Product Description

AA Gill has been the must-read television critic in the Sunday Times 'Culture' section for more than ten years. This collection of some of the best writing from his columns is broken down into themes - Sport, Costume Drama, Detectives, Children's Television, and News. And now it's over to AA Gill... "Those who complain, usually from the Parnassian heights of print journalism, that TV is dumbed-down and peddles dross to the lowest common denominator, citing Big Brother or Celibate Love Island, miss the point. Reality TV is the exception; it's a tiny proportion of television's output. Most of broadcasting tells you things, and it's TV's great gift to impart information. The real criticism should be that it doesn't differentiate enough. It doesn't know the value of the stuff it pours out in a constant warm stream. We absorb what's useful and interesting. In barely a generation, the information from television has changed the way we see the world and everyone in it. That's no small achievement. Television really does make a difference. There are obvious individual examples: 'Cathy Come Home'; the newsreel of the Vietnam war in America; the Ethiopian famine. And television has utterly changed sport. Do you imagine there'd be anything like this fuss over an Olympics bid if it was only going to be shown on Pathe newsreel? Charities and pressure groups, from pillar-box conservation to animal welfare and cancer research, glean power and funds from tiny exposures on the box. It can bring down walls, save lives and right wrongs. It can also tell you how to put a water feature on your patio..."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #138039 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

About the Author
AA Gill is the author of two novels Sap Rising (1997) and Starcrossed (1999) and books on two of London's most famous restaurants, The Ivy and Le Caprice. He is the TV and restaurant critic for the Sunday Times and is contributing editor to GQ magazine.

Customer Reviews

Classic Gill, but...
Anybody who regularly reads Gill's TV reviews in the Sunday Times Culture section will know exactly what to expect here - fantastically perceptive, witty, sometimes slightly OTT, mini-essays on the past decade's programmes. I cannot rate him highly enough as a writer - but then, as a watch-much-more-than-I-should TV viewer, I'm a big fan of this type of thing. I also love the brilliant Picador collections of Clive James' old Observer TV reviews, and this is in a very similar vein. So, five shining stars for the quality of the written content.

My reservations are twofold:
First, they've played around with the format, splitting the reviews into themes (i.e. cop shows, kids' shows, etc) and I just would have liked the original articles in chronological order, giving me the feel of progressing through the years/memories. Here, a show from the mid-nineties can be right next to something broadcast just a year or two ago. I can't think why they did this (it makes it easier to compare reviews of programmes from the same genre, I suppose, but would anyone buying this book be wanting it in order to do that? It felt like my mind was having to bounce back and forth between memories of things I'd watched years apart). Also, on a slightly more minor note, I didn't like the idea of mixing up the typefaces, I'd go as far as to say it's irritating. Just the original reviews, cut 'n' pasted from the 'paper and put in chronological order would have been ideal.
Second, I can't think why it's taken so long. At least six or seven years ago I was reading Gill, thinking 'surely they'll bring out a collection of this stuff soon' - and now it's finally here I've finished reading it and I'm thinking, 'but what about all the other great reviews they've left out? I remember the one on this, the one on that, the one...' - I sincerely hope they're already putting together a second volume and that it'll end up as a series of books to rival those by Clive James ('rival' is probably the wrong word - make that 'supplement').

Anybody who knows how good Clive James is will know that this comparison is really the highest form of praise for Gill's writing talent, but because I think the format is a bit iffy, and because they've left it so late for the first book that they've had no choice but to leave far too much good stuff out, I'm holding back two stars. If this turns out to be Gill's only book of reviews it will be more than a shame because he's the best of the current crop by a country mile (makes what Charlie Brooker writes seem like it's been written by Clarkson with a severe case of ADHD).

My verdict on this book? If you've been watching TV for the past 15 years, then BUY without hesitation, and join me in praying for a follow-up - soon...

Paper View
Undeniably hilarious at times, occasionally insightful and often hugely exercised over some aspect of something or other that he seems to think matters very much but really doesn't, A.A.Gill certainly knows a lot of words. He also knows how to arrange them into savage sentences which show off his vast intellect in all its glory. He can make us laugh at ourselves and, more cruelly, at others. Throughout though, there is that uncomfortable sensation that we are all just small boys, enjoying pulling the legs off insects.