The Bromley Boys – Dave Roberts

 I got this book at Christmas and devoured it in about a day. if you’ve ever followed a useless football team you’ll relate to this book. The author documents one season at the end of the 1960s following his local team Bromley FC. While his other friends in school support top flight teams like Arsenal or Crystal Palace, he is attracted to his local club Bromley.

Falling in with the team’s devoted but strange band of followers, Roberts’ life revolves around the fortunes of Bromley for the whole season. He weaves his growing pains effortlessly around each home and away game – music, girls, school, trying to play football himself. This book is testament to why so many are attracted to the romance of lower and non-league football. It’s not about success on the pitch but triumph over adversity, a sense of belonging,  being able to be yourself, and the odd moment of glory.

I recommend checking out the author’s blog. It documents the book’s entire process from initial idea to drafting, pitching to publishers, publicity, and reviews.

The Discovery of France – Graham Robb

Accompanying me on our short trip to the Languedoc in France last week were two books: The Shack by William P Young (more on this later maybe) and The Discovery of France by Graham Robb.

The latter was a fascinating insight into the people of France (mostly outside of Paris) and their role in creating the modern-day state. The author spent four years researching the book by cycling through France and he has produced a gem that is equal part historical novel and quick reference book (although once picked up it will be hard to put down again).

The prose has a rhythm that suggests it was written on the go, and Robb describes in great detail the cost and impact of travel across France on its “peasants” with particular wit and attention. The development of the French language, colonisation, work patterns, and the sad slow erosion of the individuality of each region’s pays for the sake of a modern nation are all covered in a gripping read.

It’s also crammed with interesting and quirky facts, like how increased use of the bicycle increased the average height of the French population, and that a whistling language was widely used in the Pyrenees until the 1930s. It was versatile enough to convey the front page of the day’s news and was most notably used to help smuggle Jewish refugees across the border into Spain during Nazi occupation.

Highly recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in France and French culture. While on holiday it made me want to stay even longer and hop on a bike.

Book Review: The Protestant Revolution – William G. Naphy

It’s taken me a while to get through this but it was worth it. I was given this spin-off from the BBC Four series for Christmas last year and, while not the most addictive book I’ve ever read, it’s been really useful for filling in some gaps in this lay person’s knowledge. Particularly enjoyable was the chapter on the great awakenings, and a concise section on the origins of the social gospel movement.

Hopefully the series will make a re-appearance on the BBC iplayer in the near future.

The Damned United

One of the books I read while on holiday was The Damned United by David Peace. It convincingly mixes fact and fiction to tell the story of Brian Clough’s short-lived reign as manager of Leeds United in 1974. It’s a brilliantly written account – flashing back to Clough’s previous success with Derby County while documenting each of his forty four days in charge, seemingly intent on wrecking a club whose footballing ideology he despised. I was too young to really know much about Brian Clough but this book paints a fascinating picture of a flawed but immensely charismatic man. Whenever people in football say there are no “characters” in the game anymore – compared to this guy there definitely are very few.

It’s being made into a film at the moment. I’m looking forward to watching the scene where Clough takes an axe to previous manager Don Revie’s desk.

This week I have been mostly reading

Finished off some great books recently:

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

A poignant book written by Steinbeck as he journeyed across America from Maine to California with poodle Charley in his battered camper van “Rocinante.” in the late 1960s. Lots of snapshots of disappearing small-town life, amid evidence that the “old, weird America” can still be found in ther somewhere- delivered in typical elegaic fashion.

 

The Social Entrepreneur - Andrew Mawson

A brilliant book from the man behind the Bromley-by-Bow centre in East London. it’s a fantastic story of taking urban regeneration like a bull by the horns. A Minister with the United Reformed Church – he challenges the sanctimonious attitude of many churches towards regeneration, and drives a truck through the process-obsessed “do-gooding” of the voluntary sector and government departments that in his opinon is doing local communities more harm than good. You may not agree with all he says but the arguments are convincing.

Building on his non-conformist Christian heritage and stressing “learning by doing” – his application of business ideals to social questions needs to be heard by a wider audience. One of the most challenging books I’ve read in a long time.

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Loved the film Atonement, and this is the first McEwan book I’ve read. Based around a newly-married couple’s first night of their honeymoon in early 1960s England, he weaves a compelling novel together about their anxieties and hopes for the future. It’s almost a novella but despite it’s brevity I felt really attached to both characters and missed the book when I finished it. The detail he packs into the final chapter in particular is beautifully written and heartbreakingly sad. Recommended!

The Glory Game

 The Glory Game was written by Hunter Davies and follows the fortunes of Tottenham Hotspur during the 1971-72 season. He gained unparalleled access behind the scenes at the club – something which no author has been granted at any top-flight since.

It’s a fascinating book and a perfect companion to Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. The Glory Game focuses on the whole club (players, board members, training staff, supporters clubs) while Hornby’s book follows the ups-and-downs of supporting a team. Plus – one’s about the Spurs and the other’s about the Woolwich Wanderers!

Davies writes more about time spent with the manager Bill Nicholson than any other character at the club, and poignantly portrays this older statesman of football struggling to come to terms with a game that is changing faster than he is comfortable with. The final chapter covering the end of season UEFA cup final victory over Wolves is sadly elegaic, hinting that this was the end of an era for the way the club was run.

The fascinating appendices contain comparative Q&As with the 1972, 1985, and 1997 squads. There may be more money swimming around the game’s elite now than ever before but one thing remains the same – (British) footballers definitely aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.

The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

First book of 2008!

I finished it a few days ago hopefully in time to catch the film in the cinema. Not exactly the “coolest” of books but a terrific old-fashioned story of growing up with guilt and then acheiving final redemption. It’s great that tales like this still strike a chord with mass audiences.

The issue of male sexual contact (sorry to anyone who hasn’t read the book) in Arab culture is a fascinating one. There is a history of bi-sexuality, although out-and-out homosexuality is a strict taboo, as long as marrying and raising families as well as other societal duties are fulfilled.

The portrayal of the Taliban is revealing in the book, and is described in such graphic literary detail that you have to remind yourself that it is rooted in contemporary reality. This aspect of the book was uncomfortable.

Looking forward to seeing the film.

Sex God

A deliberately provocative title for the latest book by Rob Bell, founder of Mars Hill Church in Michigan, the latest big name American Christian writer and speaker.

What attracted me to his first book Velvet Elvis -Repainting the Christian Faith was his open-ended style of writing. Each chapter was like a conversation with himself – then just when you’re agreeing with him then he chucks a real curveball into the discussion to really get you thinking. You might not agree, but to him that’s Okay – it’s a discussion.

The subtitle of this book is Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality. It tackles a big question that’s recently been plaguing me in relation to the evangelical church – we don’t know what it means to be human. he explains that the word sex comes from a Latin root that means to be cut off or severed. We’re born into a world of disconnection, we’re disconnected from the earth, from each other, from God and ourselves. People say “I don’t know who I am”. So, sexuality is all of the ways that we are aware of this cut off state we’re in and the desire to reconnect.

Stylistically Sex God is very similar to Velvet Elvis, and is maybe too open-ended for some tastes, and I was expecting some discussion around homosexuality (maybe that’s for a later book) but the final chapter where he draws everything together into exactly why he thinks Jesus uses the wedding analogy for his relationship with church is classic. I read this while I was away from Lisa in Chicago for a few days and it really gave me goosebumps!

Vic Reeves and Paulo Coelho – Two Journeys

Two names you wouldn’t expect to read in the same sentence!

Since finishing On The Road a few weeks ago, I’ve recently finished reading two more books. It hasn’t been intentional but the last few books have all been about journeys of some kind.

In many ways these two books couldn’t be more different.
Me:Moir is the comedian Vic Reeves’ account of his childhood and teenage years growing up in Darlington.

The Alchemist is Paulo Coelho’s (now ubiquitous) book about a Spanish shepherd boy and his journey of self-discovery to Egypt and back.

It has been said that The Alchemist contains many autobiographical elements, which I hope to discover more about as I read Coelho’s books further. Me:Moir on the other hand, would appear to be mostly autobiographical, but I don’t believe for a moment that Vic Reeves was a ten-stone baby!

Me:Moir reminded me that my journey of growing-up is just as eventful as Vic Reeves’ (drawing cartoons, playing in bands, being crap at sports, making my own fun during boring family holidays) and I don’t have to think that my life has been boring and dull in comparison (although Vic can tell a better story than me).

The Alchemist showed me the importance of self-reflection – seeing how circumstances and seemingly random occurences then became pivotal moments in your life.

Vic Reeves’ book is light reading for sure, but it’s an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. The Alchemist has been dismissed as a mere self-help manual – but sometimes just one line from a book (or a song, or a poem) can say something very meaningful (whether profound or simple) to a person much more powerfully than a thousand words in a sermon, text book or a lecture.

On The Road – Jack Kerouac

I really should have read this book before now.

The music of Bob Dylan hasn’t been off my ipod for a few years now, and Kerouac’s stream of consciousness prose clearly had a big influence on Dylan’s music.

Its one of those books that are so hyped and ubiquitous that surely it could only ever be slightly disappointing…?? (zeitgeist for the beat generation, quoted to death, much copied stylistically, blah blah blah)

But it was an engrossing read. The narrator Sal Paradise (loosely based on Kerouac himself) journeys from coast to coast across the USA following the free-spirited, fleet-footed, charismatic, selfish, irresponsible dreamer known as Dean Moriarty, in awe of him the whole way.

The two are difficult to warm to throughout due to their womanising, selfish manner – but their journeys are engrossingly described by Kerouac, the book has a real rhythm to it. I was reading the book while spending a few weeks doing bits and pieces of travelling across the USA, Ireland, Scotland and England which probably added to my enjoyment.

The heart of the book is the journey rather than the characters – their constant moving on signifying a restlessness and a yearning for something more, which I suspect is what Kerouac wanted to portray more than merely a character study of Sal or Dean. “Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together” is one of Sal’s opening lines, and sets the tone for the optimistic searching that all the main characters are pre-occupied with.

Kerouac, a lapsed Catholic himself, allows Sal to show some signs of guilt and awareness of his own irresponsiblity and that of Dean’s as the book goes on – and Sal eventually settles down into something close to domesticity by the end.

My main memory of the books is how it swings, especially when Dean takes centre stage. Sure, the language of how he “digs” everything is much-caricatured now – but the restless energy of the book is what I found so enjoyable.

My favourite line was when, during one of the many spontaneous parties, Sal described the atmosphere thus; “There was dancing but no music. Just dancing.”
They were living life at such a rhythm that they didn’t even music to get going, to revive them, to make them feel any more alive.

Highly recommended reading.