Everything is extraordinary, Cole Moreton

REVIEWER: Ali Hull

everything is extraordinary

BOOK: Everything is extraordinary: True Stories About How We Live, Love and Pay Attention

(Hodder & Stoughton, 2023) 244pp, hardback

As Christians, we can dismiss humanity. Rather than seeing it as the apple of God’s eye, the crown of his creation, and the reason for the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, instead we roughly divide it into those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘out’, in line with our own theology, and that’s that.

Journalist, author and broadcaster Cole Moreton is fascinated by people, and his ability to listen – properly listen – to them has led to award-winning radio programmes, a whole stack of publishing interviews, available on his website, and – inter alia – this book. Those he met range from Scarlett Johansson, Vera Lynn via Clive James to a refugee, Zahra, who came across the Channel, through horrible conditions, in a very small boat. To all of them, he gives the same attention. Good interviewing is not about arriving with a list of well-prepared questions, even if you have done hours of research to produce them. It isn’t about arriving with nothing to ask, either. It is about asking and then paying heed to the replies. Where is the interview catching fire? Which questions elicit monosyllables? A good interviewer is ready to abandon what they came to talk about, if they can, in order to explore what really intrigues, moves or matters to the person in front of them, whoever they might be. And sometimes magic happens, when – however well-prepared by their PR people – a star opens up and is honest, as with Tiger Woods. And there were the interviews that didn’t happen… which are equally fascinating.

The book is also about Cole’s reactions to the people he met and what it feels like to be given just a few minutes to talk to someone famous (I was inevitably reminded of Hugh Grant’s character in Notting Hill, pretending to ‘interview’ Julia Roberts’ film star character). He talks about the limits of the encounter but also what it can be. He takes us into the background for each individual, setting them in context, and the interview in context as well – where they are in their careers and where he is in his. It’s a great book.

Reviewer: Ali Hull has spent nearly thirty years working with words, as a writer, editor and writing coach. Now the Book Editor for Preach magazine, her ‘to be read’ pile is approaching frightening proportions.