The TV Book Club – review
Monday 18 January A quick update… our blog has been quoted in The Bookseller this morning – Trade holds breath as sales lift for ‘The TV Book Club’ titles. The Independent has also posted a review of the programme – Book club begins new chapter without Richard and Judy.
Book bloggers who have also commented on the programme include:
Dovegreyreader, Farm Lane Books, Follow the thread, It’s a crime!, Savidge Reads
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A very brief post just to share our thoughts on the first episode of the new TV Book Club (@tvbookclub) on More 4 (repeated tomorrow at 12.05pm on Channel 4 in case you missed it).
The supposedly ‘featured’ book by Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger – was given such short and superficial treatment at the end of the programme it was barely worth watching. There was a great video of her introducing the book at least, but the discussion by the celeb panel afterwards was very weak with nobody really guiding the conversation or asking any pertinent questions, nor making any conclusions. Didn’t feel the book got a fair crack at all (and I’m reading it at the moment – it’s fantastic! I can promise you it deserves far better praise than it got from any of the panel).
The programme started with an interview/discussion with Chris Evans about his biography – It’s Not What You Think. It went on for too long and began to feel a bit like the Chris Evans show after a good ten minutes. We understand that celeb biogs are best sellers, but felt more weight should have been given to the chosen book of the night, which I think may have got about 5 minutes max. There was also a fluffy filler half way through about unusual words – bit of a daft waste of time. If you want to mix things up a bit, why not just head out on the streets and get people’s opinions on the featured books at least?
We’re not alone in our thinking it seems, as Dovegreyreader and Farmlanebooks have posted similar frustrations this evening, and I’m sure more book bloggers will follow with their thoughts and comments.
Let’s hope the programme makers listen to and act on the feedback. We will certainly continue to watch as there is great potential here and opening night is always tough. Besides, there are some great books on the reading list to discuss, including Blacklands by Belinda Bauer which is next week’s choice. Less focus on the celebs and ‘padding’ and more on the books themselves is all that is needed to help this programme fly.
Did you watch the first episode tonight?
What did you think of it?
Will you be watching next week?
Have you read any of the books on the reading list?
I was really looking forward to the TV Book Club, so am sad that it was disappointing. I’ve read The Little Stranger and it was a good book. It had some flaws that would have made a great discussion, but we didn’t get more than a few random criticisms. I really hope that they improve the discussion for next week.
Yep, agreed wholeheartedly with your blog Jackie. Hoping they will listen to all the feedback and make better use of the half hour. Although I’m not too sure the celebs they’ve got are real book lovers? It just didn’t come across at all. Holding out for next week and remaining optimistic!
It was very disappointing ,to much focus on celeb not enough on books a great shame ,not sure if i ll watch again
I too was looking forward to TV Book Club and yes, was miffed at the lack of discussion on the book Little Stranger. I’m hopeful that the right people will listen to the constructive criticism and have less celebs selling their books and have a panel with more in depth talking on the book.
Stu, absolutely – given it was described as a ‘book club’ you’d think they’d appreciate the majority of viewers were prepared for some in-depth book chat, and were going to be interested in the books and authors themselves, and jazzing it up with celebs wasn’t necessary!
Hi Mar, thanks for your comments – we hope so too! Prepared to give it another chance next week.
The program was very poor indeed. Little or no meaningful criticism from a low weight panel so bad that I wondered if any of them normally read books. To start with Chris Evans advertising his celebrity biography, just set the tone and this was followed by some meaningless film on words which was just a bad filler. I will not be watching again.
Anne, we felt that too – if the panel were chosen because they were book lovers, it certainly didn’t come across. I think you’re spot on about opening with Chris Evans as setting the tone – a shame the producers just pitched it entirely wrong. I think they’ll be kicking themselves this morning!
I, too, had been looking forward to the show, and was disappointed. I mainly watched it – as I suspect most viewers did – to see Sarah Waters, who the programme was supposed to showcase. But in the end, it was about everything but her and her book. First we had to sit through the ever self-promoting Chris Evans (who hogged a good 10 minutes of the show – more time than was devoted to Waters) and then a patronising feature about unusual vocabulary, and whether members of the public recognised a few comical/antique words like boondoggle and cockalorum. (Who cares? Those who were vox-popped certainly didn’t seem to.) Then came Cecilia Aherne talking about the impact the book club had made on her sales but that, too, I could have done without: it just came across as an ad for the series.
When Sarah Waters finally came on she was allowed to talk about her book for only about three or four minutes. I was shocked that such an articulate and throughtful writer should be given so little time to present her book. The subsequent studio discussion was of very low calibre. They concluded in the end that Waters’ masterpiece was ‘worth a read’ but I got the feeling they felt mostly negatively about it. I wondered if some of them had even read the whole book. Part of the problem with the discussion was that there were simply too many panellists: five celeb presenters, plus Chris Evans. Leila Rouass barely said a word – either because she couldn’t get a word in, or because she had nothing to say. My monthly book club is a hell of a lot livelier and more articulate than this lot.
I sincerely hope the producers will have a re-think on this format. There are some great books on the list. But they’re not being well-served.
Just watched the second episode, found it marginally better than last week but I put that down to Alan Davis being a better guest – not quite so overwhelming as Chris Evan was.
Karen, I tweeted pretty much the same comment last night after watching the programme. Alan Davis made about the only intelligent comment re Blacklands. Nathaniel Parker fared slightly better than last week but the remainder of the panel were pretty apathetic. There was still a lot of pointless content in our view. However, another book blogger, Jackie (farmlanebooks) said at least this week’s conversation made her want to actually go out and buy the book, so there’s progress at least!
Interestingly, the programme makers did admit that this week’s programme was pre-recorded before all the comments came flooding in. So it will be next week’s programme we might actually see a real difference. That is, if the producers have listened of course…
In the meantime book blogger Dovegreyreader has started a ‘Not the TV Book Club’ blog/reading group hosted on her blog with a couple of other book bloggers – well, it had to happen sooner or later didn’t it?!
Here’s the link: http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/dovegreyreader_scribbles/2010/01/not-the-tv-book-club.html
Ah, This is exactly what I was looking for! Clarifies
a few misnomers I’ve heard
Ah, This is exactly what I was looking for! Clarifies
many contradictions I’ve seen