EVER BOUGHT A BOOK ON THE STRENGTH OF THE REVIEWS ON THE BACK???

If you are like us (and probably one of the many thousands of book lovers across the globe) and have had the misfortune of spending your hard-earned cash on an apparent "best-seller"; you will probably also have experienced the dull thud as you bang your head against the wall, thinking "Why did I listen to the reviews on the back?!" The truth is: reviews found on books are usually self-promoting, PR stunt-type hype and not necessarily a true reflection of the books' quality at all.

It is our aim to tell the truth about books, but don't for one second assume that that is synonymous with us creating a blog to 'diss' authors' work - to the contrary - our intention is to provide an honest appraisal of each and every book we read. If the book is any good - it'll get a good review. If it's awful and a tragedy to the literary world - then it won't. It's that simple.

Sunday, 2 December 2007

Playing it Safe, by Alan Pearce (ISBN 978-1-905548-85-9)

Who would have thought the world of Health and Safety would be made into a book. OK, so we have all seen the tomes that are HS&E manuals at work – well, this promises just a little something lighter...
On a personal note, if I may, Health and Safety is a rather novel concept for me (what do you expect with my head in books most of the time?), besides which, it doesn’t really make much sense. I’m all for being healthy and safe, but I suspect that that is not the purpose of the legislation. I suspect, in fact, that the legislation makes every living human being not only responsible for its own health and safety, but that of everyone else around it...down the road from it...and those who might be inadvertently affected by something you may do or have done. It is on this all consuming assumption that this well-grounded and quasi-factual (it consists of rehashed newspaper articles) and often confusingly hilarious book offers a head-on collision course towards Health and Safety pundits.
Whilst this book suffers a distinct lack of curb appeal, its content is surely overflowing with street cred – what, laugh at the nonsensical and often delusional government – well, I never!
Definitely light hearted but with a slightly ominous message, Playing it Safe delivers wonderful entertainment. What is truly terrifying is the realisation that comes all too late, when it finally sinks in that the entire book is based on real events that have been served on real people all in the name of Health and Safety... and I am not joking when I say, banning the turning on of Christmas lights (p62) because of Health and Safety is an absolute farce. Shame on whomever was responsible!
Buy this and you won't be disappointed - complete magic!!

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