Fans of Mark Steel's acerbic stand up and Independent columns, and idealists everywhere will enjoy this emotional romp through 25 years of (rude) political awakening. From promisingly early signs of insubordination (chastised by his headmaster for publicly consuming a banana), the young Steel finds himself drawn into the thrillingly twilit world of far-leftist politics and punk rock. The quest for a socialist Utopia takes him from depressingly ill-attended worker meetings in dingy South London pubs into the shambolic lifestyle resistance of the squatting scene. This is the alternative landscape of 80s subculture, populated by slothful hippies and hopelessly inept junkies who forget which friends they've robbed and try to sell them back their own possessions. From his pivotal Lambeth overview, Steel's ideological exodus from callow youth to electoral candidate takes us through the miners' strike, the nuclear threat, the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the dawning of the pale eerie sun of the Third Way. The filter of his "extraordinarily minor role" in politics works in a similar fashion to the beautiful game in Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch but the humour is more staccato here, the self-deprecation jauntier. Reasons to be Cheerful reads like a confessional rant: both a travel guide for the political ingénue and a nostalgic trip down memory lane for all those who helped fight the good fight and wondered if it was all worth it. --Rebecca Johnson

2006-05-23 Worked for me!

It's taken me a long time to get around to reading this - I bought it when I saw Mark Live at Pendennis Castle, must have been soon after it was published. He was superb; my boyfriend had told me I'd enjoy the show, and I did.

But now I've finally read Reasons to be Cheerful, I'm a little bit in love with Mark Steel - an intelligent, passionate, political man who makes me laugh - and wish I could remember anything he'd said to us after the show...

I've nodded in agreement all the way through the book, at Steel's spot-on similes. In 1997 I was (naively) voting New Labour in my first General Election, aged only 21. But as Steel's commentary on times I remember seems so astute and in tune with my own recollections, I'm happy to have him form part of my education of the politics and events I just missed out on.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone even slightly left wing, or just anyone intelligent with a sense of humour. Steel had me giggling like an idiot on my own at the bus-stop, and looking forward to the usually laborious bus-ride either side of my working day.

But it's not all laughs. Steel write so lucidly and accessibly about his political road to adulthood, at turns making me frustrated and angry at world events I'd forgotten, and moving me with poignant episodes from his personal life.

Half way through, I couldn't stop myself ordering Steels's other two books, which should be with me tomorrow.

Perhaps most importantly, I really DID feel cheered by Mark Steel's words, buoyed by his eternal optimism. I also started to feel I'm not doing enough. I write letters, I go on the odd march, I live responsibly, I shop ethically, blah blah blah...but really, perhaps I should be doing more, shouting a bit louder...