Books we like ... and books we're not too fussed about
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Stephen Foster
Short Books 2009
I picked up this book in our posh Madeira hotel a couple of months ago. I like to think it had been left behind by someone who had made the same journey as Foster describes: from working class Stoke to middle class Norwich via many years in London, and was in Funchal celebrating his good fortune. Foster’s journey - from chef to beach bum to taxi driver to interior decorator to writer - is not a typical one, but there is much that I could identify with, and his eye for social and cultural detail is sharp. He’s also a good writer - but I must admit I’m less keen on this kind of memoir than I was. I’ve grown fed up with the names of defunct sweets and ancient television programmes the writers always throw in, and I do not need to be told yet again that thirty years ago there were no mobile phones and twenty years ago there were but they were as big as bricks. I suppose I’ve just read too many of these inevitably rather self-centred and “hilarious” autobiographies written in the ubiquitous, matey, Nick Hornby style. Certainly I found this one rather less than rib-splitting, although it was interesting enough, and I now intend to release it back into the world via Book Crossing. Only seems fair.
13th July 2009
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