I enjoyed reading
’s book “1983” (see my review here). So I determined to read more of his and took him up on his decent offer to send me some books for whatever I would pay. If you follow him on Substack you’ll know that his publisher (Unbound), using a crowd-funding model, went bust, owing him £0000s. He managed to get his 5,300 books back and has been posting them out himself since. Imagine posting 5,000 items!So I’ve been reading his book “Notebook” (2021). And I’m going to review it here, despite not yet having finished it. It’s only 125 pages long. But given the nature of the book, I think Tom will forgive me for reviewing it without having finished it.
I don’t have much time to read books. My current rate of Tom Cox books is just under two a year. I’ve read one and three quarters. This may be less than he would wish. He may use this statistic in projecting his future income. I have one more (Villager) at home ready to go and I’ve been neatly hooked into his bookosphere, so I may well be reading Tom Cox for the next ten years or more. Might as well read them thoughtfully.
So here is my review of “Notebook”. “You don’t have time to read but you have time to review?” I hear you say? That’s not a paradox, just now the urge to write is stronger than the urge to finish the book. But also it’s true this review will be rather ‘knocked off’, with the first things that come to mind.
Since “Notebook” is a collection of things that came to Tom Cox’s mind over a period of years, this might be an appropriate way to review it.
The book consists of short paragraphs. Kind of like this.
In fact, ”Notebook” is a book that can’t be written. No one should attempt to write a book like this. It would not work and would be mighty pretentious to set out to write it. However, if, as Tom Cox has done, you have, with care, assembled (rather than written) the book from random notebook notes which once were not a book but random notebook notes, then you might just get away with it.
Tom Cox has more than got away with it. Somehow his collection of little paragraphs of observations on life in England (mostly Nottingham, Devon and Norfolk) that more than sometimes skid into the absurd hang together to make you believe it is a book. And not just because it’s between a hard back and front with a nicely designed cover with neat gold lettering.
Why are books called hardback when they also have a front?
I could go though what I’ve read and pick out some bits that stood out to me. There were many. On the other hand the back of the book has a handy selection of quotes, so why don’t I just use them in a picture? That’s kind of what they are there for. Why make extra work for myself? Here you go. This’ll do.
Has Tom Cox written the perfect Toilet-Reader? The observations are of varying length, instantly gratifying, but short enough to stop easily once you have finished the evacuation procedure and pop a bookmark in before rushing off to work without worrying that you’ve stopped mid-action. This needs to be on the blurb.
Has Tom Cox written a modern day Book of Proverbs? The Book of Proverbs has lots of pithy wisdom in two-liners. It didn’t have stuff about Norwich or Devon. But Notebook has a lot of pithy wisdom; some of it you have to look for, under the irony. I must try the Book of Proverbs as a Toilet-Reader. It might work too.
It’s not in the Book of Proverbs, but Ecclesiastes 12:12 has alsways fascinated me. “My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Hang on, if the dude/dudes in Jerusalem wrote that nearly 3000 years ago, what hope in hell do we have now?
In one of his more discursive moments Tom writes about this overload.
What is the point in Tom Cox making another book by publishing his notebook notes in a book, thereby adding to the potential weariness of the flesh? Probably none. But I’m glad he did. It’s really good. It made me smile, not weary. It makes you think, not through exposition but through observation. If I had more time to do a serious review/analysis/critique I’d probably work out what the point was. It might be something to do with Authenticity. Being Yourself. Or the Beauty of the Ordinary. Or Epistomology. I’m not sure.
Most of us don’t know what ‘many books’ means. We might have a few shelves at home. That’s not many. Tom Cox might have a better idea. He had 5,300 books delivered to his door.
Tom Cox’s Notebook is quite chock-full with ironic observation. This could present a problem if the book is at root about Authenticity. But somehow it works. This might be because it might be being ironic about irony, in a kind of two negatives cancel each other out kind of way. I don’t have time to think this through properly.
Ditto, tweeness. I’m not sure what tweeness is. I’d say there is a lot of it on Substack. But there’s tweeness that is, in the context of the Big Global Forces that want to shape our consciousness, kind of escapist twee. And then there’s tweeness that is serious business. A resistance to the Big Global Forces that want to shape our consciousness. An assertion that what we want as normal human life (let’s imagine there is no war, economic stress, inequality, injustice etc someone wrote a song about that, didn’t they?) is to think about the differences between Devon and Norfolk, observing spiders, our irrational responses to window cleaners, axing off fingers by accident and not being that bothered, and not being able to find things. (See blurb picture above.) It’d be better for us all if these things could crowd our consciousness rather than wars. At least we should nuture this part of our consciousness to keep it intact for that future time of peace and properity that is around the corner. And if peace and prosperity isn’t round the corner and it’s all going to be global heating and stress, then it will be good to live a life that puts into practice in the here and now the observational skills, gentle irony and loving quirkiness that we need just to be human.
Probably the worst thing you could do would be to try to write a review of Tom Cox’s Notebook without having properly finished it, in short pithy paragraphs in the style of his Notebook. Now that would be mighty pretentious.
On the other hand, you might just get away with it.
……
Thank you. I read this on the loo.
It’s an awesome book and valuable in the way that sketches or diaries of great artists tend to be