Robert Ince - Bad Book Club

[dem bones]

Robert Ince - Bad Book Club (Sphere, 2010)

Cover photography: Colin Thomas Design: Emma Grey LBBG

Preface
Introduction: The Library That Dare Not Speak It's Name

1. Sex
2. Poetry
3. Autobiography
An Interlude With A Small Rabbit
4. Bad Science
5. Romance
An Interlude With The People's Princess
6. New Age
7. Columnists
An Interlude With Roger Moore's Youth Gang Of Waste Ground Urchins
8. Horror
9. Religion
10. Thrillers
11. Self-Help

Conclusion
List Of Sources

Blurb
THE STORY OF ONE MAN's QUEST TO DISCOVER THE BOOKS THAT TIME FORGOT

Robin Ince, award-winning comedian and committed bibliophile, has spent a great deal of the twenty-first century trying to determine whether poetry about extraterrestrials and romances set in lighthouses are in fact more fabulous than Great Literature. Contained within these pages are the results of his painstaking research. Ince has rummaged through charity shops, jumble sales and even the occasional skip in his mission to compile the definitive collection of the world's most extraordinary — and inadvertently hilarious — books. Read it, and you'll qualify for membership of the Grand Order of Curators of Books That Should Never Have Been.
Come on. Join the club.

I'm sure the author would approve that i landed this yesterday as part of a bundle comprising Peter Tremayne's Ants, Shaun Hutson's Shadows, Arthur Blessitt's Turned On To Jesus and John "My Master Will Have His Girl Please Him" Norman's Hunters Of Gor for a total payout of £1.50. Mr. Ince's criteria for inclusion on his version of the disreputable bookshelf is pure Vault MK I., namely a pox on Amazon, AbeBooks & Co., "it had to be purchased by me in a second hand shop for less than £3, or to have been donated by a fellow enthusiast, or to have been found on my travels in a skip or on a train seat."

I'll admit, my first suspicion was some X-treme 'Proof copy - Not for resale' edition, or else how explain incongruous inclusion of Crabs On The Rampage, Slither, The Cats, Croak & Co in a catalogue of stinkers? For one terrible moment I even entertained the dread prospect of a second Kim Newman & Neil Gaiman Ghastly Beyond Belief smug-fest, so am delighted and hugely relieved to report that, if the overview of the mighty 'Animal Horror Death' nasties is typical of the rest, then, mercifully, Bad Book Club is nothing so wanky. Yes, the author has plenty good-natured fun with the material, but he admires a craftsman, and the chapter concludes on a note so reverential, I went scurrying to the acknowledgements in full expectation of a credit to 'funkdooby,steve, franklin marsh, lord probert & killercrab', to say nothing of pulphack who has made the self same favourable comparison to Barbara Cartland.

Guy N. Smith is a one-man factory of the macabre, and he knows exactly what he is doing. He is a technician of gore, thrills and rural infestation. What Mills & Boon is to love, Guy N. Smith is to dismemberment. Just as Mills & Boon books have an almost mathematical pattern to structure — from that first angry encounter with the agrarian hero that our metropolitan madam will loathe for a few chapters, to the final clinch by the forge — so Guy N. Smith knows exactly where his readers want to be taken, when they want death, when they want pipe-smoking philosophy, and when they want sex.

Just spotted a reference to the masterpiece that is The Way I See It by the nation's favourite 'Peter Pan Of Pop', Sir Cliff. If Mr. Ince can keep this up for entire duration, we're going to get along like a warehouse of unsold The Witching Hour's on fire.



More to follow ....

[dem bones]

Just started on the AUTOBIOGRAPHIES. Forget whatever rubbish I typed in previous post, as Mr. Ince concentrates on charity shop stalwart Which One's Cliff? over the earlier, slimline The Way I See It. Sometime chroniclers of the Sex Pistols, Fred & Judy Vermoral's Starlust, which, shamefully, I've seen around but passed up the opportunity, is a compilation of fan letters, not all of them actionable under the obscenity laws, received by sundry 'eighties chart toppers. No surprise that David Bowie attracts his fair share of obsessives, most of whom believe he's a visitor from the red planet, but what to make of the girl who writes "If there was a nuclear war I would be thinking is Boy George safe?" Don Estelle's Sing, Lofty: Thoughts Of A Gemini is maybe not what you'd expect and looks worth a punt.

The world of POETRY is so competitive that even William McGonegall only warrants a fleeting mention in dispatches. Pride of place goes to the John Fairfax edited The Frontier Of Going, an anthology of verse inspired by the space race, though Danielle Steel's Love: Poems (Amazon invite you to click to LOOK INSIDE!, but if I were you, I'd not take them up on their generous offer) pushes it all the way. Strangely, I feel less inclined to chase down anything from the SEX department with the possible exception of The Secret Of Picking Up Sexy Girls - The Complete Guide To Picking Up Sexy Girls, if it's a figment of the author's fertile imagination even more so. Can't help thinking that school playground favourite How To Undo A Maiden was worthy a mention.

The roll call of ANIMAL NASTIES includes John Halkins mastery loose trilogy, Slime, Slither and Squelch, Arthur Hertzog The Swarm, James Montague's Worms (what's that doing in here?) and plenty GNS, though if Mr. Ince has endured that Pierce Nace experience, he's keeping it to himself, most likely to protect the innocent. Perhaps some guilty pleasures are too depraved to be shared. Peter Tremayne's Ants has shot from nowhere to fifth on my to-read pile, and that purely on the strength of the few precious paragraphs devoted it by an obvious connoisseur of the form. He even 'fesses up to an admiration for The 10th Pan Book of Horror Stories, lavishing genuine praise on Dulce Gray's The Necklace.