Review - Remember to Forget by Jonny Gibbings

From the writer of Malice in Blunderland comes this unexpectedly heart-warming novella about a husband and father winning back the love of his family. It’s very well written, well paced and just like his first novel could easily be turned into a film. However, while Malice in Blunderland would be an edgy satirical flick, Remember to Forget reminds me of one of those afternoon made for TV movies that pulls on the strings of your more sensitive emotions, of love and happiness and what the really important things in life are. A guilty pleasure, you’re unable to switch over and are welling up by the end of it. I thought this novel made a beautiful statement about the gifts that family and partnerships have to offer and Gibbings should be extremely proud of what he has achieved. But I also missed the hedonistic laugh out loud storylines from his first novel and the angry political righteousness of his blog. The versatility of Gibbing’s writing nevertheless suggests that there is plenty more to come, and that he is an author to watch out for.

For this blog's interview with Jonny Giggings click here.

Review - Teaching with Chopsticks by Jonathan Last

So the next indie review is here. Teaching with Chopsticks by Jonathan Last. Another book you’re not likely to see on the shelves of WH Smith, Tescos, or even Waterstones.

Once again this is a book about teaching English as a foreign language that’s a must if you are or ever have been a TEFL teacher. Or even if you’re thinking about taking that year out and would like a heads up on what it’s really like. More so than Stranger in Taiwan because this is essentially all about teaching.

In fact that’s the great thing about this book. Not only does it include the obvious drama of overcoming initial feelings of loneliness to create a new set of friends; acclimatising to a foreign environment, and plenty of nights down the local bar… it’s also very much about the job you have to do when you get there. It’s primarily about the experience of being thrown into a room with a group of children, staring up at you: expecting you to be their teacher; then gradually learning the skills needed to cope with all the ups and downs of the work.

Jonathan Last went to Korea with the intention of writing a book about his teaching experiences and it shows. The detail he puts in and the way the plot moves around his ever changing attitudes towards the job and Korea in general… this is no memoir, you’re actually there with him, which makes for great reading.

I also enjoyed the subtle sense of humour, the way Last manages to fit in jokes almost accidentally… or incidentally… but I’ll stop rabbiting on and leave you with a short quote:

I must have arrived between lessons because children are running around everywhere, stopping to examine me with great curiosity. The standard interaction is as follows:

Child: “Hello. What’s your name?”

Me: “Hi, my name is Jon.

(Child runs off giggling)

Those are the bolder ones; the more shy specimens just hang back and observe me from afar, in huddles. Uniformly black-haired creatures running around like some sort of sped-up negative of The Village of the Damned, an alien language filling the air and plastered all over the walls – I’ve definitely arrived.

(If you’d like to read the first 2 chapters in full you can get a sample from the Amazon page).

The only problem with this book is that it isn’t available in print. It’s been published by a small company specialising in e-books called e-books publisher. One day I hope to see it picked up by a larger company because it definitely deserves a wider readership.

Review - Stranger in Taiwan by Hartley Pool

For those of you who know I’m an English teacher living in Taiwan, you’re probably wondering when I’m going to write a book about at least one of these topics. Well, wait no more because someone else has already done it. Comedian John Anderson (pseudo name Hartley Pool (from Hartlepool)) has come up with a great little book that I can highly recommend. It’s all in there, all the Taiwan stuff and a lot of the teaching stuff too. In fact I’d have to say that if you are or have ever been an ELT teacher then you’ve got to get this because there aren’t enough books about this job. And if you’ve ever lived in Taiwan then it’s a must.

 

Each chapter reads like a blog entry or an anecdote so sometimes it’s a case of time having moved on in between, which can be frustrating because you want to get more involved in the personal relationship of the 2 main characters. However, to some extent this is to be forgiven because Stranger in Taiwan is essentially a non fiction book; and it started off as a blog.

The only downside is that the humour can be a little old fashioned at times and some “entries” are better than others. So if you want to get a taster of what this book is like you can read the first third of it on the autonomy website (secret tip from one cheapskate to another).

Stranger in Taiwan was released last month on Revenge Ink, an independent publisher from Paris.