Chuckles Mini Review Catchup

 

I review everything I read, on my blog and on Goodreads. Most reviews are of a decent length but sometimes you don't have much to say about the book because of its length or you DNFed it or various other reasons. In cases like that it makes sense to write a few mini reviews in one post and clear them out your way! I've barely written a review in months due to a mixture of Blogger issues and being Chuckles The Sloth recently!

Here are some reviews of books read from September-October.

1) Liz Dawn-Vera Duckworth My Story

Liz was a part of Coronation Street since the seventies, and was    part of one of the most popular couples in the programme, as Vera Duckworth, the harpie wife of idle Jack Duckworth. This was a short biography with only a few details of her family life, which actually suited me better. She talks about coming from a happy home, with a family who looked after her and loved her. She talks about struggling to find and keep a job that she liked, ending up taking part in talent contests which led to a career on the club circuit. 

Liz is also brutally honest about marrying young to a man she knew for six weeks, and the struggles that her second husband endured with an affair that she had. It sounds like she and Don had to work hard to make their marriage work and it was nice to see that unlike so many celebrities who are married and divorced in five minutes, this couple worked hard and stayed together. For fans of Coronation Street, it's fun to read her story.

Read September 2020

3 stars.

2) Glenda Young-Coronation Street Blog

This smashing little book presents some of the most incisive, funny and engaging writing from Coronation Street fans that you’ll ever read. Our team of Coronation Street Bloggers have chosen their favourite pieces of work for fans to enjoy in one compilation. It’s an exciting mix of interviews with Coronation Street cast and crew members, reviews of memorable episodes, behind-the-scenes gossip, opinion pieces and irreverent observations. We rave about storylines and characters we have loved and rant about those that made us feel a bit “Ey up, chuck! What the ‘eck happened there?” And we pay homage to current characters, say goodbye to older ones and mourn the passing of Corrie icons. In short, it’s a real love letter to Coronation Street.

I bought this book because it sounded a bit different. Instead of a book about the TV show done by a production team connected to the show, this has information and articles written by fans and compiled together by the people at the Coronation Street blog. The blog posts included are about visits to the Corrie tour, obituaries when an actor from the series has died, posts about thoughts on new characters and current plots, plots that don't work for some fans, mistakes they have noticed from the screenwriters and fans interviewing members of the cast. Like all fan opinions, I agree with some of their thoughts and not others, but I still found it all quite interesting to read. 

Read September 2020

3 stars.  

 

3) Graham Nown-Coronation Street 25 Years 

I've been collecting these older books celebrating the various anniversaries of Coronation Street to add to my Corrie book collection. It's fun to look at what is in each one though it does obviously get a bit repetitive reading about how the show came to be, as that is in every one of them! It looks at a who's who of characters from 1960-1985 from Frank Barlow to Mike Baldwin, a life summary of each character, script for the first episode, interviews with cast and crew, who lives where on the street, month by month look at the top stories from each year etc. 

 

I do have a few niggles about this book though as there are some mistakes in it. The spelling is pretty bad at times-Tracey instead of Tracy, Teneriffe instead of Tenerife, which is mildly annoying. The other thing is that the plots only go up to part of the way through 1985, which is logical as they had to stop somewhere to get the book published in that year-but it ends with someone deciding to predict upcoming events by saying that Ivy marries George. Now Ivy was meant to marry George later in the year but whoever wrote it jumped the gun as the couple split before the wedding! Don't assume as it makes an ass of U and me as they say!

 

Read October 2020.

4 stars.  

 

4) Jack Tinker-Coronation Street

This book is another release for the 25th anniversary of Coronation Street and was bought online this year with a few others. The book again looks at the early years, Tony Warren, the first cast, a look at the characters in each house, places of employment, the trip by three Corrie icons on a publicity tour to Australia (Elsie, Jack and Annie), character and actor profiles, sets, visitors, famous faces, weddings and exits. There is some good stuff like a look at the deaths, disasters, the icons, and a look at the best storylines.

 

But there were issues with it as well. The map of Weatherfield bears no relation to the current layout of the area, especially Victoria Street. The raincoat factory was called Elliston's , not Ellington's. Len was not killed on the way to see his mistress, he was killed on the way back. Sadly, there are also mentions of Corrie fans like MP Cyril Smith and media star Stuart Hall, who were both outed as paedophiles in recent times, though this was not known at the time of writing and was not the author's fault.  

 

Read October 2020

3 stars.

 

5) Graeme Kay-Celebrating 30 Years

This was another book that I got second hand from Amazon over the summer for my Corrie collection. This is for the 30th anniversary of Coronation Street. As always it covers the career of Tony Warren, reaction to the first episode and the show starting. It covers the first people to quit, the first sackings, how the characters were written out, the main plot points, star profiles of all of the main actors, media reaction to the biggest stories, famous people who have starred in Corrie, births, weddings, deaths, memorable moments and who is in the show at the time of writing which was 1990. 

 

I'm always interested in who was leaving and why, and how these decisions were taken either by the actors themselves or why the studio decided that it no longer wanted certain characters. I haven't had the chance to see many episodes from 1960-1976 so it is always good to get those plot guides.

 

Read September 2020.

4 stars.