The monthly round-up of books of the month is a few days late, and as I’ve not finished the last of them also a few days early. I have a good excuse: I switched back to doing French on the train after a few months off, so I’m stranded 40 pages from the end of The Long Way Around. I think the break has done me good.

So, first book of the month was Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction. I didn’t realise there had been so many Adrian Mole books, and I don’t think I’ve touched one since Growing Pains, so was pleasantly surprised by this one. A lot has changed in Adrian’s life. He’s now 34 (always was a few years older than me), has a string of failed marriages behind him, is £240,000 in debt, has a dead-end job and a few kids he barely ever sees. In fact, he doesn’t see them at all in the course of the whole book.

It’s all very depressing. His old friends from the first book are still hanging around, but apart from Pandora none of them have done very well, and Nigel is in a particularly poor state. The further you read, the worse it gets for Adrian and his friends, but there’s some underlying comedy to carry you along, and I found myself racing towards the end.

It was far outdone by The Long Way Around, though. I only saw one episode of the series, but Paul bought it for me on DVD, so I’ll watch the rest when I’ve finished the book. It’s the story of Ewan McGregor and his friend Charlie Boorman cycling around the world on motorbikes. It’s written as a two-way travelogue, with them each taking turns to tell part of the story. I strongly suspect it has been ghost-written, or at least written from a series of interviews, though, as the style is very similar from one person to the next… and there’s a third name on the title page.

I’m about 40 or 50 pages from the end, and they are only two thirds of the way around the world, having just escaped from Mongolia, so I guess things settle down by the time they get to America, but so far it’s been non-stop adventure with mafia gangs, breakdowns, crashes and disasters in every country.

Chris of the Phin read it a while ago. He said he found their constant prattling on about missing their families annoyed them. I’ve not found that, but I have found their frequent whinging about having to do TV and press interviews somewhat grating. They are being paid to go around the world, and making a TV show about it, after all, so their arguments that this is supposed to be a ‘holiday’ are somewhat hollow.

But the first book of the month was A Short Introduction to the European Union. Just how dull is it possible to make a book? I wanted an interesting, engaging, easy to understand trip through the history of the union, but it was a dull slog through an endless stream of acronyms. If there is anything guaranteed to turn a reader off the whole idea of Europe, this is it. It should be taken off the shelves for fear it might fall into the hands of a Euro-skeptic.

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