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Editorial Review:
Fans of Mark Steel's acerbic stand up and Independent columns, and idealists everywhere will enjoy this emotional romp through 25 years of (rude) political awakening. From promisingly early signs of insubordination (chastised by his headmaster for publicly consuming a banana), the young Steel finds himself drawn into the thrillingly twilit world of far-leftist politics and punk rock. The quest for a socialist Utopia takes him from depressingly ill-attended worker meetings in dingy South London pubs into the shambolic lifestyle resistance of the squatting scene. This is the alternative landscape of 80s subculture, populated by slothful hippies and hopelessly inept junkies who forget which friends they've robbed and try to sell them back their own possessions. From his pivotal Lambeth overview, Steel's ideological exodus from callow youth to electoral candidate takes us through the miners' strike, the nuclear threat, the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the dawning of the pale eerie sun of the Third Way. The filter of his "extraordinarily minor role" in politics works in a similar fashion to the beautiful game in Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch but the humour is more staccato here, the self-deprecation jauntier. Reasons to be Cheerful reads like a confessional rant: both a travel guide for the political ingénue and a nostalgic trip down memory lane for all those who helped fight the good fight and wondered if it was all worth it. --Rebecca Johnson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Worked for me! It's taken me a long time to get around to reading this - I bought it when I saw Mark Live at Pendennis Castle, must have been soon after it was published. He was superb; my boyfriend had told me I'd enjoy the show, and I did. But now I've finally read Reasons to be Cheerful, I'm a little bit in love with Mark Steel - an intelligent, passionate, political man who makes me laugh - and wish I could remember anything he'd said to us after the show... I've nodded in agreement all the way through the... more info
Passionate, polemic and political A wry and witty account which reminds us very vividly of what it was like living under Thatcher and those who followed her. From his first cautious steps into the world of socialism, through the years of strikes, right up to the advent of New Labour, Mark Steel writes passionately about his socialist convictions and gives a good thesis on what has, in his opinion, gone wrong in British politics.
I found myself laughing out loud at many of the passages, although I sometimes felt he was going too much for... more info
Proving the Left has a Sense of Humour I read John O'Farrells 'Things Can Only Get Better' straight after finishing 'Reasons to Be Cheerful' and I was struck by the comparison. 'Things Can Only Get Better' was essentially a story from someone who eventually sold-out to the New Labour tyranny, rejecting all the important lessons learned from the class battles of the past decades while finally setting up within a middle class niche in the contemporary. Yet 'Reasons to Be Cheerful' is clearly a political defiance despite the heavy defeats which are... more info
Hilarious, reminiscent, sad Yes! I have been to many of the same meetings as Mark Steele. Unfortunately I ended them stacking up the unused chairs sooner than he did because I ran out of steam with lefty politics much quicker than he did... it is such a funny, laugh-out-loud book for those of us who have been earnest and anarchic in empty meeting halls... and so reminiscent of the seventies - I had forgotten about those copy machines you arm wrestled with, turning the handle for 150 smudged copies of illegible purple ink ... also sad... more info
