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The people who are drawn to the shows cover all ages from teenagers to people in their 80s and 90s, but I can see this beautiful line of curiosity running through them all,” he says. “It’s a celebratory, optimistic environment where people feel free to express what’s on their mind.” Robin Ince has landed a two-part Radio 4 stand-up special about the brain's relationship with reality and is publishing a book about his obsessive love of books, British Comedy Guide can exclusively reveal. Though he also discusses topics like succulent cake, controversial cinema and claustrophobic water closets, it's never long before Ince shares another curiosity from his teetering 'to be read' book pile at home and how it somehow impacted on his life. Hearing all this directly from the man is particularly pleasing, especially the incidental footnotes he slips into the recording. It all goes to show just how busy a mind this comic personality has and how endearing his passion for reading is. Robin Ince's Reality Tunnel is split into two 30-minute episodes, Inside Robin Ince and Outside Robin Ince. Robin enjoyed the tour so much that it inspired another book, Bibliomaniac (“the fastest book I’ve ever written”), and he almost immediately set off on the road again while planning the launch of an online Bibliomaniac book club and continuing his other ongoing project, BBC Radio Four’s The Infinite Monkey Cage , again with his good friend Brian Cox.
Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince | Waterstones
Recorded at the Z-arts centre in Hulme, Manchester, the material draws from his his 2018 book I'm a Joke and So Are You: Reflections on Humour and Humanity and his 2015 live show, Robin Ince's Reality Tunnel. I think I love books more than I love reading. Their company means there is always the possibility of something to be discovered, waiting for me between the covers, which hasn't even entered my imagination yet. A small but pleasing change in my reality is waiting on every shelf.I know that I have a tendency towards melancholy, social anxiety, and self-loathing, and books form a great part of my prescription medication. When I say that books are my drugs, I don't mean that in a throwaway manner; they really do calm me, they really do shut off some of the voices for a while. Ince has known Gervais for more than 30 years and has been his support on tour. And he says they still argue about the nature of offence. Bibliomaniac follows him in his quest to discover why he can never own enough books. It is the story of an addiction and romance, published October 10th by Atlantic Books, who previously put out I'm A Joke and his 2021 appreciation of the wonders of science, The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity.
The exciting thing about books – Mensa
Anyway, Ince's love of books and joy in talking about them comes through strongly in Bibliomaniac. He is a compelling and very funny writer, both about travel and books. I laughed out loud at anecdotes like this: I think I love books more than I love reading. Their company means there is always the possibility of something to be discovered, waiting for me between the covers, which hasn't even entered my imagination yet. A small but pleasing change in my reality is waiting on every shelf.” This is a very rich one-year memoir of Robin Ince accepting the challenge to do a tour of 100 independent bookshops, but being a bit of an obsessive, he actually visits many more than that. Most travelling gets done by train, and the vehicular cardiganned Robin crams his bags with treasures from almost each shop, subsisting on biscuits, or possibly cake. What a life! I chose Bibliomaniac with some trepidation, having yet to find a book about books that doesn’t revere long dead white men and assorted tedious classics, so I was pleased to discover Ince’s taste tends to be rather more eclectic, if not eccentric.
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A conversation with Robin Ince is a bit like weaving your way rapidly around the shelves of a second-hand book shop with a highly enthusiastic proprietor. Warm and gregarious, he hops from one subject to another with genuine delight and fascination. I am extremely jealous of Robin's year. Can you imagine anything better than this being your job, to read books, visit lovely bookshops in lovely towns, accumulating wonderful books, and then talking to people about science, books and art? And being fed cake? I get to do a tiny bit of all this, but no, not to this level of perfection.
Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince | Goodreads
An insider’s account of the rampant misconduct within the Trump administration, including the tumult surrounding the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. In this erudite and witty book, Robin reveals why scientific wonder isn’t just for the professionals. Filled with interviews featuring astronauts, comedians, teachers, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and more – as well as charting Robin’s own journey with science – The Importance of Being Interested explores why many wrongly think of the discipline as distant and difficult. From the glorious appeal of the stars above to why scientific curiosity can encourage much needed intellectual humility, this optimistic and profound book will leave you filled with a thirst for intellectual adventure. Ince tells us at the beginning of the book that he has ADHD, and the book is a little breathless, rushing from bookshop to bookshop with comments thrown in about everything and everyone….but sometimes he brought me up short with his insight: Someone asked me the other day why I don’t have any hobbies,” says Robin. “I replied that hobbies are a requirement if the work you do isn’t something you truly love. I don’t need a hobby because I absolutely love hanging around with book people, hanging around with scientists, wandering around and creating silly ideas. That is my hobby and that is my life.”
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You may think you have a book problem but, as likely as not, comedian Ince’s will dwarf it. Incapable of exiting a bookshop with just one volume, he ran out of shelf space long ago – and that’s after he donated 6,000 books to charity. In 2021, when Covid nixed a tour he’d planned with Prof Brian Cox, Ince hit on the idea of visiting 100 bookshops around the UK in just two months, notionally promoting his last book, The Importance of Being Interested. There’s some nice travel writing here as he wends his way from Wigtown to Penzance, along with cosy anecdotes about the folk he encounters and some madcap tangents, invariably prompted by his eclectic reading habits. She and Her Cat
Books | Robin Ince
What can I say. Here I am, working on books and smashing my non-work- related reading target... And a few times a year I get to talk to people about books in a similar way. But Robin is making me feel like I could be doing this more; better! I am simultaneously jealous and inspired. See issue one of the new Mensa magazine in March for an extended interview with Robin in which he reveals the key components of his perfect bookshop. I’m not going to pretend that I know even a quarter of the references Ince makes to books, writers and general literary miscellany. I just soldiered on, hoping that some of the anecdotes will find a home in my memory via osmosis. A lot of this is very familiar to me from my own experience. Books are my drugs too; I've always used reading to calm my mind and escape myself. I too read about hallucinogens with great interest but am far too anxious to take them. It seems to me that no-one would choose to read constantly if they liked the sound of their own thoughts! Yet, unlike Ince, I definitely love reading more than books. He accumulates books constantly, whereas I own fewer books than my friends and family. The majority of the books I read are borrowed from libraries or friends. My preference is to read a book, review it, then pass it on so someone else can enjoy it. The 110 books on my shelves are roughly half unread and half favourites worthy of re-reading. Much as I adore books, in excess they become clutter which I detest.To celebrate to launch of Robin’s new book, Bibliomaniac, he will once again be visiting bookshops all across the UK. Something that we’re terrible at in Britain, and particularly in England, is excitement,” he says. “We have a fear of genuine delight. Everyone’s very good at laughing loudly in a scary way late at night drunk on a train, but that vulnerability of exposing yourself in the cold light of day by saying ‘I love this!’ is something we often fear. I love exploring ideas that stay with people and encourage us all to investigate the world more. I find that very exciting.” So what is the bibliomaniac currently reading? “The first one is Invisible Painting ,” says Robin. “It’s about the great British-Mexican surrealist painter and author Leonora Carrington, and was written by her son, Gabriel Weisz Carrington. I’m also reading Myths of Gender: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Anne Fausto Sterling, who’s a very interesting biologist and kind of activist. And I’ve just started re-reading Good Morning Midnight by Jean Rhys, because I think I might choose it for the book club. Plus, I’m reading Anna Minton’s Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the 21 st Century .” For sociologist Kahn-Harris, the warning message inside Kinder Surprise eggs – that tiny slip of paper covered in 37 languages and eight different scripts – is nothing short of revelatory. “The Manuscript”, as he’s soon dubbing it, inspires a quest to repurpose the myth of Babel as a metaphor not for conflict and division but unity. A true languages buff, he delights in his own incomprehension, finding individuality and invention in geeky translations of the Kinder egg message into Cornish, Klingon and ancient Sumerian, and musing on topics from linguistic evolution to endangered tongues. It’s gloriously eccentric – enlightening, funny and full of the human yearning to connect with others. From Wigtown to Penzance, the comedian, author and broadcaster Robin Ince has been popping into bookshops across Britain and quite possibly having the time of his life. Yet while his Bibliomaniac bookshop tour has been one of the best things to happen to him, it developed entirely by chance.
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