Download Paperweight Curated By Stephen Fry Released As Text

was another bedtime book for me, and for a lot of good reasons, I used to really like Stephen Frys books, but then I picked up The Ode Less Travelled and hated it so much that I literally set fire to it.
Part of the reason for that was that he was snarky about free verse, which is my favourite kind of poetry.


But this is about Paperweight, I just thought that The Ode Less Travelled was important to mention because thats the reason why I went into this with a sour taste in my mouth.
Its just hard for me to take Fry seriously after that, because I think that it betrayed some of his biases.
It was almost as though he was saying that if you enjoy free verse, youre an idiot, which must make me an idiot.
And it was also a poor message to send to people in a book that was designed to get people into reading poetry in the first place.


So when you pick this up and start to read through essays where Fry is sharing his opinion on things, theres the risk that youre just going to disagree with him on principle, which kept happening to me.
Now, I do think its important to occasionally read things that you disagree with because it can help you to firm up your own decisions and even realise that you might be wrong.


Here, though, it was just a bit of a chore, and thats on top of the fact that reading essays in general can be a chore.
The result is a book where Im not even really sure why it was published, other than because Fry had got a bunch of essays and wanted to feed the endless publishing machine.
But that doesnt mean that they made a decent book,

Paperweight is a good name for it, because thats what its best used for, There were one or two things that were standouts, but its a pain to read throughpages for maybepages of quality content.
In fact, the only reason that I stuck with it is that I want to read everything that Frys ever written, but this has got me wondering whether I even want to still do that.


Still, this is just my experience with it, and you might find that you see it totally differently.
I think it all comes down to how interested you are in the different subject matters and whether you agree with Frys take on things.
And like I said, there are a few little nuggets in here that are worth reading, so its just up to you whether you feel like it.
A highly amusing collection of Stephen Fry's whimsical musings for newspapers during the's, I read it in fits and starts around other things over the course of several months much as the introductory note advises.
I feel this negated overfamiliarity with the material and kept it interesting given that there is no overarching narrative driving thepages.
It's taken me a long time to read this, not because it's a difficult book to read but because of the type of book it is.
This is a compilation of Fry's articles for publication in papers and magazines, and script for radio programmes, from thes ands.


Each is around two pages long and so it makes the book the perfect "Book to read in the loo".
And that is where it has been since I started it, Consequently it only got read when I happened to be using that particular loo,

But, I have finished, and found it very entertaining, As I said, it is almost entirely short articles the exception is the final contribution, which consists of the script for a playlet that, as far as I am aware, has never actually been performed in public.
A collection of Fry's writing in various forms, from radio scripts to columns in The Spectator and Telegraph.

Whilst some of it seems dated nowadays, it is still a superb account of the period before Fry became the 'Prince of Twitter', and contains some wonderful, intelligent pieces on anything from Wimbledon to masturbation.
For me though, it is when Fry's gaze turns to the art of wordcraft that this book becomes most enjoyable.

Unseemly as it may be, this has been the only permanent feature of my toilet bookshelf for the past fifteen years a testament to it's staying power.
On that note I'll leave you with this graffiti Fry quotes, written on the lavatory wall of the Earl of Norfolk, and attributed to Byron:
"O Cloacina, goddess of this place,
Look upon thy suppliants with smiling face.

Smooth and consistent may their offerings flow
Neither rashly swift not insolently slow!"/stars, Dogeared as this book became by the end of the ten months or more that it took me to read, it was no less enjoyable for that.
It's nice to have something not too long but not too short! to read in the bathroom, or when you fancy a quick read before going to sleep but realise that the next section of the novel that you're currently reading is more than fifty pages long.
"Read the toothpaste box, then," you might say, "if all you want is something short to read.
" Good point, but the back of a box of Colgates won't engage you so deeply as just a few pages of Stephen Fry.
The critiques all over the cover would have you believe that this collection of reviews, articles and various other oddments from Fry is "appallingly funny", but I think comments like this do the compilation an injustice yes, it's funny here and there, but it's not the script of a standup comedian.
There are many interesting, well thoughtout arguments in here on subjects as farranging as cricket, Salman Rushdie, the madness of people who sue establishments after accidents and too many more to list.
This is just a good book to have around the house it's simply a guaranteed enjoyable way to spend a quick five minutes.
An interesting picture into the Past Mr Fry's various radio and newspaper columns from the mid's to early's with vague comments on politics and the world at that time.

as the title suggests, perfect for the student to pick up and read a snippet roughlypages orwords whilst taking a breather from strenuous study/revision.
A hilarious collection of the many articles written by Stephen Fry for magazines, newspapers and radio, It includes selected wireless essays of Donald Trefusis, the ageing professor of philology brought to life in Fry's novel The Liar, and the best of Fry's weekly column for the Daily Telegraph.


Perfect to dip into but just as enjoyable to read cover to cover, this book, perhaps more than any other, shows the breadth of Fry's interests and the depth of his insight.
He remains a hilarious writer on whatever topic he puts his mind to, Fry is so witty that sometimes his serious points are dismissed as a joke: for instance, when he turns the 'animal rights' movement on its head, by questioning whether humans have the right to do kill animals, put them in zoos, etc.

This is a wonderful reframing of the question, but too many people will dismiss it as just a clever paradox.


Everything he says deserves not just laughter, but thought, I would recommend picking away at this tome leisurely, it should not be attempted in one go as the author himself warns.

A collection of radio pieces, articles and other bits and bobs Stephen wrote over the years.
Most are witty and interesting, I particularly enjoyed 'As Mad As Mad Can Be' and 'The Adventure of the Laughing Jarvey', I'll admit I skipped the articles about cricket and the play Latin! at the end.

I've long admired the work of Stephen Fry and I can relate to quite a lot of his viewpoints on the world.
Paperweight is a collection of his nonfiction writings in all sorts of formats from around the lates there are numerous newspaper columns he's written, radioscripts, plays and his general musings on life which cover everything from the ordinary, absurd, and the downright banal.


It's a real mixed bag and is definitely a book that needs to be dipped in and out of as Fry himself suggests.
I think if you were to read this cover to cover, you'd end up hating it because the way the articles have been put together is so random and incoherent.
Bizarre, but there were enough hilarious accounts and interesting pieces to keep me going back for more.
Stephen Fry is his usual, witty self in this collection of essays, articles and scratches from his earlier days of comedy.
The introduction suggest that you not read the book in one short period, but set it down and pick it up from time to time, But I found i had to keep moving from one piece to another to another.
Its really that intoxinly funny, A terrific read. Though I got a lot of pleasure from this book essentially a collection of Stephen Fry's newspaper columns from the lates I was also left a bit underwhelmed.
Fry writes on a range of subjects, there is an interesting element of interest and prescience about some of the predictions made, how things turned out.
I also got a hell of a lot of enjoyment from the author's playful use of words very nice indeed

But it just felt a bit old in places.
Repetitive in places due to the nature of the book Fry never wrote his newspaper columns mindful of the future idea of compiling them into a book and a bit too dense to consume from front to back as I did.
Though Fry warns against doing this, admittedly, If it seems that it took me a long time to read this, it was intentional, A multitude ofpage columns and broadcast transcripts on a multitude of topics, it was a delight to read one or two at a time and savor each one.
It expanded my vocabulary as well,



True, a few of the pieces meant little to me as a nonBritish citizen mention of politicians, entertainers, and others who might have local but not global fame but most had global appeal.
And the political commentary about Conservative and Labour parties, referencing officeholders of decades ago, could easily be applied to the contemporary American political scene.
His attacks on bigotry, delivered in ohsocivil prose, also seem apropos to the current American social scene.


Fry's writing is articulate, witty, humorous, and perceptive, Highly recommended. A book compiled from various sources of Stephen Fry's articles or radio appearences,
read in a pick and choose style not start to finsh,
the short Sherlock Holmes story he has written and is included, is very much in the spirit of the origional A C D stories and tho brief is quiet good! more of this please! "In the foreword, the author himself advices us that this is not a book to be read cover to cover, but rather to dip into from time to time.
This is very good advice, and I do not think I would have liked it as much if I had tried to go about it in the first mentioned fashion.
A collection of radio transcripts, articles and various other writings, it is a dense and wast collection.
The earliest stuff breathes of Monty Python/early Woody Allen writing, but all has the Fry taste that we love.
I would not recommend it as a starting point and do take care to heed the man's recommendation on how to go about it.
" so, quite a few years ago, a friend of mine gave me a bunch of episodes of the young ones because he knew i liked british comedies.
i watched the first episode and was baffled, this show was weird, crass, loud, foul, none of the sketches made sense, everyone shouted, all the time, for what seemed like no discernable reason, was this supposed to be punk alternative comedy or what

but i stuck with it, out of sheer stubbornness, and finally made it to the episode where the gang somehow ends up on university challenge a.
k. a. quiz bowl for college students against the "oxbridge" team, made up of emma thompson, hugh laurie, stephen fry, and ben elton.
i was going to describe how the young ones sketch goes but instead i'll just link to a clip: sitelinkhere.
and just like that, I GOT IT, the key background i had been missing, all that stuff the young ones was setting itself in opposition against yikes, what a mess of prepositions it all finally slotted into place, in that moment when the show put it in context for me.
and suddenly, magically, i found the show now hilarious, and weirdly brilliant,

to clarify, it wasn't the exaggerated sendup of class "i've got a porsche!" that made things click for me, it was the way the show plays with the comedy sketch format itself or rather, the way it just doesn't give one sht for it, when all's said and done.
the part with the footlights could probably have stood on its own as a perfectly respectable parody, something you could easily imagine being shown on an british version of SNL or something, but the young ones not only resisted this aura of clever parody but rendered it utterly meaningless, through violence and the non sequitur.


all of this is my very roundabout way of collecting my thoughts on this stephen fry collection, which is exactly what you might expect it and him to be like: selfdeprecating, massively intelligent, witty, charming, careful.
i always fall madly in love with anyone who can speak in complete paragraphs, with such articulation that you can practically hear the semicolons in their speech, and stephen fry is definitely of that number.
but there's something rather antiquated about him, something in line with the footlights parody even as stephen fry himself participates in that parody that doesn't lend itself much to a revelatory experience.
at first it surprised the bejeesus out of me to realize fry was in his lates and earlys when he started writing the stuff collected here.
. . but then again, that's exactly what i mean impossible to think of stephen fry as anything but an old soul, even in hiss.


ah well. still enjoyed thumbing through this, and i do admit i went "teehee" every time he mentioned his "good friend hugh laurie.
" one whole section of this book consists of a series of radio broadcast transcripts, which suffers from the lack of nuance that live performance provides, but the articles and essays i found eminently readable.
also, through one of his essays i learned that "senior wrangler" is actually a real thing in britain!! i had always thought terry pratchett made up the term for discworld because it sounds so silly, but no.
who knew!

incidentally, fry's essay defending the use of academic "jargon" made me want to literally leap up and hoot with pure joy.
THIS GUY GETS IT! i wanted to shout, while pumping my fists triumphantly into the air, the next time someone complains about "theory" to me i am going to stuff that person's mouth shut, perhaps literally, with that essay.
ALSO, fry does a minireview for elaine showalter's the female malady!! be still my nerdy heart!!!

.