Tintin in Tibet by Hergé
I’m a long-time Tintin fan. He was a massive part of my childhood and remains a big inspiration for my story telling. Hergé was a film-maker on paper, and his stories zip along with consummate ease with the minimum of dialogue and a sharp and well defined structure – of comedy mixed with jeopardy, and politics, ethics, and satire – and all with a staggering eye for detail in every panel.
Like all reading in one’s childhood – and graphic novels are reading, despite what anyone says – the quality within excellent books is often obscured by the young reader’s mind. They are good only because we like them. Later thoughts and dissection when armed with a more mature writer’s mind unveil a deeper and more complex story.
Tintin in Tibetis essentially a story of friendship, and as such, it is the only one of Herge’s books that has no antagonist, and only a handful of characters. But friendship is there, on every page: Tintin’s belief that his friend Chang is not killed in an air crash; that he must look for him; that Haddock goes with him, despite believing the quest fruitless; the dangers they face together, the willingness of Haddock to give up his life for Tintin’s – the list goes on and on and on. Even the Yeti, – yes spoiler alert, it is he/she who has Chang – mourns for his lost friend when Chang returns to society.
For me, the Tintin books – well, from The Blue Lotusonwards, at any rate, are that rare thing: exciting stories, well told, a legion of often ludicrous characters, a strong narrative drive and the joy of storytelling on every page. Here was a man who loved his work. Who cared for his work, and cared for his readers. And it shows.
How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot by John Muir
As we move into a world of bewildering electronic and mechanical complexity, this book from 1969 harks back to a time where, with a little help, our devices could be understood, dismantled, repaired and put back into service. The philosophy of mechanical self empowerment coupled with reuse – a concept that has renewed freshness today.
The book is as much a philosophical tract as it is a car repair manual, and can be read as such even if you may never own a VW Beetle, nor need to repair one; the ideas in the book could extend to any mechanical device in your life that needs to be kept alive, or even as an approach to life itself. Simply put, that your ability to do anything is possible, so
