Round the Bend

by Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson gets really riled in Round the Bend. What's it like to drive a car that's actively trying to kill you? This and many other burning questions trouble Jeremy Clarkson as he sets out to explore the world from the safety of four wheels. Avoiding the legions of power-crazed traffic wombles attempting to block highway and byway, he he: Shows how the world of performance cars may be likened to Battersea Dogs Home Reveals why St Moritz may be the most bonkers town in all of the world Reminds us that Switzerland is so afraid of snow that any flakes falling on the road are immediately arrested Argues that washing a car is a waste of time Funny, globe-trotting, irreverent and sometimes downright rude, Round the Bend is packed with curious and fascinating but otherwise hopelessly useless stories and facts about everything under the sun (and just occasionally cars). It's Jeremy Clarkson at his brilliant best. 'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph 'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out Number-one bestseller and presenter of the hugely popular Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson writes on cars, current affairs and anything else that annoys him in his sharp and funny collections. Born To Be Riled, Clarkson On Cars, Don't Stop Me Now, Driven To Distraction, Round the Bend, Motorworld, and I Know You Got Soul are also available as Penguin paperbacks; the Penguin App iClarkson: The Book of Cars can be downloaded on the App Store.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Cars, Comedy, Anthologies

410 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2007

About the author

Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born April 11, 1960) is an English broadcaster and writer who specialises in motoring.

He writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun, but is better known for his role on the BBC television programme Top Gear.

From a career as a local journalist in the north of England, he rose to public prominence as a presenter of the original format of Top Gear in 1988. Since the mid-1990s Clarkson has become a recognised public personality, regularly appearing on British television presenting his own shows and appearing as a guest on other shows. As well as motoring, Clarkson has produced programmes and books on subjects such as history and engineering. From 1998 to 2000 he also hosted his own chat show, Clarkson.

His opinionated but humorous tongue-in-cheek writing and presenting style has often generated much public reaction to his viewpoints. His actions both privately and as a Top Gear presenter have also sometimes resulted in criticism from the media, politicians, pressure groups and the public.

As well as the criticism levelled against him, Clarkson also generated a significant following in the public at large, being credited as a factor in the resurgence of Top Gear to the most popular show on BBC Two, and calls for him to be made Prime Minister. Clarkson himself was keen to downplay his perceived influence on the British public, stating he regularly contradicts himself, and would make a "rubbish" Prime Minister.

Reviews

[Brian Clegg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know it's popular to despise Jeremy Clarkson, but I'm one of the many who find his buffoonery amusing. However I was a bit doubtful that I would find a collection of car reviews, some of them over 3 years old, entertaining. I shouldn't have worried. Clarkson's reviews typically only mention the car in the last 20% of the piece - the rest is an entertaining commentary on life from the Clarkson viewpoint.

I found the whole thing tantalisingly moreish. Admittedly occasionally I was a little worried as I seem to agree with Clarkson rather too often (for instance on music, and the fact that there is no need to go anywhere but France on holiday), but just as often the entertainment factor is just how wrong he is. I could only give the book three stars because the car review parts are rather dull and almost always are on silly cars, but I'd still recommend it for the rest.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing is clear from this book, if you do not like Jeremy then you will not enjoy this read. I do like Jeremy - that's not to say I agree with him all the time - and so I enjoyed this like I have all his others. It's not rocket science, it's not going to break boundaries in literature or win The Booker Prize but it's eminently readable and enjoyable. I love the way he starts off talking about any old random thing that has happened to him and ends up weaving it in to something to do with the car, however tenuous this is sometimes. I liked it but if you pay to read The Times online then don't bother with it as you will have already read it.

[Kevin de Ataíde · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of articles presents more the philosophy of the author than the several cars that seemingly must be reviewed at some point in an article. I cannot say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading them, but they did make me laugh several times. Three stars.

[Roshnara Mohamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me make something clear - I know nothing about cars. I asked my dad what a V8 engine is and was subjected to a half hour class on different engines, complete with diagrams, and I'm still clueless.
That being said, I enjoyed reading this collection of car reviews by Clarkson. An amalgamation of his reviews from the Sunday Times over a year or so, you get Clarkson at his snarky best, lamenting about crying Guardian readers who have descended to wreak havoc on petrolheads like himself. The occasional references to fellow Top Gear hosts were delightfully sarcastic, his grudging patriotism towards Jaguars was quite cute, and his rants were completely entertaining in the best way.
British humor. There really is no substitute.

[Adam Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read the last few rather disappointing Clarkson books, I approached this one with a little trepidation. However, it was better than I expected, in fact several times I found myself laughing out loud. It is composed mainly of Jeremy's car reviews, but don't let that put you off, because he seldom spends more than a few sentences on the cars themselves, preferring to go off at an often random and amusing tangent.

[Maarja · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked to read it inbetween books, so if I needed a break from another book, I could just start "Round the Bend" wherever I left over and read how many pages/articles I liked, put it down and repeat this process later.

[Robert Hepple · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 2011, Round the Bend is a collection of humorous articles previously published from 2008-2009. Each article is ostensibly a review of a particular car, but usually ends up being a serious of funny anecdotes before finishing with a small mention of the car concerned. The humour is just what most people would expect from Clarkson, so you either love it or hate it. I love it, because his constant self parody as a buffoon/clown with no concept of political correctness is all part of the act. Behind all of that, he is a highly experienced journalist who does know how to string two words together. Great fun.

[Pippa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this assuming it was one of "The World According to Clarkson" books but soon found out it was just car reviews. His comments are still entertaining but the lack of diversity in subject matter meant it was never going to be something I couldn't bare to put down, more of a case of one review at a time. I love "The World According to Clarkson" and "Clarkson's Farm" books so it's simply a case of me choosing the wrong book.

[Adam Hough · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has not dated well. While the actual car commentary is entertaining, the other Clarksonisms which might have felt fresh(ish) back when this was written in 2008/2009 are just painful to read fifteen years later. Still, there’s a lot more here in terms of sheer volume than his current farm books, but frankly those are a lot better…

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prefer the show, personally. Boyfriend loved it so if you're a car person, as I am not, you'll probably really enjoy it. I did read every single page in his voice though which was pretty entertaining.

[Michael Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant fun

[James Clarkson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would of enjoyed the book more if I read this when it was first released, as most of the articles were written in 2008.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Clarkson wit and metaphors galore.

[Cathal McGuinness · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whatever you say about the man himself, he can write well about vehicles and has a sense of humour. He just doesn't always know how to use it

[Tim Berntsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25/5

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who can resist the power of...... Jeremy Clarkson's analogies

[Lee Broderick · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2004, The Sunday Times suddenly realised that it was sitting on a literary sensation. Compiling two years' worth of Jeremy Clarkson's newspaper columns amounted to enough material for a book and, having done this, it sold well. The following year, they repeated the trick by compiling two years worth of his columns for the motoring supplement (now some kind of car/gadget/stuff supplement). The only strange thing about this is that it took them so long: it's essentially the same trick that the BBC pulled in publishing the much earlier Born to Be Riled . Since then, the publication of one or other of his columns has become an annual event by which you can gauge the coming of yule.

Like Born to be Riled, Round the Bend is a collection of Clarkson's car reviews (here from 2008 and 2009). "A collection of car reviews" sounds dull. It would be. Clarkson's car reviews are more like his opinion columns than actual car reviews, however: on average probably around 20% of the column space is devoted to the car in question.

So, fans of Clarkson will enjoy this as much as any of his works. He may be a popular (and easy) hate figure these days, but I for one continue to find his schtick amusing and agree with his anti-regulatory politics, even as I disagree with his views on the environment (although I'm never sure how much that is a part of his act now: he has a character to play in public). I particularly like reading his books when I'm travelling - the column based origins of them mean that they're easy to pick up and put down, they're light and funny (requiring little thought, great when you're tired) and reassuringly British upper-middle-class in tone.

[Jonesy_laaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read most of Clarkson's novels and I'm sorry to say that this disappointed me.

His writing style is still the same and is easily accessible to the audience. But in this novel, I found myself struggling to get into it overall.

I think with this book in particular, the focus of the novel hasn't been achieved. For me, I felt lost at times during the novel and felt that the direction that Clarkson was going in felt unnatural, forced and I suppose in a way not needed.

Overall, I was left annoyed and slightly angry after reading this book. I'd like to think that with any book I read that I would like to enjoy it and learn something from it. From this, I learnt nothing and I certainly didn't enjoy it.

The weakest novel of Clarkson by far and one I wouldn't recommend.

[Melanie]

If you're going to be insulted by anyone, you'll want it to be Mr. Clarkson or someone of his linguistic ilk. Some of my favourite jibes so far:
*Road cyclists = Lycra Nazis
*The vibrant colouring [of the Subaru Impreza] does at least take your mind off the fact that this is a GBP 25,000 car that comes with fewer toys than an Ethiopian birthday boy.
*Imagine drinking a pint of hemlock, setting yourself on fire and then jumping out of a plane when it's directly overhead a combine harvester. You don't know what's going to kill you: only that you are going through the Pearly Gates at great speed very soon. That's what the [Mercedes Benz CLK] Black feels like.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is one of his car books and is a collection of his articles from newspapers.

It's pretty good, I really like Clarkson's stuff and Top Gear is one of my favourite shows on TV... but, I'm not a petrol head or care that much about cars.

This was a christmas present from last year and if I'd have known it was a car book I'd probably not have bothered to ask for it. That said, it's not just 100% cars, there is some humour thrown in as well.

You'll love it if you're interested in cars, but if not you'd probably want to read his non car articles instead!

[NightAuditMan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book because the BBC show "Top Gear". I love the show and all the tidbits and silly things they do on it. That tongue-in-cheek approach of Jeremy's is especially my favourite part. I figured it would translate into his writing.

It does - sort of. The main problem I have with this book is that frankly I'm not British and therefore do not get half of the referenced to culture he is pointing out. The book is still funny and easy to read but missing out on those little things did irk me some. So I have to be fair in my review.

[Quanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally!!! I like Jeremy Clarkson very much, but mainly in Top Gear, where 1) I have subtitles and 2) he doesn't quite so much abound with his vast - and in this case annoying - English vocabulary. I really didn't enjoy having to search 1-5 word meanings in every page. That's why it took me so long though I genuinely like his style of writing. And no, translation is not an option because the translation always sux... so probably my last Clarkson, but I'll always look forward to him in TG!

[bananachocopie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clarkson, as always, delivers articles that are witty and hilarious. As a Top Gear fan, I could hear his voice through the words, if it makes any sense. Compared to his older work The World According To Clarkson, this one is focused more on cars, which makes it better in my opinion.

I might be biased.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collecting a multitude of car review articles, one can't help to find the inherent humour in Clarkson's writing hilarious most of the times, especially when it seems for basically all of them that the focus is on basically anything else, but the car.

A worthy read to get some good laughs off the topic of cars and petrol heads.

[Prashanth Baskaran · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read. If you want to truly enjoy this book, I recommend you do not read it in one go. Instead read it as if you'd watch a television series. Enjoy each article in the book individually. You'll be entertained in abundance.
There are some people who have a definitive gift of writing and the soul of wit. Jeremy Clarkson is the one of these rare authors.

[Jim Thornton · Rating 3 out of 5]

No real need for a review here. This is a collection of Clarkson's Sunday Times columns, and whilst amusing and entertaining (although ultimately a bit repetitive) does not constitute a real book. Leisure reading.

[Thierry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another bite of british humor. This books regroup some articles about cars that Jeremy made far a newspaper (dont' ask me wich !)

As ever the typical british humour, the cynical point of view about all and not only cars make me laugh.. I like top gear, and i like his humour.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being a fan of Top Gear, but not a reader of the Sunday Times (where the pieces in this book are taken from), I found Mr. Clarkson somewhat less palatable here than he is on television. But he's still witty and informative and of course, always a refreshing counterblast.

[Jack Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

typical clarkson. meandering rambling outpsoken nonsense about anything and everything but informative and enjoyable nontheless

[Simonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

and again I loved his cynical humor. Great stories about cars. He and I, we have the same humor !