Just William
C is for comprehensive…
THE BIG BAD BOOK OF BILL MURRAY
ROBERT SCHNAKENBERG | QUIRK BOOKS
To the uninitiated, Bill Murray is just a grizzled, sarcastic old comedian. Despite (or maybe because of) the fact that he genuinely doesn’t try too hard to be anything else, the cult of Murray has grown in the wake of his ’00s renaissance to include colouring books, exhibitions, festivals and now this outstanding “critical appreciation of the world’s finest actor”. Laid out like a mid-sized encyclopaedia and graphically designed with a Wes Anderson-esque eye, it’s a smart, accessible A-Z that rewards flicking and poring alike.
Want to know more about Ghostbusters? Skip to ‘G’ for six pages of behind the scenes titbits and biographical detail about the film that made his career – and also find entries on Garfield, golf, Cary Grant and the teachings of spiritual guru George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, who played a bizarrely big role in Murray’s life, work and vodka toasts.
The entries are exhaustive, doing a great job of rooting out first-person quotes from the man himself. They’re also peppered with some terrific “tales from Murrayland” that go a long way to building his legend even higher: the time he threw a woman in a swimming pool because she asked for his autograph; the time he turned up uninvited to a student party and did the dishes; the time he gatecrashed Elvis’ funeral.
Part biography, part manifesto for life, it works best as a handy self-help book for anyone who worries too much about binge drinking, saying inappropriate things or taking impromptu cross-country road-trips in someone else’s car.