Born Weird by Andrew Kaufman

Publisher: The Friday Project
ISBN: 9780007441402
Format: Hardback
Pages: 270
Genre: Fiction, Quirky Fiction
Publication Date: January 3, 2013

Please note that this review refers to an uncorrected advanced proof edition.

SYNOPSIS

The Weirds had always been a little bit peculiar, but not one of them suspected that they’d been cursed.

At the moment of their birth Annie Weird gave each of her five grandchildren a special power that she thought was a blessing. Richard, the oldest, would always keep safe; Abba always had hope; Lucy would never get lost and Kent could beat anyone in a fight. As for Angie, she would always forgive, instantly. But over the years these blessing turned out to be curses that ruined their lives.

Now Annie is dying and she has one last task for Angie, her favourite grandchild. Angie must gather her far-flung brothers and sisters and assemble them in her grandmother’s hospital room so that at the moment of her death, Annie can lift these curses.

And Angie has just three weeks to do it.

REVIEW

New Year’s always does strange things to me. No matter how many times I tell myself that I don’t care about doing something special on New Year’s Eve and that there’s no real significance or rational function behind all my menial preparations to start the year off “right”, I still find myself running around my flat like a mad person during the last few days of December.

While I hate myself every year for the now expected annual irrational cleaning spree, there is one tradition that I actually quite enjoy adhering to: the selection of the first book to read to start off my year.

This is of vital importance to me. I know it’s silly, but books are a huge part of my life. It doesn't exactly revolve around books (though there might be some argument for that), but books do influence and shape my ideas, passions and sometimes my current outlook on life. So choosing the first of the year means a lot to me. It sets the tone and the expectations I have for the following months.

That’s the reason why I put off reading this book for the past few weeks. As much as my fingers craved to pick up the lovely proof copy, I couldn't think of a more ideal choice that filled me with as much anticipation and excitement and there is nothing quite like the pleasure of discovering that a new book is being published by one of your favourite authors.

Andrew Kaufman’s newest novel is a blursing. Fast becoming my new favourite word, it means exactly what it sounds like; it’s both a blessing and a curse. Born Weird is a blessing because it’s 270 pages of the most enjoyable and madcap writing I've ever had the privilege to read and a curse because I very much doubt I'm going to find something I love more than this book over the next 12 months.

What I love most about the novel is how Kaufman managed to impart each sibling with a unique interpretation of his or her gift. The introductions to each character serve as whimsical side stories that explore how each individual has allowed their ‘blursing’ to dictate their life and define their peculiar personalities. I won’t spoil anything for you since a lot of the addictiveness of the story lies in the unveiling of each curse’s manifestation, but they’re ingenious and wonderfully imagined; even the ones whose outcomes are somewhat predictable.

Andrew Kaufman is an extremely gifted storyteller. I admire his ability to imbue tiny touches of the unusual to otherwise mundane, realistic settings. He gives the everyday, the commonplace occurrences that make up our daily lives, life. That little sprinkle of strange is that little bit extra that livens up what could have been an ordinary family drama into a fantastic modern day tall-tale that doesn't feel out of place or farfetched. It makes you wish you had a little bit more of that same quirkiness lurking in your life. If, like me, you feel by the end of the book that you really want some more of that same magic to brighten up your life, I recommend seeking out his brilliant novella, All My Friends Are Superheroes. It’s one of my personal favourites to read whenever I feel a bit gloomy. It’s Andrew Kaufman just weirdly being weird and weirdly doing well and I hope that never changes. *

*This last sentence may not sound right or even make much sense, but I assure you once you've read the book you will all see how exceedingly witty and clever it really is. That or how cheesy it is.

Short and Sweet: The Twitter Review

The perfect personification of peculiar, Born Weird is a charming tall-tale: Eccentric, comical and with just the right amount of heart.

The Horologicon by Mark Forsyth

Publisher: Icon Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781848314153
Format: Hardback
Pages: 258
Genre: Non-Fiction, Humour, Reference
Publication Date: November 1, 2012

SYNOPSIS

The Horologicon (or book of hours) gives you the most extraordinary words in the English language, arranged according to the hour of the day when you really need them.

From Mark Forsyth, author of the bestselling The Etymologicon, this is a book of weird words for familiar situations.  From ante-jentacular to snudge by way of quafftide and wamblecropt, at last you can say, with utter accuracy, exactly what you mean.

REVIEW

One of my secret, well soon to be not so secret, insecurities is my perceived lack of an extensive vocabulary.  While I know that there are very few people that can claim complete mastery of the English language, I do feel more often than not that I can articulate myself much better in the written form rather than spoken. Is it because I get somewhat overly excited at times and my mouth runs miles away from my thoughts? Or hopefully, it’s the opposite and my mouth is frantically trying to catch up to my rampant thoughts, stumbling over words and leaving a trail of half constructed and only semi-coherent sentences in its wake. Most people that know me quite well will describe me at best as a rambler; a person who lacks organization in her speech or writing, but hopefully I’m an interesting one.

I would love to have the linguistic ability to say exactly what I want clearly and concisely when needed.  It may sound geeky, but that would be the equivalent of granting me a much coveted superpower. Forget flying circles around my enemies, I would love the skill and knowledge base to talk circles around them instead.  Give me Socrates over Superman any day.  

So now make way for my newly discovered modern day hero, Mark Forsyth: demystifier of obscure words, phrases, rhetoric and prose and my personal harbinger of lexical efficiency. His newest book, The Horologicon, or Book of Hours, is a brilliantly crafted collection of strange and wonderful words appropriate to each hour of the day. And that is exactly why this book is pure genius.

By assigning a certain hour and the common activities associated with that time of day to a single chapter and placing you, the reader, firmly as the main character of his narrative, Forsyth has already cunningly set the ground work for making all these seemingly daunting and strange words identifiable. He injects unfamiliar words seamlessly into familiar activities without jarring the reader away from the engrossing and intentionally educational depiction of their life.      

How many times have you thought “There HAS to be a word for that?” when going about a commonplace routine or daily activity? Ever seen some delicious morsel of food on a friend’s plate that you suddenly wish you had ordered yourself? Stared longingly after it as they painstakingly devour the object of your desire one slow bite at a time and with it the tiny slivers of hope you had of obtaining a sample. There’s a word for that!

Groke: To stare wistfully at somebody while they are eating in the hope that they will give you some of their food.

Maybe knowing exactly the word to describe your anguish will soften the blow for you when it happens next time. Probably not, but it gives you something else to focus on rather than that diminishing dessert.

While I can’t even begin to comprehend how to pronounce this next word, I still think it’s utterly brilliant and perfectly describes my entire time at University in one succinct word.

Shturmovshchina: The practice of working frantically just before a deadline, having not done anything for the last month.

The Horologicon draws from an interesting compilation of source material ranging from the expected; the Oxford English dictionary, to the obscure; Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, to the downright amusing; the Anatomy of Melancholy.  My personal favourite is The Vocabulary of East Anglia; An Attempt to Record the Vulgar Tongue of the Twin Sister Counties, Norfolk and Suffolk as It Existed In the Last Years of the Eighteenth Century, and Still Exists by Reverend Robert Forby, possibly because I’ve lived in Norwich now for about 6 years and there are still an alarming number of strange words I get introduced to every year. Keith Skipper has made a living from compiling several volumes solely on the oddities of the traditional Norfolk language, much to the delight of both tourists and locals.

What is surprising is that despite the endless stream of new terms thrown at you in rapid succession, the book remains an easily accessible and addictive read that rivals any fiction page-turner. It's been a while since I've last encountered a non fiction book that I've thoroughly enjoyed reading from beginning to end.  An absolute joy to read and to top it off I actually learned a useful thing or two from it. Mark Forsyth’s writing is witty and informative without ever succumbing to sounding smug or conceited. He’s charismatic, intelligent and inventive, but you never once hate him for it. Well, maybe a little. As much as I admire him as a writer, I can’t help but be envious of his ability to turn a phrase.

“It is for the words too beautiful to love long, too amusing to be taken seriously, too precise to become common, too vulgar to survive in polite society, or too poetic to thrive in this age of prose. They are a beautiful troupe hidden away in dusty dictionaries… They are the lost words, the great secrets of old civilisations that can still be useful to us today.”

A perfect companion to your daily routine, The Horologicon provides intrigue to even the most minuscule and mundane of life’s little chores. So embark on this linguistic journey to shed a new perspective on your everyday activities, rescue a new found favourite word from obscurity and then go forth and unleash your new found linguistic prowess on the unsuspecting masses. Your life and your vocabulary will be richer for it.

Short and Sweet: The Twitter Review

Exceedingly clever and endlessly entertaining. Filled with weird and wonderful forgotten words, The Horologicon is a rare reference book that begs to be read cover to cover in one sitting.