Published: 9th March 2017
Source: Publisher
Genre: Non-Fiction, Feminism, Humour
My Rating:
‘I’ve lived through ten iOS upgrades on my Mac – and that’s just something I use to muck about on Twitter. Surely capitalism is due an upgrade or two?’
When Caitlin Moran sat down to choose her favourite pieces for her new book she realised that they all seemed to join up. Turns out, it’s the same old problems and the same old ass-hats.
Then she thought of the word ‘Moranifesto’, and she knew what she had to do…
This is Caitlin’s engaging and amusing rallying call for our times. Combining the best of her recent columns with lots of new writing unique to this book, Caitlin deals with topics as pressing and diverse as 1980s swearing, benefits, boarding schools, and why the internet is like a drunken toddler.
And whilst never afraid to address the big issues of the day – such as Benedict Cumberbatch and duffel coats – Caitlin also makes a passionate effort to understand our 21st century society and presents us with her ‘Moranifesto’ for making the world a better place.
The polite revolution starts here! Please.
I decided I was a fan of Caitlin Moran after reading her book How To Be A Woman. I loved her writing style and she was funny and she’s local! I knew I had to watch her Channel 4 TV show Raised By Wolves because it was set in Wolverhampton and I’m sorry, when someone is writing about a place you can get to on a bus then you know you need to watch. When I got an email about Moranifesto, a book I’d been dithering over buying for a little while, I saw it as a sign from God (I see a lot of things as a sign from God, normally when it gives me an excuse to do something I wanted to do anyway. or something I didn’t want to do in the first place as the case may be). And I am so very glad I did read it.
This is one of the few non-fiction books I’ve read in the past few years and Moran is probably one of the few authors who will successfully convince me to read about politics and serious things without complaining. That isn’t to say I don’t make an effort to read about serious topics, but I tend to read them in news articles rather than in book form. I certainly don’t tend to read opinion pieces, I want the facts in as unbiased a format as possible so normally the bare facts from BBC. I forget I like to read more serious things until I read something like Moranifesto.
So, you can tell I liked the contents of the book. As this was a collection of Moran's thoughts and columns into one book you did find that there was some small amount of repetition from that which she has already done, but that was never an issue. What I did find is that I occasionally found my reading of each topic a bit disjointed. There was an amazing effort made to link everything but when you go from reading about the Olympics to reading about immigration and sex workers it’s easy to understand why I occasionally wasn’t absorbed into reading. I did find myself skimming sometimes because it was a fluff piece that I simply didn’t care about.
Moran’s writing is excellent and funny, quite genuinely funny and I get why there were lighter more fun articles in interspersed with her thoughts on the welfare system and the state of politics in the UK because we need those to not despair at how things have gone in the past few years. Moran manages to make a lot of the things she writes about relatable and genuinely make you interested as well and that is not an easy thing to do.
I found that this book was interesting to read and really kept me thinking. I wanted to talk to people about it constantly while reading and that’s what I want this book. I feel like that is what is intended by it. Caitlin Moran has presented her work in parts and tried to loosely link her writing and she has named it Moranifesto because this is her manifesto for life. She wants to get people talking and she wants to help move along change. It isn’t something which will happen instantly but by talking about issues change is gonna come. I would mention things by saying ‘remember when Benefits Street was on TV’ or ‘remember during the Olympics’ and stuff like that and then discussing ages old stuff. I love when a book gets you talking, especially when you’re discussing it with non-bookish people.
This book both had me thrusting it in people's faces asking them if they remembered that thing that happened a whole ago as I've just found someone who agrees with my thinking and put it into coherent sentences. And it also had me laughing out loud over things like tights (no I will not put them away when winter ends it's cold out).
She's just an utterly great relatable writer and this book deserves a read. Have you read this or any of Moran’s other work? And what has been the best non-fiction read you’ve read lately?
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