Books, films, etc
Jan. 7th, 2004 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liadnanNot that there are any films here, I just want to have a subject line I can consistently search on when I feel the need.
Anyway, Iain Banks, Raw Spirit. Bit of a departure for Banksie this one, so much so that when we initially heard about it we wondered whether this was our Iain Banks or another one (cf _Glamour Photography_ or whatever it's called)
Thinking of it as a book purely about whisky is something of a mistake, though there is undeniably a good deal of that there. It's also about cars, Scotland, and, inevitably, politics with specific reference to the war.
Despite my great fondness for his books, with or without the M, and my belief that he is an exceptionally good writer in any event, I've never pretended that I actually agree with Banksie on politics. Nevertheless, his ideas and opinions are invariably cogent, passionate, and well formulated, and I defy almost anybody to dislike the man who comes across through his words.
His opinions on whisky I do endorse, being as I am a fairly heavy drinker of decent Scotch (and Irish) myself. And there's a fair amount of information buried in there: one could read it all and more besides in other works of course, but in nothing like as entertaining a format.
The book could do with a bit more structure: his original idea of "the search for the perfect dram" gets a bit lost from time to time, and it finally just... sort of... ends, nevertheless it's a good read, and an insight into the man. Fans of Ken McLeod may be intrigued by Banksie's stories about him as well.
Anyway, Iain Banks, Raw Spirit. Bit of a departure for Banksie this one, so much so that when we initially heard about it we wondered whether this was our Iain Banks or another one (cf _Glamour Photography_ or whatever it's called)
Thinking of it as a book purely about whisky is something of a mistake, though there is undeniably a good deal of that there. It's also about cars, Scotland, and, inevitably, politics with specific reference to the war.
Despite my great fondness for his books, with or without the M, and my belief that he is an exceptionally good writer in any event, I've never pretended that I actually agree with Banksie on politics. Nevertheless, his ideas and opinions are invariably cogent, passionate, and well formulated, and I defy almost anybody to dislike the man who comes across through his words.
His opinions on whisky I do endorse, being as I am a fairly heavy drinker of decent Scotch (and Irish) myself. And there's a fair amount of information buried in there: one could read it all and more besides in other works of course, but in nothing like as entertaining a format.
The book could do with a bit more structure: his original idea of "the search for the perfect dram" gets a bit lost from time to time, and it finally just... sort of... ends, nevertheless it's a good read, and an insight into the man. Fans of Ken McLeod may be intrigued by Banksie's stories about him as well.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-07 09:46 am (UTC)It's really a travel book, to my mind, and he makes a good travel writer IMO. A bit like Bill Bryson, but without the suffocating tweeness quotient.