Thursday, February 09, 2006

What we do when not reading

On one of the bookseller email lists this morning there was a discussion about what tv shows booksellers watch. That got me thinking not only about what I watch, but about how it relates to books I have read...

The Office. If you enjoy reading Evelyn Waugh for his subtle but deadly satire then you will enjoy The Office. It is well written and superbly cast. It's like a chapter of Waugh a week, but brought up to date and set in a modern corporate office. Great fun.

My Name is Earl. A wonderfully quirky show, which reminds me a bit of a Vladimir Voinovich novel, and which definitely draws on the influence of Magnus Mills' "The Restraint of Beasts" and "All Quiet on the Orient Express".

Project Runway. Good [fill in the name of your favorite trash novelist here]-type fun.

Desperate Housewives. The televisual equivalent of reading 'People' magazine, and fun for the same reasons.

Arrested Development. What do you get when you combine elements of Fernando Arrabal's "The Compass Stone", William Monahan's "Lighthouse", Evelyn Waugh's "The Loved One", along with a pinch of Edgar Allan Poe, and make a television series out of it? That's right- something quirky, confusing and brilliant which very few people care to watch.

Boston Red Sox - anyone who follows their seasons on tv often finds themselves descending into something resembling a Kafka novel along about mid-August/early September.

Oops, gotta go. The Simpsons in on...

1 comment:

jgodsey said...

WOW! how freaky is that!
i was JUST thinking the same thing!