18 replies to this topic

[coolie]

Does anybody know what happened to the well-publicised "The Life of Ayrton Senna" book by Tom Rubython? Was it cancelled, blocked or what? I smell good tabloid story...

[Jackman]

This one?

It's out tomorrow.Does that wreck your tabloid story?

[Dudley]

It's also astounding timing

[Oscar Jack]

Originally posted by coolie
Does anybody know what happened to the well-publicised "The Life of Ayrton Senna" book by Tom Rubython? Was it cancelled, blocked or what? I smell good tabloid story...

I wouldn't waste your money if I were you...
It's mainly reprints of the Senna articles published in F1 Magazine when Rubython was its publisher, so nothing/very little new or unknown, and mostly in the Hello magazine style
Besides, Rubython is one of the most unpleasant characters ever to be involved in the F1 world and doesn't deserve the royalties

[scdecade]

Originally posted by coolie
Does anybody know what happened to the well-publicised "The Life of Ayrton Senna" book by Tom Rubython? Was it cancelled, blocked or what? I smell good tabloid story...

I pre-ordered this book over 2 years ago at Speedgear and after getting a half dozen or so promising emails (any day now and this time we mean it...) they cancelled all pre-orders.

Also, now that I've a few years to read Rubython's hideously distorting articles in F1 Magazine I'm not too sure I'd want to read this book.

Anyway, maybe I'm bitter because I had a negative retail experience but I'm no longer psyched to read this book even though Senna was (and is) my all time favorite.

[fifi]

mmm part of me would want to buy the book, but if its just a rehash of the stuff in F1 mag from the past 2 years i dont think i'll bother

[Scudetto]

Originally posted by Dudley
It's also astounding timing

No kidding. Maybe coolie works for Virgin Books and wanted to start a little hype ahead of the release.

[Richard Jenkins]

If you buy this book, you are wasting your money & time. I know (literally) Tom Rubython & I know books. I also know what is dog doo. This book is dog doo.

[joe twyman]

It may be worth a look if you are a Senna fan, I read Tom's first draft while doing some summer work at Formula 1 Mag (I am 16) and there was a huge amount of brilliant content! Yes, there may be some material that was used in the magazine, but the book is/was nearing 1000pages! Also it has a large amount of brilliant photographs from Keith Sutton.... You may call me biased, but dont overlook it before you have even seen it..

[Ross Stonefeld]

Senna must have had a lot of adventures in the last few years to justify a new book

[KinetiK]

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
Senna must have had a lot of adventures in the last few years to justify a new book

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0098627

[Scudetto]

That was uncalled for.

[John B]

"Weekend at Bernie's" indeed.....17 sequels a year.

Maybe it'll be a compilation of Senna/Schumacher threads from the BB in the last few years, which would be book size.....

[coolie]

Definitely I am not working for Virgin books or anybody else and in Amazon.co.uk the book is still under the "not available" banner. Also, I find it somewhat hard to believe that if and when gets published at last will contain only article reprints, since the original stories in F1 Magazine were not all penned by Tom Rubython. I am curious, just curious about this book.

[mikedeering]

Amazon are doing an offer on buying "The Life of Senna" and "The Death of Ayrton Senna" as a bundle. Freaky.

I suppose they are holding it up as a bad and good book on Senna - maybe I am being judgemental on Rubython, but that guy's articles in F1 magazine were truly terrible.

[mikedeering]

Time to bring this thread up again since the book has been published - 2 years late.

Of course being the sucker I am I picked up a cheap copy of Life of Senna at the weekend - it was at 50% of the list price.

I can say having read half of it that I have learnt nothing new. It basically gives a rundown on Senna's life in chronological order (as I guess the title indicates!).

A typical chapter consists of:

1982 - May 21 Brands Hatch. Pole, F/Lap, 1st. 2 weeks later he repeated the trick at Oulton Park. The following Sunday he found it harder going at Thruxton after a practice smash left him 3rd on the grid. Predictably he won the race and got F/Lap though....and so on.

Every so often these year-by-year chapters are separated by a vaguely relevant article lifted from one of the F1 Mag articles. So after the section on 1983 you get a new chapter on Senna v Brundle - and what happend to them after 1983. It doesn't really fit great in the book, because the first half of the chapter gives a brief overview of Senna's life and career up to 1983 - which you have of course just read about in the preceding chapters.

There is very little criticism of Senna at all. Having read a few books on Senna I can say this gets no where close to Hilton's "As Time Goes By" - that is a fantastic read. Predictably, Rubython's offering isn't. The pictures by Sutton might have saved the book to some extent - but of course I downloaded pretty much all of them as hi-res images from AtlasF1 a few weeks ago when they ran the Senna issue

[Mat]

yep, as i expected.

[troyf1]

Originally posted by mikedeering
I suppose they are holding it up as a bad and good book on Senna - maybe I am being judgemental on Rubython, but that guy's articles in F1 magazine were truly terrible.

If not cowing down to the powers that be in F1 is considered "bad" then I suppose you are correct. I liked his articles for the simple fact that he tried to give the full truth about how things were going in F1 and unlike F1 Racing he didn't really care who he pissed off in the process. That may not be the best way of going about things in modern F1 but I give him credit for having the guts to do just that. F1 journalism is becomming nearly as sanitized as the racing itself and if someone is willing to challenge the status quo I am all for them.....sadly when Rubython got canned that pretty much ended what IMO was the only indepth and insightful magazine about F1. As far as his Senna book goes I thought it was great because it...like the magazine....had depth to it. I didn't expect Rubython to spend 500 pages ripping Senna for his racing tactics which he didn't. Again I think the depth of the book made up for the fact that Rubython didn't try to tear Senna apart. I guess it all gets down to what your view of Senna was and what you want to see written about him.

[Haddock]

I rather liked "as time goes by", much better than the usual production line Christopher Hilton job, though it does read in places like very detailed notes and research for a book that the author never actually got round to writing I thought "The death of Ayrton Senna"by Richard Williams was a better read. Certainly, if you want one book on Ayrton Senna, thats the one to go for.

I wouldn't touch anything by Tom Rubython.