#54 It’s Only a Movie, by Mark Kermode (Random House)

It’s always slightly dangerous reading a book by someone you respect and admire. OK, I’ll say it. I bloody love the ever-opinionated Mark Kermode and the film review programme he does with Simon Mayo on BBC Radio 5 live. Immediately, therefore, my expectations are sky high and, unfortunately, It’s Only a Movie: Reel Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive doesn’t live up to them.

It’s not a bad book, by any stretch of the imagination. While not quite an autobiography (although it does chart his career in the film business), there are plenty of good tales and anecdotes, coupled with a deeper forensic analysis of movie-making.

He may be famed for his rants against stodge of the likes of Marley and Me, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Michael Bay (I could go on…), but there is much more to Kermode, and some of the book reads like a thoughtful essay on various subjects.

Given his favourite film of all time is The Exorcist – as he mentions at least twice on every show – it’s no surprise that perhaps the best of these dissertations relates how watching that particular film was an other-worldly and ‘genuinely transcendent’ experience for him, and it’s more intelligent fare than some might expect from a ‘film book’.

To his credit, he heaps praise for the radio show’s success on Mayo, and quite rightly, because while the knowledgeable Kermode is the mouthy critic, it’s the broadcaster who quite brilliantly steers the bickering ‘wittertainment’ away from the rocks of self-indulgence and into the minds of the Sony Awards judges.

But back to the book, and my main problem, which is the writing style Kermode deploys: because it’s really very annoying. The concept is fine enough, we’re in his head and he’s imagining someone is making a film of his life, so we’ve got Charles Hawtrey playing Mayo, Julianne Moore playing his wife and the much-loved Jason Isaacs (hello Jason Isaacs), portraying Kermode. Absolutely dandy.

But why oh why did Kermode, or the publisher, or the editor, or whoever, allow the entire book to contain a word in italics - every other line or so - to demonstrate extra emphasis. A quick excerpt is called for:

“…true learning (it seems to me) is all about understanding and appreciating just how much you will never know. For example, at the age of forty-six, I am just starting to realise how vast and unbridgeable are the gaps in my knowledge of the history of cinema, a medium which has only been around for just over a century. Even if I dedicated every waking moment of the next twenty years to studying the art of silent cinema, the growth of Indian cinema, and the bewildering marketing expanse of the ‘Pacific Rim’, I’d still only be scratching the surface.”

Do you see what I mean? I’ll forgive Kermode a lot, but it just seems like bad writing if, by the way you use words and construct sentences, you can’t imply such an emphasis without the use of a different typeface.

So, rating time:

#54 It’s Only a Movie, by Mark Kermode (Random House) - 6/10

Next up: The Ruby in her Naval, by Barry Unsworth (Penguin Group)

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

#48 One Day, by David Nicholls (Hodder and Stoughton)

I was looking for a different book by David Nicholls (Starter for Ten) when I came across One Day, and, after reading the blurb, remembered that I had once heard Simon Mayo discussing it on the book review slot of his old BBC Radio 5 live show. Which is about all the impetus I need when it comes to selecting my next book.

Without pre-empting the whole rating business, One Day perfectly passable fare and I can’t dispute it provided some enjoyment. However, I must take issue with the incredible number of ‘book of the year!” testimonials from critics and other authors which adorn the cover and opening few pages, sample quote: “Every reader will fall in love with it. And every writer will wish they had written it.” (Tony Parsons, by the way)

There are some things to like about One Day, which explores and follows the relationship between Em and Dex, two students who sleep together on their graduation night, over the following 20 years. Crucially, the author just dips into their lives on one day per year, the anniversary of that first encounter, so you have to pick up whatever else has happened in their lives on the other 364 days. As devices go, it’s not bad, and it’s to its credit that it doesn’t feel like it overstays its welcome.

However, I can’t agree with Nick Hornby when he says One Day is ‘brilliant on the details of the last couple of decades of British cultural and political life’. No, it’s not. Parts of the novel feel like Nicholls has Googled a timeline for each year and just chucked in a couple of references to significant events so the reader can place themselves in the story to provide some additional colour. Oh, New Labour have just won the election (I remember that!) so it must be 1997; look, the lead character is presenting a late-night ‘largin it’ television show and dating a lad’s mag babe so it must be the late 1990s.

If it’s love you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right place. There is unrequited love and requited love, coupled with cheap flings and affairs, but aspects of the two main characters are so determinedly unlikeable that you don’t really care about their relationship or whether they will find love. Bad boy Dex is particularly hard work; after he’s spent so long being thoroughly unpleasant to Em, does Nicholls really believe we want Em, whiny though she often is, to end up with him?

All that said, there were some poignant and endearing moments. I cried, of course. I didn’t see the final twist coming. I laughed a few times. It’s like an unchallenging Hollywood rom-com, probably starring Jennifer Aniston – you know what to expect, it’s going to pass the time and be moderately entertaining, but it won’t change your life and you’ll have forgotten it tomorrow. Which is why these reviews need to be written quickly...

Oh, and a quick hello to Guilty Feat, a fellow Wire watcher (so obviously someone of particularly distinguished taste) who has kindly pointed me the way of his own review of One Day. We agree, we disagree, but I enjoyed reading his opinion.

So, rating time:

#48 One Day, by David Nicholls (Hodder and Stoughton) - 6/10

Next up: Thank You for the Days, by Mark Radcliffe (Simon and Schuster)

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