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Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit?: The Encyclopedia of Modern Life
If you hate: loft living; Tony Blair; chick lit; global-warming sceptics; Keane; loyalty cards; gadget bores; Kabbalah; and downsizers...
... then you need "Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? - an encyclopedic attack on modern culture and the standard reference work for everyone who believes everything is shit. Which it is. This book says NO to the phoney ideas, cretinous people, useless products and doublespeak that increasingly dominate our lives. Never before has there been a book so completely full of shit.
Designed for everybody who thinks they may have mislaid their soul in Coffee Republic, this very funny well-informed compendium of bile adds up to an excoriating broadside against consumer capitalism that the authors hope will sell loads of copies.
... then you need "Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? - an encyclopedic attack on modern culture and the standard reference work for everyone who believes everything is shit. Which it is. This book says NO to the phoney ideas, cretinous people, useless products and doublespeak that increasingly dominate our lives. Never before has there been a book so completely full of shit.
Designed for everybody who thinks they may have mislaid their soul in Coffee Republic, this very funny well-informed compendium of bile adds up to an excoriating broadside against consumer capitalism that the authors hope will sell loads of copies.
277 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
37 people are currently reading
531 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
December 15, 2008
Remember that last book I said had the best title ever? Well, I was wrong, because this book actually has the best title ever.
UPDATE: Just threw this book across the room. Here's why: in an entry purporting to demonstrate why people who use audio books are philistines, the authors refer to Joyce's Finnegan's Wake (sic).
Now, here's a rule I consider elementary: if you're going to write a book that's essentially a long, sneering diatribe that purports to demonstrate your intellectual superiority over everything and everyone, you'd better not also demonstrate to your readers that you don't know what you're talking about. There's nothing wrong with a good sneering diatribe that purports to show why everyone but you (and perhaps your reader) is stupid and benighted -- it has a long and distinguished history in American letters. But if you're going to write one, you'd better be smart and you'd better be knowledgeable. That means that you don't get to make mistakes like writing Finnegan's Wake, especially when you're looking down your nose at people who use audio books. Once you do that (and they did it three times in one paragraph, so I know it's not a typo), you've told the reader that, in fact, not only are you are not intellectually superior to people who use audio books, but you're also an arrogant, witless, self-satisfied fuck who shouldn't be allowed to try and read a book, much less write one.
So you know, shut the fucking fuck up, don't expect me to read your book, and actually, don't be writing it in the first place.
UPDATE: Just threw this book across the room. Here's why: in an entry purporting to demonstrate why people who use audio books are philistines, the authors refer to Joyce's Finnegan's Wake (sic).
Now, here's a rule I consider elementary: if you're going to write a book that's essentially a long, sneering diatribe that purports to demonstrate your intellectual superiority over everything and everyone, you'd better not also demonstrate to your readers that you don't know what you're talking about. There's nothing wrong with a good sneering diatribe that purports to show why everyone but you (and perhaps your reader) is stupid and benighted -- it has a long and distinguished history in American letters. But if you're going to write one, you'd better be smart and you'd better be knowledgeable. That means that you don't get to make mistakes like writing Finnegan's Wake, especially when you're looking down your nose at people who use audio books. Once you do that (and they did it three times in one paragraph, so I know it's not a typo), you've told the reader that, in fact, not only are you are not intellectually superior to people who use audio books, but you're also an arrogant, witless, self-satisfied fuck who shouldn't be allowed to try and read a book, much less write one.
So you know, shut the fucking fuck up, don't expect me to read your book, and actually, don't be writing it in the first place.
January 6, 2019
Took me longer than it should have done. This is more of a dip-in book but some chapters really did make me laugh out loud!
Some parts do ramble on however, and there is more than a hint of bitterness here.
Some parts do ramble on however, and there is more than a hint of bitterness here.
December 27, 2017
Witty, funny, sometimes boring if you don’t know what he is mumbling about.
This is cheap but I couldn’t help laughing …
Hare Krishnas
Hare, hare Krishna
hare, hare
hare bollocks
bollocks
bollocks Krishna
Hare bollocks
bollocks hare
(REPEAT)
This is cheap but I couldn’t help laughing …
Hare Krishnas
Hare, hare Krishna
hare, hare
hare bollocks
bollocks
bollocks Krishna
Hare bollocks
bollocks hare
(REPEAT)
May 16, 2020
Outdated and mostly unfunny. When you've found yourself giving out about Hare Krishnas, public libraries and paninis you may have to rethink what you allow yourself to be bothered by. I'm trying to get through a lot of the unread books i've bought over the years during lockdown, and now I wish I could travel back in time and let my past self know that the 'everything being shit' that this book riles against includes itself.
March 10, 2011
I was optimistic about this book, since it produced a few laughs while skimming through it at the bookstore. Once I sat down to read it, however, it became horribly mundane and monotonous. It tries to be what made me love George Carlin; snarky, witty and unforgiving. Instead I found it pathetic and almost tragic. It's fine for a few laughs, but don't be surprised if you give up twenty pages in.
May 6, 2013
Is It Just Me Or Is Everything (including this book) Shit? Answer: Yes.
July 1, 2017
This is without a doubt a superb piece of shit. Laugh out loud, hell yes. Hilarious, possibly. But as it states on the inlay cover, 'no book has ever been more full of shit'. Amen to that...
August 7, 2025
The world pre-2008 financial crisis. who would have thought what trump, boris Johnson and jimmy saville would become.
December 31, 2008
“You know, that sorta-sticky, sorta-not stuff that holds a free CD or DVD into a magazine ad. What is that? Where do they get it from? Is it bat sperm? Is it hellspawn? Is it mined by infants? We know it has the consistency of nose goblins, but what is it?”
I bought this book as a Christmas present to someone I know would at least love the title. Obviously, I still have it because I’m just finishing it on the last day of December. I read it before I was supposed to have it in the mail for deliver before Christmas, decided on another gift instead, and re-read it these past couple days just to see if I was right in pretty much dismissing this as a piece of crap.
“is it just me or is [THIS BOOK] ca-ca? It is not you. The book is excrement. With a couple chuckles here and there.
I am all in favor of rants. There is very little in the 21st century that is rant-proof. But McArthur & Lowe (sounds like they should be writing Broadway musicals) haven’t picked worthy targets (handball? Dubai? Romantic comedies? Well, okay, I’ll give them that one). It’s hit and miss because there are a few that make you go ‘ah-hah’ like ‘”various things to do before you die” lists’ and ‘”Funky,” the word, as applied to anything except the musical genre.’
The writing is terse and to the point. Punctuation is used occasionally. Wit is used less than punctuation. While the riff on the opening of a new Ikea store in Orlando is comical and obviously points out our greedy over-commercialized nature, ‘Soundtrack Albums from Shit Films with Shit Soundtracks’ does not explain why I curl up with wine in front of the fireplace with my loved one on a winters night listening to the soundtrack from Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”*
*please tell me you get the joke.
-- there was no music in that movie.
-- the soundtrack would consist of an occasional rabid bird caw.
-- maybe I should have said “…. curled up listening to the soundtrack of “Doom, The Movie” (as opposed to “Doom, The Game”—oh, you knew that already. Sorry.)
I bought this book as a Christmas present to someone I know would at least love the title. Obviously, I still have it because I’m just finishing it on the last day of December. I read it before I was supposed to have it in the mail for deliver before Christmas, decided on another gift instead, and re-read it these past couple days just to see if I was right in pretty much dismissing this as a piece of crap.
“is it just me or is [THIS BOOK] ca-ca? It is not you. The book is excrement. With a couple chuckles here and there.
I am all in favor of rants. There is very little in the 21st century that is rant-proof. But McArthur & Lowe (sounds like they should be writing Broadway musicals) haven’t picked worthy targets (handball? Dubai? Romantic comedies? Well, okay, I’ll give them that one). It’s hit and miss because there are a few that make you go ‘ah-hah’ like ‘”various things to do before you die” lists’ and ‘”Funky,” the word, as applied to anything except the musical genre.’
The writing is terse and to the point. Punctuation is used occasionally. Wit is used less than punctuation. While the riff on the opening of a new Ikea store in Orlando is comical and obviously points out our greedy over-commercialized nature, ‘Soundtrack Albums from Shit Films with Shit Soundtracks’ does not explain why I curl up with wine in front of the fireplace with my loved one on a winters night listening to the soundtrack from Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”*
*please tell me you get the joke.
-- there was no music in that movie.
-- the soundtrack would consist of an occasional rabid bird caw.
-- maybe I should have said “…. curled up listening to the soundtrack of “Doom, The Movie” (as opposed to “Doom, The Game”—oh, you knew that already. Sorry.)
March 15, 2010
Apparently there's a new American edition of Is It Just Me or is Everything Shit? by Steve Lowe. Brendan Hay of The Daily Show collaborated on the Americanization of this encyclopedia of all things shit. Although I'm an American and an active book blogger, I apparently missed the memo on this new edition.
By strange book karma I got a copy of the original British edition through BookCrossing and that's the edition I read. So when reading my review please keep in mind I am reviewing an older and different book. For your convenience, I am providing links to reviews of the 2009 American edition.
Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit is an encyclopedia of whinging on the worst pieces of modern culture: it's excesses, it's celebrities, government, politicians, food and so forth. As it is a critique of British (for the most part) pop culture as it was in 2005 the biting humor by 2010 has lost a few teeth.
My two biggest problems with the book stem from just how dated much of it felt and the constant whining from the author. Yes I got the jokes and the references and the slang but after about letter F or G, I stopped caring.
I don't think the Daily Show revisions will make the book any better. If you've read both versions, let me know in the comments how they compare.
By strange book karma I got a copy of the original British edition through BookCrossing and that's the edition I read. So when reading my review please keep in mind I am reviewing an older and different book. For your convenience, I am providing links to reviews of the 2009 American edition.
Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit is an encyclopedia of whinging on the worst pieces of modern culture: it's excesses, it's celebrities, government, politicians, food and so forth. As it is a critique of British (for the most part) pop culture as it was in 2005 the biting humor by 2010 has lost a few teeth.
My two biggest problems with the book stem from just how dated much of it felt and the constant whining from the author. Yes I got the jokes and the references and the slang but after about letter F or G, I stopped caring.
I don't think the Daily Show revisions will make the book any better. If you've read both versions, let me know in the comments how they compare.
February 29, 2012
My boyfriend pretty much forced me to read this. It's one of the few books he owns and when he was looking for something underneath the bed the other day, he was all "This is the best book ever".
It's not actually but it had some funny bits, like his rant on IKEA or the words "smart casual".
I really need to get it back out from underneath the bed and add a few quotes to this review.
Anyway, the author is also a bit moronic at times and says things that are kind of dumb. And there are other times where his rant will go on for pages on an uninteresting subject.
It is what it is. It's a humour book and I'm sure there are wayyyy better out there. It was brilliant at moments but other parts were boring and tedious.
Good idea, flawed execution.
It's not actually but it had some funny bits, like his rant on IKEA or the words "smart casual".
I really need to get it back out from underneath the bed and add a few quotes to this review.
Anyway, the author is also a bit moronic at times and says things that are kind of dumb. And there are other times where his rant will go on for pages on an uninteresting subject.
It is what it is. It's a humour book and I'm sure there are wayyyy better out there. It was brilliant at moments but other parts were boring and tedious.
Good idea, flawed execution.
March 25, 2016
Kirja ivaa erilaisia brittipopulaarikulttuurin trendi-ilmiöitä, jotka olivat pinnalla vuonna 2006. Asuin tuolloin itsekin Lontoossa, joten muistan aikakauden hyvin. Toimittajan suomiskenelisäyksistä huolimatta kirja on silti erittäin brittikeskeinen.
Lukeminen oli osittain retrotrippi, mutta enimmäkseen se kuitenkin muistuttaa miten kulttuuri-ilmiöt ja meemit ilmestyvät ja katoavat kiihtyvällä vauhdilla. Ketä kiinnostavat kymmenen vuoden takaiset tyrkkyjulkkikset? Ilmestyessään teos on ollut eittämättä kuumaa kamaa, mutta nyt jäljellä on enää reliikki, joka saa hetken hymyilemään ja sitten unohtuu.
Lukeminen oli osittain retrotrippi, mutta enimmäkseen se kuitenkin muistuttaa miten kulttuuri-ilmiöt ja meemit ilmestyvät ja katoavat kiihtyvällä vauhdilla. Ketä kiinnostavat kymmenen vuoden takaiset tyrkkyjulkkikset? Ilmestyessään teos on ollut eittämättä kuumaa kamaa, mutta nyt jäljellä on enää reliikki, joka saa hetken hymyilemään ja sitten unohtuu.
October 21, 2007
got this book at a bookstore in the airport while i was waiting for take off a few months ago. just one word: absolutely hilarious!!! (that was two words ya? hahaha). the jokes were somewhat very british, but still knocked my socks off. there was one really funny remark about the british band keane (i love them, by the way), about how the lead vocalist (tom chaplin) face looks like a melted butter hahaha. anyway, some of the humor was kinda rude, but i'd recommend you buy this just for a good laugh.
October 22, 2015
You either love this or hate this. I threw it in the trash. What a waste of paper.
January 27, 2019
Has aged quite well... Author basically predicted Brexit and the rise of Trump-esque idiots
Read
November 27, 2025Yes this is dated (2005), and it is full of anger, vitriol, and next level swearing. In this alphabetic digest the authors have many and various targets, including a lot about Blair and New Labour, also Boris, Philip Green, Vernon Kay(!), middle-class fads, celebs, TV, the media, and the many frustrations of modern life when looked at with a jaded comedic & sweary demeanour.
On some more positive notes, bear with me; I’m strangely pleased that this level of grumpiness (now sometimes called ‘middle-aged rage’) hasn’t really changed, is there a steady-state of nonsense and triggers generation-by-generation(?); a new word for me, ‘tristesse’ a state of melancholy sadness and various European languages ‘triste’, meaning sad, sorrowful or gloomy. So to summarise if Lowe and McArthur are (were) this angry it makes me feel a bit happier, i.e. the opposite of tristesse. And of course creative and full-bloodied swearing is always fun :)
On some more positive notes, bear with me; I’m strangely pleased that this level of grumpiness (now sometimes called ‘middle-aged rage’) hasn’t really changed, is there a steady-state of nonsense and triggers generation-by-generation(?); a new word for me, ‘tristesse’ a state of melancholy sadness and various European languages ‘triste’, meaning sad, sorrowful or gloomy. So to summarise if Lowe and McArthur are (were) this angry it makes me feel a bit happier, i.e. the opposite of tristesse. And of course creative and full-bloodied swearing is always fun :)
November 2, 2017
At times funny, at times boring, at times I didn't agree but mostly I had no fucking clue what they are talking about. Maybe I am just too young to know half of the names in this book (the other half would be Tony Blair who is mentioned like 20 times). I started skipping the parts where I saw something I did not recognize. That way it would make it into 'alright' book to be honest. But I still expected more (given that great title which was the reason I bought this). Yes, there were funny bits and that's why I give a 2-star review, but reading it makes me want to publish my own edition and show them how it's done. Maybe one day I will.
October 10, 2021
Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Sh*t?: The Encyclopedia of Modern Life by Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur is a satirical book which makes fun of our modern world. It was published in the UK in 2005. So when I read it over the summer I noticed that it needed updating since the world's changed quite a bit (I wonder if they're making a sequal). This book was hilarious because it made fun of subjects from airport parking to powerpoints. Should you read this book? Yes you should.
December 5, 2016
I picked away at this book for months.
Basically it's a collection of short rants about various pop culture and political topics, most of which are UK-centric. Some were hilarious, some were stupid, and some I really didn't get. Some of the references are rather dated since the book was written when the US & UK were deep in the throes of the Bush 43/Tony Blair bromance.
Basically it's a collection of short rants about various pop culture and political topics, most of which are UK-centric. Some were hilarious, some were stupid, and some I really didn't get. Some of the references are rather dated since the book was written when the US & UK were deep in the throes of the Bush 43/Tony Blair bromance.
February 13, 2023
This book was funny in parts but probably was funnier at the time of release as I didn't understand all of the jokes and references.
I think the spookiest future prediction was "comedy routines asking who remembers turkey twizzlers" when in fact it has now been the subject of many different memes.
I think the spookiest future prediction was "comedy routines asking who remembers turkey twizzlers" when in fact it has now been the subject of many different memes.
June 29, 2017
Just good title
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2017
I think I laughed out loud often enough for it to be worth a read.
January 20, 2018
Insubstantial light reading with moments of hilarity.
December 28, 2019
DNF at 15%
Too trite and obvious. Not sure what I expected, given the title.
My bad...
Too trite and obvious. Not sure what I expected, given the title.
My bad...
December 1, 2020
Abridged audio edition. Great reading.
December 6, 2020
Not impressed. One of those books that you can pick up or leave any time, used just to distract yourself a bit. But it wasn't funny enough even for such use. Brutally honest here.
December 18, 2021
Bit of a bible
May 5, 2022
Absolute bubble gum for the brain but pretty entertaining.
May 31, 2022
It's a little outdated now , unless you have an excellent memory on celebrity gossip back then , you will probably ( like me ) , not even understand who half the people in it are
Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews