#5 The Hell of it All, by Charlie Brooker (Faber and Faber Limited)

I think it’s hard for anyone other than Charlie Brooker himself to get across the flavour of his wonderfully inventive invective so, as my review, here’s an extract from The Hell of it All.

Brooker on ladies’ day at Royal Ascot (published June 23rd, 2008):

“Every year it’s the same thing: a 200-year countess you’ve never heard of, who closely resembles a Cruella De Vil mannequin assembled entirely from heavily wrinkled scrotal tissue that’s been soaked in tea for the past eight decades, attempts to draw attention away form her sagging neck – a droopy curtain of skin that hangs so low she has to repeatedly kick it out of her path as she crosses the royal compound – by balancing the millinery equivalent of Bilbao’s Guggenheim museum on her head, and winds up forming the centrepiece of a light-hearted photomontage in the centre of whatever newspaper you happen to be reading that day, accompanied by a picture of Princess Eugenie in a headdress, and some milky underfed heiress with the physique of a violin-playing mantis, wearing nothing but a diamante cornflake on each nipple and a hat made out of second-hand dentures or something equally avant-garde.”

If you fancy 388 pages of such diatribe, this is the book for you. And don’t forget the equally funny index.

So, rating time:

#5 The Hell of it All, by Charlie Brooker (Faber and Faber Limited) – 8/10

This is my second Brooker book as part of this challenge, and they’ve provided most, if not all, of the highlights so far. That the ratings for both have not reached 9/10, illustrates perhaps how tough a marker I intend to be.

Next up: All in the Mind, by Alistair Campbell (Arrow)

Click here for the full list of books so far, and their rating