Books II

[Guy Rowland]

In the olde forume there's a books thread - https://thesoundboard.net/viewtopic.php ... ooks#p3672 , for all things books be they fiction or non-fiction, music-related or not. Thought I'd start a public-facing version of it here.

I'm Not With The Band
Sylvia Patterson

The decline of pop music as a social phenomenon has been much discussed. One of the oft-forgotten casualties is the music press, and many may say good riddance. Music criticism has more or less ceased to exist today, but time was when these people were all powerful, whose collective taste, praise and derision helped to make or break careers. Sylvia's memoirs are fascinating - she grew up with a pretty tough background in Scotland and by sheer force of will landed her dream job working for the pop-centric Smash Hits magazine. I used to buy this, even though it wasn't anything like the serious music press, and her memoirs reminded me why - it had an almost surreal and unique sense of humour and it was made by people who did love music. Until its latter years it was also somehow totally free from editorial oversight, which enabled it to thrive. Unthinkable today.

Much of Sylvia's 2016 book is devoted to the one-on-one interviews she did with icons and heroes and this is often fascinating, but it is her journey (she ultimately switched to the much more respectable NME) and take on things that make it so engaging. Her rage-filled interview with the most insipid boy band of all time, Boyzone, is a particular highlight. For her pop music was about passion, protest, pain, defiance and joy, Boyzone were 5 identical men in suits whose USP was that that stood from their stools on the final key change in each song.

Her look from the inside at how popular music changed and crumbled around her is compelling. She is a terrific writer - straightforward, humorous but with an unshowy ability to turn a jewel of a phrase or sentence. So much so that having finished the book I saw she'd written a follow up, I bought it immediately without even looking at what it is about.

Same Old Girl
Sylvia Patterson

"There's always someone worse off than you".

I'd imagine that nothing I write here could persuade any TSB member to even consider reading this book, an unflinching look at Sylvia's diagnosis of breast cancer in 2019, shortly before the COVID pandemic. I wouldn't have read it either if I knew that - who wants to be dragged kicking and screaming through this horror?

The book has affected me more profoundly than anything else I've read in years. Almost everything that could go wrong went wrong for her. She had complications that were eye-watering. She spares nothing as every last part of her dignity evaporates. Depressing, right? Well... no. By this point Sylvia feels like a friend, the mate in the pub who can turn anything into a good yarn. I always wanted to turn the page, knowing that she has to come out the other side alive and (mostly) intact.

But most of all, she exquisitely captures a particular feeling. We've all had it, I'm sure when we've been at our most ill, or in pain. Your one thought is how incredible it will be to feel normal, how the world is open to you. The moment you feel well again, you forget. Well Sylvia makes you remember. Unlike so many dear friends I know, I'm not horribly ill or in pain. I have never been (unlike Sylvia) addicted to anything. I can run (slowly). My finances are healthy (hers not so much). I have family and friends that I love. What, exactly, am I complaining about?

Sylvia loves life. She loves who she loves. That lifeforce comes through with every page. And every one of us knows that this is the stuff that matters, all our other problems suddenly seem trivial. The pat cliche at the start of this review is a truthful one. Her traumatic treatment ends, she eventually becomes well again. The way Sylvia re-evaluates her life, her old friendships, her wild zeal for music, her questionable lifestyle choices, her partner is simply joyful to behold. It is a love letter to the troubled NHS and the talented and unfailingly kind people she met on the way. It is someone who has tasted death and come out on top. And just a little bit of that magic rubbed off on this reader anyway, and I am supremely grateful to her.

[Lawrence]

I read a wide variety of stuff, but you’re right, this is one you couldn’t convince me to read
due to the loss of my wife who went through some very difficult medical treatments and still died. Stories of struggles aren’t very redemptive without happy endings, and those left behind try not to reinsert themselves into those memories.

All that said, it sounds like a terrific book by a terrific author and I loved reading her backstory and your most excellent review.

[GR Baumann]

SPQR, A history of Ancient Rome, Mary Beard

Quite an undertaking, spanning thousand years.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/book ... -more.html

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/ ... eview-rome

[wst3]

I read a wide variety of stuff, but you’re right, this is one you couldn’t convince me to read
due to the loss of my wife who went through some very difficult medical treatments and still died. Stories of struggles aren’t very redemptive without happy endings, and those left behind try not to reinsert themselves into those memories.

All that said, it sounds like a terrific book by a terrific author and I loved reading her backstory and your most excellent review.

Yeah, I agree with Larry on all counts. A couple of widow(er) friends suggested it could be cathartic, if it is I am not ready for it.