Let it be known

...that I've finished working at the bookshop. It was great, it was amazing, it was absolutely essential experience for a bookish career, and it was essentially and unforgettably character-building too. But sadly it had to come to an end, for a number of reasons. I'm now unemployed, which is a bit of a scary feeling, but at least now I have the time to concentrate on finding a job that I will really, really love and be much better at. That's not to say that I wasn't good at bookselling - just that I think some people, upon finding a job that perfectly suits, will absolutely throw themselves into it - to the point that it becomes vocational. And I think I'm one of those people. Oh, to channel my enthusiasm into something I love! So, just to reiterate - unemployed, want job in publishing, would be great in publishing. Anyone?

blogging is writing for people who can't write

I have just spent a very, very long time trying to write about the effects depression can have on your ability to read and write. It is, to me, indicative of my current state that I was unable to do this. So I deleted all that writing, and now I'm just going to state that over the last few months I've experienced the worst possible feelings in the world. I want to be able to write about it, but I can't. I need to be happy to write, which I think is different to most people who experience a link between unhappiness and creative endeavour (I just mistyped that slightly and the spellcheck came up with 'cretinous'....oh Freud, forgive me). In my experience, unhappiness leads to a total numbness of sensation, an absolute opacity that stops me thinking, feeling, reasoning, anything. And if you can't think, you can't write, not properly anyway. Because good thinking leads to good writing (and naff thinking to naff writing, similarly). That I am able to write all the above (which Lord - and I - knows is hardly the insight of genius) is at least, to me, ''a step in the right direction'' as the flyers at the doctor's say.

What I am able to do tonight is list the books I've read recently. 

In March I read A Disaffection by James Kelman, which is a brilliant novel about a disaffected philosophy teacher. It is marvellous. Undoubtedly a 'hard' book, it is worth the effort and trouble. The comparisons with Beckett and Zola are justified. I have since given my copy to a friend of mine, himself a disaffected philosophy teacher. I also read about 80% of The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin. It's not worth it - very smug, very Oxford. I don't mind a decent Oxford novel, but I do mind the inane trotting out of naff cliches with no intelligent alteration. You'd never guess that EC was a good friend of Larkin (or you might, depending on what you think about Larkin). I also read The Elephant's Journey by Saramago, which is a beautiful, playful, warm and wise novel: if your favourite character doesn't end up being the elephant, you are dead inside. I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It is a perfect blend of seriousness, coyness, intelligence and insight. Saramago's use of punctuation can be a little alienating at first (in short, he doesn't actually use much at all) but do persevere - like Trainspotting that little bit of effort in the opening pages will make all the difference. On the basis that it is a good colleague's favourite novel, I also read Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis. It is a cheap and silly and delightful novel about a New York socialite. Read it on Hampstead Heath in the unseasonably clement weather. I'm currently trying to finish The Ladies' Paradise by Zola - he says such interesting things about shopping, women, consumption, clothes - but he does so in such a laborious and long-winded way. Paid by the page - no surprises! In an attempt at rehabilitation (see first paragraph) I am also reading Cold Comfort Farm and trying to channel my inner Flora Poste. With reasonable success, so far.

Really.

Me: ''Do you have a loyalty card?''


Customer: *Hands over Fitness First membership card*


Me: ''Ah, you can't use that here, I'm afraid, madam. That's a Fitness First card.''


Customer: ''Yes. And?'' *Stoney stare*




I mean, really?

Publishers and the reading public

Generally I think the majority of publishers do a brilliant job. People like Amanda Hocking might not think so, but I think there's a lot to be said for providing professional criticism, marketing, and the rest. As crunchycat put it so well on the Guardian books blog the other day (a propos of the article announcing J K Rowling's new books for adults):

So there's the necessary summary about why we still need publishers.


That said, working in a bookshop has shown me some of the things publishers are lacking, or are still refusing to do:


1. If you're going to do a series, please number the books or at the very least provide a clear running order at the start of the book. It might be clear to you that Port Mortuary is Patricia Cornwell's most recent book, but not everyone know this. The problem becomes compounded when an author releases a gazillion titles a year and readers just can't keep up (James Patterson) or when an author releases multiple series (a particularly common problem in crime and genre fiction). Despite the buzz over recent years, very few people actually know the running order to the Jo Nesbo and Steig Larsson titles. I still have to check Edward St Aubyn, especially as Some Hope is the name of an individual title of the Melrosiad, and the name of a trilogy - which itself isn't the complete collection, so that's a bit confusing for readers, too. This might sound like a small irritation but actually, publishers, it loses you sales. If someone can tell instantly that the book they are holding in their hand is the sequel to the on their bedside cabinet - they buy it, right away. If they can't, they fanny about and decide to go home and re-read the previous one. I see this happen all the time. It takes very little to number the spines/provide a running order, yet it is so useful for reader and bookseller! 


Honourable mention to Harper here, because their series of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels have (a) really lovely jacket designs and (b) the date of each book (e.g. 'December 1803' or '1805') on the spine and the front cover, so you can work out from the dates the order (assuming you have all the books, which most of his fans will). It's not hard and it is pretty.

          

                           

The jacket designers at Harper Collins: not just pretty faces!




2. Please don't release white hardbacks. I have no doubt that the sales of Julianna Baggot's Pure, recently released, have suffered because half of the release run is comprised of white hardbacks. Really? Who buys white stuff? It just gets dirty! See also: There But For The by Ali Smith, and Wish You Were Here by Graham Swift, both released in white hardback format in 2011 (though glad to report that the paperback of GS came out this week - get to a bookshop, now!). Both brilliant books, and generally well received - but of course no-one wanted to buy them because of course it'll get damaged in handbags/dirty on the tube/coffee-stained etc. Now, I realise that publishers do still have to release hardbacks - I'm not calling for the end of the hardback. But, that said, please can everyone stop thinking that James Daunt is a messiah and that his view on hardbacks (in short: it's essential to have beautiful books in the age of the e-book, and hardbacks are beautiful) are what the entire reading and book-buying public thinks too. Because it's not. People like cheap paperbacks they can chuck in their bag or show their friends in the pub, not something that requires archivist gloves to read. Whilst I object to the excessive number of hardbacks on the market, I do understand why they're there. But for the love of God, why must they be white?!


The general exception to this point would be the hardback release of Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending. 

This was a perfect size (admittedly, when the text is only 150 or so pages it's hard to get it wrong) and the perfect price (£12.99). The off-white cover and dark pages meant less worry about ruining it. A brilliant example of a physically beautiful book.


NB: I should point out that the edition pictured is - I'm pretty sure - a first edition. JB won the David Cohen prize many months before even being nominated for the Booker, and the earlier editions laud this earlier nomination. The later editions had white pages with white edges, not white pages with black edges, but I think my point still stands. Also, given the vast quantities of this book sold, there will be thousands of people with the first/second editions. Including me!


3. Please think about adding extra book-only content. If I can buy something on a kindle for 99p or pay £8 for the privilege of it taking up space in my house, I think I deserve more for my money, some tacit acknowledgement of supporting bookshops and traditional formats. I know margins are tight enough as they are, but adding extra content can potentially be very easy to do. Some publishers, especially those who've had book group-friendly titles, are cottoning onto this. Some books now have, for example, suggested reading group exercises, or author profiles in the back, with decent interviews. This is the sort of clever publishing I like. Cheap to produce, but you'd not know it to read it - yet adds a little something extra to the Kindle/generic e-reader version. Something to remind you why you buy books. 




4. This is less based on my experience with buyers, and more on my own personal irritations, but please don't ever fool yourself that 'Berlin, 1939' or 'Vienna, 1913' or 'London, 1979' qualifies as decent blurb. It's really bloody irritating. Argh! Does it really add so much to the story? Do you have to be so crass with it? 'Berlin 1939' = horrific war time story, families coming apart, mustn't forget the love story though. 'Vienna 1913' = pre-WW1 whirligig. 'London 1979' = hedonism. Yes, we all get this! Please make your blurb a bit more interesting. Nothing turns me off quicker. It's ridiculous to think you offer up something genuinely exciting and new in such a hackneyed phrase, so don't even try. 

The above list will no doubt grow. When I go back to work tomorrow I'll no doubt spot a million other things to add here. That said, if anyone does want to give me a job....

It's always been this way

I've always liked a good book.

(Taken c. 1995)

A word to the wise

If you're feeling a little sad about relationships that didn't work out, then don't read Henry James' The Beast in the Jungle, which is all about a man who only realises too late that he's chucked away something - someone - beautiful. And don't read Intimacy which is a novella by Hanif Kureishi, and it's about a man leaving his wife for a younger lover. Both of these are very short - the James is a short story, and Kureishi is only 115 pages - which means that they can both be read whilst you're still in pieces and you're surrounded by tissues and mascara pillows. That has pretty much been my week. I apologise for the lack of blog posts generally, and also that, having found myself now able to write something, that it is so upsetting. Soz.

I've come out of my shell.

Just a quick note to say: I've finally read One Day. It was ok. It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - though the ending is awful. It's a page turner, I can see why it sold well, and I do think it'd make for a good film (maybe I'll get round to that in 2013). I finally read it after reading a bit of Nick Hornby praise on the cover - and yes, there are some Hornbyesque bits to it (as inevitably there will be if you take two people in their early twenties in the early to mid nineties, one of whom is a bloke who presents a pop music show, the other of whom is a hot woman he fancies).  Bloody awful cover, still, and the film cover is no better. Working in a bookshop has taught me that people who say ''Oooh, I really enjoyed The Help'' and ''Oh my god, you just have to read Shantaram! It's totally amazing!'' aren't really readers - and the same is true of people who love this book, I think. I've compared my views with a few other people - no-one can get must higher than acknowledging that's it's alright, and one person said to me recently: ''I must annotate my copy with all the reasons it is terrible so that I will remember them''.


Roll on 2011.