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8th out of 46 books
—
9 voters
Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs
by
D.D. Johnston (Goodreads Author)
A rollicking debut novel set in a Scottish fast-food joint. Think Nick Hornby for the anti-globalization generation!
Paperback, 247 pages
Published
July 19th 2011
by AK Press
(first published June 1st 2011)
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Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs follows the adventures of a young Scottish lad who, not content with his lot in life as a fast food worker, forms an underground union with his friends, gets politicised, takes part in some of the spectacular anti-capitalist actions of the turn of the millenium then has his life unravel as his optimism fades as the movement stumbles.
Shot through with deadpan humour, it's both hilarious and heart wrenching. It's a good document of a particular era, as the optimism o...more
Shot through with deadpan humour, it's both hilarious and heart wrenching. It's a good document of a particular era, as the optimism o...more
D D Johnston’s first novel is a spin on the classic bildungsroman that sees Scottish working class lad Wayne Foster transformed, via the trials both of Europe’s early 21st century anti-capitalist struggles and of mental illness from an angry but slightly out-of-place burger flipper into something yet to emerge but who we might well meet on a picket line (as we do, in a sense, on the picket line from time to time at the university where we both work).
Along the way, Wayne digs up turf in London’s...more
Along the way, Wayne digs up turf in London’s...more
this book is scottish, like really scottish, like the author doesn't know how to spell scottish.
it's great really really good. It captures the modern attempt to do "something" where in reality we aren't doing anything. we land at protests and sign petitions because that is how you are suppose to change the world not because that's how you do change the world. It taps into the ultimate aimlessness of modern protest, we don't know how we get from where we are to where we want to be so we mimic ho...more
it's great really really good. It captures the modern attempt to do "something" where in reality we aren't doing anything. we land at protests and sign petitions because that is how you are suppose to change the world not because that's how you do change the world. It taps into the ultimate aimlessness of modern protest, we don't know how we get from where we are to where we want to be so we mimic ho...more
This could almost be two books put together as one. The first is a funny uptake of what wage slavery is all about; the drudgery, the repetition and the petty line-managers. And how a bunch of modern day anarcho-syndicalists would try and deconstruct this. It seems books don't talk about work anymore for some reason, and unfortunately its the place we spend most of our lives.
For my money the book contains the best writing about what it feels to be political and involved in a movement you sometime...more
For my money the book contains the best writing about what it feels to be political and involved in a movement you sometime...more
a tale of romance set to anarchists actions in Paris, Thessaloniki, Prague, London, (and Genoa via tv). Very nice try for a first novel with compelling scenes in Benny Burger, squats, bars, and the burning streets. author is a professor now in uk? (i'm not sure where gloucesterhshire is) and i look forward to more stories.
oh, and yes, there are petrol bombs here, but you ever notice there is way more burning, violence, aggressive head pounding, burning, shooting, destruction, human rights trampl...more
oh, and yes, there are petrol bombs here, but you ever notice there is way more burning, violence, aggressive head pounding, burning, shooting, destruction, human rights trampl...more
Well written and interesting from cover to cover. Brilliant lecturer to boot!
I enjoyed it in the beginning but after awhile it started to drag on a bit. I'd still recommend it though.
May 15, 2013
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D.D. Johnston is a Scottish author, who now lives in Cheltenham, England, where he works as a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. His first novel, Peace, Love, & Petrol Bombs (AK Press), featured in The Sunday Herald’s Books of the Year for 2011, as a choice of Helen Fitzgerald, who said it was "funny as all hell.” Popmatters described it as “a humorous and poign...more
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