I say “new”: The Dirt, by Motley Crue, has been around for years. I have only just got around to reading it after seeing endless plugs for the really shabby-looking Netflix adaptation of this band memoir.
(I can’t get over the stupid umlaut placing, making it so it ought to be pronounced Merhtley Cruuu. That really is all you need to know about how staggeringly thick they all are.)
The book really is by the whole band – and a few other people as well, various dishevelled agents, traumatised tour managers and stuff. They take chapters each, mostly just complaining about each other and then gleefully confessing to all these ghastly things they did.
If The Dirt is to be believed, (and in places I just don’t), these boys – Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee (who you will only have heard of because he married Pamela Anderson) and a couple of other weirdos, were the worst people in the world. The drugs, the awful things they did to girls, the drinking, the mindless smashing-up of places. It’s just so unbelievably squalid and rank.
And, mostly, hilarious. They are funny about it, particularly their DiscoPunk years, where they are constantly having punch-ups while wearing make-up and stiletto boots “looking like hookers on Sunset”.
I am so timid and suburban – pathetically thinking myself possibly a glamorous alcoholic because I often have a third glass of wine – that I sort of love stories of completely fucking mad cocks-out loonies doing insane things and broadly getting away with it.
“Go for it,” I think, enviously.
Then It Fell Apart by Moby, is what came after the first part of his autobiography, Porcelain, published a few years ago.
Then It Fell Apart describes what happens after you have a massive hit – and it’s basically another descent into alcoholism and drugs and promiscuity. Moby picks through it all with really admirable honesty and clarity. And I’m sorry but I’m just at a time in my life when I want to know that creative and commercial success and millions and millions of sales do not always make you happy.
These booze memoirs do make me wonder how they can possibly remember what drinks they had and when. What pills they took, how big the line of coke was, what happened next. I can’t really tell you what happened at a boozy birthday party this weekend just gone, let alone six years ago, sixteen years ago? I wonder, do they all keep diaries, like politicians do, anticipating this very thing?
Ordinary People, by Diana Evans, is really wonderful – about two couples in London struggling with being couples. Diana Evans is one of those writers who doesn’t really need a subject – she can describe a car journey over Vauxhall Bridge and make it gripping. I loved this. Not to be confused by Normal People, by Sally Rooney, which I haven’t read. I think I am the only person in the world not to be able to get on with Sally Rooney.
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal is another cracker. Set in Victorian London it’s gloriously atmospheric and creepy. I haven’t finished it yet – but I really fear for the future of little Albie, 10 year-old scamp, my favourite character. I am reading from behind a cushion. Kids like him very rarely make it to the end of books like this… fingers crossed.
Books I read recently that were alright but not amazing
Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
First Man In by Ant Middleton, and you know how much I love those SAS boys
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty
How about you? Read any good books lately?
Omg you read my mind!!!! Thank you. I need a book for my hols next week!
Best book I’ve read for ages was The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne. Set in Ireland it’s the story of a pregnant girl who cast out by her village and then goes to live with two gay men in Dublin where more horrible things happen. It will make you spit with fury but it’s also very positive and so well written. I couldn’t put it down.
Hilary, I stayed up way too late on Monday night to finish this book. I loved it, and the tears streamed down my face at the end (not that that necessarily means it’s a great book, but in this case it was). I really miss Cyril right now 🙁
Stunning book
Both books by James Rhodes – Instrumental and Fire on All Sides. Not easy reads but he is brilliant.
Ester, War Doctor by David Nott is fabulous. What a man! I had the privilege of listening to him recall his life story and it really is well worth the read. Unputdownable!
I mean, Normal People and Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney! (Sorry!)
But also Property by Lionel Shriver, a series of short stories themed around Property. Fantastic, as you would expect of her.
I loved both books by Sally Rooney – what a talent she is!
I am really struggling being able to read anything at the moment it is driving me insane and I am tossing books aside after 50 pages left right and centre and don’t know if it’s them or me. Oh, it’s probably THEM. One was The Snakes by Sadie Jones. I have Daisy Jones and Queenie waiting on my bedside table. Cosmic. I did want to read Ordinary People though so that’s hopeful. I don’t get on with Sally Rooney. Normal People was ok, bordering on irritating in ways I can’t be bothered to go into. I keep seeing people describe it as a masterpiece and it gives me a kind of out of body experience as I’ve always been about the book learning and I can’t see the Emperor’s new dust jacket. What I have been able to read recently is non fiction – To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine of The Slits is very good. I didn’t read her first memoir about her punk rock days, so don’t think you need to as I’m still finding this compelling about all that came before and after, and in particular her relationship with her Mum. I’m also working my way through Last Train to Memphis which is a huge and wonderfully detailed biography of Elvis that reads like a novel. I’ve just picked up We Must Be Brave which I think you recommended on here a time ago.
yes We Must Be Brave is really good
I’ve just finished Viv Albertine’s first book. It’s a really good read. Good for dipping in and out of too if you feel you can’t concentrate for too long. All of Nina Stibbe’s books are great, especially Paradise Lodge where I went from laughing to crying within a sentence.
I’ve just seen it (Clothes, Music, Boys) is only about 2 quid on the Kindle so have downloaded it, thanks. I do recommend the second one, she’s so honest and combative. I’ve heard lots about Nina Stibbe haven’t read any.
Yes! I enjoyed normal people, but hated conversations with friends. Read them back to back and probably overloaded on her particular style/content…. normal people had me all nostalgic for Dublin college days of the early naughties and those characters were more redeemable.
Looking forward to adding Ordinary People to my reading pile (I’m back into reading for fun after many years adrift….)
Oh blow, I have just bought the Sally Rooney book thinking it was the one you recommended the other day. These are ones I have really enjoyed recently:
Transcription Kate Atkinson
The Friendly Ones Phillip Hensher
Anything is Possible. Elizabeth Strout
Chernobyl History of Tragedy. Sergio Plokhy
Dear Mrs Bird A J Pearce was probably the dullest book I have read ever.
Love a book recommendation, so thanks for this. I too am currently reading and enjoying Ordinary People and despite having loathed Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends (far too many issues going on and one dimensional supporting cast of characters), I gave Normal People a go and really enjoyed it.
Two wildly different books I have recently enjoyed are Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata – unusual contemporary Japanese very short novel and at the other end of the scale, The Fortnight in September by R C Sherriff (Journey’s End) – written in the 1930s and although dated, had some resonance today regarding family holidays.
Last but not least, The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy – written and set in the 1950s, hilariously funny one minute and darkly poignant the next but overall quirky and fun.
Love your recommendations – please keep them coming. x
I LOVED The Fortnight in September – it makes my heart hurt a bit to think about it. So funny and painfully detailed. It’s practically half way through before they’ve even got off the train and I didn’t begrudge a word.
Oh Cindy – I felt exactly the same!
I definitely do not get on with Sally Rooney – I think I’m too old (at 37!) to enjoy the inner monologues of her very millennial characters. Normal People was less bad than Conversations with Friends.
Recently read and loved Lincoln in the Bardo; I’d been avoiding it because it sounded so worthy, but it is actually terrific. Very funny, pretty dark, clever and thought provoking. Also The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. She is such a terrific writer, and also did a v interesting Desert Island Discs.
Susan Hill recently-ish wrote a follow-up book to her classic “Howards End is on the Landing” (which is basically a memoir of her reading all the books already in her house for a year and is extremely enjoyable) called “Jacob’s Room is Full of Books” which I’ve been having a lovely time with at bedtime; a very gentle recounting of a year of thinking, reading and remembering.
I’ve also been re-reading the Susan Howatch Starbridge novels which is such an entertaining series, if a bit mad, set in and around the Church of England 40s-90s; it definitely helps to have a passing interest in the paranormal.
And finally, I liked reading Michelle Obama’s autobiography. It’s not a particularly complex or surprising read, but very enjoyable.
Anything by Mick Herron, start with Slow Horses and progress through the series.
I’m about to read Salt Path by Raynor Winn, true story about a couple who lost everything and set out on a journey across the south West coastline. Also Educated, about a girl raised as a survivalist in Idaho, leaves home age 17, discovers education for the first time. Lastly A Little Life by Hanya Yanaghara .
A little Life is basically torture porn. I read it on holiday a few years back and a writer friend and I chatted afterwards trying to work out why we both hated it… The characterisation is poor. It’s like you are reading something behind a wall of glass. You feel really removed from it – it left me cold.
I hated every single word
Oh yes Educated was brilliant, I loved that book, what an incredible story of survival. I have just finished Notes to Self by Emilie Pine, I couldn’t put it down. It’s part memoir part manifesto about going off the rails, looking after sick parents, dealing with childlessness and I’ve never read anything so honest in my life. Reminded me of Clover Stroud’s book The Wild Other.
You Will Be Safe Here by Damian Barr. So good.
Don’t read John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies. It is over blown, over styled, full of not credible coincidence, and definitely not funny. (Which apparently was his first aim at humour in writing)
Finally somebody who also doesn’t love Furies! I thought I was the only one. Apart from everything you said, and the at times atrocious writing (it’s like the second half wasn’t edited at all) there were so many factual errors in it. (Am so glad to get that off my chest.)
Oh yes! The factual inaccuracies really sent me over the edge.
Have you read “Less” by Andrew Sean Greer? Really enjoyable & snarkily funny.
Tangentially, there’s a great podcast called Heavyweight (Gimlet Media) which is just sweet, short vignettes about ordinary people – one of which is about a man who loaned his friend Richard Melville Hall some records and never got them back – then imagine his surprise when he heard them being mixed into Trouble So Hard… And how he’s spent years being angry and hard-done-by by the whole thing. It’s fabulous. (Unlike Normal People which was so dull and self indulgent – if anyone is yearning for a Great Irish Novel, The Heart’s Invisible Furies is it.)
I really enjoyed the first half of Heart’s Invisible Furies and thought it was going to be cracking, but it fell away for me after that and I didn’t end up loving it.
The Heart’s Invisible Furies. Best book I’ve read maybe ever. It stayed with me for a long time afterwards. I loved it.
Thank you SO MUCH for your comments on Sally Rooney – I feel the same! Nothing against her or her writing, just don’t get the hype. I’m currently reading ‘Daily Rituals: Women at Work’ by Mason Currey which, as its name suggests, is all about the daily schedules of various writers, artists, actresses, dancers, etc. It’s a lovely “dipping into” sort of book. Love your writing, Esther.
Last books I’ve read and loved are:
A tale for the time being
Ruth Ozeki
Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders
Priestdaddy
Patricia Lockwood
Any human heart
William Boyd
Educated
Tara Westover
Read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi reccently and was bereft when I finished it. Amazing eye opening book spanning slavery on the gold coast to modern day America. Focussed on familial relationships and i just ADORED it
I am pages away from finishing Circe by Madeline Miller which I have been wanting to read ever since it came out and it didn’t disappoint. Staggeringly beautiful and really modernises the classic Greek myths .
Glad to see that Convenience Store Woman has been recommended as I am hoping to schedule it for my book club, as well as a Sally Rooney which sounds like it could be quite divisive. Excellent. .
If anyone is ever looking for other book recommendations, you can find a list of my very light-touch reviews and book club discussions at https://offbeatbookclub.co.uk/reviews/ (Shameless plug)
Thank god you said that Esther. I read Sally Rooney’s other book – Conversations with Friends – and found it to be pretentious twaddle. I also loathed The Milkman… I’m enjoying The Mars Room and read The Dirt I think in 2004 – one xmas and it made me want to drink all the bourbon. I read Blood Orange in 2 days and I’m like the last person to read Woman at the Window – but enjoyed it. Love a good thriller.
I read and subsequently bought for two friends and my mother ‘We Must be Brave’ which we all LOVED and wept through. My poor mother read it on a Caribbean cruise and said she was staggering into the lunch buffet every day with red eyes due to the mad crying she did over it.
I’ve just read Transcription by Kate Atkinson which was OK but I think I read it in the wrong way in that I did a chapter a night in bed rather than immersing myself in it properly. I’ve also just read and loved The Flat Share by Beth O’Leary which is a debut very much in the vein of Jojo Moyes and was absolutely terrific – the perfect beach or afternoon in bed with a pot of tea read.
I’m being gripped by Isabella Tree’s ‘Wilding’ at the moment. I’m not normally one for memoirs and I feel the market of books with ‘wild’ or ‘nature’ in the title is oversaturated and full of a lot of bandwaggoning but this book is ace. Not sure why, but its absolutely enthralling – never thought I’d be gripped by reading about cattle grazing habits or nightingale habitats….
Jane Harper’s The Dry is awesome, also like her latest book The Lost Man, Lindsay Hilsum, In Extremis about Marie Colvin is also unputdownable…
I feasted on JH’s books so have a wait foor her next! (I also read ‘Force of Nature’).
If you liked the setting and the tensions made more intense in the heat, you might enjoy ‘Mystery Road’ on tv
Donal Ryan is brilliant – good one for those who like John Boyne.
Yes, I love his books. Being Irish brings more to his stories as they bring back so many memories
I loved ‘BITTER’ by Francesca Jacobi. Its been passed around some friends who also loved it. Jacovi’s debut novel and hopefully, she’ll write more…
‘Everybody Brave is Forgiven’ by Chris Cleve is wonderful. I’d also recommend ‘The Sheep Stell’ which stole over my life for a day. Its so calming and intriguing to read a very driven woman, driven by nature and the outdoors rather than business or life goals.
I too found ‘Queenie’ a bit meh, a bit like ‘Sweetbitter’ much hype for not a huge reward. Its good, but wouldn’t overwhelmingly recommend to everyone. If you are in a reading rut may I shout out ‘The Willoughby Book Club’ which is wonderful, I get a subscription for Christmas and a wrapped book arrives through my postbox every month. Its tailored to your taste not a generic just been published item. Their choices have always pushed me in a genre I already love. I’ve bought it as presents for other people now both children and adults.
Just finished The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson and would highly recommend it. Next up, Ali Smith’s Autumn (yes, I’ve already read Winter so am going about it all out of order). Tried the first Sally Rooney and ended up throwing it across the room. I’m going to give her a second chance with Normal People though.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is the best book I’ve read so far this year. It’s one of those books that tells the story of a family over a series of generations (mostly from the point of the view of the women) which can often get annoying because you leave a character you like and switch to one you’re less interested in. But this book is 100% bangers character wise. It’s set during the Japanese occupation of Korea in the 1900s, which was a very interesting and twisted time, and the writing is beautifully clear.
I liked Pachinko too.
I enjoyed Daisy Jones and The SIx but I felt it lacked the emotional punch I was expecting.
I’m reading the book of short stories by Tom Hanks called Uncommon Type. It’s easy to dip in and out of. He writes like he talks. Also just got Sara Cox’s new book Till the cows come home which looks great.