Books 61 & 62: Thinking About It Only Makes Things Worse & Choose Your Own Autobiography

I've fallen behind again... oops! I've got 2 more reviews after this to do. I've just not bothered to review regularly! But I've been a busy reader since the last one.

These two books are completely different, but I'll put them together, just to cut down on the number of posts I spew out! So here goes!

The first book is David Mitchell's "Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse". It's essentially a book of small essay pieces written by Mitchell for his column in a newspaper. It asks some of the more absurd questions about modern day life, such as "Why are we so reliant on perpetual diversion that someone has created chocolate toothpaste?", you know... the big questions.

In all honesty, some of the book was dated, it's written several years ago, and it hasn't aged as well as it could've... However there were some laugh out loud funny bits in it.

The book is the epitome of the Grumpy Old Man, with endless rants, often going nowhere, and often about things that nobody really cares about. I found myself getting more and more bored reading some sections, wanting to skip but didn't. The dry wit of David Mitchell could be lost on those who don't know him from the TV.

I think that's the book's saving grace, I quite liked the dry wit, BUT it did begin to grate on me quite quickly. Not the best book I've ever read, but I've certainly read worse. To the point, that I rated this 3/5 (rounded up from 2.5 as I can't give that on goodreads!)

Second book in the review... Neil Patrick Harris, Choose Your Own Autobiography.

I bloody loved this.

Rather than be a bog standard recounting of his life, NPH puts you into his shoes, and allows you to make some key choices with outcomes. Of course, as an autobiography, there's a correct sequence of events, and you eventually get through them.

The book is witty, clever and fun and is 100% what you'd expect from NPH. It's touching, shows a really caring side to him.

By choosing your own adventure, you could end up dead several ways, however the true story is just wonderfully written, and brought to life by NPH.

My favourite story from the book was about his appearance on Glee, and how he had to delay filming, because he was finding out the sex of his twins. Just a lovely, human story, but also somehow finding a great amount of humour!

Of the two books in this post, I'd 100% go for NPH again. It's one of the best autobiographies I've ever written... you could almost say its...

Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse: 2.5cm

Choose Your Own Autobiography: 3cm

Total Read so Far: 62 books, 185cm

Total left to read: 58 books, 8cm