Speaker A
Hello, dude. How are you?
Podcast review of Derren Brown's 'A Book of Secrets' discussing audiobook gifting and philosophical insights.
Key Takeaways
- Digital audiobook gifting lacks the tactile pleasure of physical books but retains the thoughtful gesture.
- Derren Brown’s book offers deep philosophical insights wrapped in accessible storytelling.
- Listener engagement can be enhanced by offering audiobooks as gifts for interaction.
- Audiobooks as gifts represent a modern way to share meaningful content across distances.
- The hosts value the personal connection and reflection inspired by the book and the gifting process.
What the video covers
- Steve Phillips hosts the Audio Book Club podcast reviewing Derren Brown's 'A Book of Secrets'.
- The episode features a conversation with Matt Leighton, who gifted the audiobook to Steve.
- They discuss the challenges and experience of gifting audiobooks digitally versus physical books.
- The podcast explores the philosophical themes and layered storytelling in Derren Brown's book.
- They reflect on the personal impact and memorable moments from the book.
- The hosts consider engaging listeners by gifting audiobooks in exchange for interaction.
- Discussion includes the narrator’s style and the book’s accessibility despite complex ideas.
- They share anecdotes about friendship, memory, and the significance of thoughtful gifting.
- The episode touches on broader reflections about social media, relationships, and mentalism.
- Plans to involve listeners with a hashtag and interactive features are proposed.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Greetings
- 03:12Introducing Matt Leighton and Audiobook Gifting Challenges
- 06:20Experiences of Sending and Receiving Audiobook Gifts
- 09:02Listener Engagement and Interactive Ideas
- 12:03Reflections on Derren Brown’s Work and Book Themes
- 14:41Philosophical Insights and Storytelling Layers
- 18:20Personal Anecdotes and Humor
- 23:00Closing Thoughts and Future Plans
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
I'm very good, mate. How are you?
Speaker A
Yeah, all right. Not bad. Are we sort of in sync? Are we? Or should I say the word over after?
Speaker A
No, I think we're okay.
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Good.
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Okay, excellent. I think that's working.
Speaker A
Wicked, mate. Thanks for the script this morning. And by the way, thank you. Gift of Darren Brown.
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Um, he's been really good. It's been, um, it's been really interesting, but it was really good. How you keeping? You well?
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Yeah, I'm good. I'm really, genuinely really excited that you liked the book, 'cause as I say, I've just read it for a second time and I've realized I've misunderstood it entirely.
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Oh, wow. So, I'm looking, I'm looking forward to hearing what it was that you liked. I'm looking forward to the so-called moment that you had.
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So, save it for the take.
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I'll save it for the take, dude.
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[Music] Hello, I am Steve Phillips and welcome to another episode of Audio Book Club, the podcast that remembers with misty eyes the time when it was the world's
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only interactive audio book review and recommendation podcast. On this episode, we'll be reviewing a book of secrets: Finding solace in a stubborn world, the latest in a series of anti-self-help books from TV mentalist Darren Brown. On an equally philosophical but entirely
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different level, I will also be looking into the process of buying an audio book as a present. Not as tangible for either party as the gift of an old-fashioned three-dimensional atoms and molecules book, but it is satisfying both to give
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and to receive. Joining me down the line from Adelaide in Australia to help me in this double-headed endeavor, it's the person who gave me this week's title as a gift. It's Matt Leighton.
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Hello, Steve.
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Hello, Matt. You could have wrapped it.
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Well, I couldn't, could I? That was part of the problem. So, you and I met for a beer two weeks ago back in the UK. Uh, and we're now back at opposite ends of
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the world. And we were having a conversation and that conversation inspired me to want to give you the book that we are talking about today, Darren Brown's A Book of Secrets.
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And I didn't really know how to do it. I assumed I could go onto my phone and press a button and send you the book, but I couldn't. Uh, I had to go back home or come back over here actually.
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Uh, and do it on the website. Uh, you're the third person I've given this book to. And in each case, because I couldn't, this is the ultimate in first world problems because I couldn't do it on the phone. I also had to
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remember to give it to you, which gets a little harder when you get to my age.
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Did you enjoy how you sounded here? Were you talking about first world problems? I could not give you an audio book from Australia.
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Um, yeah, I couldn't give you an audio book. I couldn't satisfy my needs to give you an audio book immediately as I was sitting in the pub. And you're very lucky that with my slightly adult brain, I remembered to go to my computer when I
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got home and send it to you then. So, I couldn't instantly give it to you. And that, that was, well, that added a layer of friction to my life as we might discuss a little later. Matt, respect to
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you because in this fast-moving world where we've all got the attention span of a gnat, you took it upon yourself to remember a thing for a period of time and it went through all those gates of, you know, having to go back to Australia
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using the local website in order to do that. And I mean eight and a half time zones, mate. Suggest don't, don't suggest that. Don't be surprised if you get, if you get an honor through the post. Don't be surprised.
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Services to remembering. Hang on, this is coming off. This is coming off as really, as really horrible.
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I don't mean it like that. I mean it as in a, you know, in a funny way. Actually, it sounds a bit like a dad joke, which we'll get on to later on in terms of the moment I had with this book.
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There's so much packed in this book. So, what we're seriously meant to be doing here is I found sending you an audio book not as pleasurable an experience as it would be to hand you a tatty old paperback, uh, wrapped in an old roll of
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John Menses wrapping paper with a tatty little ribbon on it, um, for you to open in front of me. But at the same time, I was quite excited to send the gift in the new way. What was it like to receive?
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Steve?
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Matt, I've got to be honest with you. And by the way, respect for mentioning John Menses because of, well, we're again talking to the demographic, dude, here again.
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Yeah. Um, I, I have to say in all honesty, in all honesty, uh, 'cause we, we, we saw each other. We saw each other in London for the first time in goodness knows how long, you know, after COVID and everything. Two and a half years, we were doing a lot of reminiscing. Two and a half years doing
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a lot of reminiscing. We met in a familiar old pub near where we used to work, you know, 20 years ago. Mhm.
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And, um, and I thought, you're going back to Australia. When are we going to see each other again? And so to get that through the, through the, you know, the email saying Matt's gifted you a book. I was like, oh, that's so nice. That is, I
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mean the gesture is still the same. You don't need the physical thing in my view. It's just like the thought was there. Matt Leighton has sent you this book. He's gifted you this book. So I was, I was properly moved.
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All right. Well, I, um, I had one problem apart from the one where I nearly didn't remember. Uh, which is because actually there was a part of me that was sending it for business purposes. I needed to send you a note with a little bit of a
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briefing and a little bit of my comment, a little bit of fluffing for what I thought about the book. And I only had 270 characters, I think. So I ran out of steam. I don't get to ramble on, but
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again, it's not really a problem, is it? It's, it's as you indicate, it's the thought that counts. But I think we'd like to, we'd like to, we'd like before we get stuck into the book ourselves, we'd like to get some
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interaction from our gentle listener as to how they feel about the process of giving a. I have to say I still haven't received an audio book, so I'm very much looking forward to when that email pops into my inbox. I kind of want
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Absolutely right. I, I feel Steve that as evangelists for the medium, maybe this should become our thing. Maybe it's the thing that people should know you and me for, you know, personally in our lives is, oh yeah, it's great. I got, 'cause everybody else
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gives flowers and chocolates and wine. We're giving the gift of audio books. Maybe that should be our signature move, uh, amongst our friends and family. What do you think?
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That's a great idea. You know what? Actually, maybe we could give, give that gift to one of our listeners for something cool they do. You know, they send a review or they recommend a really good book and we could gift it to them.
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When we get a listener who gets in touch with us, that's a good idea.
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First interaction gets an audio book. There you go. There you go. Perfect. There we go.
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Done. If you interact with us, we'll give you an audio book. I mean, you can't say fairer than that, can you? The first person to send us a comment either about this week's book, A Book of Secrets by Darren Brown or the sidebar.
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Hey, I've got an idea for this little feature. We talk about philosophical stuff about audio books. I think, what do we call it? Notes in the margin, Steve, what do you think?
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Oh, lovely. Get down. Get that, get down the patent office. No, the copyright office, whichever it is. Yeah, that, get, get down at an official office and, and put your beach towel on it.
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You can fill in the requisite form A280 to register a hashtag, um, Notes in the Margin. Uh, any, so hashtag audiobook club. This is your bit. Hash audiobook club. Let us know.
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First person to interact with us after this week's show, we will gift them an audio book.
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We think they should read.
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Yeah. There we go. Like that. Just by, just by the way before we finish off, notes, notes in a margin.
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Nice notes from the
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Yeah. Um I this is a busy book. Uh there is a lot of stuff in it. I have found some of the most important things thoughts that I've ever had have been inspired by sentences that are just a single part of a really
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long list. So, I'm going to rely on the structure that heavily on the structure that you and I have have relied on in the past to communicate these things. This this time I'm using as a crutch so that I don't mess up. So,
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first of all, we'll have a little chat about the author. Then we will talk about the text of the book itself and then as we always do uh we'll have a the a chat about the audio book experience
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and the narrator. So the author first Darren Brown and you'll the amazing thing is in Australia where I am people haven't heard of him. He's most famous in the UK for being a TV mentalist.
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Um, and to quote, he had a pro a series of programs in the early 2000s which used a combination of magic, suggestion, philos uh, psychology, misdirection, and showmanship um, to pull off effectively magic tricks for the modern era, often involving
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hypnosis. the the one that sticks in my head, the first thing I remember of him was a grainy film of a London street with a uh a phone ringing in a call box and a member of the public seemingly
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randomly opens the callbox door, goes in, answers the phone and listens for about 10 seconds and then collapses suddenly on the floor. Do you remember that bit, Steve?
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I No, I don't. I never really watched his show. I've seen bits and pieces of it. I've seen like one or two things he's done, but I couldn't even recall them to you. I come to Darren Brown after a big hiatus and sounding pretty
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fresh. So, I'm a I'm a bit of a blank canvas. Paint me. Paint on me.
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So, the the other things he went on to do, he went to do a number of specials.
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I mean, to me, these things were quite impactful. Um, he went on to do a number of television specials before Netflix invented the concept. About 15 years later, he played Russian roulette live on television with an actual gun. He
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predicted the lottery numbers. Um, and well, to me it felt exciting and new and I'm surprised you hadn't really captioned because I I mean if I bring up names from the 1980s of the mag the magicians magician of the magicians the people who did
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magic stuff on the telly uh that we watched growing up. So the great Sopreno and Paul Daniels and Ali Bongo. I enjoyed watching those.
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Ali Bongo. Ali Bongo. You're welcome. The Bunko booth. Very. See, I knew I'd get you somewhere in here. It's like I don't think you can say the great Sopreno's magic words anymore, can you?
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I don't think. No, you though you certainly can't. You can't say the third one.
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You can't. No, you certainly can't. Don't Google them. Although Darren Brown might um he can get away with it. Uh but he sort but sort of that was magic until that point.
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It It's like next next week, Steve. The book I'd quite like to do and if we can try and get the author as an interviewee that'd be great. Uh it's narrated by Rory Conir and to that you'll just go
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and then I'll go it's Roy Conir's son Steven. You'll go I knew that actually. Did you see that?
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I know. Yeah. But you love Roy Caner. You would you would rather have Roy Caner on than Roy?
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I love Roy Conir. Roy Conir was obviously the voice over on Bertha the kids show naturally amongst obviously the great other stuff that he did as well. But um but Rory Caner was brilliant in Count Arthur Stroll.
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Good. He was great on that. Love him. Yeah. Uh and in the James Bond films, of course. We'll come back to that later.
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Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, basically, this was a magical entertainment type thing that Darren Brown did that got rid of the spangly dresses and brightly lit TV studios and made stuff we didn't understand happen in front of our very eyes. uh underneath
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the sort of drizzly gray skies of London and the streets of growling traffic. Um and that's what you and I were living at the time, Steve. So for me that was fascinating and has given me a great interest in him and I've been following
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his career lately and it comes up in this book. He's had a run on Broadway which is quite a hard thing to get. He has also had a Netflix special and he's taken the time to narrate several audio
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books and uh we're very grateful to him uh for taking the time to do that. On a personal note, if you had a look at my phone, uh I've got about 500 audio books that I've listened to since getting the
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Audible app a few years ago. Um you'll see the first one I downloaded was Darren Brown's Hypnosis. So, it's the most recent audio book I've read. And it was the first audio book I read. And what got me into it is I have a
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long-standing interest, possibly partly fueled by Darren Brown in in the idea of using hypnosis to help me get to sleep.
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And I wanted and and nobody's doing it very well, and I wanted to do it again.
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But that was the reason that led me to purchase the hypnosis book. And then I went on to the other three books in that loose series.
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I don't even know which order they were written cuz I came to them late. They're called Magic, Confession, Memory, and Tricks of the Mind. There's actually four of them. I forgot about memory briefly ironically.
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Um the fourth in the trilogy. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. Yeah. So, I think there were five books in total. Yeah. Um but most recently, uh he's written well what this this series, I guess, that he's calling anti-selfhelp books. Uh,
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there was happy in 2017, I think, and a little happier in 2018. Both of which, well, considering how incorrectly I think I've interpreted or misremembered a book of secrets, I think I need to go and read those again. But they're the
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idea that in a world where religion is old hat, uh, how do you navigate your way through life? uh you know and and and find a code by which to live. And some of what he lands on is Stoic
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philosophy, but again, as the further he gets into the series, the more he rejects that. Does that sound like the Darren Brown, you know, Steve? It it does. He I mean, he he's someone I always kept meaning to watch um because it's
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obviously very very impressive what he does. Uh, but I was very much a casual viewer and and when I caught him, I just thought, "Wow, that's just incredible." But I I wish I'd seen more of him. So, I'm going to go back and after after
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reading this book, I'm going to go back and, you know, YouTube the, you know, the YouTube him like I've never YouTubed anyone else before.
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Yeah. And it is possible. So, I I wanted to show the girls that Wizzy in particular has a a taste for the macabra and the the the slightly offkilter stuff. So, I showed her not only the guy, the guy walking into the phone box
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and picking up the phone, listening for 10 seconds, and then crumpling in a heap, but also the uh the one where the bloke goes to sleep in his house in Crawley or wherever it is and wakes up in the middle of a a bustling market in
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Tangers or I say wakes up in a photo booth in a bustling market in Tangers.
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So, so yeah, they're all there on YouTube to watch and I would recommend it.
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Um, be straight there. There's an interesting thing going on here and I haven't written it in my script, Steve, but what he's done with this book reminds me slightly, Darren Brown, of you know, Al Murray, the pub landlord.
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Yeah. Um, you know, he does the standup routine on uh, you know, him dressed as a pub landlord uh, explaining his his pub landlord view of the world. But actually, if you look at it very closely, Al Murray is quite a
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welleducated, eloquent, and frankly liberal person. Are you aware of that? Does that make sense?
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I am very much aware of that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he stood on a by he stood in a he I don't know where you're going with this, but he stood in he stood in a he stood in the election, didn't he?
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Yeah, he did. Yeah, that's right. He he stood against far in. That's right. Um, and there is a thing where recently I I should imagine after you've played that character for years and that's actually not your personality, I just get the feeling that Al Murray
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felt trapped by that stage persona. Uh, and the interesting thing is he his has the same name. uh and he has since gone on to make well he he he's establishing himself as a uh an expert on German
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history in World War II. And the interesting thing is so he's he he grew a beard and put on a hum and went round and basically I think tried to show a bit more depth to his personality and
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what he does. And you knew it wasn't Al Murray the pub landlord cuz he had a hat on and he had a beard rather than being the two days of stubble shaven headed pub landlord. And there's a little bit
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here where I get the impression that Darren Brown, uh, the first thing I remember is the person falling over in the phone box. And I think there's a an element to what he's doing here where he's not necessarily rebranding, but is
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possibly a little frustrated at the stage character that he's had for all of these years. cuz the Darren Brown on stage is is it's it's very very structured and very very written and very contrived. It sounds a negative
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word, but I don't mean it that way. There's almost a thing where he's going, I'm not just some sort of clowning magician. I also have some thoughts as well. So I I I just where I almost wanted to put on the Hburgg. I was put
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on a hat so that we know that it's not staged Darren or is it staged Darren Brown? I don't know. All right, let's get to the book while I'm confusing myself. In the run-up to this episode, I read this book a second time. Um, the
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book has been really helpful to me. As discussed, I've given it to three people and then I started to read the book the day before yesterday and it suddenly occurred to me that I'd misunderstood and misremembered it. Reading it for a
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second time changes your view on it from the very first two words. The dedication I don't normally pay attention to dedications and the quotes at the beginning but the dedication of this book the first time I read it was for
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dad and I didn't quite realize how significant that was because obviously a fair part of the book is about the loss of his father during a pandemic.
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I'm going to make excuses. I'm going to go. It's a very densely written, very busy book, so it's hard to sum up and I think we may even come back to it if we can somehow get Darren Brown to come and
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and have a chat with us. I think there's, you know, more enough material for more than a couple of episodes here, Steve.
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Yeah, I agree. I have to say the only thing I knew in terms of impressions of Darren Brown was that I've seen one or two of his uh well a few minutes of his shows, you know, and then I was
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completely taken about coming completely fresh to him all these years, 20 years later. Uh and he it was it was you couldn't miss a word. um in terms of the philosophizing and I'm going and again I'm getting my
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excuses in early cuz uh I'm now about to do my thing where I try and summarize the book. That's what you're meant to do. That's what Mark Camo does when he talks about a film. First of all, he
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tells you what the book's about or the film's about and I'm going to try that with do the book. So, uh but I don't feel I'm going to do an adequate job and you can correct me and we invite our
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gentle listener to correct me as well. So the way I'm going to put it is it's part memoir, part sort of academic exercise. Um, so academically he does all the right things about structuring his arguments and quoting his sources
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and the sources he quotes are interesting and varied. Uh, in terms of writing the book, Mr. Brown started in 2019 while performing on Broadway and finishes in the nearly postcoid world of 2021.
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His father having died during the pandemic. So that's where he is in terms of time and I guess emotionally when writing the book. It's the contrast of being in New York to being on the end of a Zoom call as his father, you know,
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talking to his mother as his father dies. That kind of idea. So he also weaves in other stuff. So when in New York, he describes the people he sees walking past. when he's at home. Later on, he describes
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uh rearranging the bottles of cleaning product in his cupboard. And but each of those stories serves a purpose to add to a greater argument. Uh leads to some sort of philosophical idea about seeing in the case of the
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people walking past in New York, he makes assumptions about them. We all have to make assumptions about people in order to survive in the urban jungle. Uh and then you know the idea of order and cleaning his house and memories of his
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father all comes into the uh simple stuff. His father's death is hard to read. You and I, Steve, are very lucky.
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Our dads are still alive. Uh his father dies during COVID. The alienating experience of not being able to hug at the funeral. His ashes were delivered in a plastic bag. Um, but there's a thing always behind it, you know, that there is some sort of
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purpose going on. There's one of two things happening here, Steve. I'm going to ask you which one you think it is.
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Either he's going through life and jotting down what he's saying and then thinking of something afterwards that goes, "Oh, yeah, that's a good metaphor for this." or as someone who's familiar with his stage shows, you know that what he's
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doing is planting little seeds and structures all along the way and thoughts that will all come together at the end and make sense in one way. Which of those do you think it is, Steve? Um, I mean what I
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what I found was that he was he really he really brought to life the philosophy of he really kind of exploded what people are like. That's what I found.
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And he used the he used the example of his of his dad's death about how you deal with things and how you cope with that and and what you do and uh you know but but not in not it was like life all
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around it you know not just not just about his dad's death but he's he's he he really paid attention to the minutia the little things you know and and how what a mind goes through when you when that something like that happens and
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what you do and that kind of got applied to the whole story. Yeah, that's what that's what I found. I didn't feel like I was I didn't feel like it was uh he was using the structure of one of his
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shows to to make a point necessarily. He was drawing on a lot of other people as well, a lot of philosophers and a lot of you know he was he clear there was a lot of research that had gone into this book
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that really sort of highlighted his points as well which yeah so I I it felt to me this wasn't this was not at all Darren Brown the mentalist at all. I found him to be a completely different person. And I did not believe it was
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Darren Brown's story actually because it didn't feel like Darren Brown from the little I know of him. You know that's interesting and and a very non cynical view. And you know I asked those type of questions. Is he chancing it and
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getting another book deal out of his publisher and then just writing whatever comes to his head and relating it to something philosophical or is there an underlying structure there that he mapped out when he started writing the book? Um, and I I
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I think you're right. It feels like it's it's it does feel like you're being uh taken down and he taken down a path, doesn't it? And he's very good. I mean, so so there are two things I wanted to
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ask you about. One of which is he mentions that he uh goes to a dinner party, one in New York, a a celebrity couple, American royalty as he refers to them, come backstage and invite him to a party at their house and he freezes.
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Then later, approaching the dinner table from the buffet with my plated meal in hand, I searched for my name card on the table and saw with incredul that I'd been allocated the seat next to the esteemed lady of the house. Me? It made
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no sense to me. She has so many friends here. I considered making a switch, but it wasn't an option. Instead, I sat down. Then she did the same and for an hour and a half I found myself denuded
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of all charm. Unable to maintain a conversation beyond a few pleasantries, a ghost of my former posttow self, I ducked low into my plate and ate turkey.
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So he's in the company of all these interesting people and he gets entirely tongue tied and yeah, he I'm doing it myself now. uh uh but he uses that as uh a a a way to talk about his own frailties and perhaps
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help us out by saying even I who stand on the stage on Broadway and do all these things on television. You'd be quite surprised to hear that I'm a bit shy and here's how I get around it. Did
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Did Did that one stick in your head, Steve? That story? It it did. It did. I mean, he really he I mean, he we hear this a lot, don't we?
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You know, if you're if you're a famous performer, particularly if you're a comedian as well. A lot of comedians, a lot of funny people in, you know, in in inverted commas uh are the most serious.
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They are the most uh shy. They're the most introverted people around. So, it didn't I guess it didn't altogether surprise me that he he said that. As anyone who's watched Rowan Atinson on the one show will know.
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Well, I mean, exactly. That's a chewy bit of telly. That is Yeah, exactly. But do you know what? But he smashed it on on He smashed it. I hate saying these sort of things. I sound like such an American. Um he he he
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killed it. Um when he went on Steven Cobear's late night show. Rowan Einson went on Steven Cobear's late night show and he was very he was very funny. He was very quiet, but then he did a piece of physical comedy, which is what
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everyone loves Rowan Atkins for cuz oh, I'm doing Mr. Bean now. It's great. and um with Darren Brown uh going to that dinner party talking you know you know talk being very very candid about exactly how he felt and and the
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mechanisms for going around that and actually he said he sort of from what I took from that from what I remember him saying he's built like lots of mechanisms to the these sort of social interactions these social occasions that
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he's actually starting to enjoy or feel more comfortable with them now and wants to go and enjoy them, but he has to go through a bit of a journey to do that.
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I'm I'm aware of being more familiar with his work, I'm aware that most of the things he does are layered and he indicates it here as well. But how much does that story stick in your head? Cuz you want to know who that celebrity
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couple are and you're trying to work it out. Oh, of course, naturally. Who do you reckon it is?
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Could it um not the crankies? Stay with me. Stay with me. Uh Bernie Clifton.
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You see No, you see Bernie Winters and actually this on another dad joke. Yeah, that was Bernie Winters.
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So, actually, so I was thinking Ben Affleck, who recently got married to JLo. I thought that for a second. And then as I'm talking to you now, I've gone uh Mr. and Mrs. Clooney. They're like royalty. And but the thing is you
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don't know. But the way he does it is that story stays with you longer because he plants that seed of, you know, he's very deliberately not telling you who this supposed royal couple are. I don't know. Although I doubt that that
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he they were they were quite as erodite as uh he said his his I think it's the Cloonies.
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Yeah. or potentially Jimmy Kimmel and his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Kimmel. Mr. and Mrs. Kimmel potentially who's see the thing is that again that's the thing everybody knows. So it can't be George Clooney because they're they're both Hollywood royalty. See
Speaker A
we're doing it but at the same time what we've done what what the social underlying purpose of that and I think the purpose of the entire book is is to reel you in with loads of interesting stories that you can relate to. and he's
Speaker A
not afraid to show his white underbelly and his own frailties as well. Um, but the ultimate purpose of the book is to help you enjoy your life more.
Speaker A
Uh, and you remember uh you remember the little anecdotes about how to break through the barriers of uh get getting past well, it's about shyness, but it's also um about getting through the barrier of small talk when getting to
Speaker A
know somebody. And it's a it's a simple tip for that. But you remember it because if it's the bit you choose to remember because of the the the thoughts you had about the who is this uh Hollywood couple. I I think that's what
Speaker A
it's doing. I think that's how it works. Having watched his shows where you suddenly realize the numbers been on the stage behind him all the time. um that that he's putting stuff there that leads you to a conclusion and helps you
Speaker A
remember stuff if you see what I mean. Yeah, I think that's I think that's a really astute astute observation there, Matt. Uh yes, he he did that. He he made it very very accessible sometimes.
Speaker A
I mean, we're bombarded all the time with with self-help stuff and you know, various stages of life, different situations of life the whole time. And actually just him him using illustrations from his life from his condition from the way he is along with
Speaker A
drawing in theories hypothesis you know philos you know drawing in research from other philosophers and that sort of thing well I mean it just but the other things to add to so accessible then it's interesting you do get schopenhau and in here who uh are
Speaker A
highutin German philosopher I seem to remember that he did a degree in German. It didn't specify German history and German literature, but the Rhino Maria Rilka stuff and uh and the Hegel in particular, I remember from my degree doing German. Yeah. So, he does
Speaker A
that, but there's also quotes, you know, people who've made Netflix series and um the New York Times. Viz Profanosaurus gets a mention. Steve, I thought you might like that. doesn't it? Well, that's that that was the moment that for
Speaker A
me that it was that section for me was where I had the the penny dropping epiphal moment basically.
Speaker A
That was your moment, was it? So that was it's always it's always when you when you mention the bit of Fry and Lori and uh you know, hold on. Let's set it up. Let's set it up. Let's set it up. So So the thing is
Speaker A
he he says he has an epiphany and he is standing just about to move house. He's standing in the downstairs toilet where lots of people do keep tatty books covered in fecal matter for anybody who has the bad manners to come around their
Speaker A
house and have a dump. When you go around someone else's house, it's it's only number ones, isn't it, Steve?
Speaker A
That's the polite societal way to do it. His book his books up there include Viz's profanosaurus which is a dictionary from a vulgar comic from the 1980s and 1990s. He has a bit of Frian Lurorry um when Hugh Laurier and Steven
Speaker A
Fry used to do a sketch show in the 1980s. He's got the scripts of all those and various other downstairs toilet books.
Speaker A
And he has a moment where he, you know, to him they're all his precious things and the stuff that keeps him snug and they are they are an expression of him and his personality and how wacky and he
Speaker A
is. And then suddenly he looks at them when he has to move them to the other house and go, "This is just a weird collection of old man's books." Something made me picture the new home to which we were moving. a country place
Speaker A
with tutor beams and low ceilings which would take work to keep from looking chintzy.
Speaker A
Then as I considered these books, musical reviews by George Bernard Shaw, the viz profanalosaurus, I imagined them on the shelves at that house, and that's what did it.
Speaker A
Quite suddenly, as I stood there facing my lavatory in a very familiar way, just 3 days before my 50th birthday, they flipped, changed, and along with them the whole world. There was a moment before it happened when there was still
Speaker A
that familiar collection of old volumes and memories, a homely backdrop of affectionately relegated relics. And then in an instant, as I pictured them in the bathroom of their new home, a nausea descended. They became horrifyingly an old man's collection of books.
Speaker A
Uh, I'm also wearing cardigans. I used to wear them an ironic way. Now I'm just an old man wearing a cardigan. Was that your moment? Um, you can't you can't see this obviously, but just out of shot and I'm looking just
Speaker A
while you were talking there. I was looking really fearfully behind me at my collection of books. On the shelf there is the the profanosaurus rexanosaurus.
Speaker A
Uh, I've got a dogeared copy of the complete Faulty Towers scripts. Yeah. Um, so I'm a little bit off mic as I as I look around here.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. No, it makes it sound authentic Steve. I've got a book of Coleman balls. Yeah.
Speaker A
Um they're not even called Coleman balls anymore because David Coleman has long since departed.
Speaker A
Very much very much of the ilk of the time. And yeah. Yeah. Even more so uh somewhere in the house is um the only magazine produced by the not the 9:00 news team. And it's an amazing read and but it's I mean it
Speaker A
was it was dogeared when I was a kid. I mean, you know, you can imagine what it looks like. Now, just behind me, uh, is my, I guess, 800, 900 piece CD collection, uh, which is my thing of possessions.
Speaker A
And whenever I, you know, if I pull out a CD, I can look at it and I go, I remember when I bought this, I look at the price tag and remember the shop I was in when I bought it. And then
Speaker A
there's the music in there as well. Um, we had to move all of those down to Australia. Marissa refers to them as the bane of her life. Um, and I go, "Well, look, when I die, just put them in put
Speaker A
them in a skip. I don't care. They are my possessions. They mean something to me." And now I look back at, you know, that Pet Shop Boys album from the early '9s and it's bright orange cover, which is a special possession at the time, and
Speaker A
I go, "Wow, that's a 30-year-old anacronism, isn't it?" I don't know. I so really depressing.
Speaker A
But was it okay was it a depressing moment for you, Steve? No, it it well it was it was an alarming moment because and I mentioned this on the radio the other day because I mentioned this moment uh and uh uh and you know you it
Speaker A
was that moment when he said he went through the books and then he went through what he was wearing and then he said that he said something and I'm paraphrasing I don't recall the exact words but something along lines of you
Speaker A
grow up thinking you're the wittiest guy around you grow up thinking you're so funny and people are laughing at you And then all of a sudden mid40s you just someone who tells dad jokes and even while we've been recording this
Speaker A
podcast I've chucked a couple in there just because I don't know I've got like a I don't know just have to blurt blurt them out thinking this will be this will be witty and I can't stop it before I've
Speaker A
said it but actually it just comes out and I have been told this by an audience of you know friends and family uh you know can you tone down the dad jokes and I just thought what happened? I mean,
Speaker A
I'm talking about a bit of Fry and Lori and um and and not necessarily the profanosaurus, but you know, bit of Fry and Lori, the scripts of Faulty Tales, the little 9:00 news thing, and thinking they were the funniest books out, and
Speaker A
everyone has to read them. TV Go Home by Charlie Brooker is another one, but maybe less so, but they're not anymore.
Speaker A
They're they're now considered old. I mean, I think they're great, but yeah. But now suddenly that's it. That's it for you and I. We can't do anything funny anymore on this podcast because we're told we're doing dad jokes. And I
Speaker A
really bristle at that. You didn't do music. Um, but it was the bit where I had to explain to a colleague who was having a rant about dad rock recently and he said, "I just want to play some
Speaker A
Beasty Boys." And I had to explain to him, you do realize that the Beasty Boys um albums came out in the mid80s and they are now effectively dadrock. It's when when the Beasty Boys get to be dad rock, then then you know we're getting
Speaker A
old. That's the point though, isn't it? You and I are of this age. This book is for us. I mentioned earlier on that when he did the uh Trick of the Mind stuff, the first television stuff back in the
Speaker A
2000s, it felt like it was for us and it felt young and edgy. It's almost like when we talked to to Ben Folds when he did his music it was new but in the way we listen he mentioned that the way we
Speaker A
listen to music these days when we get a little older it's in a sentimental way and we go back to it how things change when you get to middle age you know we now listen to our Ben Fold's albums
Speaker A
because they are familiar not and they were our sound they were our time and I have very much that thing with Derek Brown as well. You are you and I he's grown up with us, I guess. And I think
Speaker A
the first time I read the book, I got it wrong, Steve. The reason I gave you the book in the first place was cuz I cherry I'd clearly subconsciously cherrypicked some bits out of it and taken some stuff
Speaker A
from me. And then when I listened to it again, I couldn't hear hear it again. So the bit I picked out of it and remember I've been stuck in Australia for 2 and a half years and had missed my friends uh
Speaker A
gradually gone more and more back into my shell because when you haven't phoned someone for a few months you then continue to go back in your shell. I'm not phoning them now. It's a bit embarrassing. uh I'd missed my um
Speaker A
parents and my my life or or my core nuclear family was the focus and it I was finding it quite hard. Um and what I heard the first time I read the book was something along line along the lines of everybody knows it's
Speaker A
difficult to be a teenager. We've all been through that. However, not everyone has been through their 40s and 50s, the moments we've just had, the sudden realizations that we're talking about where it's not divi about defining who you are anymore. It's do the same thing
Speaker A
over and over again. Get up the following morning, rinse and repeat. Um, and it's about not falling out with your partner or finding a way to trudge through that relationship. He doesn't mention kids. I don't think he has kids. Um, but he doesn't he doesn't
Speaker A
mention that, but I applied that logic to being uh a dad. And having reread the book this week, I'm worried that I've got all that book wrong. Another thing that stood up to me that stood out for me
Speaker A
that fueled um my thoughts as I flew back to the UK is it's just it's between two commas in one of his long rambling lists. Ready for their bow are our parents who loved us in their imperfect way and whom we
Speaker A
loved back in ours. Who shaped us more than anyone. Who instilled in us clusters of energized sensitivity towards certain triggers that would come to shape the emotional landscape of our adult world and who died before we could say everything we should. Most parents
Speaker A
want us to say thank you while most children hope for sorry. There's just a little line that says um in the parent child relationship as adults, the children are looking for an apology.
Speaker A
The parents are looking for a thank you. And it was just those six or seven words. It stuck in my mind and reinforced or bolstered or reframed the way I was going to behave to my parents anyway cuz I love them very much. But
Speaker A
again, it was just one sentence that was part or one phrase that was part of a list of five or six things that stuck out to me and stayed in my head. Did you have any of those?
Speaker A
Um, yeah. I mean, it's largely actually every the thing that stands out was what we've just talked about. I mean, that that really stuck out for me. It really spoke to me. It just made it gave me an
Speaker A
explanation because I've been kind of I guess sort of recently just feeling that that that was going on you know it was started you know that sort of feeling that if you are your age you know and you
Speaker A
know and actually but actually it was the period it was the it was the the passage of text after that where he gave you that moment of saying you know you've gone from being the the the witty guy the wearing things ironically guy
Speaker A
the cool guy um if if I'm not blowing up to me by the way, never cool. But um then he talks about actually more widely uh how to embrace everything, how to actually see through that, how to how to
Speaker A
find the joy in this period of life now. Um and that really helped. So does that mean my psychosis?
Speaker A
Well, well, exactly. Well, it's it, as I say, what this book does is it if nothing else, it kind of helps you to muddle through what's going on. Does that mean that you wouldn't recommend this book to someone in their 20s or
Speaker A
30s? Uh, I absolutely would. I absolutely would. Even it just because it's got lots of brilliant insights about life anyway, you know? I mean, it really a lot of it made sense. The whole the when he talks about the experimentation that
Speaker A
he did on left-wingers and right-wingers. uh and he actually performs us there is a very very precise experiments to actually get them to see the the opposition's view because we live in a world now where everyone is up for an
Speaker A
argument. everyone is is so I mean social media is a skewed sort of community anyway where people are just you know shooting from the lip all the time but there is that sort of undercurrent of of kind of resentment
Speaker A
anger I mean there's lots of things to do with that the way kind of the politics is now you know you could chuck Brexit in there and all the rest of it but he does he does really kind of he
Speaker A
doesn't get political necessarily you know he hasn't got an it doesn't come across like he's got an agenda but he actually breaks it down and I think there are some really valuable insights, lessons, whatever you want to call it
Speaker A
there for anyone younger, you know. So, absolutely get this if you're in your 20ies.
Speaker A
Okay. But again, even with the social media stuff, it's the book is very much older than now, uh, as they say, and of its place in time as well. And I notice he says back at home, there's interestingly a more American, he talks
Speaker A
about Democrats and Republicans more when he's in New York. uh and he talks about Brexit more when he's in the UK.
Speaker A
It's very much set in a place as as well as a time I think the book. But the overarching the overarching thought again behind it is what he's done is identified a problem that upsets many of us or causes
Speaker A
many of us some stress which is the the the comative nature of social media. I certainly found that in general in the UK when I was back having not been there for two and a half years, I think two
Speaker A
two things had happened. London had got harder and I'd got softer, but everybody seemed to be more angry after a very uh difficult couple of years with Brexit and COVID. I think everyone had been through a trauma and I think what he's
Speaker A
doing is suggesting ways to get through that. The other thing that that worries me in modern life, particularly as a father of two 10-year-old daughters, is the addictive nature of the mobile phone. I don't think society was ready
Speaker A
for the sea change that the iPhone and Android equivalents brought. And he examines that as well. He examines the way that uh the people making the phones, the people making the stuff that happens on the phones are all trying to
Speaker A
make it as addictive as possible for you. And yeah, I I enjoyed the thought on that. So, so not only is it about the how to make your life a bit easier as you get older and the stuff that's
Speaker A
specific to that, I think there are just, as you say, some general tips for here's some difficult things in life at the moment. Here's my thoughts on them.
Speaker A
I hope they help. I think that's that's what's going on. Yeah, agree with you. I really loved uh his voice was really was was just perfect for the text as well, wasn't it?
Speaker A
Brilliant. Brilliant. I'm really glad you did that because I was just in my head I'm going right we we've just hit 50 minutes and we haven't got on to the bit that we're meant to do as we wind up a half an hour
Speaker A
and talk about the narration. Um I agree with you. I I was uh planting seeds there by the way.
Speaker A
Were you were you nudging me on? Were you trying to trying to get me out of the room?
Speaker A
Yeah. Yes. Now I'm going to make you wake up in tangers in a in a right voice. Excessive conviction is a trap our natures have set for all of us and its scarlet distension is usually evident on both sides of any dispute.
Speaker A
When I wrangle with my partner over who has more neglected the pile of Thursday's plates with their yellowed and bumpy terrain of stiffened port saloo and whether the more contemptable crime is omitting to load the dishwasher or forgetting to unload it. I engage in
Speaker A
a join the dots exercise in selective storytelling. Okay. So, so it might I have read a Darren Brown book where he didn't narrate it. There was a weird period when Happy first came out where they got a gob on a stick to do it. I don't want
Speaker A
to cast dispersions on the voiceover artist who did it, but by the very nature of it, that person was not as engaged in the ideas and not as good at being Darren Brown as Darren Brown is.
Speaker A
Uh I as you know when it says read by the author that is not always a good thing but in this case I've I've been there where he doesn't read it and frankly it's essential because he's so engaged in the ideas. There's even bits
Speaker A
where he takes liberties with the text and spells things out C rather than C uh that actually a a renter voiceover artist wouldn't be able to do. The way I would describe it is he is quite posh in
Speaker A
it. Uh he is very much you can picture him on stage in a tweed suit possibly in a lecture theater or on a stage dawned out doled out to look like a lecture theater with a pointy stick wandering up
Speaker A
and down giving us all examples. It's I believe the word is didactic. Um it's quite teachy but it's also quite showman. He uses showmanship. It's showman.
Speaker A
Did you find it at times impenetrable, Steve? um if you found yourself pressing the the back 10 seconds button a fair bit if you miss something if your mind wanders. So, I listen to a lot of these things in the
Speaker A
car, a lot of audio books in the car, and if I had to concentrate on the road properly, uh, as I do all the time, of course, you might miss something. And so, you you pull over, uh, you turn the
Speaker A
engine off and then you fast, you know, you rewind a few a few, you know, 30 seconds or so to cuz you can't otherwise it's like I it just reminds me of when I I started off at university studying
Speaker A
philosophy and I dropped out of that. And the reason being was if you missed so much as 10 seconds of what was being talked about, that was the whole hour done, you were never going to catch up with what they were talking about. Uh
Speaker A
because it was so deep, intense, whatever you want to call it. And that's what I found at points with this. But that's why the book for me uh really sort of stuck out with kind of beacons, little gems that you can take on board.
Speaker A
And that's where I that's where I found it. So that's how it kind of worked for me. doesn't take anything away from how great I thought the book was at all.
Speaker A
It's just the way I kind of ingested it, I think. Yeah. And I I haven't empas emphasized enough just how great his vocal performances, how it reminds me of his stage shows. I do absolutely nothing important when listening to audio books.
Speaker A
Uh and I had to stop, rewind. As I said, I don't listen to things twice. And I got something totally different out of it the second. I know it was bewilderment admittedly, but I got something totally different out of it
Speaker A
the second time that I read it. And if I'm going to sum it all up, which is again, this is only just popped into my head, so forgive me if it's cheesy, but there's almost a bit about it where it's
Speaker A
a book that's going to become familiar to us cuz we're going to go back to it.
Speaker A
And it's something you can pick up and put down again. And almost doesn't it make it one of the toilet books?
Speaker A
Oh, definitely. Yeah, definitely. You wouldn't go you wouldn't go to you wouldn't go unless to say that you wouldn't go to the toilet for the book necessarily and it's not something you would kind of you would kind of pick it
Speaker A
up you kind of pick it up um in between other books. So, for example, if you felt like you needed a bit of a laugh uh when you go to the toilet, um then you might pick up, I don't know, the the uh
Speaker A
the scripts of Faulty Towers or a Brit Fry and Lori. But you what you're saying is if you if you're having one of those really stinky dumps, uh you would pick up Darren Bar of Secrets. There is a there is a section
Speaker A
of t the TV go home book where it discusses um the the the protocol of being around someone's uh at someone else's house and what you should do in the toilet in the downstairs with the downstairs toilet books.
Speaker A
Yes. Describes things as as terms uses terms such as plunge down and um so anyway that's an audio book that's well it's not an audio book but probably for the best. Um uh can I just say we've we've descended
Speaker A
into the into the toilet here but but I think over on that notes yeah can can we just say again unfortunately we have taken away from the fact that this is an incredibly well-ritten very complicated uh book that like one of Steve's
Speaker A
philosophy lectures if you miss 10 minutes you're going to miss part of the argument but like Darren Brown's shows your little bits are being subliminally into the back of your mind. His showmanship, as I say, I I can't say it any other way
Speaker A
than to say I've listened to a Darren Brown book without Darren Brown narrating. It felt wrong. Everything he gives to the performance is fantastic.
Speaker A
And overall, both times I've read it, I felt better equipped to deal with my drudgy life afterwards, and we recommend it.
Speaker A
Shall we see what other people think of it? That's a very good idea, Steve.
Speaker A
Okay, so just use the # audiobook club. Uh we'll pick it up. Whatever social uh channel is your choice, whatever you prefer, whatever floats your boat. Uh use the hashtag audiobook club. Tell us what you thought of uh of Darren Brown
Speaker A
and the book Finding Solace in a Stubborn World, a book of secrets. That title not necessarily in that order. Uh that's from Darren Brown. Let us know what's uh what your thoughts on it. I know I couldn't even read. I couldn't
Speaker A
even read straight. The philosophy has just totally blown my mind just just recounting it. So what's next then, amigo?
Speaker A
Uh well, there are two things. So um first one is uh the uh my day job. As you know, I work for Vision Australia Radio K, which is like in the UK it's the RNIB. It's a it's a charity for
Speaker A
blind people. Does guide dogs and white sticks and stuff. And they have a network of radio stations. Every week I talk to somebody who can't see very well or about an issue for people, people that can't see very well. This week's show is
Speaker A
about a guy called Eric Wyme. He was the first blind man to get to the top of Everest, which is when you read the book much harder than you think. Um, I'm more interested in hearing what you think of
Speaker A
the first two chapters of the book, Steve, and I would like to send that to you and I shall send it to you as a gift after this show. in terms of how good a guest he is. I was watching uh something
Speaker A
I watch every week these days, which is it's only about a couple of months in, but it's a guy American comedian called Bill Maher, who interviews people in his basement with a drink in his hand and his so-called clove cigarettes. His
Speaker A
guest last week was Jay Leno, who presented the Tonight Show for 20 odd years and must have interviewed over 10,000 people in the course of that. The first guest he mentions is Eric. So, so I got an interview with
Speaker A
him. I've read his book recently. I'm feeling a little lazy. I'm going to make you read the first couple of chapters of that book. The book that of all his 10,000 guests, Jay Leno mentions first.
Speaker A
So, it's it's a good book. Um, and then coming up is the release of the fourth book in Anthony Horowitz's uh, murder mystery books which star, you know, there have been all sorts of detectives. There's the little old lady
Speaker A
detective, there's the Belgian detective, there's the drunk detective, there's the middle-aged woman detective. And what Anthony Horowitz has done is uh write a series of books where he begrudgingly is one of the lead characters involved in the murder mysteries and they are
Speaker A
absolutely brilliant. Um so very excited, Steve. Um, you and I have um recently been given access to uh well, we're we're now able to listen to Penguin books before they come out. So, we can actually be prepared.
Speaker A
I know. We We never discussed this about this being prepared luck. So, there is uh I'm just looking at you can tell I'm fly I'm I'm I'm playing for time. So, it's called The Twist of a Knife. Uh, a gripping locked room
Speaker A
mystery from the best-selling uh crime writer Anthony Horovitz. It's the fourth in his Hawthorne series of books, and I just think they're brilliant and can't wait to get my grubby mitts on my preview copy of that.
Speaker A
Oh, you certainly wasted my time. Brilliant. Okay. Right then, that's that's the plan then. So, next week Oh, hold on a sec. Hold on. Hold on.
Speaker A
Don't we do the thing where if it's a series of four books and you haven't read the first one, I read the latest one and you read the first one. That's how it works, isn't it?
Speaker A
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll read the first one. I'm going to gift you two books after this. Oh, and remember and remember that the first uh listener who interacts with us online either by talking about the experience of giving or receiving an
Speaker A
audio book or by commenting on one of the books that we're recommending/reing gets an audio book off us.
Speaker A
Yep, that's it. Yeah, I think what a great prize. It's as good a prize as when you used to win a yacht if you lived in Warikshshire on Bullseye. Yep.
Speaker A
There you go. And that is a slightly niche joke, not necessarily for our global listeners there. Uh just yeah, Google Bullseye. Um the game show. Um so there you go. That was A Book of Secrets: Finding Solace uh in a stubborn
Speaker A
world from Darren Brown, written and narrated by the author. It comes in at 6 hours and 19 minutes, published by Penguin Audio. So, get a download, have a listen, and uh don't forget you can interact. If you want that audio book,
Speaker A
interact with us. Use our # audiobook club. Um and uh we'll pick it up or read it out next week and then uh hopefully give you an audio book. We'll see you next time.
Topics:Derren BrownA Book of Secretsaudiobook reviewAudio Book Clubaudiobook giftingphilosophymentalismpodcastbook discussiondigital gifts
