How Love Actually Ruined Christmas Archives

My Top 10 Non-Fiction Books of 2020

I read a lot of non-fiction books this year – regular visitors to the blog will know that I love history, popular culture, books about books, feminism and biography in particular.

So while I cannot possibly say I’ve read a huge variety of the fabulous non-fiction books published this year, I have found some real gems. In true ‘Top of the Pops’ style (yes, I am of that vintage!), here’s my countdown of the best in 2020’s non-fiction books from number 10 to 1…

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10 – ‘The Gran Tour: Travels with my Elders’ by Ben Aitken

If someone had told me that one of my favourite books of the year would be about a young man going on Shearings coach tours, I’m not sure I’d have believed you! Still, this is a witty, warm and wise story about Aitken’s travels with the older generation and is more focused on interesting people-watching than any real travel narrative. You can read my full review here.

I also read Aitken’s ‘A Chip Shop in Poznan’, an engaging tale of his year in Poland just as Brexit-fever took hold of Britain.

9 – ‘Practically Perfect: Life Lessons from Mary Poppins’ by Katy Brand

Having been raised on the glorious 1964 film of ‘Mary Poppins’, this book was a fabulously comfortable and engaging read. Brand is clearly a Poppins-obsessive and it is something I both recognise and respect! This book is packed with nostalgia, interesting facts and witty analysis. You can read my review here.

If this one floats your boat, Brand’s book about Dirty Dancing is also well worth a read (‘I Carried a Watermelon’).

8 – ‘Essex Girls: For Profane and Opinionated Women Everywhere’ by Sarah Perry

This is a brilliant re-evaluation of the stereotype of the Essex girl and a celebration of ‘profane and opinionated women’ through history. As a Southend-born and long-term Chelmsford resident, this one struck a chord with me. You can read my full review here.

7 – ‘This is Shakespeare’ by Emma Smith

I love a book about Shakespeare and I’ve read a lot! What I loved about this one was the fact that it contained so many new things that I hadn’t really thought about before, even for the plays that I consider that I know really well. You can read my review here.

If this is your thing, I can also recommend Kathryn Harkup’s ‘Death by Shakespeare’, a fascinating look at the deaths in Shakespeare from a scientific perspective. Dark but absolutely engrossing! (review here)

6 – ‘How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics)’ by Gary Raymond

A late entry into my favourites list but this one is hilarious! I am really not a fan of the film ‘Love Actually’ at all and I really enjoyed Raymond’s scene-by-scene evisceration of it. Thoughtfully-written and genuinely enlightening…and did I mention very, very funny?! You can read my full review here.

5 – ‘Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from Bronze Age to Silver Screen’ by Greg Jenner

This is a thoroughly enjoyable jaunt through the culture of celebrity. Jenner, who was historian for the BBC’s excellent ‘Horrible Histories’ TV series, is an engaging guide and brings together stories that are funny, interesting and also occasionally tragic. You can read my review here.

If you like the look of this, I can also recommend Jenner’s first book, ‘A Million Years in A Day’, a book focusing on the history of the things we do every day.

4 – ‘Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights’ by Helen Lewis

This is a history of feminism, but with a difference – it focused on the lesser-known figures and events so that it really feels fresh and engaging. You can read my full review here.

3 – ‘A Curious History of Sex’ by Kate Lister

I supported this book on the crowd-funded publishing site, Unbound, after following Dr Kate Lister on Twitter for a while. Her take on social (sexual) history is funny, feminist and always interesting. The book itself is eye-opening and fascinating, plus Lister donated a proportion of her profits to a sex worker charity. You can read my full review here.

2 – ‘More Than A Woman’ by Caitlin Moran

Moran’s books are always worth a read, but this take on what it means to be a middle-aged woman is brilliant. She is funny and confessional, relatable and quick with her razor-sharp observations. My review can be read here.

Moran’s earlier book, ‘How to be a Woman’, about being a younger woman, is also eminently readable:

1 – ‘A Tomb With a View’ by Peter Ross

OK, so a book ostensibly about graveyards and death might be a bit of an odd choice for my non-fiction book of the year, but hear me out! This is the book that I have talked about to people more than any other this year and it is an absolute treasure.

More than anything, it celebrates life and the people associated with graveyards and burial grounds and ossuaries: the historians, the mourners and the grave-tenders and those who carry out burial rites, as well as the departed. It is strangely comforting and absolutely compelling. Although sometimes sad, it isn’t depressing at all.

This is a brilliant book and one I strongly recommend. You can read my full review here.

Header photo by Rahul Pandit from Burst.

November Wrap-Up and December TBR

Another month end – and thank goodness! We are one step nearer to Christmas and (more importantly) 2020 being over. This month has lasted approximately 9000 years so I am glad it is done.

I’m posting this a bit early as I have a blog tour lined up for the end of the month.

Affiliate links are provided – I do earn commission on any purchases at no extra cost to you, so thank you for supporting my blog!

What I read in November

Considering that November felt eternal, I only managed to read 9 books! However, this puts me on 109/100 for my Goodreads challenge so that’s fine by me.

I started this month with a NetGalley ARC that I was really looking forward to – Cara Hunter’s ‘The Whole Truth’. This is the fifth instalment in the excellent DI Fawley series of police procedurals and is due for publication on 25th February, 2021. The story starts with a sexual harassment allegation and then gets much darker and more twisty. I don’t think it is the best in the series but it is very engaging – I really like the police team and they are really relatable and real. My review will follow nearer publication.

Then I read ‘The Wrong Sort to Die’ by Paula Harmon for a blog tour. This is a very enjoyable historical mystery featuring a great female lead – Dr Margaret Demeray, a pathologist working in pre-World War I London. You can read my review here.

Next up was ‘How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics)’ by Gary Raymond for another blog tour. It’s basically a jaunt through – scene-by-scene – the 2003 film ‘Love Actually’ and all the reasons why it is so bad. Fans of the film won’t appreciate it all, but I loved it! This book made me laugh so much – my review is here.

Then I read ‘The Cousins’ by Karen M McManus for yet another blog tour – this one is up Monday. I don’t read a lot of YA books but I did enjoy this story of family secrets in a wealthy tourist spot in America. Check out my blog on Monday for my full review.

Then another blog tour book – ‘The Watchful Neighbour’ by Debbie Viggiano. This is a psychological thriller about a woman who worries that her Neighbourhood Watch man is just a little too watchful. It is tense and surprising – my review will follow in December.

It does seem that I’ve read a lot of blog tour books this month – the next was ‘Banking on Murder’ by J D Whitelaw, a cosy crime novel with a trio of sisters as investigators. I really loved the interaction between the three women – the review will follow in December.

After all the blog tour books, I returned to my huge NetGalley backlog and read ‘The Split’ by Laura Kay. This is a lovely, uplifting and funny read about how Ally puts her life back together after she is dumped by her girlfriend. Family, friends and running prove her salvation, even though she has a similar feeling about running as me (clue: not positive)! This is due to be published in March 2021 and my full review will appear nearer this date.

Another NetGalley read was ‘The Shape of Darkness’ by Laura Purcell. I was really looking forward to this historical Gothic novel which promised spookiness, murder and spiritualism – and absolutely delivered. This is due to be published in January 2021 so my review will be up then, but if you loved Purcell’s previous books then there is plenty to love here too.

Finally, the lovely people at The Write Reads and I finally finished our readalong of ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier. Having given up on this book on at least two previous occasions, I’m really glad I stuck with it – turns out it gets really good! Who knew?! I’ve loved reading with these lovely bloggers and their wild speculation, hilarious observations and brilliant (and sometimes odd!) ideas have been an absolute joy. My review will be up next week.

December TBR

After a month or two of being totally overwhelmed by the amount of books I have in the pile to read, I’ve narrowed it down to ones I want to read soon:

‘Lie Beside Me’ by Gytha Lodge – a NetGalley ARC and the latest in the DCI Jonah Sheens series.
‘Madam’ by Phoebe Wynne – a proof from the lovely people at Quercus (thank you!) This one looks like a brilliant historical tale in the Gothic vein about a remote boarding school.
‘Dangerous Women’ by Hope Adams – another NetGalley ARC and due to be published in March 2021. I love the early Victorian setting of this one, doubly so as it is on board a ship sailing for the colonies, and it promises to be an engrossing crime story.
‘Hyde’ by Craig Russell – set in Victorian Edinburgh and by an author I really rate. This is another NetGalley ARC and is due for publication in February 2021.
‘The Last House on Needless Street’ by Catriona Ward – I’ve seen some brilliant advance reviews for this one, a serial killer thriller, and cannot wait!

Who knows what I’ll actually end up reading, but that’s my best guess right now!

Hope you had a fabulous reading month in November and I look forward to reading your wrap-up posts and TBRs.

Header photo with thanks to Sincerely Media for sharing their work on Unsplash.

Blog Tour: ‘How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics)’ by Gary Raymond

Welcome to my stop on the tour for Gary Raymond’s hilarious book, ‘How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics)’.

This is a blog tour organised by Emma at Damp Pebbles and I’m grateful to her, Gary Raymond and Parthian Books for the chance to be involved in the tour and for my free copy of the book for review.

From the Publisher:

RARELY HAS THE POWER OF CINEMA BEEN FELT BY SO MANY, IN SUCH OPPOSING WAYS…

“Love Actually dulls the critical senses, making those susceptible to its hallucinogenic powers think they’ve seen a funny, warm-hearted, romantic film about the many complex manifestations of love. Colourful Narcotics. A perfect description of a bafflingly popular film.”

By any reasonable measurement, Love Actually is a bad movie. There are plenty of bad movies out there, but what gets under Gary Raymond’s skin here is that it seems to have tricked so many people into thinking it’s a good movie. In this hilarious, scene-by-scene analysis of the Christmas monolith that is Love Actually, Gary Raymond takes us through a suffocating quagmire of badly drawn characters, nonsensical plotlines, and open bigotry, to a climax of ill-conceived schmaltz.

How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics) is the definitive case against a terrible movie. With a foreword by Lisa Smithstead.

My Review:

Surely everyone likes ‘Love Actually’, the 2003 Richard Curtis comedy?

Who could not enjoy the sight of Hugh Grant (as the Prime Minister) sashaying around Number 10 Downing Street to a Girls Aloud tune? Who doesn’t love a film packed with national treasures – Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy (to name just a few)? Who could fail to have their heart warmed by the various entwined stories of love in the build-up to a gloriously perfect Christmas?

Gary Raymond, it turns out. And me.

I’ve never really liked this film. While I really enjoyed ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ and ‘Notting Hill’, this one didn’t hit the spot for me. Given that I saw it on my honeymoon in a packed cinema in Florida – an idealised slice of Britishness being serves for an applauding American audience and a young honeymooning couple – that takes some saying. It should have been a winner. I never even knew clapping at a movie was a thing, but I’ve never felt further from applause.

While I was absolutely on board for Hugh Grant’s shimmying and I can’t wholly condemn anything either Colin Firth or Emma Thompson are in, I just couldn’t get my head round what I’d seen. It was altogether TOO MUCH – too many stories, too much sentimentalism (even for a Curtis film), too many awful characters, too much wasting of the impressive cast list, too much sadness in something marketed as jolly…I could go on forever.

This book brilliantly explores all the reasons I had for not loving the film and a whole lot I hadn’t even thought of (as I have deliberately avoided too much repeated exposure to this movie!) Gary Raymond has clearly spent a long time watching and thinking about this film and this book is the outcome – a gloriously funny and (I think) fantastically accurate diatribe.

The book takes us through the whole film, scene-by-scene. Here, laid bare, is the entire movie in all its horrific wonder. I’d actually forgotten some of the strands of the narrative which is absolutely understandable – as I’d thought, there are just too many and some are pretty pointless.

Raymond perfectly skewers each scene with wit and razor-sharp observation. Yes, Liam Neeson’s character seems like a wildly inappropriate parent figure. Yes, Emma Thompson proves to be the worst friend ever. Yes, Kris Marshall’s character is essentially a deluded sex pest. And yes – the romance strand with the 11 year-old child feels horribly inappropriate and weird. And what on earth is going on with the timeline?!

That’s not to say this book is all ‘bah, humbug’! In fact, it is the opposite. Raymond has no beef with Christmas or love or any of the people involved with the film, but merely points out that its messages are a bit off-beam. He is right – Christmas isn’t celebrated for being a festival of truth (‘What lovely novelty socks, Auntie Jean! How did you know what I wanted?’) and this film has some iffy ideas on class and gender too.

The strength of the book is the humour. There were many points where I laughed out loud, either at Raymond’s descriptions of the cast grappling with weird scenarios and terrible dialogue or the analysis of these. The description of Mia’s attempt at a seductive pose for Alan Rickman’s character (and his subsequent response) is worth the price of the book alone! The detail with which Raymond takes apart these scenes is to be commended – it is forensic and obsessive, but also hilarious.

I really cannot recommend this book highly enough – it is a light, humorous read that does have some serious messages in there under all the funny bits. As someone who feels very similar to Raymond about ‘Love Actually’, I was extremely receptive to his arguments. However, I think even lovers of the film (who perhaps know it better than me) would find something fun and interesting in this book – it is a well-argued and witty take that I think most people could appreciate.

As a postscript, I also love the fact that Raymond wanted to call the book ‘Colourful Narcotics’. It’s all explained within the pages, but I think it is absolutely spot-on as a description!

About the Author:

Gary Raymond is a novelist, critic, editor, and broadcaster. He is presenter of The Review Show for BBC Radio Wales and editor of Wales Arts Review. He is a regular writer on film, music, literature, and theatre, and can often be heard on BBC Radio 3 and 4 as an arts commentator and reviewer. His novels include For Those Who Come After (Parthian, 2015), The Golden Orphans (Parthian, 2018), and the upcoming Angels of Cairo (Parthian, 2021).

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GaryRaymond_

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goldenorphans/

Purchase Links:

Amazon UK: https://amzn.to/35h5uPH

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/35i7hE4

Parthian Books: https://bit.ly/35sAs7z

WHSmith: https://bit.ly/2UcvsNZ

Publishing Information:

Published in paperback and digital format by Parthian Books on 2^nd November 2020

WWW Wednesday: 11th November, 2020

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.

Links are provided for books already published/pre-orders – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)

What have you recently finished reading?

I have finished reading ‘The Wrong Sort to Die’ by Paula Harmon, a historical mystery novel that is for a blog tour with Damp Pebbles. It’s an engaging story about a pioneering female pathologist in Edwardian London. My review will be on the blog tour next week.

Then I read ‘The Cousins’ by Karen McManus, a YA thriller, for a blog tour at the end of November with The Write Reads. This one is a twisty story of family lies and long-buried secrets in a small island community on Gull Cove Island in America.

Another blog tour book also turned up this week and I devoured it in one sitting! ‘How Love Actually Ruined Christmas (or Colourful Narcotics)’ by Gary Raymond is a hilarious skewering of the 2003 Richard Curtis film, ‘Love Actually’. It made me laugh so much and nod in agreement. My (extremely gushing) review will be on the blog later in the month as part of the Damp Pebbles tour.

What are you reading now?

I’ve joined a reading group on Twitter in order to (hopefully) knock through some of the NetGalley backlog – this was set up by the lovely Emandherbooks and is a supportive group of bloggers working on #NetGalleyNovember2020.

Due to them, I’ve made excellent in-roads to Laura Purcell’s ‘The Shape of Darkness’ which I am absolutely loving! It’s a historical, spooky, gothic tale involving spiritualism and murder – right up my street! This one will be published in January 2021.

I’m also reading ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier with the fabulous bunch at The Write Reads. It’s a book that (I’m ashamed to say) I’ve failed to read on two previous occasions but I’m making progress this time.

I’m still reading ‘Pandora’s Jar’ by Natalie Haynes. I’m enjoying it but can’t seem to make much progress as it is packed with ideas and interesting stuff. I keep having to put it down to digest bits!

Finally, I’m still working my way through the audiobook of Jasper Rees’ ‘Let’s Do It’, the biography of Victoria Wood that is read by so many famous voices. Although I love the narration, I am finding it quite slow going and – coming in at about 21 hours – I have a long way to go. I’m not sure I’m going to make it.

What do you think you will read next?

I’ve just taken on another blog tour for Damp Pebbles as there was a date that needed filling so my next read is ‘The Heat’, a crime novella by Sean O’Leary.

Then it’s back to NetGalley and the brilliant ARCs vying for my attention! Top of the pile at the moment (but always subject to change) are these gems:

‘Hyde’ by Craig Russell – I loved ‘The Devil Aspect’, his previous novel, and cannot wait to immerse myself in Victorian Edinburgh with this one
‘The Dead of Winter’ by Nicola Upson – I love this detective series in which the sleuth is crime writer Josephine Tey and this is the latest
‘Lie Beside Me’ by Gytha Lodge – the latest instalment of another brilliant crime series and the blurb on this one is incredible!
‘Threadneedle’ by Cari Thomas – I’ve seen a lot about this book all over Twitter and it sounds magical
‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith – a novel focusing on the narrator of ‘The Great Gatsby’ before the events of that story

As always, thanks for reading and following my blog!

With thanks to the blog tour hosts, publishers, authors and NetGalley for providing me with the books in exchange for honest reviews. The only book not provided for free in this week’s round-up is ‘Rebecca’ by Daphne du Maurier.

Header photo with thanks to Jessica Fadel for sharing their work on Unsplash.