The Drunken Boat - Ted Berrigan

Advantages: Ultimatly life-affirming
Disadvantages: Hard to obtain in England (try the Internet)

...I prefer American poets. British poets are too self-obsessed and parochial. Of all Modern American Poets, Jim Carroll is the most emotionally direct. While some of his early work can be contextually obscure, his heart always comes through. Carroll’s creativity pulled him through protracted Heroin addiction in the 70s. He became an over-night star in New York’s underground poetry scene, buoyed up on praise from contempories Patti Smith and Ted Berrigan and rave reviews from the legendary Jack Kerouac. His unquenchable lust for expression led him to become a luminary of the New York punk scene in the 80s; his song ‘People Who Died’ widely considered a seminal work from that period. This is a man for whom words are more than a living, they are a life. His work combines the raw hunger of the street with an unpretentious spirituality... Read review

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Advantages: A detailed account on Ted Bundy.
Disadvantages: Some bits can be disturbing.

...supposed victim of Ted Bundy. We hear of other victims that went missing, some were either found dead, others have never been found. Some of the attacks took place in shopping malls and busy popular place. One of them was Lake Sammamish State Park. Janice Ott was seeing helping a young man, who had an arm in a sling, with a sailboat. They were overheard introducing themselves to each other. His name was Ted. He told her that the boat wasn’t actually there. It was at his parent’s house and with his broken arm he couldn’t do it on his own. The last time she was seen was leaving with him. On the same day Denise Nasland also went missing from the same place. Rule throughout the book shows us how Bundy was a caring man. She herself was unsure of his guilt for many years. ‘Ted Bundy would never hurt a woman; he wouldn’t even make and off... Read review

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Advantages: Great characterisation and writing
Disadvantages: Style may not be to everyone's taste

..."Absolutely," says Ted Mundy, often, using that typically middle-class phrase of the mid 20th century. But only a part of his background - he was educated at an English public school - conforms to this stereotype. The rest of him has been formed by a wide variety of environments and influences which combine to make him a perfect spy. Readers of John Le Carré will recognise that last phrase, the title of one of his previous novels. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War was declared over, many book reviewers lamented that this also spelled the end of the spy story. Not so. It is alive, well and thriving in the master's hands; partly because Le Carré has always written novels which happen to be about spies, rather than spy stories, and partly because, well, there are always new enemies against whom the dark arts of espionage can... Read review

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