The 1002nd Book to Read Before You Die

by M.J. Nicholls

Fiction. Marcus Schott, sacked from serving succour to suckers and loans to losers, leaves the office life to luxuriate in literature. His plan is to read every title featured in Dr. Peter Boxall's notorious compendium 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Motoring toward a small pre-purchased cottage on the Orkney Isles, Marcus soon encounters fatal hiccups in his scheme to compress a lifetime's reading into three years. These hiccups include skittish librarian Isobel Bartmel, self-cauterising critic Raine Upright, and the unpredictable happenings of the characterless Orkney peoples, too long trapped in their bothies of banality, each pushing Marcus further from his ecstatic vision of total list completion.

A light comedy with a sunny paradisiac quality, rich in verbal virtuosity, Rabelaisian lists, and the occasional outburst of cheerful, cathartic violence, THE 1002ND BOOK is the ultimate summer novel against summer novels: an anti-crowdpleaser with a tidy, cinematic plot that should please both crowds and all those thoroughly depressed by them.

“Overarching and embedded within the pacy, racy and often hilarious novel-in-the-novel, M.J. Nicholls offers the reader (and writer) sustained and timely reflections on the state of literature today. The compendious range of literary references, coupled with vigorous comment and critique regarding both the works themselves and the institutions through which they are produced and circulated, make this, the 1002nd (or even 102nd) book you should read before you die, a rich and an intellectually rewarding experience.”
– Michael Westlake, author of Imaginary Women

“A bibliophile’s delight. If I were as clever as Nicholls, I’d describe it as ‘A sensational performance that takes the theatrics of a Morricone score and ties them to Sir Patrick Moore’s monocle.’ But I’m not, so I’ll just say this is a hilarious look at the literary life from both ends—reading and writing—paraded in a maximalist style with all the postmodern bells and whistles one expects from this ingenious author. Beneath it all is a deep knowledge and love for language and literature, despite Nicholls’s antic mockery of some of its creators and consumers.”
—Steven Moore, author of The Novel: An Alternative History

“A brilliant companion for anyone who needs to read, particularly fiction, and muscular encouragement for you who wants to begin. Wry wit and intelligence unfold this original novel, an unparalleled advocacy of the written word. When you look back through the brambles of the last paragraphs you will see that you have been swanked onto the literary playing field by a major player, a strong new innovative voice full of the joys of reading and writing.”
—Steve Katz, author of The Exagggerations of Peter Prince

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Books About Books, Scotland, British Literature

218 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

A man who wrote the novels A Postmodern Belch, The House of Writers, The Quiddity of Delusion, The 1002nd Book to Read Before You Die, Scotland Before the Bomb, Trimming England and Condemned to Cymru. He lives in Glasgow.

Reviews

[Fionnuala]

The Hottest Book of the Summer

This book is not so much a novel as a reading workshop.
No, hold the reading workshop label, this book is a full-on writing course!
No, scrap that, it's a
giant
barmy
bookaholic
Orwellian
sit-com

How so, you ask?

Well, It's the book we've all been waiting for.
Imagine the Goodreads population moving en masse to an island of the coast of Scotland.

Where exactly, you ask?

Head north from John o'Groats, past Hoy and Burray, then cut straight to Kirkwall on Orkney.
You can't picture that?
Time for a graphic.



Now, imagine different reader factions confronting each other on Orkney's cliff tops:
advocates of Wilbur Smith versus allies of Ali Smith
fans of Federman versus fanciers of Frantzen
partisans of Powell versus partakers of Proust
macho Mitchellians versus badass Barthites

Too much ill iteration?
Time for another graphic:



Right. Now you've met Scumegg and the Ork hoardes, you're ready for this reading.
Break open a box of wine and read through all 210 pages of the 'hottest book of the summer' in one go.

Go for it
a 'dhul a shon
lean arigh
fonce
avanti
tue es
ve a por ello
pro eo...
feel free to add to the list in your own reviews which are sure to be the
hottest reviews of the summer!

[MJ Nicholls]

As Cindy, Age 27, Female asked in her friend request: “Is this a real novel?” The answer, I resoundingly counteryawp: “Yes, Cindy!” This is a real novel. In this real novel, a character named Marcus attempts to cram a lifetime’s reading into one three-year period, and acquires a small holding on a remote Scottish island for this purpose. Upon arrival, Marcus finds the cottage a sodden hump of ruin unsuitable for three years uninterrupted reading and sadly observes his dream spinning away, and his life as a reader evaporating like hot milk on a cat tin roof. This is a novel obsessed with reading and readers, and the obstacles the world places in our face to prevent us from reading. This is a novel railing against the sheer audacity at a world that invents books and then prevents us from reading them, by forcing us to put on socks and sit on buses and poke computers and cheese for money. This is a novel that celebrates unlimited, unrestrained, irresponsible, insane levels of reading, to the point you have alienated everyone in your nonliterary universe, and have become thin and unclean and riddled with sores, because you have another 129 novels to read before next week. I hope you are a reader, and you read this rather stalkerish love letter to literature, and you take some pleasure from the words inside. I am a real author. This book is real. Thank you, Cindy.

ORDER FROM THIS PORTAL, MORTALS.

[Manny · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Oh God," moaned Manny, "not another of these meetings! I suppose MJ's written a book or something?"

"Correct," replied Manny. "Now is everyone here? Manny?"

"Present," said Manny smugly.

"Manny, Manny and Manny?"

"Available and reporting for service!" came the instantaneous triplicate response.

"And I suppose Manny is paying attention as usual."

A muted snore made itself heard from the far corner of the room. Manny gave an exasperated sigh.

"Well, that's as much as we could reasonably expect. Let's get down to business. Manny, why don't you start."

"Ah," said Manny diffidently as he peered at his notes, "a witty and passionate mashup of, um, a wide range of books including Keep the Aspidistra Flying, The Wonderful O, um, the entire literary outputs of Christine Brooke-Rose and Gilbert Adair—"

"Oh, for goodreads sake," interrupted Manny. "Couldn't you just tell us what it's about?"

There was a scandalised hush. Manny and Manny exchanged meaningful glances.

"I hope you are not implying," said Manny finally, "that you wish me to describe... the plot!" He spat out the word as though it were a piece of used novichok-flavoured chewing gum.

"Yes," said Manny defensively. "What's wrong with plot? And psychology? MJ professes a warm admiration for Dickens, who, for all his obvious faults, deploys an array of personages who are more than mere authorial projections. I—"

He broke off as Manny started to weep and looked around helplessly. "What did I do now?" he asked.

"You used the P-word," Manny managed to choke out between sobs. Manny handed him a tissue.

"Which P-word?" asked Manny, as he mentally replayed the conversation. "Plot? Psychology? Professes? Personages?"

"P-p-p-projection," sniffled Manny as he blew his nose. "I'm so tired of being a projection. All those strong, empowered characters—"

"For Otis's sake, Manny, pull yourself together!" snarled Manny. "I'm a projection and proud of it. Stop whining and let's get on with the job. We need to assign some stars while people are still reading this miserable excuse for a review. Manny?"

"Four!" said Manny, Manny, Manny and Manny in unison. Even Manny suddenly woke up and joined his voice to the chorus. Manny stared at them, dumbfounded.

"Four?!" he replied. "But, earlier this week you only gave three to Michel Houellebecq's controversial masterpiece La possibilité d'une île. You—"

"Look," said Manny, "I enjoyed this one more. Simple as that. I fell asleep in the middle of one of M. Houellebecq's trademark revolting sex scenes, but I could hardly put MJ's book down and read it cover to cover inside twenty-four hours. Don't ask me why, but those are the simple facts."

"Yeah," said Manny. "Manny's right. Unputdownable. And I laughed out loud at least twice."

"But..." said Manny helplessly. "I mean — what about the ending? You must admit that it was completely—"

"Not's tired of sitting and waiting for us to finish," said Manny. "Four, take it or leave it. We're going out for dinner."

"Shame on you," said Manny. "That was a low blow. But I know when I'm beaten."

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a waitress who insists on knowing what book I bring in my usual routine for breakfast. Perhaps she is intrigued by my eclectic bringings; or maybe she thinks of them as conversation starters, as I bring a forkfull of egg and hash browns mouthward. Like maybe she was a dentist in a former life. In any event, I put my forkfull down and tried to explain that this was a writing about writing, a reading about reading, a publishing about publishing, words about words, a book about books. "Oh," she Seinfeldianlingly said, "Like a coffee table book about coffee tables?" Very.

I read this because I like to read books by my Goodreads friends and M.J. seems like a decent enough sort. Meaning, not at all a pretentious asshole. But, candidly, I had lowered expectations. How could someone who hangs out with us be any good?

Well, very, actually.

There was this:

Do you know what it's like for weirdo authors? . . . We live for the studied indifference and contempt of the reader. A hostile review makes us feel the whole enterprise was worthwhile.

Sorry, M.J., but I can't oblige. This was good. A little goofy at the end, the killing-off, but until then I was rapt, wishing a houseful of guests would leave so I could keep on.

And, it spoke to me: He was a voracious and shallow reader . . .

I am tempted to read the earlier works, and I probably will . . . just not in public or around any female I'm trying to impress.

This is highly recommended. And yet, and yet, it would have been so much better if the author had a beard.

[Anni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blasé bibliomaniacs will be beguiled and bedazzled by the literary allusions and alliterations aplenty in this mischievous metafictional meditation on make-believe.
You don't need to have read 10001 books before tackling this one, but it certainly helps to have read voraciously with an eclectic taste in fiction to fully appreciate the virtuosity on display.

* P.S. My 5th star is awarded for the creation of a female librarian character who is not a pathetic spinster stereotype based on the one in 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

There are endless quotable examples, but here is a couple of gems to tempt you further:

"Is there, beneath that pile of books stacked up in the corner, an obscure author’s forgotten masterpiece, waiting to be unearthed? How many not-quite-right books do I plough through in place of the perfect ones that might forever elude my eyes? Why do certain books arrive at the wrong time in one’s life, and find themselves forever blacklisted? Why do books once rapturously received collapse upon second readings? Do books have a life after that one rapturous reading? How can it be one person’s lot to only finish reading Stephen King’s The Stand in the course of their lives, and another’s to read the entire pantheon of Boxall-approved world classics from Homer to now?"

"In my experience, there are six kinds of readers. The first aspire to omnilegence, i.e. to have read and absorbed all worthwhile books in existence, leaping with hopeless indiscrimination from a lesser title in Zola’s RougonMacquart sequence, to a Stewart Home novel with a non-provocative title, to a former rock musician’s valiant first-novel failure, to an obscure 1000-page Zimbabwean epic about crooked agribusiness, , to an elegiac Frank Kermode memoir."

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Books represent reality.”
“Books are reality. There’s nothing else.”
— M.J. Nicholls, THE 1002ND BOOK TO READ BEFORE YOU DIE, Sagging Meniscus Press, 2018

Finally! A book written by a writer with the intent to be read by readers that mostly deals with readers reading and writers writing books. One doesn’t have to plow through all the other 1001 books listed in Dr. Peter Boxall’s 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die [Ed: Otiose! When else?] to enjoy this one.

The author is Schottish and the book is set in Schottland, on the Isle of Orkney, so it sort of makes sense to call the part-time protagonist Schott too: Marcus Schott drops his job as a loan advisor, procures a cottage (sight unseen) on said island, in order to read said books proposed by Peter Booksall. The chosen domicile turns out to be an hébergement déclassé, a sorrowful sub-standard shack, which prevents Marcus from refined reading and excessive postage for books sent from anywhere to the island doesn’t allow him buying the bulk of Bucksall’s books. Even the local library is of no help, but at least Marcus gets to meet some lush and lavish people on the island: First and foremost Isobel Bartmel, an alluring woman, who becomes a fitting fulfillment for Marcus’s frisky feelings (and shares some traits with Lydia Dutch from the author’s “Belch”). Closely followed by Raine Upright, a former lecturer, who has his very own ideas and ideals of a proper reading syllabus and explains those in a monthly magazine called Up Yer Syllabus.
So far, so fascinating. A reader’s life on an island (to which he brought but only a few books) including obnoxious obstacles that keep the reader from reading and obstreperous colloquists that pretty much do the same thing. I totally loved it up to that point — about half of the novel — and I was mentally rubbing my hands in anticipation of how the plot progresses.

Unfortunately I also had to take a break from reading and was forced to spend three sunny days with a group of friends, sight-seeing some town in Eastern Germany, wining, dining and other “real world” stuff that non-readers often do and enjoy. When I returned to the novel everything has changed. Life on the island was turned upside down by the People in Grey. The “PiG”, as they call themselves, took control and ██████ ████[…]███████ ███. [Ed: xed for spoiler reasons] I’m sorry to say that this second half (excluding the chapters titled “On Writing” and “On Reading”, the meta chapters) didn’t work well for me. I know, or at least I’m quite sure I know, that the stage for this absurd theatre is set up with firm tongue in cheek. But, alas, the irony failed me for the most part, even though I’m usually an imperturbable irony fan. It was just the wrong kind of wryness. Maybe it’s because I’m German and some of the neolojizzing didn’t get through to me. Or perhaps I’m a schismatic swine unable to pick up the pearls that are cast before me. Another reason could be that I read the novel’s second part on a train-ride, including the chapter called Bore on a Train in which the (meta-)author illustrates the perils of train reading... D’oh!.

In summary: The first part was top-notch, the second part a little over-the-top. Not a bad book by any means and I don’t mean to discourage courageous readers from reading it or would-be writer from gaining some inspiration.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe in a strong code of conduct with friends' novels: I read them from cover to cover, even if the content turns me puce with rage, and even if I despise the novel, I will serve up a four-star review of praise, faking compliments about the prose if there was nothing commendable.

This makes my four-star praise look suspicious, but puce-coloured or otherwise I greatly enjoyed this playful novel, by means of which the author takes revenge on an illiterate public by writing a plot that culminates in literally shooting good writing into people's heads with firearms. This may be a workable idea, we should run with it.

Nicholls comes across as something like Steve Aylett mixed with Russell Hoban doing a dubious Scottish accent – by which I mean that his sentences are aggressively allergic to cliché and also concerned with capturing something of the mysterious creative process. So he begins by setting up the story of an ambitious reader on Orkney, but this is soon interrupted by an avatar of the author himself, who steps in periodically to talk about the thankless task of trying to write and get published in a world of manspreading philistinism.

These sections are among the most fun, managing to combine moody observations on writing (‘Writing is listening to Tom Waits and wanting to be the literary equivalent’) with bitter jeremiads from the drab hinterlands of literature, such as trying to teach storytelling to a load of retirees hell-bent on publishing their family histories (‘featuring cover art of a random field in monochrome, or sepia-tinted old photos of dead people as young people’). The reviewing community does not escape unscathed here, particularly those who

spend hours selecting the most irritating animated gifs to post on their online reviews of piss-poor romance novels, picking the shortest kindle stories to lambaste in a series of looping images featuring sitcom characters pulling shocked faces with unamusing captions below…

But by far the most jealous fury is reserved for other writers, and the kind of undiscerning reader (‘fucking middlebrow shitmuncher’) who enables them. Nicholls manages to incidentally slag off almost everyone in the world of fiction, from Iain Banks (‘overrated and tedious’) to Stephen King (‘untalented’), by way of David Nicholls and Khalid Hosseini (‘execrable’). This is a great deal of fun, right up until he mentions someone that you like (which for me came when Ada or Ardor was described as ‘unreadable shite’), at which point sadly he lapses into sacrilegious absurdity.

The writing – as he explains more or less directly – ditches such bourgeois conventionalities as coherent plot and lifelike characterisation in favour of blocks of stichomythic conversation, interminable lists, and injections of Brechtian defamiliarisation. I could have done without some of the more clever-clever wordplay, but otherwise these techniques worked really well for me and generated a delicious sense of a writer in love with the manic possibilities of his form.

My only complaint was that the righteous fury at bad writing, enormous fun though it is, is unleavened by any references to the joys of good writing. One can just about make out some signs of enthusiasm for people like Rikki Ducornet, Christine Brooke-Rose, William Gass and other Dalkey-Archive-type experimentalists, but without going into the kind of detail that would frame his takedowns as targeted attacks rather than blanket cynicism. As it is, the book's climactic exhortation to ‘fucking READ, motherfuckers. READ’ does seem to come with the giant unwritten qualification ‘as long as what you read isn't total shit, which it almost definitely is’.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

You will encounter the voracious readers who loathe competition, and who will challenge you to a literary duel, rather than engage you in friendly conversation about your latest reading. You will encounter the slack intellectuals who will immediately ask you if you have read Finnegans Wake, and when you say you have, will ask if you if you understood every line, and when you say of course not, will make some point that generally alludes to you being a halfwit. Fuck those fuckers.

I found this novel recalls Anthony Burgess. Yet, I was looking for a feel good purpose, maybe a call to snowboard.

Maybe the disparate races will find understanding and perhaps Vermeer gave us the hidden tools to topple Amazon.

There's a part of me which screams this is Emmanuel Goldstein's manifesto to Goodreads. I am not being hysterical or at least not completely. Eric Blair features large in these pages. I did appreciate the sly aside per Wells and Orwell.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Disclaimer :: MJ is a really nifty guy. He hangs out on gr and reads manymany very nifty books. He also writes very nifty books. I've read all the books he's written. I've liked every single one of them, even that really skinny one about that skinny kid with the little wang hanging out on the beach I think it was about. Anyway, MJ is a really cool component of the parts of gr I hang out in and I wish him forever continuing success so I'll always be reading every little (or possibly FAT) book he writes.

I think if you really like reading, and I'm sure you do, you'll really like this one. {I know you may not quite believe me given what I've had to say about A Postmodern Belch but honest this one here is MJ's finest I can say that with certainty because I've read every book MJ has ever published and nearly every gr=r/Review he's written on this website.} And sometimes we even exchange insults over our mutual bad taste in literature. So, in sum, please do not spend your Summer avoiding this 1002nd Book Before Your Dead because chances are it'll brighten your day put a smile on your face a skip in your step and lead you into Chuckelsville and Lit=Bliss Town and places like this.

Two Thumbs Way Up.

_________
Arbitrary Soundtrack ::

Everyone Deserves to Die
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZIEp...

Die Young
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KbkQ...

Dying Creed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcl5A...

Your Treachery Will Die With You
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8Jjy...

[Stephen P(who no longer can participate due to illness) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review Really a 3.8. I am not a fan of slapstick humor and much prefer M.J.'s wit which for me is a talent he holds high above most.

[George]

Nicholls' novel is doing more than most of the books I've read this year combined. There's a love of language and books here, alongside a well-earned hatred of the reader and the publishing world. Both the prose and narrative are self-conscious and acrobatic in the best ways. The first half reminded me of Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew, while the second half evoked Mark Leyner's Et Tu, Babe, especially for how delightfully insane the plot becomes. This is the perfect book for passionate writers and readers who have a graveyard's worth of bones to pick. In that sense, it's cathartic as well as entertaining.

***

Usually, I interview authors who are septuagenarians, octogenarians, or even nonagenarians. I've set myself the impossible task of preserving dying generations of innovative writers. But what about the future of literature beyond these legends? Sometimes I interview younger writers, and in this case, I have the pleasure of presenting my exchange with M.J. Nicholls. He's impressively prolific and recently released a short story collection from Sagging Meniscus. Earlier in the year, I read his The 1002nd Book to Read Before You Die and found it delightful. Mark has also generously helped me in my preservation efforts by getting me in touch with two rare writers. It's a cause that he has done plenty for on his own. Here's the interview: https://thecollidescope.com/2023/09/3...

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copy kindly provided by author and GR friend, MJ Nicholls.

This book rails against the idea of writers being forced to smother their originality and blindly conform to conditions which reduce their writing to a mediocre mush, all in order to guarantee success on the book market. Not only that, it also shows the impossibility of readers forcing themselves into unpleasant solitude and unbearable penury in order to gorge themselves on books prescribed by literary critics. (I think it fairly likely though, that the picture we get of the reader scrimping on necessities in order to keep him- or herself provided with reading material may be closer to strict reality than we realize.)

The basic message about reading and writing and how they should be done is fairly clear, I think. But this pill of literary criticism is sweetened by the actual book itself. In another of Nicholls' outrageously comic postmodern offerings, a cast of larger-than-life rebels wreak hilarious revenge against the representatives of the status quo.

It may be ironic that I read most of this in a state of lockdown, but at least I could do so in more comfort than poor Marcus. Thanks go to MJ for making my isolation more bearable.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book opens with a legal disclaimer: "The Scottish Arts Council strongly repudiate all the claims made in this novel" So I did what any good reader would do, travelled to Scotland and read the book there. In their faces!

I don't think a book has abused this reader as much as this one has, insult after insult is hurled in the reader's direction, daring them to continue. Your favourite authors will also be abused filling you with rage as you turn each page. Nicholls makes up words just to piss you off. And the book has no flow at all, bouncing all over the place. Still it made the 1001 classic books I read before this one seem bland beyond belief.

You get some truly stunning paragraphs, my favourite came right at the beginning:

"Like most sane human beings, his true calling was sitting in a vacant room with the blinds drawn in a comfortable chair reading text running from left to right, verso to recto, for hours at a time."

There were some real laugh out loud moments, the author's opinion on Goodreads reviews of crappy romance novels full of animated gifs which mean you spend ages scrolling down the page to get past to something worth reading was pure class. If I had more stamina I would fill this review with Gifs, but I can't bring myself to do it.

I have to admit though I did start to struggle a bit near the end, the authors inane lists, designed to annoy, did in fact start to annoy, it was probably an illusion but they seemed to get longer and longer. It's all worth it though for the last chapter, very reminiscent of Trainspotting "Choose life" clip, a call to arms to get people reading, deserves to be made into posters and pasted in libraries and bookshops everywhere.

So go on, give this a go, it might change your outlook on life or something.

Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018...

[David Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the spirit of Gilbert Sorrentino, Nicholls fills the pages of this meta mission statement with numerous humorous lists. More happily still, the majority of these lists are bent to the purpose of vilifying readerly laziness: the perusal of novels whose virtues signal goodness to the monolith of moralistic reader-poseurs; the embrace of the clichéd and overly familiar; a lifetime’s costive heaving to the end of WAR AND PEACE. For those remaining readers who exercise discernment, autonomy and who, hell, actually read, 1002ND BOOK is a heartening rally cry from an erudite and passionate neopostmodernist.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the plot disintegrating part way through I really enjoyed this one. A must read for anyone who loves reading (and, like myself, is a good bit snobbish and elitist about it)

[Zadignose]

M.J. turns in his word-playingest, alliteratingest, alludingest literary farce yet. Its disparate elements are well balanced and they give a varied and entertaining reading experience, the whole package is well-polished, there are heaps of author-names in there to point the reader towards more to read--for the rest of one's lifetime, and I'm not talking about the 1,001 Boxall list--and there's even opportunity for the reader to experience vicarious triumph through some of the exploits of the renegade characters, even if things can't be said to go entirely their way in the end (understatement). Is this Po-Mo literature's answer to Cecil B. Demented? Maybe. It wraps up well, with an excellent injunction to the reading audience. And there's even pictures!

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

outrageous, hilarious...but sometimes a bit over the top for me

this was a kindle unlimited book that was swooped away when my term expired but grabbed it back when I started a new membership....in other words, the book does not require a week to read.

[J B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like reading this book explains itself more than a review could out of any book I've read. This novel is written in a way that is pointless to explain to other people because I feel it demands to be read. I think of George Saunder's middling Lincoln In The Bardo and how that book felt like it was just trying to impart one moral lesson on it's reader (despite occasional good parts). This book also teaches us something: to be better readers in an unclear literary future that is ultimately decided by us. I believe myself the target demographic of this book and Nicholls captures that type of person well in type. The desperation of readers and writers who climb various metaphorical mountains (or maybe just annoying arbitrary seeming slopes) in order to foster bizarre masterpieces (or otherwise) and any remaining books worth our eccentric tastes. I interpret that the book contains the Marcus plot to demonstrate how opposed or uncaring the world is at large to such a story. It's the springboard for the authors attacks on the people's lack of lit love which I enjoyed more than the Marcus bits. When reading those parts it at times feels like a retread of other stories but I there is original material within that which is fun to read and remark at. I feel that Nicholls is pretty good at tying the world in which I'm alive in at this present moment of writing this review into his prose and I enjoy reading that. I would enjoy sharing it if when I tell the one-hand-in-number people I know in person to read this book for his humor and cultural remarks they would actually go out and say to me "Well golly gee then I HAVE to read that" then I would enjoy it but it won't happen knowing what I know about my own life. I also really enjoyed the part at the very end. I hope the author channeled got some anger (or am I just fooled by his writing?) out writing this because even if it means there is more good content to come out of him I wouldn't want him to get a heart attack.

Enough about the book and more about my own review: I've been dreading writing this which I am by no means required to write. The author probably barely knows who I am at all and the same can be said of me but perhaps slightly less so because I feel the author has something of a "stature" on here in my opinion. Bringing it back to the book's content there is some stuff about how no one cares for each other's work, only their own thus sparking halfassery in regards to looking at the art others make just for the sake of them kissing ass even if they halfassed the appreciation of your creations yourself. It is another great thing to have been put into prose dust which my eyes have absorbed for the sake of making me into a slightly better person. The point of this paragraph is to say that I could of kissed ass because I could for any number of reasons. But I want to respect the author by giving my honest opinion. I don't think the novel was one of the best books I've ever read and it has things in it which I think were executed fine enough or slightly less so but not with genius at all times. I do however in complete honesty think that in the future when there are people like us when we are old or dead they will read this novel with the passion of reading we have and remark upon it's uniqueness and the author's wit and love of whatever it is that draws us to unconventional literature.

I haven't proof read this because I am running late for something. Enjoy the review ladies and gents, sorry if it doesn't make sense somewhere.

[Kathleen Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic, hilarious and beautifully wry book! Brilliantly paced and perfectly executed ideas, I enjoyed this book immensely and found it an incredibly rewarding experience. Nicholls is an wonderful and extremely talented writer and I cant wait to see what he does next! Thoroughly recommend!

[Melly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my god, man.

I want to transfer this book into Shrinky Dinks and wear it as a pendant. I want to have it microprinted so I can keep it in my wallet. I want to unravel it and have it knitted into a sweater. I want to boil it down and distill it into essential oils so it can scent my homestead for always. I want to run it through Crispr, however that works, and have it fused with my DNA.

I love it, and love it, and I'm gonna love it forever.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reads like a joke that BJ Johnson-bro is telling to you, you’re aged 25/6 now four years plus removed from a 2.1 in english literature currently living with Boyfriend - a DavidFosterWallace-bro - and as someone who has only read two books since graduation: Little Women for the 3rd time, (this is the excuse for the lack of reading made as the existential crisis that occurred slowly payslip by payslip thrusting you towards the realisation that you are more like Amy than you had ever previously imagined) and half of The Testaments, a gift from Parents because they remember how much you ‘loved’ the first one’ when you were ‘sixteen’ which DFW-bro Boyfriend bullies you about because you ‘like’ “such basic entry level fiction, like, you don’t have to read Infinite Jest because you know I’m not like one of those ‘bois’ but you should at least read more, maybe American Psycho, it’s just begging to be a feminist classic you know”, to which you just couldn’t get into Atwood’s Booker Prize Winner and just sat down with a Sally Rooney instead, you realise that his joke is quite clever because it’s about a DFW-bro who retells the plot of a ‘mysterious novel set in Scotland about a madman hoping to read 1001 books, whose original manuscript was written in French free of style’ but that he’s unsure about the original language because he hasn’t studied French since Year 9 and it becomes clear that this is just a distraction in the hopes that he can chat you up whilst he slyly slides his hand slowly up your leg grasping for that thigh or perhaps taking a chance to try and cup your left breast, only for you to realise that BS Johnson-bro is doing the same, only for then for you to look down at the hand and see that it belongs to DFW-bro Boyfriend when you quickly throw his hand away and storm off to the bar, order a single vodka tonic and wonder how long, ‘probably half hour’, before one makes the other an offer of sodomy in vain of a joke about how much they both love Sade’s 100 Days of Sodom.

[Beatrix · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could say that Nicholls’ novel is the brand new level of postmodern, self-reflexive metafiction, but I think I’ve written similar things about other books before (even though there’s always an even more brand new level, and my vocabulary is limited), and anyway, the words postmodern, self-reflexive, and metafiction sometimes make me want to puke, and I don’t feel like using them yet again.

Isn’t it possible to just write a story sometimes – a story which is not about itself, but about something that exists out there in the world or even inside our minds?

According to Nicholls, no, this isn’t possible – so we have everything necessary here for a wonderful meta-masturbating novel, in which a smart-ass master of literary studies whines about the difficulties of writing and reading, and about the fact that literature is dead.

However, there’s one thing which saves this novel (and even makes it really entertaining): it’s clear that the words postmodern, self-reflexive, and metafiction also make Nicholls puke – therefore he manages to approach the topics above in a delightfully cynical way.

The novel consists of two distinct storylines. The first one is the story itself, in which a guy called Marcus decides to move to a small island at the end of world to devote his next three years to reading all 1001 books a person must read before he dies. According to Marcus’ theory, after reading all 1001 books, he’ll finally be rid of the compulsion to read all the time and will be ready to live a normal life. However, he soon meets the decidedly quirky inhabitants of the island (for example, Isobel, the eccentric librarian, who speaks in a fancifully Baroque way, and who’s looking for a guy who’s constantly reading; or Raine Upright, the self-appointed critic and devoted enemy of the literary canon, who produced such masterpieces of literary interpretation as, for example, 100 Novels That Should Be Fisted to Death); and thanks to his new acquaintances and other arising troubles, Marcus’ reading project doesn’t go as planned.

The other storyline is about a writer who applies to a literary contest which will reward the work of a young writer who would become the new voice of the Scottish Highlands. Based on the inspiring, heartwarming, and widely accessible synopsis and first chapter he submits, the young writer wins the prize – but he has no desire whatsoever to complete the novel. Instead, he goes on to write the novel from the first storyline – a novel with no discernible plot, with no real characters, with no inspiring or heartwarming qualities – a novel unable to address a single person in the world.

Both storylines are rich in literary asides and snide remarks (some of them I understand, some I don’t; and sometimes I agree with the overt or implied criticism, and sometimes I don’t) – so for the proper enjoyment of the novel, it might be best if you’d already completed your list of 1001 books.

And I enjoyed all this for a long while, but at one point, I completely lost interest. It happened when one day I slipped on a bunch of wet leaves during rollerblading and made a bloody mess of my knees. Consequently, I spent the whole evening wondering whether I have tiny little pebbles in my knees now, and whether I’ll need to have my legs amputated if I don’t go to the doctor, just use regular home remedies – and I couldn’t care about this book anymore.

I only mention this because to me it illustrates that literature (and especially: mental masturbation about literature) can be interesting but it often ceases to be interesting the moment something real happens – for example, if there’s a chance that there are real tiny little pebbles in a real knee.

Anyway, it’s not a bad book at all, but I realized by the end that I most probably won’t ever get to the end of the 1001 novels I must read before I die. I mark the ones I had read in a special list, though – just in case.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Checked this out from the library and deposited it atop my imminent reading pile, but the title and premise were so tempting my wife snatched it first. I liked it a bit more than she did, though. Perhaps I just enjoyed MJ Nicholls' style more, and there is a lot of that, with playfully punny prose throughout and some absolutely killer nuggets. I'm also more willing to go along with an experimental or nonsensical plot, and there's that too. But admittedly it loses steam and tilts a little too zany in the second half, when the initial setup is more or less abandoned for metafictional screeds and endless joke lists.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a lot of points to make about literature, but I don't suppose it's an oversight that none of them have much to do with good storytelling or enjoyableness.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A weird one, because I can't really decide whether I liked it or not! Hence the 3 stars - some parts of it would definitely be 5 stars, whilst others would be lower rated.

Essentially the story is focused on what Goodreads effectively encourages readers to do - to try and read a requisite amount of books in a certain time, which is what Marcus Schott is trying to do - even moving to the Orkney Islands to get the time and space to plough through a list of books in 1001 books to read before you die.

But that's the easy to follow bit of the plot. The book is interspersed with thoughts on reading and writing apparently emanating from the author himself, as he breaks the 4th wall to either speak directly to the reader or reminisce about things he has said to reading groups and workshops. He also tells us of how he was tasked with writing a heartfelt story following winning a competition but chose to write this one instead, which he openly admits is hard to follow and is intentionally anti-best selling.

And Marcus's story also goes a bit crazy - with a terrorist group setting up camp on the island and dividing everyone into groups based on their skills, with Marcus and Isobel, a girl he has met and married with the marriage causing him to lose his way with his stated aim of reading (a metaphor for how life gets in the way of your pursuits?), end up holed up in the library, where they are tortured. A strong man on the island eventually fires bullets of balled up classic literature into the terrorists' heads, causing an intellectual revolution where the former terrorists begin writing best selling novels and poetry, until a hoard of the old guard of British authors, led by Ian McEwan, come to the island to murder them all, where they succeed in doing this but all suffer circumstances which cause their death as well (yes really).

The whole thing is written with a very good pace and enjoyable word plays, with little jokey misspellings or alliteration lending the book a jovial air.

As I say, one of the weirder books I have encountered. If it hadn't been for the unnecessary abuse and criticism dealt out to other authors in both the story and the author's musings parts of the book, I'd say it was very enjoyable. Those criticisms gave the book a more cynical air which I didn't much care for.

[Kain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel I would have appreciated the book slightly more had I read or at least heard of several of the books mentioned (more than the few I had). I have heard of the more popularly mentioned Harper Lee, Charles Dickens and Kurt Vonnegut but have not come across writers such as Amos Tutuola. Although I don't need to have read them all to enjoy the book. I found it hilarious, zany and it kept me on my toes. Constantly I thought it couldn't get any more bizarre and was obviously very wrong. I found the ranting, whinging lists a brilliant touch, had me chuckling through them and appreciating the creativity. On the whole this is a very enjoyable book, will I recommend it to people yes and no, yes to any one who appreciate literature as a whole, no to anyone who's too middle brow. Or should that be the other way round? Perhaps it would have people expand their options a bit. Just kidding, I would suggest it to most curious enough.

[Tom Veale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A self-reflexive, shtick-stuffed, rowdy drone of well-wielded wordage prancing across each page ringing like a wordy hurdy-gurdy. Fretty punny.