Books and Television
Burchill is an author and novelist, her 1989 novel Ambition being a best-seller. Her 2004 lesbian-themed novel for teenagers Sugar Rush was produced by Shine Limited and aired on Channel 4. Lenora Crichlow's portrayal of the central character Maria Sweet inspired the 2007 sequel novel Sweet. She has made television documentaries about the death of her father from asbestosis in 2002 (BBC Four) and heat magazine broadcast on Sky One in 2006.
Less successfully, 2001's Burchill on Beckham, a short book about Burchill's views of David Beckham's life, career, and relationship with Victoria Beckham, attracted "some of the worst notices since Jeffrey Archer's heyday. 'Burchill is to football writing what Jimmy Hill is to feminist polemics,' carped one reviewer, not unfairly." The book fits in with Burchill's theme of praising the working class; Burchill presents Beckham as "an anti-laddish symbol of old working-class values – he reminds her of those proud men of her childhood, 'paragons of generosity, industry and chastity'."
Burchill's co-written book with Chas Newkey-Burden Not in My Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy appeared in August 2008. The book is dedicated "to Arik and Bibi" (Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu); The Jewish Chronicle wrote that "this book does not merely stand up for Israel, it jumps up and down, cheers and waves its arms."
Read more about this topic: Julie Burchill
Famous quotes containing the words books and, books and/or television:
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)