Two Posts? What Is This, St. Swithin's Day?

I was doing my daily blog-skimming from Google Reader the other day, when something on Laura from Devouring Texts' blog caught my eye. And that would be a reference to How to Leave Twitter by Grace Dent, which she loved.

So I have a particular kind of love for obscure British celebrities, which is at least partially due to me finding it hilarious to know anything about them. I follow a gang of them on twitter, and they all tweet to each other, because there are ten people in all British Entertainment (it's a tiny island), so they of course know each other. They're mostly clever/funny, but they also make many references to things I totally don't get, because, y'know, two countries separated by a common language, etc etc.

The author is one of these people. My path to knowledge of her went like this: 1. Get interested in British actress Keeley Hawes. Watch her show Ashes to Ashes. 2. See Amelia Bullmore on Ashes to Ashes, google her. 3. Find pictures of Amelia Bullmore with hilarious captions on some woman named Emma Kennedy's website. 4. Find out Emma Kennedy a) knows everyone and b) is on twitter all day every day. 5. Follow Emma Kennedy on twitter, see that she's having frequent conversations with @gracedent, follow @gracedent.

I genuinely loved this book and will be recommending it to anyone who has any kind of understanding of Twitter (read: not my mother). Oh, Grace Dent. You used to just be that person who Emma Kennedy was friends with and who tweeted all the time, but now you are that hilarious woman who has far more evolved theories on feminism than I do and who pointed out, quite rightly, that on Twitter "I feel something that I feel very rarely in the rest of the world: that my sex is 100% equally represented."

There's also "If you cold-called me and asked me to help you with your survey entitled Shit I Think About Jennifer Aniston, I would go for the box ‘I couldn’t give a fuck’ every single time."

See? You clearly want to read this book.

And of course, it's much more of an extended Ode to Twitter than an actual guide to leaving it. That bit only takes up a few pages at the end. Most of it explains the types of people you meet there, why it's great, and why it's terrible. As a medium-level user of twitter, I can't say I'm familiar with all these types, but as they're also the kinds of people you meet in real life, it rings true.

Because only appx. five people in the United States know who Grace Dent is (I'm still a bit unclear, to be honest), her book's available here, but only in Kindle format. And it is the low low price of $5.50! A steal if ever I saw one! Also, did you know you don't need a Kindle to read Kindle books? No! You just need to download the Kindle computer app, then in between checking out that hilarious cat video (they're all cat videos), you can read a page or two. Reading from the Kindle app is not staring bug-eyed at a computer, forever destroying your eyesight, as some might have you believe. It is MULTI-tasking. Different.

One more quote, as there're so many excellent ones:

I am not interested in ‘think pieces’ about whether size 12–14 women should be allowed to go down the catwalk and be able to easily find clothes in shops. I don’t need to ‘think’ about that. Only a gibbering dunderhead has to think about that.

So great.