There are more quotable l I just reread this 3 years after reading it the first time, and now at the same age as Leith was then. There are more quotable lines that any book I've read recently my girlfriend is sick of me quoting them and it has the best lack-of-money anecdotes I've ever read.
Dark Thoughts From The Middle Years
It also covers the feelings of being a middle-aged father to an only child beautifully and movingly. I love this book Sep 13, Ukgardenfiend rated it liked it. An interesting book - possibly more for the 'boys' than the 'girls' as they may empathise more. That said, very interesting collection of random thoughts well written into a rather short story of his day or his current - rather depressing life. You could argue that a; he deserves to fall apart after the life he has led b; that he really should go to a doctor as the bits that are falling apart could be serious - but c; he is a coward, and d; perhaps his health is so bad that he is going to die you An interesting book - possibly more for the 'boys' than the 'girls' as they may empathise more.
- About Bits of me are falling apart!
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- The Path of the Enlightened Leader(s).
- The Magic Particle.
You could argue that a; he deserves to fall apart after the life he has led b; that he really should go to a doctor as the bits that are falling apart could be serious - but c; he is a coward, and d; perhaps his health is so bad that he is going to die young so why bother? So only read this if you don't mind being made somewhat depressed about the state of society and the world.
See a Problem?
And not if you are a hypochondriac - which of course, the author might be, but I doubt it. Certainly not an upbeat book! Dec 23, Nicholas Whyte rated it really liked it. I'm classifying it as non-fiction because it's presented as a memoir.
Bits of Me Are Falling Apart
Some of the observations were uncomfortably close to home, but in general I felt I'd had a better life than the writer and wasn't learning much from this. It's well written, though, the account of the circumstances around his son's conception being especially gripping. Jan 26, Karis rated it it was amazing.
Nothing much happens in this book. Guy gets up, and muses about his life, health, financial situation, wasted opportunities, and on the way touches on the Big Bang Theory not the tv program , Horatio Nelson whatadude , the origins of banking, what happened to the Easter Islanders and the Nords amongst other things.
Like a snapshot into the internal dialogue of someones brain. I loved this book. Sep 28, Derek Baldwin rated it really liked it. Initially I found this too solipsistic, and not very original, but I'm glad I stuck with it because William Leith's tale of the everyday tragedy of our culture of affluence and waste gathers force the more he digresses from the personal to the political. It's very well written, occasionally hilarious, and I liked the way the text is structured. Mar 30, Candy kang rated it it was ok.
Bits of Me Are Falling Apart by William Leith
Jun 25, Beckah rated it did not like it. Not what I was looking for in a book. Read about a quarter and couldn't do it. Soon it is cutting into the side of his tongue.
Then his gums start bleeding. Slivers of detached retina float across his gaze, and that tingle in his neck and shoulder means a headache is on the way.
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- Cuadernos japonesca: Hiragana al detalle. (Cuadernos japonesca. nº 1) (Spanish Edition)!
- I Still Call Australia Home.
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- CALVARYS SUPERMARKET - A Different Taste A Spoken Word Poem.
And he is always knackered. I don't sleep properly because, after the age of 45, all bets are off. Why should I sleep properly?
Review: Bits of Me Are Falling Apart by William Leith and What's Going On? by Mark Steel
Why should anything about me work properly at this age? In the wild I'd be dead. Life chez Leith does not sound any more comfortable. His home is his office, his bed a mattress thrown on the floor. He has been here since he broke up with the mother of his son, Billy. Today, though, we are told as the book opens, is a Billy day - one of those days when Leith gets to see his children. For the next pages we accompany him on the journey to the house where his ex-family lives.
This makes it sound like a long journey, but in fact they live only a mile or two from one another. Blair's and now Brown's party is obsessed with wealth and turning a profit. Steel and the rest of us are baffled.
As a paid-up member of the Socialist Workers party and Respect, he used not to be baffled - at least he was part of a group with shared convictions. The radical left was even starting to pick up some of those disgruntled voters. Then George Galloway pussy-catted on Big Brother, and Tommy Sheridan sued the papers about alleged visits to a swingers' club - and the left in England and Scotland became a joke. At least in other parts of the world, Steel moans, the left "comes to grief because they're shot, imprisoned or exiled".
He can no longer avoid the fact that the left is in denial. When Steel doubts the SWP claim that the party has 10, members, he's told: Time to cancel the subs. Time, too, to recognise that his bad marriage can no longer be sustained. Unlike Leith, Steel does some serious rethinking, and does not just suffer loss. He wonders, against his former SWP judgment, if small-scale, personal dissent against the local McDonald's or Tesco doesn't have more effect than he'd thought. If the organisation and networks of the old left were grafted on to the new popular forms of opposition, there might still be hope for a new socialism in which the young can participate.