book_of_kell's review against another edition
5.0
When Neil Perryman included the anecdote about his students going online while they were supposed to be watching classic Doctor Who episodes, I had a vivid memory of sitting with my laptop in my own college classes, reading Tachyon TV and Behind the Sofa instead of taking notes.
I read every Wife In Space blog post the day it published. I was giddy when Neil chose a question I submitted for a Q&A with Sue post, and I was anxious and checking for updates about Captain Jack for his whole illness. My point is I'm not sure why it took me so long to read this book. Neil and Sue are the reason I watched countless hours of classic Doctor Who on my own (recons included!).
I'm late to the game, but I'm very glad I read it. I laughed so much and there was a ton in the book that was new to me, even though I did read/listen to the whole experiment. It made me want to watch Doctor Who again. It made me want to read the blog again. And it reminded me that I never want to meet John Levene.
I read every Wife In Space blog post the day it published. I was giddy when Neil chose a question I submitted for a Q&A with Sue post, and I was anxious and checking for updates about Captain Jack for his whole illness. My point is I'm not sure why it took me so long to read this book. Neil and Sue are the reason I watched countless hours of classic Doctor Who on my own (recons included!).
I'm late to the game, but I'm very glad I read it. I laughed so much and there was a ton in the book that was new to me, even though I did read/listen to the whole experiment. It made me want to watch Doctor Who again. It made me want to read the blog again. And it reminded me that I never want to meet John Levene.
avrilhj's review against another edition
5.0
The best part of this book is the love story between the author and his long-suffering wife. While the tale of Neil Perryman's life as a Whovian, and of Neil and Sue's insane endeavour to watch every episode of Old Who, is fascinating and funny, it's the story of their relationship that moved me. Highly recommended even for non-Whovians.
meleaglestone's review against another edition
5.0
Okay so to be honest from the offset I actually know Sue and have come across Neil during my time at Sunderland University. I've known about this book for sometime and have come to know Sue as firstly a teacher and then colleague.
I doubt I'll be giving this book a very polished review because a) it's been a very long time since I poised pen over paper (or thumb over keypad in this case) to craft any sort of review of anything and b) I'm completely biased towards the author and its subject.
I purchased this last year and it's been sitting on my bookshelf ever since just begging me to have the spare moment to read it and finally this afternoon, I did such that. Actually I picked up the book at around 1pm and didn't put it down until I finished the back cover at nearly 3 o'clock.
What I found was an endearing account of one man's experience of Doctor Who from his early childhood, right up until adulthood. Not only has the author written a very light-hearted and completely amusing mini-memoir of his life so far but he's also spoken with such clarity of his wife on the page whilst exploring their experiment.
If you haven't done your research about their blog then I forgive you for being confused and as for the recent passage I read of a reviewer just not getting the whole style of the book... Well just take a step back and accept the book for what it is.
Did I feel enlightened and did the book change my life? Well not really, it was just lovely trip down memory lane for me hearing first hand some of the things I've experienced whilst at Sunderland and knowing these people. Did it make me laugh and did I happily lose a good portion of my afternoon to an easy read? Hell yes. I did learn a thing or two but really I very happily fell into the world of funny comments and phrases that really just cheered me up.
Basically this book is a beautiful companion piece to the blog and a glimpse into how two people have experienced the oddities of achieving some internet fame within their lives.
If you like Doctor Who and want a funny little read about the older series then the blog and this book is for you!
I doubt I'll be giving this book a very polished review because a) it's been a very long time since I poised pen over paper (or thumb over keypad in this case) to craft any sort of review of anything and b) I'm completely biased towards the author and its subject.
I purchased this last year and it's been sitting on my bookshelf ever since just begging me to have the spare moment to read it and finally this afternoon, I did such that. Actually I picked up the book at around 1pm and didn't put it down until I finished the back cover at nearly 3 o'clock.
What I found was an endearing account of one man's experience of Doctor Who from his early childhood, right up until adulthood. Not only has the author written a very light-hearted and completely amusing mini-memoir of his life so far but he's also spoken with such clarity of his wife on the page whilst exploring their experiment.
If you haven't done your research about their blog then I forgive you for being confused and as for the recent passage I read of a reviewer just not getting the whole style of the book... Well just take a step back and accept the book for what it is.
Did I feel enlightened and did the book change my life? Well not really, it was just lovely trip down memory lane for me hearing first hand some of the things I've experienced whilst at Sunderland and knowing these people. Did it make me laugh and did I happily lose a good portion of my afternoon to an easy read? Hell yes. I did learn a thing or two but really I very happily fell into the world of funny comments and phrases that really just cheered me up.
Basically this book is a beautiful companion piece to the blog and a glimpse into how two people have experienced the oddities of achieving some internet fame within their lives.
If you like Doctor Who and want a funny little read about the older series then the blog and this book is for you!
mferber's review against another edition
5.0
Okay, this book has a real specific target audience, and if you're in it, you know. This is kind of a companion* to the author's entertaining blog of the same title, in which he (a lifelong fan) and his wife (not a fan, but game, and very smart and witty) watched the entire 1963–1989 run of the original Doctor Who series, and he blogged her frequently hilarious reactions, and his own, to each episode. This book fills in some of the background to the blog, but also tells stories of the author's engagement with the series at different times in his life, and basically what it comes down to is he's just a really funny writer telling funny stories, many of which involve Doctor Who. If this sounds like something you might like so far, then it almost certainly is, and if it doesn't, then it almost certainly isn't. I thought it was terrific.
Oh yes, it also isn't available in the US, as far as I can tell, and I had to special-order a copy from some Amazon seller.
*(Pun not intended, but oh how I wish it had been.)
Oh yes, it also isn't available in the US, as far as I can tell, and I had to special-order a copy from some Amazon seller.
*(Pun not intended, but oh how I wish it had been.)
nwhyte's review against another edition
4.0
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2281787.html[return][return]One never knows, with a book based on a blog, if it's going to be just a recycling of the best pieces, perhaps augmented a little, or something a bit different. This is something a bit different. As many fans know, Perryman persuaded his wife Sue to watch every single episode of Old Who first shown from 1963 to 1996, and then blogged her distinctly non-fannish reactions. Watching Old Who from beginning to end is something that others have done (myself included) but it is of course fascinating to see what someone unburdened by fan lore makes of it. Her three 10/10 stories, incidentally, were Spearhead from Space, The Seeds of Doom and City of Death, and her lowest rating, -1/10, was for Time and the Rani.[return][return]But the book has surprisingly little of the blog in it; it's the story of Neil's life, and his life with Sue, and his life with Doctor Who, and it's a moving tale of growing up in the late twentieth century and living in the early twenty-first, and making sense of the world through a show that started the day after Kennedy was shot, ended just after the Berlin Wall fell and then started again in 2005. And what is nice is that the project, which started as his request of Sue, became for her a matter of pride - to get through the next story, and the next, and the next. (And there are a lot of them.) It's a lovely book, and anyone who knows a Doctor Who fan will enjoy it.
klauhau's review
4.0
This was really funny in places. Great little intro to Classic Who if you don't mind being spoiled.
freyaelliott's review against another edition
4.0
At last I have finished this book! Tomorrow I will right a full review on my blog. I would like to thank the publishers for sending a free copy. My blog: www.freyalikestoread.blogspot.com
bookcrazylady45's review against another edition
4.0
As a Dr. Who fan (Tom Baker was my doctor) I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
towards_morning's review
1.0
I'm starting this review before I even quite finish- nearly there!- because this book has left a bit baffled so that even though it's the book I am least likely to even recall having read in 2014 by next year, I absolutely have to get some of my confusion out. Bear with me here.
Doctor Who, like a lot of 'cult' series, tends to get a lot of unofficial memoir-style non-fiction written about it by fans. I actually do like a good book in this tiny genre. I enjoy reading about people enjoying things, and especially when they combine it with an interesting take on the thing in question. It's one of those oddly insular fandom things that I'm actually willing to jump on board with, given a book that looks well done.
So. This book. It's very much in the style of the early blogs that began to spring up quite some years ago now surrounding watch-a-thons. It's weirdly formatted. It seems to try to be a blog half the time and a book the rest, with no consideration for pacing (who reads a blog all in one or two goes vs. reading a short book?). The script-format stuff is kind of... awful. It's just a mediocrely-written book, to be frank. Mostly it's the author just talking. What he's saying isn't all that interesting or funny. It's full of weird tangents, and odd asides, and again, none of them are all that engaging to me. It needs three or four heavy goings over by an editor or two, at the absolute least.
And... ugh.
Here's the thing that gets me- you know how things can be more than the sum of their parts? This is a book that manages to be less than the sum of its parts. Everything about it banal and mediocre, but I just walked away from it feeling distinctly unpleasant. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's that the way the author talks about his experiences as a fan mirrors so many encounters with arseholes in fandom over the years. I don't know if it's that he's simultaneously self-deprecating about this thing I'm reading him talk about to the point I can't find it fun, deprecating of those geekier than him AND at times kind of deprecating of those LESS geekier than him. I don't know if it's the fact he doesn't seem to be able to pick any real target audience for the book. (It's not "proper geeks", whatever those are- he distances himself from those. It's not non-fans or '"casuals", because why would they pick up this niche book? It's not people who like analysis of pop culture; he couldn't analyse how to escape a wet paper bag.)
The book's just basically nothing. It's a load of air where there ought to be words! And sentences! And actual, real thoughts! It's some anecdotes about the life of a guy I have never met that he tries and fails to connect to Doctor Who while seeming unerringly embarrassed about, I dunno, liking a sci-fi show, I guess. He talks about watching episodes of the series with his wife. (His wife, admittedly, seems pretty funny, and if there's a book here, surely it's in the idea of putting pop cultural icons to the test by showing them to someone with no real close familiarity.) Nothing of note is really discussed. And then I got that weird, unpleasant vibe that just put me off it altogether.
There's shedloads of books like these around if you know where to look; people who have noticed the 'trend' of giving book deals to people for their watching of shows, or reading of books, whatever it is, entertainingly. Trouble is, the best of sites tend to include people who look deceptively casual about their consumption, but are actually a) much better writing than most can manage and b) usually try to focus on at least some actual analysis of the show.
I guess it's just- I can see wanting to read a book that details something a person loves in a joyful (and perhaps critical) light, using their own experiences to personalize it. What I don't get is how that turns into 'someone by their own admission feeling kinda bad about liking the show, passive aggressively whining about other fans and mostly trying to justify talking about their life like I really care that much'.
So please, can we stop giving blogs books when they're probably just fine as blogs?
Doctor Who, like a lot of 'cult' series, tends to get a lot of unofficial memoir-style non-fiction written about it by fans. I actually do like a good book in this tiny genre. I enjoy reading about people enjoying things, and especially when they combine it with an interesting take on the thing in question. It's one of those oddly insular fandom things that I'm actually willing to jump on board with, given a book that looks well done.
So. This book. It's very much in the style of the early blogs that began to spring up quite some years ago now surrounding watch-a-thons. It's weirdly formatted. It seems to try to be a blog half the time and a book the rest, with no consideration for pacing (who reads a blog all in one or two goes vs. reading a short book?). The script-format stuff is kind of... awful. It's just a mediocrely-written book, to be frank. Mostly it's the author just talking. What he's saying isn't all that interesting or funny. It's full of weird tangents, and odd asides, and again, none of them are all that engaging to me. It needs three or four heavy goings over by an editor or two, at the absolute least.
And... ugh.
Here's the thing that gets me- you know how things can be more than the sum of their parts? This is a book that manages to be less than the sum of its parts. Everything about it banal and mediocre, but I just walked away from it feeling distinctly unpleasant. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's that the way the author talks about his experiences as a fan mirrors so many encounters with arseholes in fandom over the years. I don't know if it's that he's simultaneously self-deprecating about this thing I'm reading him talk about to the point I can't find it fun, deprecating of those geekier than him AND at times kind of deprecating of those LESS geekier than him. I don't know if it's the fact he doesn't seem to be able to pick any real target audience for the book. (It's not "proper geeks", whatever those are- he distances himself from those. It's not non-fans or '"casuals", because why would they pick up this niche book? It's not people who like analysis of pop culture; he couldn't analyse how to escape a wet paper bag.)
The book's just basically nothing. It's a load of air where there ought to be words! And sentences! And actual, real thoughts! It's some anecdotes about the life of a guy I have never met that he tries and fails to connect to Doctor Who while seeming unerringly embarrassed about, I dunno, liking a sci-fi show, I guess. He talks about watching episodes of the series with his wife. (His wife, admittedly, seems pretty funny, and if there's a book here, surely it's in the idea of putting pop cultural icons to the test by showing them to someone with no real close familiarity.) Nothing of note is really discussed. And then I got that weird, unpleasant vibe that just put me off it altogether.
There's shedloads of books like these around if you know where to look; people who have noticed the 'trend' of giving book deals to people for their watching of shows, or reading of books, whatever it is, entertainingly. Trouble is, the best of sites tend to include people who look deceptively casual about their consumption, but are actually a) much better writing than most can manage and b) usually try to focus on at least some actual analysis of the show.
I guess it's just- I can see wanting to read a book that details something a person loves in a joyful (and perhaps critical) light, using their own experiences to personalize it. What I don't get is how that turns into 'someone by their own admission feeling kinda bad about liking the show, passive aggressively whining about other fans and mostly trying to justify talking about their life like I really care that much'.
So please, can we stop giving blogs books when they're probably just fine as blogs?