#LadLitSunday: Lad Lit authors support the occupiers of Carnegie Library & Rob Radcliffe tops the charts

Lad lit superstars Nick Hornby and David Nicholls have thrown their support behind the occupiers of Carnegie Library by signing an open letter of support to condemn the proposed changes to the Lambeth library service.

Forty protestors have occupied the building in Herne Hill, London, since March 31 to campaign against council plans to close the library and transform it into a healthy living centre. More than 220 writers signed the letter within 24 hours of being asked to do so.

Good news this week for lad lit author Rob Radcliffe as he celebrated his novel Meat Market going straight to number one in the free download charts on Amazon in the humour category. Radcliffe was full of thanks on Twitter for the readers who shot him to the top of the charts.

I am delighted to announce that the Lad Lit Blog Tour has announced another eight dates taking the grand total to 39. Starting at Boon's Book Case on April 19, the tour will the travel all across the UK taking in 26 stops, with eight in the US, two in The Netherlands and two more in Australia. You can follow the tour on Twitter at the #LadLitBlogTour hashtag.

Quick bits

•  Author Nick Spalding will be at the London Book Fair (April 12-14) this week at Olympia, London on Thursday morning. Go see him at the Amazon KDP stand
• I will be interviewing Ben Hatch (author of The P45 Diaries) in the next week or two as part of my Author Interview series

Tweet of the week
Great banter from Danny Wallace this week as always...

So disappointed in El Chapo. How does he keep getting wound up in these things??! pic.twitter.com/BWmPzIhZKO

— Danny Wallace (@dannywallace) April 7, 2016

#LadLitSunday: Hollywood deal for The Bourbon Kid and Jon Rance works on new book

Welcome to the first of a new weekly column called #LadLitSunday. This is a weekly round-up of everything lad lit from book launches and author news to latest reviews and giveaways to cool articles and lad humour that has appeared across that thing called the internet in the last seven days.

First up this week is the exciting news that the bloody masterpiece that is The Book With No Name could be coming to the big screen in the near future. I caught up with the author behind The Bourbon Kid series this week and he told me: "The rights for The Book With No Name are now in the hands of a company called Belga Films. I’ve worked with them on the script for a movie. I’m really happy with what they’ve done and it’s already caught the eye of one of my absolute favourite Hollywood A-listers (although I can’t say who just yet!)."

Furthermore, his next novel see's The Bourbon Kid return to action with his new anti-hero, The Red Mohawk, in The Plot To Kill The Pope which has already been a big success in Europe. Watch this space!

New York based Epoch Times this week published an article titled 6 Action Page-Turner Book Series That Oddly Haven’t Been Turned Into Movies Yet featuring the likes of The Gray Man, John Rain and Earl Swagger. The paper said: "Here are six series of books for men, that have been absolutely ripe for the picking for years now, but which for some reason haven’t been turned into movies yet." Well worth checking the article out.

Another author I had the pleasure of interviewing this week was Jon Rance. He is currently working on novel number five and told me: "It's a romantic comedy set in London. That's all I can say at the moment. It's really my first romantic comedy novel and I'm very excited about it."

Helena Bonham-Carter has been talking this week about the new BBC drama Love, Nina which has been written for screen by by Nick Hornby. The five-part series is inspired by Nina Stibbe's book of the same name, and is sure to be a hit what with Oscar-winning Hornby seemingly having a never-ending golden touch.

Quick Bits

• Lad Lit author Danny Wallace has been confirmed as one of the guests on The Virgin Radio Takeover, which will air Sundays from 10am. 
•  A study has found that men make up their minds about a book quicker than women; reported in The Guardian.

Tweet of the Week
Nick Spalding posts this wonderful review straight from the heart. Or the pants...

I fear Google Translate didn't do a great job of translating this excellent 5 star review of Eine Fette Chance... pic.twitter.com/96J8FwBKXV

— Nick Spalding (@NickSpalding) March 12, 2016

To take part in #LadLitSunday simply use the hashtag when posting a comment on your social media feeds and I will do my best to mention all of the best comments here on my blog.

Lad Lit Book Reviews: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

I have not read nearly as many Nick Hornby books as I should, and why I waited so long to read High Fidelity is beyond me! This truly is lad lit at its finest and in the main character Rob Fleming I think I have a kindred spirit. I hope I’m not doing him an injustice by saying this, but he kind of reminds me a bit of Karl Pilkington in that throughout his narration he constantly says the things that everyone secretly thinks but rarely say out loud, or that he simply tells it like it is like a conversation you would have with a mate down the pub. But more on that later.

So what’s it all about? The whole story is told through Rob’s eyes; he’s in his 30s and life is not exactly moving at a 100 miles per hour. The record store that he owns isn’t a financial gold mine and he spends much of his time discussing his favourite ‘top five’ music lists with his employees Dick and Barry (who certainly deserve a special mention for the part they play in making the dynamic of this little trio so funny at times).

Rob has not had the best luck with women either and after the first chapter in which he details the five great ‘break-ups’ of his life, it doesn’t really come as a surprise when his current girlfriend Laura decides to give him the elbow for Ray (real name Ian) who lives upstairs. There are some brilliantly funny moments when Rob starts to have flashbacks at the times Laura and him would lay in bed listening to the passionate moans of pleasure coming from Ray’s bedroom, and of course like a lot of blokes in his situation, instead of facing the main problem of his break-up head-on, paranoia engulfs his own sexual ability, as Rob explains:

“I really don’t know why it matters so much. Ian could be better at talking than me, or cooking, or working, or housework, or saving money, or earning money, or spending money, or understanding books or films; he could be nicer than me, better-looking, more intelligent, cleaner, more generous-spirited, more helpful, a better human being in any way you care to mention... and I wouldn’t mind. Really. I accept and understand that you can’t be good at everything and I am tragically unskilled in some very important areas. But sex is different; knowing a successor is better in bed is impossible to take, and I don’t know why.”

While Laura is ambitious and determined, Rob is somewhat happy for things to carry on like they always have. At first he embraces the break-up; feeling that he was the one being held back somehow, but pretty soon reality strikes and Rob starts to wonder if he’ll ever find a woman who will be able to resist dropping him like a lead balloon. Of course, Rob comes up with the perfect plan to put a stop to this rut, but instead taking a hard look at the man in the mirror, he decides the best way to determine what his shortcomings are is to seek out his top five break-ups to ask their opinion.

Along the way Rob realises that he wants to win Laura back; he has to win Laura back but change doesn’t come easy and there are lots of laughs along the way at Rob’s expense.

And now on to those Karl Pilkington say-what-you-see moments. Here are a couple of my favourite Rob Fleming lines:

“Sometimes I got so bored of trying to touch her breasts that I would try to touch her between her legs, a gesture that had sort of self-parodying wit about it: it was like trying to borrow a fiver, getting turned down, and asking to borrow fifty quid instead.”

“I hate calling him T-Bone. It sets my teeth on edge, like when you have to ask for a Big Heap Buffalo Billburger, when all you want is a quarter pounder, or a Just Like Mom Used To Make, when all you want is a piece of apple pie.”

There are some other truly great lines in this book, but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who is going to give this book a read. I personally really enjoyed it and the subject matter of love and break-ups is told from a perspective that I think both men and women will enjoy and appreciate.

What is lad-lit? Move over girls, the boys are coming!

So what is lad-lit?

Often referred to as dick-lit by our American cousins, lad-lit is best known as male equivalent of chick-lit. It is books about men by men. Like my very own novel The Drought, lad-lit typically explores the male psyche, especially around subjects such as friendship, relationships, love, and sex.

The undisputed king of the genre has to be Nick Hornby, who has penned novels such as Fever Pitch, About a Boy, and High Fidelity. Hornby has carved out a career writing about themes often associated with chick lit novels from a man's point of view.

And that was my sole purpose for writing The Drought. I got sick and tired of being forced to endure countless hours of mind-numbing chick flicks at the hands of my girlfriend. I would watch the male characters on screen and inside I would be screaming a man wouldn't do that!

For example, you know that bit in the film when the guy realises that he actually is in love with the girl so he rushes off to airport to stop her jetting off out of his life? That wouldn't happen! You know why? Because the bloke would get too caught up playing Grand Theft Auto and would miss the train to Gatwick! Besides, he could always send her a text or Facebook her later on. 

And the part when the woman gazes into the man's eyes and he takes her in his arms and makes sweet passionate love to her all night long as Boys II Men plays in the background? Forget about it! The only song playing in our head at that point is Celebration by Kool and the Gang! And we never call it making love!

I wanted to write a light-hearted story about a bunch of  normal everyday blokes and stick them in the middle of a chick lit situation and allow my own versions of the tale to unfold. And the result? Normally it tends to be hilarious, sometimes downright cringy situations, but always brutally honest. And that's because we're men! When a woman says to us If you really loved me, you would know what to do, we genuinely think the correct thing to do is to go to the football with our mates rather than stay and celebrate our four-year anniversary of the first time we slept with each other. After all, it's not a proper anniversary if you can't get a Hallmark card to celebrate it!

Nick Hornby is not the only author flying the lad lit flag. Danny Wallace and Mike Gayle have both written best-selling novels telling the story from a male perspective. You just have to pick up a copy of Shortlist magazine each week to read the fantastic ramblings from Wallace in his award-winning column Danny Wallace is a Man. Lad lit is becoming increasingly popular and new writers, such as Nick Spalding and Matt Dunn, are now frequently seen flying up the eBook charts.

For me, lad lit isn't necessarily confined to stories about love and relationships, and you will find that the books I review on this site are both fiction and non-fiction stories that I feel would have a broader appeal to men. 

If you would like to read more about lad lit and books for men, then check out Steve's Book Reviews.

Top Ten Lad Lit Authors (the male version of chick lit!)

My top 10 lad lit authors!
In a previous post, I attempted to answer the question What is lad lit. Well in this section I am going to attempt to introduce you to of the world of lad lit authors, with a list of some of the most well-known authors in the genre, plus a couple of up-and-coming writers to watch out for...



1. Nick Hornby
The undispited king of lad lit! Hornby has penned some of the great lad lit novels of our time and marked his arrival on the scene with Fever Pitch; a memoir about his obsession with football and Arsenal FC in particular. But it was High Fidelity where Hornby set the benchmark for all aspiring lad lit authors. His tale about thirty-something record shop owner Rob Fleming laid out many of the adult male insecurities with great hilarity. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Hornby is that, despite the huge success of his novels, he has only published six fiction titles since High Fidelity in 1995, with the 2009 novel Juliet, Naked being his latest work.

2. Mike Gayle
Mike Gyale was a features editor and later an agony aunt for girls mags Just Seventeen and Bliss, which probably goes quite some way to explaining why he is so good at understanding the chick lit for men genre. His first book, My Legendary Grlfriend, received fantastic praise and was even heralded as a Bridget Jones Diary for the male audience. Since then Mike's novels have continued to generate great feedback from readers, but some would argue that his style of writing has crossed over from being lad lit to more traditional chick lit author, albeit one that tends to write from the male perspective.

3. Danny Wallace
One of my favourite authors at the moment. Where Danny gets his crazy ideas from are anyones guess, but he writes them so brilliantly that you just can't help but get wrapped up in the story. He is probably best known for Yes Man (which got turned into a Hollywood blockbuster starring Jim Carey) and his award-winning column in Shortlist magazine. But the first Danny Wallace book I read was Friends Like These, where Danny travels around the globe to track down his ex-Primary School classmates. Utterly pointless but totally brilliant at the same time. Danny's recent novel Charlotte Street was his first foray into the world of fiction.

4. Tony Parsons
Tony Parsons is in the same ilk as Nick Hornby, in that he found huge success writing about the trials and tribulations of the thirty-something man. Parsons had written a number of books before he found huge success in 1999 with the multimillion selling novel Man and Boy; the brilliantly engaging novel that follows Harry as he learns to become a father to his son and a son to his aging father, and tries to find love at the same time. Parsons found his niche writing about relationships and often refers to his novels as Men Lit.

5. Nick Spalding
I only recently discovered Nick Spalding, who has enjoyed the successful journey from best-selling indie author to getting a three-book deal with a top publishing house. Another author in the Mike Gayle mould, where there is a very thin line between him being a lad lit or chick lit author. Still, what Spalding does is capture and identify the emotions and feelings from both the male and female characters, as he did so brilliantly with in Love... From Both Sides. It will be interesting to see what he delivers now he has the backing of a big publishing house. I'm watching this space!

6. Matt Dunn
Matt is another one of those authors that I have only recently just come across since I started to delve a bit deeper into the lad lit genre. I haven't read any of of his books yet, but he has had great success with his contemporary romantic comedy novels including Best Man and The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook, which was shortlisted for both the Romantic Novel Of The Year award, as well as the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. He's also written about life, love, and relationships for various publications including The Times, Guardian, Cosmopolitan, Company, Elle, Glamour, and The Sun.

7. Ben Mezrich
Ben Mezrich is perhaps not the most obvious name to jump out at you when you think of typical lad lit, but I add him to this list because he has an uncanny ability to spot real-life stories with male leads, and make you want to be that character! You might be more familiar with Mezrich's work on the big screen as he penned the books which the Hollywood smash hits The Social Network and 21 were based on, which starred Justin Timberlake and Kevin Spacey respectively. What Mezrich does so brilliantly is take a true story and use his artistic freedom to create a a really exciting read, albeit from very interesting stories.

8. Steve Carter
Steve Carter is the author of the number one Kindle smash hit Love, Sex, and Tesco's Finest Cava, which reached number one spot in the UK humour and number one in contemporary romance in March 2011. Another indie author who has proved that you can achieve great sales by going it alone, but other than that I don't know too much else about this author, other than his second novel is called Finding Yourself in Seville.

9. Mil Millington
Mil Millington first came to public prominence when he created a web-site entitled Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About. The site's main content was anecdotes describing arguments and misunderstandings between Mil and his German girlfriend Margret, mother of his two sons. Such was the popularity of this site that Mil was offered a publishing deal, and wrote a novel with the same title as his web-site, but with new content, published in 2002.

10. Steven Scaffardi 
You didn't really expect me to write a top 10 list of lad lit authors without including myself did you?! Okay, so it's a little bit cheeky but with each and every positive reader comment and book review that trickles in, I'm confident and hopeful that my name will one day start to appear on other peoples top ten lad lists in the not too distant future. My debut novel The Drought is often compared to some of the authors I have listed here, which I always take as a huge compliment. And if you don't believe me, then just check out the reviews and comments it has been getting yourself!

Lad Lit Book Reviews: Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

I can remember the exact moment I fell in love with football; and I mean really fell in love with football. I can still remember crying my eyes out as an 11-year-old boy having just seen my team Everton lose in the FA Cup Final to our bitter rivals (They play in red - I still can't even bring myself to utter their name...)

Those tears signified a love affair that still burns strong 24 years later. At that point I realised that life (and weekends in particular) would never be the same again. This football club had my heart, and despite the fact they would break it countless times over the years, I would always go back because, just like a drug addiction, the high you got from the good times were so good that you simply can't ever turn your back on them.

What Nick Horby has done in Fever Pitch is capture all of that emotion of the pain and joy that football brings, and put it down on the pages of a book and delivered it like a group of hardcore footy fans having a chat over a pint in the pub on a Saturday afternoon after the match.

You have got to be a lover of the beautiful game to truly appreciate and enjoy this book. Written in an autobiographical style, Hornby uses the backdrop of his obsession with Arsenal FC to recount his life story from an 8-year-old boy on the terraces with his father, right up until what was arguably the most exciting climax to a football season in 1989 when a last-gasp Michael Thomas goal snatched the championship title for the Gunners straight out under the noses from the team who's team name I can't say!

Everything that happens in Hornby's life - from his family to girlfriends to his education - revolves around football.Purists of the game will love this book, especially those who remember a time when money didn't rule with an iron fist, and the divide between players and fans was not as large as the astronomical sums of money they earn today.

But if you have little or no interest in football (or if you're a Spurs fan!), then you are probably best picking up another of Hornby's novels because this is going to be lost on you!