As Harry Hill is fond of saying, "You gotta have a system!"

In this case, it's Christopher Booker, a europhobe journalist who helped found the venerable satirical magazine Private Eye in the 60s. This is Booker's life's work: a breakdown of the fundamental structure of stories to show how alike they all are. Leading us through myths, novels, poems and movies, Booker claims that all stories are basically based around seven plots, which are:

Overcoming the Monster

The Quest

Voyage and Return

Rags to Riches

Comedy

Tragedy

Rebirth

Booker uses Jung's idea that our brains are structured around certain archetypal patterns of thought to show that even wildly differing stories tackle the same issues and cater to the same needs. It's a great idea, and Booker has approached it head-on, with (somewhat dogged) flair.  The book starts soundly with a description of the seven plots, and then romps through a ton of different story synopses, pointing out how they all fit.

So is he right? Well...

The book starts to unravel a little in the second half, where Booker starts to elaborate on how the Romantic era has ushered in 200 years' worth of 'wrong stories' in which these archetypes have been ignored because of/with the result of the general degeneration of society. Even plots that seem to fit perfectly well into Booker's hypothesis are slated for focussing on too much sex or violence, or the moral emptiness of the protagonist. This is all perfectly justifiable in moral terms - if you think it's true, you're entitled to write a book about it - but doesn't seem to reinforce his central ideas particularly well. After all, if these archetypes are so sturdy, how come we've gone through 200 years of 'bad' stories in an age which seems more in love with narrative entertainment than ever?

At least Booker's aware of these issues, but his arguments aren't always convincing. Sometimes there's a bit of C S Lewis style point-scoring, as if the author is trying to convince himself of his own grand theory. But then again, many of his points seem to ring true, especially as he's used so many examples. The core argument of the book is hard to deny - which is that stories all end up being about the child growing up, challenging the power of the parent, and then forming a new life for him or herself. Don't believe me? Well, it does take 736 pages to explain...This is the work of an erudite gentleman amateur, not a professor of literature or psychology - and that's both a good and bad thing. If nothing else, this is the heartfelt portrait of a life in books, and the life that stories return to us in the reading.