Dan Brown’s scat-illogical* books are at the top of the Oxfam list of books most likely to be donated to the charity, which runs a chain of 686 second-hand bookshops. But the Top Gear presenter my husband David and I most love to hate is the first non-fiction author to make the Oxfam list of “most donated” books.
The rants of Jeremy Clarkson, meanwhile, have made the Top Gear presenter the first non-fiction writer to enter the charity’s top 10 of authors most likely to be donated to its 686 shops: either his readers are notably generous, or unwilling to keep his titles on their shelves once read.
Via Dan Brown tops Oxfam’s ‘least wanted’ chart | Books | guardian.co.uk
Oh, what joy! Rapture! to read this, because anything that reveals Clarkson to be the great bloviating boober he is makes me laugh like a happy schoolgirl. His booming sarcasm and bullying presenting style is nearly entertaining enough to get him arrested in at least 2 American states, if not a small South American country. For example, in a recent episode the Top Gear gentlemen of motoring were told they could not be too entertaining, as their visas did not allow them to act as entertainers. Viz:
Oh, those scallywags! Everybody knows you don’t drag race on the main drag, you drag race on an isolated stretch of asphalt out in the boonies. Didn’t you see “American Graffiti?” Fortunately for their future travel to America, they managed to be unentertaining enough so as not to violate the terms of their “non-entertainment” visas.
By the way, that wasn’t their first attempt at driving while being asshats; the last time they japed their way across the American landscape, they almost got the crap beaten out of them in Alabama. They decided to take on protective coloration – by decorating each other’s beater cars. This was in 2008 sometime.
Clarkson is the loud one, who can be quite amusing but is often overbearing. The others are Hammond (the small hamstery one, very popular with caravan ladies) and May (pleasant company if you don’t mind lots and lots of technical detail).
I won’t be buying Clarkson’s book – his opinions and politics would fit right in at FOX news, although he’d be much, much funnier than anybody else they have on. But we’re quite fond here at Chez Gique of Top Gear (we became aware of it on one of our trips to Britain). I’m happy to see it getting some press in the US, even though it’s mostly stories from the Beeb about who The Stig really is (look it up yourself, I won’t spoil you).
*Yes, yes, it’s really meant to be “eschatological,” a word I heard just today on WBEZ, describing an even crappier end-times tribulations book than Tim La Haye’s “Left Behind.” Brown’s bin-liner books, although not strictly eschatological (yet), are confusing crap, so there you are.
