Alan Jacobs


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I only read factual books. I can’t think of… I mean, novels are just a waste of f•••ing time. I can’t suspend belief in reality… I just end up thinking, ‘This isn’t f•••ing true.’ I like reading about things that have actually happened. I’m reading this book at the minute — The Kennedy Tapes. It’s all about the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis — I can get into that. Thinking, 'Wow, this actually f•••ing happened, they came that close to blowing the world up!’ But… what f•••ing winds me up about books… is, like… my missus will come in with a book and it will be titled — and there’s a lot of these, you can substitute any word, it’s like a Rubik’s Cube of shit titles — it’ll be entitled The Incontinence Of Elephants. And I’ll say “What’s that book about?” And she’ll say, “Oh it’s about a girl and this load of f•••ing nutters…” Right… so it’s not about elephants, then? Why the f••• is it called The Incontinence Of Elephants? Another one: The Tales Of The Clumsy Beekeeper. What’s that about? “Oh it’s about the French Revolution.” Right, f••• off. If you’re writing a book about a child who’s locked in a f•••ing cupboard during the f•••ing Second World War… he’s never seen an elephant. Never mind a f•••ing giraffe.