Books

I just finished Curtis Sittenfeld's follow up to Prep. It is called "The man of my dreams" which I think is an appalling title, and the jacket cover pictures a frog with a crown on. Blerch. I wouldn't usually touch such a book, but knowing how astonishingly good her debut was I was full of gleeful anticipation.
Oh. It is rubbish. How sad. I know that she is a very talented author, she has to be to have written Prep, but this is mulch, it's a nothingy story with none of the wry observations that made Prep such a thrill.

My newest book is Courtney Love's "Dirty Blonde." I am sceptical that these really are notes and scribbled bits of this and that, kept for years and unearthed now, but it's so gorgeously arranged I don't really care. It's a beautiful book, very enticing. My lovely colleague Kate went to the book signing in Piccadilly (as did Mr Bookseller to the Stars), and got the book signed to me. Yay! Courtney did the anarchy sign on the last A of my name which I think very old school punk and sweet.

Fuck! Have just seen that it's now half price...
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=5004467
How can you resist?

She does seem to polarise opinion tho', so many people have said disparaging things about Ms Love to me. I honestly think she's ace as a very ace thing, and I do resent the way that she (in her own words from the Jonathan Ross show)"...has been defined by her relationship to a man." I am so sure that without Kurt we would still all know her name. So there. Plus, whoo, she full on rocks.

Bookseller confessional.

A middle aged couple came to the counter with three books. They were all of the "How to pleasure your woman" variety. I scan and bag as professionally as always. It would be unseemly to allow even a flicker of acknowledgement to cross my face. I want people to feel comfortable buying whatever they want.

Don't for one moment think that I haven't noticed though, I notice every single title I sell. And yes, I do judge people on their purchases. It's wrong, but I do it, and so do all the other book sellers I know.

When we put a Dan Brown in a bag, we pity you for your lack of taste. When the generic thug lite guys come in and buy their books on football hooliganism and gangster porn, we mock. When the spotty, greasy boys buy the 2nd part of some improbable futuristic trilogy we honestly don't give a shit about it, but will smile politely as you bore away a few of our minutes raving about how great it is.

Please don't recommend your favourites to me, I don't care. If you want me to recommend to you I am happy to do so. I am never as pleased as when somebody asks my opinion, which I will always offer truthfully. So yeah, sorry to the guy who was rather surprised by my horror when he attempted to pick good quality fiction for young girls and I made him put back all the ones he had so far chosen. I am sure though that the titles he did purchase will be appreciated more. Just because a cover is pink and has a bit of glitter on does not mean that a girl will love it. Similarly putting a dragon or a football on the cover of a boys book does not guarantee enjoyment or quality.

I feel sorry for everyone who buys a self help book along the lines of "How to win the heart of that twunt." I feel sad for anyone buying a book about dealing with a disease. I haven't heard of most sports men and women, so sorry for the blank looks when asked for "...that book on Gary Tillitt, you know?" Nope, I don't. Oh, he once played football for QPR in the seventies zzzzzzzzz.

I think that most people who buy true crime books are voyeuristic creeps. (Even though in the past I have read one or two and am exempt from the creep accusation, as is anyone I know and like.)

I like all poetry purchases, because I am delighted to see people pay for it. Yeah, keep poetry alive, I don't judge at all. Although you would get 1,000 bonus points for buying any Les Murray.
I don't judge music books either, for some reason I think everyone should like anything and that's cool. But whoo, biography is a mine field.
Anyone who buys Kerry Katona/Fran Cosgrave/Chantelle etc...fuck right off please.

There's loads more prejudice, but I don't have the time right now...

Submissions and waiting and that sort of thing.

I am trying to write something for a competition that has a deadline of the end of the month. I am not sure that I am even half way there. Sigh. I remember the good ol' days when I actually had a stash of decent short stories to submit as and when.

I am waiting to see if I make the long list of the Cadenza competition. I entered last time and then forgot about my submission. I happened upon the results by googling my own name in an attempt to locate something else I had written and discovered I had gone from the long list to the shortlist, and then not made the final 5. It was painless. This time I keep anxiously checking for news, stupidly I don't know when the results are meant to be announced.

Next year I am going to write my novel. I am. I will. Oh cripes.

Erasure by Percival Everett

I bought this in one of Waterstone's "buy this for 99p" offers. The hope, I assume, is that by selecting very good books and selling them ultra cheaply one will read author's that one wouldn't usually, and then be persuaded by the quality of the work to purchase more from that writer's back catalogue.
Worked on me!
This book is fabulous. I am shit at book reviews (and everyone at work always says "But you write fiction, you should be great at doing them." Not true, I am rubbish and repetitive. So apologies.) The story is (roughly) that of a black American author whose works are at the high end of the literary market and thus don't sell. He works as a literary professor and seethes at the Oprah culture that he feels betrays his race by hawking ghetto tales of poor, violent, ignorant black people. When a novel written in ghetto slang becomes a best seller he writes his own parody entitled initially "My pafology" and then simply "Fuck." This is included within the book "Erasure" alongside a story of family and death and the search to belong. It is funny, witty, clear and smart.
You should read it.