly be no different. The Imaginary Review has got its grubby little hands on an advance copy and linguists everywhere are going to be affected by the contents. In fact, anyone who uses the English language on a regular basis will certainly need to pay heed.

One of the major changes to the English dictionary is the removal of the word ‘Because’. The reasoning behind this remains mysterious; we asked a Collins representative why they had deemed the word unnecessary, and they replied that they ‘didn’t need to explain themselves’. Our own guess at why this word is no longer part of the English language is due to the fact that people have stopped trying to explain and excuse things, they just pass the buck on to someone else. The lack of the word ‘because’ will certainly make things much more difficult for people to explain events.

A new word that the people at Collins have introduced is ‘Crotny’. It is an adjective that refers to the unpleasant feeling one gets when a commercial break arrives in a TV program and it only seems like two minutes since the last. Other additions include ‘flad’ - an attractive female who is often mistaken for a ladyboy – and ‘yopling’, an activity that requires as-yet uninvented equipment.

Collins 2008 has some interesting new prescriptions. ‘Terse’ can no longer be translated into Spanish, and not before time if you ask me. ‘Shower’ and ‘Hovercraft’ have now swapped definitions, a move that will probably cause more problems in Dover than anywhere else. ‘Buffoon’ now has the added definition, ‘a small area of carpet infested with estate agents’.

While the people at Collins claim to have the best interests of the English language at heart, it is somewhat unclear as to how their new dictionary will achieve any advancement for the language or its speakers. Removing ‘because’ from usage will certainly lessen the depth and clarity that English has. Furthermore, the novel new idea of ‘sin-binning’ some words for various perceived penalties is not without its drawbacks; what good can come of banning the words ‘hedgehog’, ‘alimony’ and ‘gumption’ for two years?

On the plus side, however, the book has some good new touches, including the inclusion of page numbers that advance upwards from ‘one’, and also some vouchers for reduced entry into various attractions. But these benefits are outweighed by some questionable decisions in the content.

The 2008 Collins Dictionary is out now, priced a few quid. If you want one with a thesaurus, you must provide a video of you kicking a Spaniard in the shins.

Book Review: Great Lists I Have Written by Seldom Hatchery

Great Lists I Have Written by Seldom Hatchery is one man’s love letter to lists, and the writing thereof. In this remarkable memoir, Hatchery, a professor of ergonomics and aesthetics at Coventry University, looks back over more than sixty years of lists that he has written.

The first thing that grabs one while reading this book is that in Prof. Hatchery’s hands, the lists have the ability to move us in many ways. They amuse, sadden, anger and warn us, all at the same time. Take one of Seldom’s earliest lists, written in 1951, entitled ‘Things I will do before I’m forty’:

1 Grow a beard
2 Write a book about ghosts
3 Buy a really nice desk
4 Shoot Mrs. Kilkenny
5 Read War & Peace

We are not informed as to whether Prof. Hatchery carried out the items on this list. However, we are given some poignant insight into the state of mind of a young man full of ambition, full of hope, and possibly full of anger towards a mysterious married woman.

While many of the lists are enjoyable reading in their own right, all are brought to life and given wings by Hatchery’s wonderful prose accompanying them. We learn the context of the lists; we learn of their place in time, we learn of their relevance to their own era.

This contextualisation of the lists is displayed incredibly well in the case of some of Hatchery’s most mundane minutiae. For instance, compare these two shopping lists, the first from 1965 and the second from 1997:

Lard
Dripping
An egg
Corn Flakes
Bin bags
Bread

Oysters
Two large rump steaks
Eggs
Harvey’s Bristol Cream
Tabasco sauce
Corn
Stuff Magazine

Professor Hatchery deconstructs these two lists and uses them as a metaphor for his own life at the time. While once he was a man who purchased lard and dripping, now he was a man with a research grant who could afford corn, oysters and extravagant sauces. But yet throughout, at the middle of each list, persevering through time and holding up the lists like a spine or column are the eggs. The change from one egg to ‘some’ eggs (plural) shows, for Hatchery, a display of growth, of aging. In many ways he is the same, but at the same time, he is ‘more’.

Every list that Professor Hatchery has ever written is here, from the interesting (‘Venice Itinerary, 1972’) to the dull (‘Things I need to do this week, February 10 1980’) and from the exhilarating (‘My favourite break-up records, 1965’) to the embarrassing (‘A list of all my colleagues with attractiveness ratings, 1992’). They constitute a good read on their own, but with the author’s commentary to go with them, this book is an essential read.

‘Great Lists I have Written’ by Seldom Hatchery (pp 930) is published by Elemental Quaker Books and is priced £34.99.

Book Review - From Arthur to Betty II: Tables of the Royals

Erwin Q. Blatt, author of such popular history books as The Communist Revolution from the Point of View of a Nomadic Herder in Mongolia and Node of Honour: A History of Lymph, has written a new book about the British monarchy and their infatuation with tables.

Entitled From Arthur to Betty II: Tables of the Royals, the book covers the famous and the little-known dining-room furniture of English royals. Blatt's research is astounding; very little seems to have been left out in this thrilling survey.

The book begins with the most famous table that British royalty has to offer, King Arthur's round table. While many people believe the reason for the shape was to prevent anyone from being 'head of the table' (and thus seeming more important than the others), Blatt has discovered that the real reason was that Arthur and his knights were all fans of Chinese food, and regularly shared banquets. A round table with a large Lazy Susan was the most efficient way of doing this. Indeed, one of the many instances of magic attributed to Merlin was the creation of the Lazy Susan, something that seemed otherworldly to the Knights' primitive minds.

While the table habits of some Monarchs warrant entire chapters, some require no more than a few paragraphs. Henry VIII was particularly scathing of tables, and is said to have attempted to destroy all serving surfaces in the kingdom; when this was deemed impossible by his advisors he instead started a crippling table tax, rendering table ownership incredibly unattractive to Britain's poor. The section in the book on this is mercifully short.

However, other Kings and Queens have been shown by Blatt to have been instrumental in the advancement of table science. James II, for instance, had an octagonal table in honour of the shape, discovered by British mathematicians during his reign. Queen Victoria was for some time obsessed with tables, and in 1887 ordered the creation of a spectial spherical table in honour of her Golden Jubilee. When the table was unveiled at a special reception in Westminster Abbey, however, all of the guests' soup bowls fell off the impractical table, resulting in several burnt laps. Victoria's love affair with tables ended that day.

Blatt writes with passion on the subject of tables, something that must be due to his own obsession with the furniture (he is rumoured to own at least three tables himself!). While some of his descriptions of the tables themselves occasionally become weighed down with technical jargon, there is no denying his vast knowledge on the subject.

This is the ideal birthday or Christening present for anyone who is interested in tables, royalty or bears (as there is a bear in the ninth chapter).

From Arthur to Betty II: Tables of the Royals by Erwin Q. Blatt; Artichoked to Death Press; pp639; $49.98

Book Review: The Logic Problem Puzzle Compendium

The Logic Problem Puzzle Compendium is the latest in a long line of popular books, though, having read through this one in the space of an afternoon, I am unable to say from where their popularity arises.

More like a series of short stories than an actual narrative, I was bemused by the events making up the book, and could not find a way to connect them. Indeed, they seem like nothing more than a disparate series of situations and comments about them! On one page I read of children doing different things in order to make money (selling lemonade, babysitting, mowing the lawn, etc), and then, when I turned the page, eager to see how the events unfolded, I was confronted with an entirely new situation, about Christmas presents being bought for family members at various locations. What happened to the children? What became of their money-making schemes? Presumably the author (un-named, I hasten to add) wishes us to guess the outcomes for ourselves!

The laziness of the author does not end there. There is no semblance of character development or literary technique in this book whatsoever. In chapter six, for example, we are told that “John did not go to the party with Mary.” Why not? What had Mary done for John to spurn her party invitation? More to the point, who are John and Mary? It continues: “Nigel (who isn’t a banker) attended the party with the Estate Agent.” What kind of scene setting is that? How are we, the readers, expected to use this sparse description to come up with any sort of interior picture of the story?

And don’t get me started on the so-called ‘illustrations’ adorning most of the pages. Almost identical childish grid-like structures appear almost everywhere within the book. Presumably this is the author’s idea of a suitable accompaniment for a publication that lacks content, narrative structure and any merit whatsoever.

A truly awful book from start to finish.

Book Review: Vengaboys – The Untold Story by Berthold Schreck

The number of books written about the Vengaboys in recent years is great; so great, in fact, that many people would question the necessity for another. This one is different, however. Written by Berthold Schreck, the Boys’ former butler, it provides an inside look into the lives of those most reclusive musical geniuses.

The book has much to lift it above the crowd of unauthorized biographies. The well-known and oft-told tales are all here: the formation of the band after the dissolution of Kraut-rock combo Gaft in 1996; the early tumultuous gigs in Dutch coffee shops; the rise to fame and their very public breakdowns. But from his insider position, Schreck embellishes these familiar stories with some amazing new facts and information, providing a wealth of previously-unknown-to-the-public Vengalore.

The chapter on the writing of the Vengaboys’ first hit, Up & Down, is particularly thrilling in Schreck’s hands. The band, stuck for lyric ideas once the first two lines had been written (the now classic and famous couplet ‘Up and down/Up and down’), argued long into the night about which direction the track should then take. The fighting was so great that they came very close to dissolving the band. It was several days later when band member Anya came up with the idea for the next two lines: ‘Up and down/Up and down’, and, rejuvenated, the rest of the band joined her in writing the rest of the song (coming very close to brilliance in the penultimate lines of the final verse: ‘Up and down/Up and down’). The chapter closes with the band discussing the possible tie-ins for the song, considering bungee jumping, trampolinists and spiders, before eventually settling on the then-current craze of yoyos.

The band’s much-publicized spat with 2 Unlimited is detailed at length by Schreck. Some writers have asserted that this was all a stunt concocted by the two bands’ record companies, but this argument is dismissed. Behind the scenes, Vengaboy Giles spoke to Ray of 2 Unlimited and offered to ‘feed him his own sphincter’ if he didn’t rename the latter’s album, then entitled ‘The Vengaboys are Shit’. In the end, the album title was changed as part of the ransom after a daring kidnapping of Anita from 2 Unlimited, during which several Vengaboys sadly lost their lives.

The Vengaboys’ songs are analysed with shrewd consideration of their private lives. ‘My Uncle John from Jamaica’ is completely different in light of keyboardist and songwriter Jan’s turbulent family life. ‘Oh! We’re Going to Ibiza’ is a very personal cry for help from one band member, who, according to Shreck, wished to escape so badly that they attempted suicide on more than one occasion.

The book ends with the tragic events of July 2005, when, as a support act for Enrique Iglesias, the Vengaboys ate some bad chickpeas backstage and were dead before their encore.

Book Review: Chatterstoft Area Phone Book 2007/08 by British Telecom

British Telecom has just released the long-awaited sequel to their ground-breaking 2006/07 Chatterstoft Area Phone Book, and what a treat it is for fans of the genre! It was difficult to conceive how the previous volume could be bettered, but better it they have, and with aplomb!

The book starts in very much the same way as the old one, with a beautifully written chapter on local and international dialing codes. The playfulness with which the areas and countries are listed is a joy: consider the adjacent placing of the United Kingdom and the United States – which some people will recognize as a wonderful simulation of their adjacent placing at the tables of the United Nations. No less subtle is the distance between these two countries in the list and another of the US’s allies in international affairs, Australia. The imagery is striking: The UK and US, United as their names suggest, together towards the end of the list, while their ally sadly looks on from the beginning. Such wonderful satire at so early a place in the book!

And there is more to come. The authors have included many wonderfully playful elements to the book, such as the list of ‘Saints’ that arrives before the rest of the ‘S’ surnames. Why is this? Is it because the saints are above the common surnames like Smith and Spencer? Does their separation indicate arrogance? Or, conversely, do the rest of the ‘S’ surnames deliberately distance themselves from the Saints? Are they not worthy to occupy the same space as those sacred surnames? We are left to decide for ourselves.

There are many brilliant changes to the book when it is compared with the previous one. A new addition is the wonderfully-monikered Dave Shuttleworth, of 42 Primrose Gardens, CT2 8LE. How poetic the name and address become when placed together! But consider the following lines:

Julian Beresford 22 Thornhill Avenue 562-3340
Keith Beresford 4 Windsor Road 562-8046

Such lyricism! Such economy of feeling! Such clever juxtaposition! How beautiful it is to run the lines over in one’s head, enjoying the slight jump between the ‘0’ at the end of the first line and the ‘Keith’ at the beginning of the second.

And you may think that such wonderful pairs of lines could be rare, but they crop up all over the book. Indeed, I found the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on average once per page. Marvelous! And I haven’t mentioned the ‘services’ pages yet!

I cannot recommend this book enough. At more than a thousand pages long it is a little heavy, and it is not without some dull areas (the ‘Jones’ chapter particularly comes to mind), but there is something here for everyone. British Telecom have done it again!

Book Review: The Climes of Despair by Winwood Augary

Winwood Augary’s first work is a highly ambitious project. In his introduction he tells the story of how, while on holiday in Greece, he found a tiny second-hand book shop down a back alley. In a dark corner at the back of the store he stumbled across a small and dusty volume that enchanted him. There was no title or author listed on the cover, and the whole book “seemed to ripple with magical intent”. He bought the book and resolved to translate it, a particularly ambitious project, given that Augary neither speaks nor reads Greek.

In the four years that Augary has spent translating the book, he used various methods to recreate the book in English, none of them involving a Greek-to-English dictionary. Intuition seems to have played the biggest part, followed by imagination and free association. Indeed, there are sections of the book that have an element of the beatnik poets to them, and some of the more labyrinthine passages are almost Joycean in nature. All this was necessary, Augary believed, to truly convey the meaning that the text gave to him.

Though the book loosely follows a plot about an aspiring writer going to war, there are huge sections where Augary deviates from the storyline, in one case reading the original Greek text as a series of shopping lists. He also takes one part of the book to be more suited to French, another language of which he has little to no knowledge. The French in the book is more like a phonetic reproduction of an Inspector Clouseau sketch than anything written by Dumas or Corbière.

Augary provides extensive notes to explain his choice of words and grammar, and these provide some of the most interesting parts of the book. In one case he notes: “My initial reaction to the word ‘big squiggle – big squiggle – little squiggle – sideways 8 – three small joined squiggles’ was that it stood for the English word ‘divulge’. However, after seeing the same series of squiggles in numerous other passages I came to change my perceived meaning of the word to ‘avocado’. Three weeks’ work was wasted as I had to go back over all my previous chapters, changing the passages with this word in it to reflect this.”

While the story itself is meandering, poorly written and, in some cases, plagiarised from modern soap operas (acknowledged by Augary as ”manifestations of current themes erupting from my own subconscious”), it is an interesting exercise. Whether or not Augary was successful in his desire to “transverse the boundary between inherent fact and personal understanding, while blurring the concepts of belief and truth” is another matter.

Sadly, this exercise was one that took its toll on the writer, however, and by the last chapter the story has degenerated into meta-narrative about the original book itself, with Augary seemingly under the impression that the book is mocking him and his efforts to translate it. This chapter and the notes for it echo Augary’s own mental breakdown which culminated in his incarceration at a mental institute.

It is a sad note, therefore, that the editor’s postscript at the back of the book informs the reader that Augary had, in fact, unknowingly translated a Greek phone directory printed in 1955.