Trending Topics

      Next match: LFC v Brighton [Premier League] Sun 31st Mar @ 2:00 pm
      Anfield

      Today is the 29th of March and on this date LFC's match record is P24 W11 D6 L7

      Steve Bruce: Literary Genius

      Read 3062 times
      0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
      Frankly, Mr Shankly
      • Guest
      Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Oct 05, 2016 05:49:56 pm
      Charles Dickens...eat your heart out!


      ‘SWEEPER’ BY STEVE BRUCE: A REVIEW


      "I looked around the stadium and sighed. Football is a business, and a tough one at that, but the green playing area, well, that really is the field of dreams” – Steve Barnes, ‘Sweeper’.

      Please note the below touches on major plot spoilers. For an additional helping into the madness, you can find a live-tweet of my first read through the novel, featuring a few more quotes and pics, starting here.
      There are few figures within English football as universally loved as Steve Bruce, with his soft, Geordie burr, and his sleepy smile. Who wouldn’t love a man who so closely resembles a portly cartoon admiral from a car insurance ad? And who can resist smiling fondly at that nose, all squat and squished like a coughed-up croissant, broken so many times that it boasts all the defined angles of an oven glove?

      My own love for Steve Bruce deepened last year when I bought and reviewed the first of his three mystery novels. If you’ve missed coverage of Bruce’s glorious career as a mystery writer, let me get you up to speed.
      In what appears to have been an ambitiously short space of time between 1999 and 2000, the literary titan wrote three thrilling novels, and published them just as briskly. We’re not sure why he did this, but we do know that he gets a bit sheepish when it’s brought up in interviews, and the exact details of the arrangement he had with Paragon Press Publishing are far from common knowledge. There are even rumours he didn’t actually write the books himself, but I refuse to believe such hearsay.

      Anyway, after some gnashing and wailing following the sequel’s meteoric surge in price, (from £70 to over £250) a mysterious fellow Bruce fan sent me the second novel, Sweeper, in exchange for my copy of the first. The result is the review that lies before you. Sit back, unwind, and let me escort you through Bruce’s second volume, a warren of intrigue featuring Yugoslavian warlords, lesbian prostitutes, Nazi-hunting spies and much, much more besides…



      Read more: http://thesetpieces.com/features/sweeper-steve-bruce-review/#ixzz4MEKfm4ZD

      RedWilly
      • Forum Legend - Dalglish
      • *****

      • 9,146 posts | 1619 
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #1: Oct 05, 2016 06:24:26 pm
      This has to be one of the most bizare things I've ever come across.

      Surreal.
      « Last Edit: Oct 05, 2016 07:24:21 pm by RedWilly »
      shabbadoo
      • Forum Legend - Shankly
      • ******

      • 29,420 posts | 4581 
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #2: Oct 05, 2016 06:29:20 pm
      WTF?.
      HeighwayToHeaven
      • Forum Legend - Dalglish
      • *****

      • 8,468 posts | 242 
      • Don't buy The Sun
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #3: Oct 05, 2016 07:06:33 pm
      I can't stop laughing at that!  :laugh:

      crouchinho
      • Forum Legend - Shankly
      • ******

      • 42,508 posts | 2620 
      • TU TA LOUCO? FILHO DA PUTA!
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #4: Oct 06, 2016 03:59:57 am
      An encapsulating, disturbing experience.

      I feel worse and, at the same time, better as a person after reading that.
      Diego LFC
      • Forum Legend - Paisley
      • *****

      • 19,326 posts | 2823 
      • Sempre Liverpool
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #5: Oct 06, 2016 04:29:09 pm
      This is amazing. I'm sending this to everyone I know. Hahaha
      TheRedMosquito
      • Forum Legend - Paisley
      • *****

      • 12,201 posts | 633 
      • Elmore James got nothin' on this baby!
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #6: Oct 06, 2016 04:53:15 pm
      I'm actually not that surprised. With a head as large as his, he's bound to have loads of ideas bouncing around in there! :laugh:
      FATKOPITE10
      • LFC Reds Subscriber
      • ******
      • 14,342 posts | 3368 
      • Liverpool fc give me tourettes
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #7: Oct 06, 2016 04:58:42 pm
      So there really something inside his big fat head ?
      Class
      • Forum Jamie Redknapp
      • ***

      • 310 posts | 82 
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #8: Oct 06, 2016 05:53:37 pm
      I love how Bruce is introduced as one of English Football's most universally beloved figures guess they forgot to give us, Citeh, Newcastle, Sunderland, Villa and Wigan supporters the memo.
      Frankly, Mr Shankly
      • Guest
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #9: Oct 06, 2016 10:35:31 pm
      The turn of the century must have had a strange effect on top English footballing professionals...includin g Michael Owen.

      Does anyone remember the CBBC football drama 'Hero to Zero' which starred Owen himself? I certainly do as it was targeted around kids of my age at the time (9/10 year olds). Don't remember much of it (the video below is the only remnant of it) but it was about this kid who was good at football (or was he sh*t?) who idolised Michael Owen and had a big poster of the star man hanging on his bedroom wall...only the poster would come alive and Michael Owen would step out of it. Yeah...it was kind of weird.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_q-C9g8x3w
      Frankly, Mr Shankly
      • Guest
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #10: Oct 14, 2016 03:54:42 pm
      Amazing news that he has been appointed Villa manager.

      If that can happen anything will. I reckon JK Rowling's in line to be the next Arsenal manager.
      srslfc
      • Forum Legend - Shankly
      • ******

      • 32,111 posts | 4877 
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #11: Oct 14, 2016 05:37:21 pm
      Amazing news that he has been appointed Villa manager.

      If that can happen anything will. I reckon JK Rowling's in line to be the next Arsenal manager.

      And McLaren back at Derby.

      It's just one big merry go round especially for English managers yet they moan that they are being squeezed out by foreign coaches.
      Frankly, Mr Shankly
      • Guest
      Re: Steve Bruce: Literary Genius
      Reply #12: Oct 14, 2016 05:45:02 pm
      And McLaren back at Derby.

      It's just one big merry go round especially for English managers yet they moan that they are being squeezed out by foreign coaches.

      There is no reasoning to getting McClaren back at Derby. Those poor Ram fans! That English coaches have to go on a tour of England just says it all about how unwanted and useless they are.

      Quick Reply