Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
 Excellently effervescent June 2, 2010
A. Dagnall (north carolina, USA)
This is a great book. I had read his previous two - his bands-in-slow-progress memoir Showbusineess and his first novel based around a Northern folk club Northern Sky - and found them both excellent, but on this third book - his experiences meeting his heroes and the life surrounding his popular radio shows inside and outside and previous - he truly excels himself. His writing borders on that kind of semi-Saxondale-speak that really works when you can hear his voice in your head as you scan the pages; pop star stories about McCartney, Kylie, Bowie, Shane MacGowan and Kate Bush (natch) shine out particularly. But above all he comes across as a guy who is just as interesting when striving for a life outside his radio celebrity, with his family and his firm base of friends, and you just can't say that for a lot of the self-interested and terminally unfunny oiks who have trod in his shoes before. If you love him on the radio, you'll love him in this. Oh, and he worships John Peel too, which is is a hell of a place to start out.
 feel good? not for long May 27, 2010
I. R. Parker (thornton-cleveleys, lancashire United Kingdom)
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Don't bother.
seriously, that's it, don't bother.
You're clearly looking for a Mark Radcliffe book to entertain you witty insights and asides on a hazy summers day. forget it.
This is dreary and very disappointing.
How anyone so hung up on Dr Feelgood could have made as far as Mark is beyond me. I managed it to page 8, life's just too short.
keep on searching.
 What a thoroughly nice chap. March 22, 2010
Garth Algar (London)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I mean, what an absolutely bloody lovely bloke. Mark Radcliffe is modest and self deprecating to a fault, and his primary interests include music, beer and music. What's not to like?
Thank You For The Days is far from an indie outsider's cynical take on the music industry. There are no revelations of rock and roll debauchery, or revenge swipes at old foes. It is the story of a genuine music fan who constantly feels privileged to have been lucky enough to make a career out of playing records he likes and interviewing people. The affable Radcliffe would never be so presumptuous as to impose anything too alternative or niche on the reader, so he keeps the name-dropping anecdotes to mainstream stars - Bowie, Jagger, McCartney, Minogue all get politely complimented, as do Chris Evans and Tony Blair. When he does have an (oh so slight) pop at people, the targets are such obvious villains - Jeffrey Archer, Noel Edmunds, American sports etc. - that it seems almost as if he's contractually obliged to include a quota of digs, even if he doesn't really want to.
Radcliffe is incredibly magnanimous about the low point of his career - he sees his sacking from the Radio 1 breakfast show from his superiors' point of view, and is modest about his successes throughout. He says that in however many years of working in radio he has only ever had 2 or 3 heated discussions with people (or something like that, I can't remember exactly) and it is easy to see why. A more laid back and easy-going bloke you could not wish to come across.
The comparison with the books of Stuart Maconie is so obvious that it has to be made. Mark Radcliffe's book doesn't quite have the wit and observation of his co-presenter, nor does he have the same skill at infecting the reader with his passion for music, but that doesn't mean this book isn't a good read. It makes you smile rather than laugh, and it can be a little obvious. It's not a book that's going to change your life or get studied in schools for generations, but it does leave you with a great fondness for Radcliffe and a real desire to sink a few pints of ale with him. Cheers.
 Disappointing September 30, 2009
Peter Lee (Manchester ,United Kingdom)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I fondly remember lying in bed at night, listening to Mark and Lard on Radio 1 between 10PM and midnight, laughing at their jokes, loving the music, and being fascinated by most of their guests. I loved Mark's "Showbusiness" memoir but didn't like his novel, "Northern Sky", so when I heard that this book was another memoir concentrating mainly on his life in music I snapped it up.
There is an awful lot of padding here. Each story is titled "The Day I {event}" so we get chapters called "The Day I Introduced David Bowie On Stage", or "The Day I Turned 50", and they are mostly quite short. Some, however, consist of a tiny central memory but are stretched beyond belief, such as the story about the time he "flew" as a child, where after a few pages of rambling about nothing in particular he essentially ends with "so one day I was being naughty, and my mum hit me so hard I flew over the back of the sofa," so the whole subject of the tale is discarded in a single paragraph at the very end. To me this is evidence of a target word count being set, not reached, and serious padding was required during the edit.
Some of the stories are mildly entertaining, and as a Bowie fan I do enjoy reading anything about the guy. It was also interesting to read about Mark and Lard being sacked from Radio 1, and the story about why they were dressed as zombie undertakers when they met Tony Blair (picture included in the book) is fun. On the whole though it all seems just a bit desperate, and for a thin book I did find it a bit of a slog to finish. A shame, really.
Enjoyable... August 13, 2009
M. Stevens (Bath)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I could not think of a title that had not already been used! Not really an autobiography, more a series of snippets about bits of Mark's life he recalls clearly (I always wonder how people who become famous remember every single thing that has happened to them!). Some of the "Days" covered in the book are around 20 pages, others some no more than a couple of pages, and one about 10 lines.
I enjoyed it, but then I like Radcliffes humour and his music tastes and have listened to him (and his various sidekicks) since his "Graveyard Shift on Radio 1. Its the sort of book you can pick up read a few days, put down, read something else and then go back to.
I would not imagine anyone who is not a fan of Radcliffe and his Radio show would buy it, so for those who are, it is an entertaining read, not earth shattering or life changing, just entertaining.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
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