Dawn of the Dumb - Charlie Brooker

*** Introduction *** This book was recommended to me by my best mate and sister, both of whom share my slightly nasty sense of humour, so I was pretty confident I'd like it from the start. It's a collection of columns by the curmudgeonly Guardian writer Charlie Brooker, spanning his "Screen Burn" television reviews for the paper's Guide supplement and his regular entries for its G2 pull-out. Brooker dislikes most of the programmes and TV stars he comes across, and he's not afraid to let it show, often coming out with insulting comparisons, furious tirades and violent imagery. Brooker's short, self-contained reviews, which are ...  Read the complete review

With a ruthless literary assault on almost anything you may expect Dawn Of The Dumb to be a rather pointless series of rants by the Guardian writer Charlie Brooker from his columns in the paper. Yet you would have assumed wrong as this fantastically hilarious collection of articles written by Brooker seethes away with critical bitterness that would put even the sharpest tongued of people to shame. Published as a collection of articles in 2007 the actual articles date back from November 2004 to July 2007 broken in to 12 individual chapters based around TV shows and other writing on a vast array of subjects (split pretty evenly into TV for 50% and other subjects for 50% of ...  Read the complete review

You've all seen Screen wipe, right? If not I suggest you begin now where you will witness one of the best columnists and writers of this decade. The person I'm referring to is of course Charlie Brooker, writer of the critically acclaimed Screen Burn and the book this review is concerning - Dawn of the Dumb. For those of you who don't know, Charlie Brooker is well known for his sharp witted nature, his pessimism and general profaneness. These qualities make him stand out from all the other writers out there. These features may not seem like qualities in everyday life but they sure are in writing. Brooker loves a good moan like most Brits do and I ...  Read the complete review

Charlie Brooker is a "marmite" kind of guy. You'll either love what he does, or hate it - there's no real middle ground. I think he is fantastic, and have loved his work since I first read his writings in PC Zone magazine back in the 90s. He assumes an air of satirical pessimism, but isn't really the depressed misanthrope his writings suggest - his occasional lapses into helpless laughter on You Have Been Watching reveal his mean exterior is an act he can't always sustain. Having moved on from PC Zone magazine (who remarkably failed to fire him after one of his cartoons got an edition pulled off the shelves) he has been writing various ...  Read the complete review

Brooker is a famous antihero in the Guardian's line up of journalists. Starting his career as a computer game reviewer, he moved on to host his own website, 'TV Go Home,' which was a sort of comic parady of The Radio Times. From here he was snapped up by the Guardian, a slightly left-wing intellectual broadsheet as a TV critic and now, on a Saturday, he writes a TV review column and on Monday's he writes a series of general observation columns. Thus this book is a mixture of both his general articles and his TV articles. He writes in a uniquely entertaining way; unafraid of being controversial and throwing in fantastic similes and metaphors often of a ...  Read the complete review