Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Books For Blokes

What about those Bloomsbury Good Reading Guides. Useful, aren't they?

The one I find most useful is 100 Must-Read Books For Men.

Cos I'm a man, you see. You can tell just by looking at me.

The book's recommended authors include Lance Armstrong, Len Deighton, Tony Parsons, Jeremy Clarkson. Yes, it's really arty, as you'd expect a book with the name "Bloomsbury" on the cover.

And just imagine my testosterone going into overdrive as I ambled through the library at the weekend. After flicking through Wife In The North in the Quick Choice section, my eyes alighted on a sign.

"Books For Blokes".

I was like a pig in shit. James May, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, Peter Crouch, Lee Sharpe, Jonny Wilkinson, Chris Moyles, George Lamb, Graham Norton. The literary taste of every man in Britain was represented. I took an armful to the self-service machine and withdrew those books in such a manly way the young female library assistant literally fainted at my feet.

I think she'd been reading too many Mills & Boons.

15 comments:

  1. Grr... manly books! For men!

    I think that's all the blokeishness I can muster for now.

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  2. I always liked a man who could withdraw in style.

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  3. Len Deighton's not bad, actually, especially the early stuff.

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  4. Which Mr. Man character best represents you?

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  5. No Amis then Geoffster? Blimey - Mardy won't be pleased. That sound you can hear is probably him choking on his tab while reaching for his bottle of Carlsberg special brew and tripping over the racing page of yesterday's currant bun trying to throw his arrers at a picture of Camille Paglia...

    Quick, leap in the Fiasco and get the poor lad a fresh stash of porn before he starts writing from the narrative perspective of a female police officer!!!! Or backwards.

    ;/

    xxx
    Mort

    wv: syncro. Is that the new Fiat?

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  6. Billy - A real man is strong yet gentle with his book. He would never break the back.

    Kaz - You can do most things online nowadays but you have to go there in order to withdraw.

    Tim - And there was us thinking he was the bloke from Strictly Come Dancing.

    MJ - Mr Lazy at home and Mr Confused at work.

    Morton - No, nothing Amis. Surprisingly no Nick Hornby in the book. Not macho enough, maybe.

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  7. I can recommend The Stig's Biography.




    Only Joking.

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  8. Is that Sting with a cold?

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  9. And do you have to suck on a Yorkie bar whilst reading them?
    Sx

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  10. A Yorkie always makes me feel more of a man.

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  11. Bloody Show-off!

    Y'er making it all but impossible for the rest of us to look cultured and even mildy interested in things that concern the fairer sex.

    C'mon Buddy :)
    Anything that does not affect our wallet, penis, or stomach is of limited entertainment value or concern to us.

    In the real manly-man world, Books For Blokes is an oxymoronic term that should be lost deep in the section marked Fiction.

    Magazines maybe, but books?
    pfft!

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  12. "No, nothing Amis. Surprisingly no Nick Hornby in the book. Not macho enough, maybe"

    Where was this 'books for blokes' list again - Kerrang!!??

    ;?

    xxx
    Mort

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  13. Donn - It's hard enough getting these Dean The Plumber types to show their sensitive side without that kind of attitude. They can still have their Nuts but surely they can also search for the truth that is in only the finest literary works.

    Morton - True, Hornby does like his Springsteen.

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  14. You're right of course and I wrote such a stupid comment because I am a simpleton.

    Fortunately I am quite harmless and do not have any illusions of ever influencing anyone about anything so your bold pronouncements shall no doubt spur men everywhere to rush to the Library and devour knowledge.

    If anything, my moronic reply made you look even smarter
    :)

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  15. The library should be a place where the working man can discover himself politically. I'd like to see a world where every painter & decorator would be reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, throwing down his tools and getting paint all over his trousers.

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