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Dawn of the Dumb
Polite, pensive, mature, reserved ...Charlie Brooker is none of these things and less. Picking up where his hilarious Screen Burn left off, Dawn of the Dumb collects the best of Charlie Brooker's recent TV writing, together with uproarious spleen-venting diatribes on a range of non-televisual subjects - tackling everything from David Cameron to human hair. Rude, unhinged, ...more
Paperback, 345 pages
Published
November 1st 2007
by Faber and Faber
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Hannah Eiseman-Renyard
rated it
Recommends it for:
angry young men, geeks, nerds, cultural commentators, TV viewers, lefties
Angry, Puerile and Brilliant - Perfect Toilet Reading
This is the collected works of Charlie Brooker since his equally good collected articles in Screen Burn. I have loved Charlie Brooker ever since I was old enough to take an interest in the newspapers my parents bought. Dawn of the Dumb is a combination of Charlie Brooker's more recent Screenburn reviews in the Guardian newspaper's Guide section and the longer weekly editorial column he got given on the Guardian's G2 supplement.
...more
This is the collected works of Charlie Brooker since his equally good collected articles in Screen Burn. I have loved Charlie Brooker ever since I was old enough to take an interest in the newspapers my parents bought. Dawn of the Dumb is a combination of Charlie Brooker's more recent Screenburn reviews in the Guardian newspaper's Guide section and the longer weekly editorial column he got given on the Guardian's G2 supplement.
...more
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The mere sight of Charlie Brooker's disdainful flared nostrils makes me snigger. And snort. And all manner of socially unacceptable, unladylike modes of laughter, really.
However, I've been holding out on reading this until the banality of my surroundings reached such a nadir that I was forced to seek solace in Brooker's World of Poison. Well, between national mourning over Big Brother and losing a full five minutes of my life to a girl in my college class tell us a story of how the wrong Chin...more
However, I've been holding out on reading this until the banality of my surroundings reached such a nadir that I was forced to seek solace in Brooker's World of Poison. Well, between national mourning over Big Brother and losing a full five minutes of my life to a girl in my college class tell us a story of how the wrong Chin...more
Three cheers for vicious, vehement vitriol: Hip Hip, Huzzah. Hip Hip, Huzzah. Hip Hip, Huzzah!!!
Up until very recently, I was not aware of Charlie Brooker's existence. Then I was lucky enough to catch a program called Newswipe on BBC4, which also gives the unbeatable Doug Stanhope a 5-minute slot every episode to vent his spleen on humanity and the world at large. It's wonderful.
Then the season ended and I was left with no weekly venom session to rekindle my dwindling hope for ...more
Up until very recently, I was not aware of Charlie Brooker's existence. Then I was lucky enough to catch a program called Newswipe on BBC4, which also gives the unbeatable Doug Stanhope a 5-minute slot every episode to vent his spleen on humanity and the world at large. It's wonderful.
Then the season ended and I was left with no weekly venom session to rekindle my dwindling hope for ...more
It is incredible the amount of column inches Brooker has devoted to napalming reality television. This collection consists largely of endless attacks on the preening twits who participate in this witless gonk. Why, you may ask? Well, if we stop voicing our disgust for this drivel, the alternative is lying down and accepting it, as we’ve done with so many second-rate television abortions aimed at lobotomised squirrels. We need Brooker sparring against this sludge, even if he takes a morbid pleasu...more
While I love reading Charlie's columns as they come out, I found that reading them all collected like this unfortunately emphasised the.... well, what I can only call the slightness of his writing. He's so very clever, and his metaphors and imagery are breathtaking and stunningly hilarious, but I can't help feeling he's thrown himself away on inconsequential topics for years. [Now I sound a bit like my mother.:] But it's a shame, because I feel like he has these passing moments of real passi...more
Thomas Jancis
rated it
Recommends it for:
People who enjoy snarky humour
Recommended to Thomas by:
Read Screen Burn
I really like Charlie Brooker. Not the extent some people seem to, who have taken him up as the only sane man in the asylum but I have to admit he does get under your skin.(Well lookie who’s trying to pretend he’s better then the humdrum. Bet you’re reading it “sarcastically”.)
SEE! Right there. After reading this book and/or watching the show your self-deprecating sarcasm will take on Brooker’s voice. It’s weird.
Anyhoo, this is a collection of articles which are simply Brooker gett...more
SEE! Right there. After reading this book and/or watching the show your self-deprecating sarcasm will take on Brooker’s voice. It’s weird.
Anyhoo, this is a collection of articles which are simply Brooker gett...more
Have always loved his columns, and the TV Go Home stuff, etc. This is very funny stuff with some deserving targets treated with righteous contempt. Possibly my favourite moment was a discussion of tv satire and the observation that right-wing satire tends to be not all that funny. It's not that "right-wingers aren't capable of being amusing at all." Charlie explains, after all "....Mussolini looked hilarious swinging from that lamppost." Priceless.
Andrew Henderson
rated it
Recommends it for:
Anyone with a slight distaste for society.
Shelves:
humour,
journalism
This book is both painfully true and utterly hilarious. My lack of a television means I preferred the chapters on social commentary rather than his TV columns, but that doesn't stop them being side splittingly funny. If you were less of a grumpy recluse then you might not appreciate Brooker's dry wit but personally I love it.
He is very, very amusing. I spluttered with laughter many times. However, I should have read this in much smaller chunks. Reading the whole thing in a couple of days was a bit much. It gets a bit samey and there is too much really disgusting imagery in places. I also now know more than I ever wanted to know about crappy reality TV shows from 5 years ago.
I read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it, which was sort of handy as reading this book made me despise just about everything else.
I'd also like to add the word 'vitriolic' because it's the sort of word that makes you look smarter when filling in reviews online.
I'd also like to add the word 'vitriolic' because it's the sort of word that makes you look smarter when filling in reviews online.
Charlie Brooker is a very angry man and doesn't care who he offends in the process of venting this rage! He is creative in his insults so that you are left with a very vivid and often disturbing or disgusting image that he uses to help illustrate his anger towards wide ranging subjects from Big Brother and 24, to David Cameron and children. There are occasions where a description or image is used more than once for different subjects, but this hint of repetition isn't strong enough to spoil the ...more
A decent toilet-side book. Not so enrapturing that I lost hours to my toilet visits as a result; reading this in a long sitting could make you momentarily think you can have too much Brooker.
No one dissects Big Brother with quite the flair and panache of Charlie Brooker. Flair. Panache. Two words I never anticipated using in connection with that TV show...
Jono Carney
added it
A great collection of musings with some laugh out loud moments. I love Brooker's view on life and particularly modern pop culture. Well worth checking out!
Hilarious, venomous and full of vitriol - recommended to anyone who thinks that 99% of television is total rubbish!
Really enjoyed this book, but then I have always enjoyed Charlie Brookers Columns which is what this is a collection of columns. So go on to the Gaurdian Website and read one, if you like it buy the book, if not dont. Very simple.
Another collection of articles written for the Guardian newspaper over the last few years. Very very funny in that spluttering your cuppa through your nose kind of way.
charlie brooke is a jaded git. but boy, is he funny. and let's be fair, he hates himself as much as anyone else, and respect is surely due to anyone who can get death threats from the american right! this is a collection of his columns for the guardian newspaper (the one published in the UK..), and whilst it's targets vary greatly, he's always bang on. read it, it's just highlarious. i'm not sure how well some of them will translate to an american audience, a lot of the columns being about tv an...more
Steven Ackerley
added it
10 Stars Out Of 5.
Charlie Fucking Brooker, you excellent bastard.
Charlie Fucking Brooker, you excellent bastard.
Fantastically sarcastic writer that has a greta way at looking at tv.
In parts - hilarious. In others, not so much. But an ok read
A marvellous collection of sarcastic bitchy articles :)
The perfect book to read when you're on the loo!
pretty cool
A deliciously funny book. Full of short essays (about a page and a half long) taken from Brooker's newspaper column. The author uses a foundation as a TV reviewer to riff on and moan about everything from international politics to the "type of people who really need an 'age appropriate' label on their clothing". Not something you can read in one go - its best to dip in and out over a number of weeks. But always something that made me giggle if not laugh out-loud.
Although very often funny, I found the book a little tiresome as it is just a collection of his weekly column in the Guardian(UK Newspaper).
Also it didn't help that a most of his rants were about the people appearing in reality TV shows which I never watch, and therefore couldn't relate to.
If you do watch a lot of TV, then I would certainly recommend this book to read.
Also it didn't help that a most of his rants were about the people appearing in reality TV shows which I never watch, and therefore couldn't relate to.
If you do watch a lot of TV, then I would certainly recommend this book to read.
I munched this in a few huge gulps and it totaly repeated on me, so I sat there all day talking quite a lot more like Brooker than I usualy might. I found it didnt really endear me to many people, so I stopped and became myself again, but lets face it, any right thinking person feels the same confusion as this guy as he travels around in a world full of people. Great toilet read!
Charlie Brooker is a jaded genuis of observation. Many times I have ranted at the TV about various things that have annoyed the hell out of me, and it turns out CB has been ranting about many of the same things. If I saw him in a pub I'd buy him a drink, but I'd leave him alone once I'd given him the beverage, out of respect for his distaste for most other humans.
Brilliant book for the bathroom as each rant takes about as long to read as the average ablution. That aside, what struck me most about this is that Charlie Brooker is actually a big softie, with an idealistic heart that crashes against the harsh realities of 21st century reality-infested telly. Wonderfully funny in parts.
Bought on a whim due to liking Charlie Brooker's weekly columns in the Guide, this was slightly disappointing being made up of those exact columns. To be expected I suppose, and to be fair those columns are pretty funny, but marginally less so when whichever programme he's poking fun at is no longer on the box.
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Charlton "Charlie" Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is a British journalist, comic writer and broadcaster. His style of humour is savage and profane, with surreal elements and a consistent satirical pessimism.
He presents TV shows Screenwipe, Gameswipe and Newswipe, wrote a review column for The Guardian newspaper, and is one of four creative directors of comedy production company...more
More about Charlie Brooker...
He presents TV shows Screenwipe, Gameswipe and Newswipe, wrote a review column for The Guardian newspaper, and is one of four creative directors of comedy production company...more
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