I Am Not Fine Thanks, by Wil Anderson

Essentially a memoir of the COVID years, the self-deprecating comedian gives lots of personal insight, but little personal detail about how he got through them and how he is travelling. The intended audience must be fans of Wil’s stand-up or TV shows, who don’t know that much about him. Those who listen to any of his many podcasts will have heard most of the stories before and the repetitive style is more entertaining spoken than written on the page – possibly a recommendation for the audiobook version. Very short chapters and simple language make it suitable for those with a low reading age. The humour is often dry and acerbic, sometimes silly, always entertaining. The tone and the politics are reminiscent of the First Dog on the Moon cartoon, only with all words and no pictures. The last few chapters verge on polemic, which can get a bit much even if you agree with every word.

Uncook Yourself, by Nat’s What I Reckon

Subtitled A Ratbag’s Rules for Life, this is part memoir, part self-help from the YouTuber comedian who has become a surprise celebrity chef. His no-nonsense, sweary cooking videos became essential viewing during COVID restrictions and helped propel him to international stardom. The self-taught cook aims to demonstrate that it’s not that hard to cook good food from scratch. He encourages people to give it a go and ditch processed monstrosities such as pre-made jar sauce. The book details some of the serious physical and mental health issues Nat has faced since childhood and offers his thoughts on how he has overcome them. His honest and down-to-earth style is endearing, with an underlying philosophy based on kindness. The overall tone is one of casual cheerfulness, which accurately reflects his on-screen persona – complete with swears. So anyone uncomfortable with the F-word should steer well clear. The striking yellow and black cover design is echoed throughout the text, which is interesting and useful on the illustrated pages, but annoying and unnecessary when used to highlight random paragraphs. Recipes punctuate the chapters, depicted in an amusing and entertaining graphic novel style. Fuck jar sauce!

Stet: An Editor’s Life, by Diana Athill

A memoir of professional life, Stet provides a fascinating insight into the British publishing industry from immediately after WWII to the 1980s. Athill worked with many prominent 20th century authors, including Phillip Roth, Jean Rhys, John Updike and VS Naipaul, as an editor and as a director of independent publishing house Andre Deutsch Ltd. She touches lightly on the times and on personal issues, but concentrates on the working environment and associated personalities, focusing in particular on half a dozen authors she knew particularly well. Her pen portraits of these writers – some very well known, others not so much – are funny and insightful. The book is marred by the occasional grammatical error which seems very odd in an editor, but everyone makes mistakes and perhaps her own editor was too intimidated to make corrections! She saw enormous changes in the publishing industry and at the time this memoir was published, 2000, was still optimistic about its future despite a decline in editorial standards. She is still going strong and will turn 100 in 2017. It would be interesting to read her thoughts on developments in digital publishing and its impact on the industry.

Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi

This rather provocative title is actually perfectly accurate. The author is a professor of literature who has written a book on Nabokov and ran a book club for her female students who wanted to read classic novels banned in Iran in the 1990s. It is difficult to understand the seemingly blind complicity of Iran’s population with the totalitarian takeover of their country by a radical Islamic regime. Nafisi’s memoir explains how relatively easy it was to divide and conquer in a classic case of, “if you tolerate this, then your children will be next.” Non-religious opponents of the Shah, leftists and moderate Islamists found themselves sidelined, demonised and persecuted as the Ayatollahs gained strength. Women had it the worst as their country was taken back to the dark ages and they had to conform or leave if they didn’t want to die. In this the book holds useful lessons for today, with neo-fascists employing similar tactics, in various parts of the world,to divide and conquer their opponents. As much a book of literary criticism as a memoir, it is most interesting when it draws parallels between heroines of literature and the author’s students who resist the regime. Apart from encouraging these students by starting the forbidden book club Nafisi retreated from the regime rather than defying it; probably a sensible choice given the potential consequences. She was fortunate enough to have the means to eventually escape to the US after persuading her husband to waive his privilege. Most of her students eventually followed her lead in leaving Iran. This book was published in 2003, when the Islamic Republic had started to ease up, although life was still restricted and dangerous for its opponents. It would be interesting to read a more recent analysis of the state of affairs and the impact of a loss of generation of writers and artists on culture and society.