Ade Bailey

http://www.adejohnston.co.uk

https://www.goodreads.com/adejohnston

Ade’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (50)
currently-reading‎ (12)
read‎ (714)
did-not-finish‎ (0)
fiction‎ (111)
biography-autobiography‎ (41)
psychology‎ (29)

history‎ (28)
philosophy‎ (28)
poetry‎ (27)
spirit‎ (22)
slowly-reading‎ (18)
culture‎ (16)
on-hold-to-return-to‎ (10)

always-reading‎ (7)
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re-reading‎ (5)
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abandoned‎ (4)
art‎ (4)

buddhism‎ (4)
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essay‎ (4)
health-and-well-being‎ (3)
religion‎ (3)
sociology‎ (3)
drama‎ (1)

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Ade is Currently Reading

Ade Bailey is currently reading

A Doctor's Line: Poetry and Prescriptions in Health and Healing

by Kenneth C. Calman

bookshelves: currently-reading, health-and-well-being

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Ade Bailey said: " Sir Kenneth Calman has held many distinguished positions including Chief Medical Officer posts in Scotland and England. He has much experience practising and teaching medicine.

This book is a delightful survey of Scottish literature in its relationshi ...more "

Nov 19, 2014 06:38AM · see review

Ade Bailey is currently reading

Etc Etc Amen

by Howard Male (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, fiction

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Ade Bailey said: " OK. Howard Male (the author) contacted me on goodreads and asked me to read this book. I understand he's messaged others. These aren't generic messages; he's been through my reading lists and refers to them as preparing me for this book of his.

This w OK. Howard Male (the author) contacted me on goodreads and asked me to read this book. I understand he's messaged others. These aren't generic messages; he's been through my reading lists and refers to them as preparing me for this book of his.

This wonderful, hilarious, surreal romp. Not quite finished but the highest compliment I can give it is it's precisely the sort of book some maladjusted inner readerly miser wants to keep for itself. It's satirical and contemporary, its targets are brilliantly intertwined music industries, architecture, big corporations, the corrupt insanity of new age cults (though 'new age' is too thin here: the age of the Knowing Unknowing Universe is the 'now age').

The KUU stems from the writings of faded crazy music star Zachary B, disintegrating before our eyes as his drug-fuelled soul wilts under the realisation that the public see him more as Gary Glitter than Bowie. The theses he left, or hypotheses to be unprecise in a theory of everything where 'maybe' is the basis of an existential edifice based totally uncertainty. What follows from the original sacred text is its mediation and appropriation etc. etc.

Alarmingly, I have found myself taking seriously some of the hypotheses of the KUU. It has made me think. Or unthink.

My guess is that someone will accidentally read this review, later in the day meet a cat called Zachary, and then read in the London Review of Books a long essay considering the ethics of re-releasing Gary Glitter's greatest hits. This 'cosmic nudge' will set in motion events without a cause.

I hope Male has a good legal team. There is a slimy businessman who has 'V' as his trademark. Started in music, went on to planes, trains and whatever. Had a building built to image the V trademark. A common foundation and two blocks leaning away from each other, it came quickly to be known as the 'Fuck You Building'. All a mere detail, a throwaway conceit in this cross-genre, cross-dressing cock and bull tale that is scalpel-sharp-modern and at the same time permeated with the spirit of Cervantes and Sterne. It will seriously mess with your head. Seriously. ...more "

Feb 15, 2014 05:04AM · see review

Ade Bailey is currently reading

The Blind Owl

by Sadegh Hedayat

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Feb 15, 2014 04:20AM

See all 12 books that Ade is reading…

Ade’s Quotes

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”
― Franz Kafka

4753 likes

“Either kill me or take me as I am, because I'll be damned if I ever change.”
― marquis de sade

634 likes

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

3700 likes

“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
― Flannery O'Connor

tags: criticism, humor, writing

2048 likes

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

4648 likes

More of Ade’s quotes…