Entertainment For Lively Minds
Anyone know what Jonathan Rendall is currently up to?
I wondered if anyone who is familiar with the work of author and journalist Jonathan Rendall knows what he's currently up to.
I'm re-reading his book This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own about his experiences managing boxer Colin McMillan and I'd really like read some more of his stuff. I've already got two of his other books Twelve Grand: the Gambler as Hero and Garden Hopping and would dearly love to read Scream: The Real Mike Tyson but I've no idea if it was ever actually published.
It has an ISBN number and depending on what site you look at was either published in Oct 2007 and is currently out of stock or is yet to be published. My local Borders reckon that an airport-only paperback edition existed at some point but only in Asia (!?) but the UK hardback was cancelled.
If anyone has the inside track on this I'd be very grateful to have this little mystery solved.
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Publishers Harper Collins
Publishers Harper Collins confirmed today that the book has been "abandoned" but didn't say why. So now I know I'll never get to read it but the reason why it wa never completed remains a mystery.
This Bloody Mary is the Last Thing I Own
is a great book (and one of my favourite titles ever) - as is 12 Grand. He used to write regularly in S.Times/Obs - didn't he? One of the few British writers to do boxing/gambling/low-life - really well. Great prose style
Did you see the Channel 4
Did you see the Channel 4 series of 12 Grand? Great telly from what I can recall.
Just got to the bit in This Bloody Mary where Zoe Heller's profile of McMillan has been published and it includes a comment from Rendall about McMillan's inability to park a car;
"Of course, Colin was quick to remind me of this in his "jokey" way, and then embarked upon a phase of completing difficult reversing manoeuvers with extravagent virtuosity, leaping from the car with a look that said "Bad parker, eh?" I don't know whether he'd been practicing. Maybe that's what separates professional sportsman from the rest of us."
That had me laughing out loud earlier today; apart from the ludicrousness of a world boxing champion desperate to prove he can reverse park a car, there's something about the phrase "extravagant virtuosity" that really tickled me.
There are however numerous far better examples of his writing talent throughout the book, in particular his description of the Jim McDonnell/Kenneth Vice fight is incredibly gripping.
Try here:
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=6Kjifz4j5FCY4GwQa5lhXA7...