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Books : Humour : Political
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Private Eye is required reading, as much for its straight journalism as for its satire, and the Annual has long been a fail-safe gift. As usual it takes the form of a scrap book of pieces from the year's Private Eye magazines, focusing on humorous pieces. Consequently, the book largely comprises short satirical squibs, along with spoof newspaper articles and letters and longer serials such as Never Too Old--a romantic novel based on the life of Rupert Murdoch which is as sharp on the genre as it is about the protagonists. Through these pieces, the Annual builds up a comprehensive overview of the year's news stories from Alan Clark's death to Big Brother with stories such as the Dome and the state of the rail service receiving extra scrutiny. These sections are particularly rewarding--the Railtrack disaster, for example, is covered from all sides in a variety of media, so that one spoof article highlights the attitude of hacks to train crashes, while another reports on Prescott's "firm undertaking to spend as much money as was necessary to close the stable door after the recent 'bolting' incident". At the same time a cartoon represents Blair telling Prescott "Good thinking, John--we've privatised the blame".Cartoons feature strongly throughout. The Eye has some of the best artists in the country working for it and most are represented here, ranging from the black humour of McLachlan and Honeysett, whose scratchy line drawings have a beautiful delicacy which renders their subjects all the more disturbing, to the keenly observed social commentary of Heath, Pilbrow and Ken Pyne.
In the cartoon which forms the frontispiece of the annual Hunter observes that "A book is not just for Christmas". Although the Private Eye Annual is often to be found under the tree on Christmas morning, it gives pleasure throughout the year. --Anoushka Alexander
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It's America's most popular newspaper, but there may be a few people out there who are sadly unaware of The Onion's mighty journalistic legacy. To combat this cultural illiteracy, Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers and his writing staff have assembled this collection of great front pages from the last one hundred years. Here is just a sampling of the headlines: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Boasts: "No Man Can Stop Me"; AWESOME! Nation Wowed by Tremendous Hindenburg Explosion; Martin Luther King: "I Had a Really Weird Dream Last Night"; Clinton Denies Lewinsky Allegations: "We Did Not Have Sex, We Made Love." And those are just the headlines; the stories themselves are all masterpieces of the journalist's trade. Of course, readers with delicate sensibilities may find some of these accounts a bit too risqué, and perhaps even tasteless. (Among the potential offenders: Rosa Parks's decision to "screw this bus shit" and take a cab.) But if you're looking for an antidote to all the 20th-century hoopla promulgated by stuffed shirts like Peter Jennings and Harold Evans--not to mention the best history book since 1066 and All That--then Our Dumb Century is the one for you. --Ron Hogan
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Bill Bryson is an unabashed Anglophile who, through a mistake of history, happened to be born and bred in Iowa. Righting that error, he spent 20 years in England before deciding to repatriate: "I had recently read that 3.7 million Americans according to a Gallup poll, believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me." That comic tone enlivens this account of Bryson's farewell walking tour of the countryside of "the green and kindly island that had for two decades been my home."
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