Homepage News Reviews - Acts - Shows - Screen - Radio - Books - Clubs Interviews Awards 2006 Edinburgh 2005 - Reviews - Blog - Previews Features Archive Awards 2005 Edinburgh 2004: - Previews - Shows - Diary Guestbook Forum © Emporium Of Mirth 2004 Editor: Lauren Murphy Reporters: Fiona Wilkie Natalie Joanne	Emporium of Mirth Paperback Hell First-class contemporary fiction has never sounded this good. Dan Tetsell and Danny Robbins are the ghost writers who bring such modern masterpieces as “Stop the Dodgems, I Want to Throw Up” and “Thrust’s Eagle” to your ears in an aural journey through your imagination. Spoofing everything from lifestyle self-help books to comic travel writers, Paperback Hell is observant and clever, highlighting the clichés in stylised novels and concept books and reproducing them in an excellent self-referential manner. Have you ever noticed how characters in modern novels by female writers are so often “Plump, buck-toothed but intelligent and obviously autobiographical”? Or that the hero in war novels are overly masculine and sexually attractive, to ensure that “if someone had decided to make a television adaptation, they’d probably have cast Sean Bean, Ross Kemp or one of the better McGanns”? Whether you think magazines are the new novels or that best-sellers are simply a load of bilge, you’ll probably appreciate the sharp observation of this series. Readers including Rebecca Front and Michael Fenton-Stevens emulate audio books perfectly, and deliver lines such, “I knew many big people, and many people called Tony, but if I was to draw a Venn Diagram there would be no crossover” without a waver, and the BBC’s sound effects archive has come in useful to provide an atmosphere of punk, war and even Travelodges (listen and see...). So, sit back with your mug of cocoa and give your eyes a rest. Let the reader fill your ears, as it were. You need never buy another paperback again. Paperback Hell will be broadcast 11pm, Wednesdays from 7th July, Radio 4 Reviewed by Nat, Queen of the Airwaves RSS  Printable version	Visit our Siamese Twin Sister Site!