- Paperback: 289 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; New Ed edition (17 May 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007171382
- ISBN-13: 978-0007171385
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 403,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Guardian
'Gloriously bathetic and wickedly funny.... Savour the Schadenfreude.'
Daily Mail
'well written and witty...a perfect book to dip into'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an extremely humerous look at how authors feel about their book signing events. It's fascinating to hear their side of things and to see things from their point of view. There are some very funny accounts of places that they have to stay in overnight, and amusing anecdotes of remarks made by the general public. I particularly loved the tale of Glyn Maxwell,a poet, who had to do a reading for some school children - on being asked what his poem was about he went on to explain in some detail what he had tried to get across in his poem, when he'd finished explaining the child that had asked merely looked at him and said 'why didn't you just say that in the first place then?' Terrific stuff, a must read for any wannabe authors.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
On the surface, the idea of getting writers to reveal their most embarassing moments seems a good one. But in practice, the limitations quickly become painfully obvious, as we read one variant after another on the 'I was invited to perform a reading and nobody came' story. There is some variety - with grinding predictability Irvine Welch soils himself outside a football match for example - but overall this is pretty dreary stuff.
While they routinely deny it with telling insistence, it's hard to get away from the sense that the writers in this collection remain bewildered that the world fails to recognise the lofty nature of their calling. They're largely a pretty unlikeable bunch - prone to self-obsession, whinging and pettiness - more damningly, few of them write particularly well. While I love books, I've always loathed 'literary' fiction, regarding it as insular, pompous, myopic and dull. If nothing else, 'Mortification' confirmed that prejudice in spades.
While they routinely deny it with telling insistence, it's hard to get away from the sense that the writers in this collection remain bewildered that the world fails to recognise the lofty nature of their calling. They're largely a pretty unlikeable bunch - prone to self-obsession, whinging and pettiness - more damningly, few of them write particularly well. While I love books, I've always loathed 'literary' fiction, regarding it as insular, pompous, myopic and dull. If nothing else, 'Mortification' confirmed that prejudice in spades.
2 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Rather than 'Mortification' this book ought to have been entitled 'Irritation' or 'Mild embarrassment'. The majority of anecdotes contained within are only funny if you are in the business (I would imagine) and for me were wholly without humour or interest. The only one that had any real pathos was Simon Armitage's entry - and I've read that before in one of his books! The blurb made it sound so much better than it actually is - you have to ask yourself why second-hand copies are selling for 46p on Amazon...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Kylie's bum
"I'm not going to buy a book, but you looked so lonely there, I thought I'd come and talk to you."
Thus concludes writer John Banville's contribution to MORTIFCATION, in which he... Read more
Published on 20 Aug 2005 by Joseph Haschka
For writers, published or unpublished, everywhere
I was bought this book for Christmas and I've found it compulsive 'smallest room' reading. It's an easy-to-read, dippable collection of stories by various writers about their... Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2004 by Andrew Collins
Terribly funny
I loved this hilarious collection of seventy writers owning up to their most shameful, humiliating public embarrassments - it's a beautifully put together book, with some of the... Read more
Published on 30 Nov 2003 by "gk18051"
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